Oh Brother!

 

Relationships within families can be strained sometimes around things set very much in the present and others go back to early childhood actually and they may cross over which when it comes to some of mine is definately the case.

My older brother was fine but my younger brother was something else from an inability to play any kind of a game without wanting to alter the rules so he'd win regardless to non stop pressuring from the minute we arrived on holiday for money for various things such as the amusement arcades, sweet shops not ever getting to grips with the notion your holiday money as for the whole week and if you saw anything special then you'd need to make a case to the Bank of Mum and Dad.

Gnerally I always managed mine to cover childhood essentials like a comic or two to read, sweets and the odd souvenirs before getting to things like the slot machines, leaving them to the last full day.

He just blow it in one and then started wanting to "borrow" but given there was nothing to say he's have it give back I'd dig my heels in.

The other thing was the number of times I caught him out telling outright lies about where he'd been, impersonating his mum on the phone even to "check" if a cheque mum had written for him had been cashed which he had no business doing.

Like Dad he suffers from dramatic statement syndrome which everything wrong with him is played up beyond where it really is expect you to drop everything for him.

So you might understand how things are with me.

Respinning the Compact Discs

We've occasionally commented around changes with my stereo system on this blog although they are infrequent as having got a system to the point I'm happy with its reliability and sound unlike some looking for the next step over the rainbow, I prefer to leave it be and enjoy the resulting music.

While at one point the compact disc looked as if it was going to be phased out, sales have started to rise, used discs can be had for peanuts and having a player around continues to make sense not least as few classical new titles get a vinyl release.

Starting first, this is the Cambridge Audio CXC100 v2 compact disc transport, which sinks its  not in considerable cost into advanced servo controls for clean tracking of discs and the unannounced incorporation of CD Text, which gives you album name and track details on discs encoded with it.

It was designed to work with their own streamers and amplifers with a digital input as of itself it just plays the disc so needs that to be literally heard.

I partnered it with a used bargain, the 2012 original Rega DAC-r, a extremely high quality digital to analogue converor that takes the naughts and ones from the transport, cleans up any "jitter" and converts it into analogue sound you connect to your stereo.

It has two optical inputs which generally I don't use, two co-axial ones all of which handle from 32 to 192 kilo bits per second at 16 to 24 bit resolution and a USB one which only goes as far as 48 kbs which might of been an issue if say playing "High Resolution" files from a computer via that input and was put right on the 2016 revised model.

What is a very nice touch is it does actually have digital outputs so that cleaned up digital signal can for instance be recorded without having to unplug sources.

Onlike a good number today rather than Upsample every source before decoding it, it plays each at its own native resolution which makes for simplier circuits and cleaner sound of which this has bags of detail and exceptional timing so it is very easy to follow the busiest parts of say a piano performance without everything starting to sound blurred while the softer passages retain their delicate feel.

It makes the most of regular cds while being able to bypass the inexpensive circuits of other digital products such as the DAB+ tuner.

I'm delighted with the sound of it.

Spooky weekend

 

We're kind of getting ready to be off later on today for a Halloween meet and party so between wen dealing with the unexpected this week I've been sorting out my costume, other clothing like proper traditional little boy shirt, tie and short trousers for a meal and things to bring for party food.

Having a good number ghoulish bats isn't a bad idea either to hide amongst the trees or in old garden sheds for treasure hunts and the odd giant spider.

There are lots of decorations up around here as I noticed going out across the week and I'm sure a ghoulish time will be had.

Blown away

 

Strong winds send everything in the air, caps, leaves you name it and we've certainly had a few of them of late as I noticed on Tuesday when whole sections of pavement were taken up with broken branches and trees making my way back home from having my Covid Booster.

Given how the weather was at the weekend I'd decided the best bet was to stay in read the weeks comics which also made sense given I was recovering from this virial infaction and got any chores done like taking things out to the bins out of the way.

I did watch the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year which is comprises of a series of rounds where each performer choses works to showcase an element of the abilities and are judged by three judges leading to an eventual winner.

This year it was a Canadian pianist studying in the U.K. who gave a dazzling performance of the Russian composer Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto and so during the week I was listening to set of Beethoven's Piano Concertos on record that I've always admired while the booster symptoms slowly faded away.

Thirty One years of Numskulls

After a short trip out wednesday which helped after weeks being locked in we return to staples of sorts.

The Beano remains something of a childhood focus that has run throughout myself being the only comic continiously in production still we are marking an anniversary  this week.

Starting on 16th October 1993, a new comic strip was added to the Beano as it went A4 sized from it's old smaller exercise book sized semi colour self as the connection between iconic series like Dennis moved into multimedia.

The series was called Numskulls after the little people that live in your head and the adventures they had through the individual children they live in and has proved to be quite enduring even in an era of new series and added characters as in the Bash Street Kids.

Catching up in '87

Well it  is Friday and we're slowly recovering here after playing catch up for most of this week catching up with things that had to be put rather on hold last week as I wasn't really up to doing much at all to be honest.

Most of the things around the Now Yearbook series are on the other blog for a very good reason but as explained there because of the series of cds I bought back then really I had little reason for getting most of the late 80's ones.

The late eighties were interseting for me as I went from post to post with gaps when systems supposed to help just tied me in knots as I watched Network 7, Blue Peter, followed the 1987 General Election, Tomorrow's World and Brookside.

Tastes rather like me hadn't really changed from the early 80's and even beyond.

Musically while the scene was evolving with more attention being played to club related styles and associated artists much of what I had loved for a long time was still on the charts as difficult as it was to begin to start a cd collection while still buying new records and oddly enough tapes that year although the big back catalogue news was the Beatles albums coming out on cd.

The compilations series Now and Hits were out on cd in 1987 but their first two releases, Now 9 and Hits 6 only came out on single cds although the record and tape versions were doubles and in a way while much of the main Now Yearbook wasn't needed I felt this extra bit did offer some of the missing material.

By 1988 both series were committed to double cd issues and it wasn't until 1991 that I said "Goodbye" to them just buying albums by artists I loved.

Day off

 

While normally I'd be thinking back to ones school days, watching the procession past the house along the very route you walked all those years ago, today's a bit different.

Sat here I'm thinking more of the days I didn't get there which might of been things like the many hospital appointments having my disabilities brought for examinations and the like, miagraines of which I had a good many and the usual childhood viruses.

Colds were not uncommon and sometimes it would be the phone call from school, as I got older checking someone would be at home and making my own way or typically it would develop overnight and so Mum would ring in your absence.

This morning I just like I was being kept home sneezing away, on the cough mixture and limsips.