Unicorn day [Pre-blog]

It's a special day for me but I'm thinking about something else today, something I read stories about when I was younger, Unicorns, and I think this drawing is very apt.

Golden Jubilee [Pre-blog]

Recently in my role as school governor and very important Councillor here, I spent the day with our school children aged 8 thru 11+ celebrating 50 years of the Queens reign in the UK and British Commonwealth culminating in buffet lunch out of doors plus dancing in the afternoon. As is usual at this school they had their blue sweatshirts and grey trousers or skirts on although some girls had the blue Gingham summer dresses on.
Part of my role was open the event and present the children with their badges commemorating this great event in our Country. The curious thing was though I wanted to change roles and be the school pupil instead.

Reflections on Yesterday [Pre-blog]

A lot's been happening with my since the last few entries and trying to take my mind of this weeks terrible events in New York I went to tidy out my draws only to find books from my childhood and puppets that somehow made it between the bits of stuff from my so-called adult life. I say so-called cos it just seems to me to be fraud, an attempt to be something that somehow I just don't feel and with our attempts this week to help our schools kids (I'm a Governor) thru this business  it's hit me hard emotionally.
Those books and puppets are staying and I'm gonna read comics to get some peace from all this mayhem. 
I feel I need the peace others are trying to give them.

Souled out! [Pre-blog]

A few years back in the early days of the compact disc, a series of discs was issued but seemed to disappear rapidly off the market that was most desirable
That series Big Hits and Hard To Find Classics on Motown  records, did what the title suggested for once giving us a few big hits by artists poorly represented on cd and adding shed load of recordings that having appeared once on 45, only made the very hard to find compilation albums like Motown Memories or Big Hits retrospectives series all gone in todays cd world.

On July 17th the British arm of Motown put out a re-issue -  well almost a full  re-issue as Eddie Hollands Jamie couldn't be found from the original volume 2 - of the original three cds that made it possible for me and a few few others to expand our Motown on cd collections following on from the re-issue of the UK Motown Chartbusters sets and the Hitsville USA box sets.
As a number of these tracks were from albums friends had or were played on the radio I'm delighted to hear them anew minus any scratches and other wear.

Trip to RAF Hendon [Pre-blog]

Today I set out early with my younger brother to visit the musuem in North London by car taking a load of slide photographs with my Minolta X9 camera and Tamron 28-70 lens with a Flashgun as it doesn't have built in flash.
I'm not much for War related stuff personally but I found the bits relating to how people lived though the First and especially the Second World War interesting such as looking how childhood was affected with gas masks, evacuation of big towns and cities and rationing of candy and reduced things to play with such as toys.

This is the V2 Rocket that caused much damage over London and South-east in the 1944/5

It's time for the Honeyz (Pre-blog)

It's time for the Honeyz I think because I've been playing their songs ever since reading about them in Blues and Soul magazine the 'urban' press and Trevor Nelson's Tv show The Lick and the Saturday R&B countdown on radio one.
Their songs like the recent Hit 'Finally Found' and others like Love of a lifetime, Summertime and End of the Line to me showcase the talent British R&B has as well as being songs I love singing along to or listening on the commute having copied it to MiniDisc.

Bruce Springsteen Tracks

I don't normally buy box sets as a thing not least it's not that clear if their a kind of oversized Greatest Hits collection, a rarities set or some strange mixture but this Christmas I had one that makes sense.

 Bruce Springsteen's always been a big artist with me and six years ago I replaced my record and pre-recorded cassettes of his by cds helped by a three for twenty pounds offer but Bruce always wrote and recorded more than just what came out officially.
Tracks is those songs often studio recordings but a few live recorded but not released or worked part way on and just left gathered up by him and the E Street Band some of which where recorded by others like Pink Cadillac that Natalie Cole did in 1988.
They're arranged into four well sequenced cds so they flow more like a 'proper' album and come with a long sepia booklet with full lyrics.
This has been a great present that will be treasured.