After last weeks more heavier content, we do return more to what is more normal on this blog after Easter as I've finished off my egg now.
While I have no doubt this fine young man would be the first to say he's no hero he is someone I feel is inspiring in that as literally a boy racer who raced in Formula 3 after a childhood behind the wheel, he had a tragic accident that resulted in the amputation of both his legs.
Billy Monger may of though that was the end of his life having to work on physical therapy as I did for different reasons to be able to able to take prosthetic legs and to learn how to walk all over again after spending a period in a wheelchair.
He did all of that but it looked that his career was ended all just at the young age of 18, hardly after it had gotten started but with much support from many in motor racing he's making it back, having an adapted car so he can control it using hand controls, fought to have the rules changed to enable disabled people to compete in the sport he so loved and will be in Formula 1.
In the meantime he is commentating on it for the UK networks, manfully rebuilding his life after such a shocking experience, moving on accepting himself as he is.
If someone like him can just concentrate on dealing with life changing situations without whinging or demanding special rights perhaps those who appear to complain about the slightest thing might just quit that and take a few lessons from someone who's very much his own man and take control instead.
In a week that marked a number of milestones around my Tumblrs, my thoughts moved toward the so-called 'culture' and 'gender' wars that currently are ranging from battles over terms, de-gendering spaces and affirmative actions such as all female shortlists and the "me too" agenda.
My response to this was to publish the following on Tumblr:
The right to be addressed as him/he/himself and all other masculine pronouns
The right to have his gender affirmed, being referred to unambiguously as a Boy
The right to single gender spaces including boys only lavatories
The right to wear shorts, longs or a kilt at school and at work.
The right to adult Male input thoughout his life including spending time just with men and other boys in male only activities together to help him grow.
The right not to be discriminated against in any programs and employment opportunities, being assessed purely on his abilities compared to others for the task and nothing else.
One reason why I posted this was less than fifteen years ago none of this would of been questioned at all and yet today influential people on social media, people in positions of authority and so on are so keen to appear inclusive to others that they remove to the needs and rights of boys removing any and all reference to our gender and from that any needs we have.
There is evidence good male candidates are being rejected for posts in favour of lesser female or BME candidates to meet diversity targets rather than appoint the best man or woman to the post.
There is clear cut evidence of differences in learning style, of different strengths and weakness and even some vulnerabilities boys face growing up and the best way to help females (quitting pointless gender wars too) is to help boys become the best they can be and and in time an asset to the wider community and family.
We do that by accepting we as boys (and men) ARE a gender, meeting those needs head on and supporting the rights of boys and men to be their male selves, valuing their masculinity.
Meanwhile away from something that needed to be said it is that time of the year where I'll be on the nom, eating my Easter Egg.
*Happy Easter everyone*
Apart from the regular post on Friday concerning a tv program I grew up with and still love this week has been one of a number of milestones such as the 300th post on That Traditional Schoolboy 2 and also the 2,000 post on That Traditional Schoolboy tumblrs that came after this blog was started.
Actually, if you were to cast your mind back to April 12th 2018, you would realize exactly a year has gone by since the creation of That Traditional Schoolboy on Tumblr to which a anniversary post on their was made.
There were a number of reasons why despite having next to nothing to do with social media since being on Friends Reunited the British former school and college centred site in 2005 I decided after lurking to make that Tumblr.
The first reason was I had a need to interact with others of the adult little boy/adult school boy variety in an environment that wasn't littered with 'adult' kink such as bdsm about and concerning past childhoods, boyhood and why some some of us who are legally adults live our lives very much as a boy would including wearing uniforms.
Try talking about that in the workplace.
For some strange reason there appears to be very few places where we congregate free from anything sexual or kink, from time to time the odd form may be hosted and go - an example of which is ASB.org which was up for a period shortly after arriving on Tumblr that did use - but now isn't.
Tumblr remains the one spot where there is a community as imperfect as it is with accounts just going without warning, the issues from the attempt to enforce the 'no adult content' policy that frustrate us and so on and so it made sense to join.
The other reason was to help me deal with some past issues around how I was treated, how that left me feeling about myself and the sense in which I was a boy which bringing back those days, talking about them and talking one to one with other boys that helped recovering that sense of all male kinship and bonding, feeling good in myself.
It's hard to put it into words but there's a very definite improvement in my own self confidence that's come from standing up for and acting on my inner masculine sense of self.
Looking back on it, that decision to rejoin the world of social media not without its challenges has helped me a lot and going forward whatever may ultimately happen with Tumblr I see myself standing up for myself in the the company of other adult little boys/asbs.Here's to the next year!
For as many years as I can remember one constant of tuning in to Blue Peter originally on BBC 1 and then to CBBC from 2012 onward was the mention and often appearence of the shows pets.
These came very early on the shows history in part as many children like having pets but may be unable to have one but though the show could share in their adventures and also to talk about animal welfare.
Their have been a variety of pets, 23 in total which included tortoises, 2 parrots, 9 cats and 9 dogs.
I can remember the first dog, Petra when I was very young going through Patch, Shep who was strongly linked to the late John Noakes, Goldie who was with Simon Groom in 1978, Bonnie in 1986, Mabel and Lucy the first rescue dogs, Meg who was associated with Matt Baker and Barney in 2009.
Photo credits: BBC
On last Thursday, it was revealed Henry, a rescue Basset Hound was to be the first new Blue Peter pet since the move from the studios at Television Centre, London to Media City, Salford, Lancs.
Of the pets prior to the move only Shelley the tortoise remained although in truth she featured more as a quiz where people would find her picture messaging on the online Fan Club page with being in London rather than in the studio and at one point seemed the pets element was being phased out of the show.
I can't deny this pulled at me as it brought back my memories of new dogs on the show from a long time back and how you'd look forward to news about them and how with the presenters they were a kind of family.
I just went back in time watching the show just before teatime on Thursday to that little boy all over again and indeed watching yesterday's show seeing Henry after the Blue Peter theme was like old times.
It has been a bit of damp week although I have been outside for exercise apart from observing the change in the season as we are moving more into Spring proper so I did do a bit of photography this week although it needed to be indoors.
This was one of those I took of a group of flowers illuminated by natural sunlight using the Tamron 90mm Macro lens using a wide aperture to keep a shallow depth of field between the group of flowers I wanted and the remainder.
That kind of control about how one controls a pictorial composition was why I wanted a digital system camera.
That wasn't the only wet day activity either.
While staying dry I recently bought a book by an author I loved during ones boyhood but had not read before in its first edition.
The Family at Red-Roofs is a family story about the Jackson's, four children between nine and seventeen and their mom and dad who living in cramped conditions were able to rent a bigger property that needed some work doing on it.
They acquire a domestic helper called Jennie and all seems well until their mother is taken will needing surgery and quiet respite just at the time gets a once in the lifetime offer to go to America to work for his company and has left.
Worse still it transpires a ship he was one was hit head one by another with few survivors so Jennie has more to deal with after receiving a letter from his company, the children's mother is too delicate to be told and in an age lacking social insurance, it appears they may become penniless.
Molly and Peter have to find jobs as the oldest even though both before this tragic news of his assumed death would of been studying for careers in Teaching and being a Doctor respectively. Even Michael aged 11 does clock repairs to bring money in.
Molly's former school friend Prudence, a stuck up daughter of a monied family falls on hard times and so needs to stay with them that means for the first time in her life she actually has to work.
What really happened to the children's dad transpires: He was saved but was so traumatized by the incident, he'd forgotten who he was but as luck would have it a photograph of the four children of his floated and is publicized in the national press.
Dad and children in time are reunited and mother recovers just in time so she didn't need to be told of his disappearance and presumed death.
The story is genuinely heartbreaking in places, the presumption all is going well from moving to a better house soon moves to that of the actual loss of a breadwinner parent and severe illness of their mother and of sacrificing potential careers to deal with pressing needs.
What is good about it is it shows the children maturing, showing resilience that they'll need as adults and upon his return after all, their father sees the fruit of his efforts fathering them in their ability to cope under pressure.
