2021 Review

 A day to go before New Year and I guess it is time to take a bit of look around the crazy world of this year we are actually leaving.

Year started two steps back from where we had left it because of  rises in Covid which resulted in restrictions almost as severe as last year coming in to new year, heck we couldn't officially celebrate new year even at a Public House or with friends in your own cos we weren't meant to have other households indoors.

For much of the first few months of the year of necessity I had to stay local exploring, getting "playtimes" in where I could rather like last year although the vaccination program started in the last days of twenty twenty one got rapidly going with me having my first one in February, a year after contracting it getting second and booster jabs across the year.

If last year had seen a sharp drop in terms of any attempt to fake being "adult" the combination of stress, lack of any real adult engagement and struggling with pre-existing conditions pulled me right back.

A person looking very much as if they'd come from prep school in school uniform and short trousers was vaccinated with Daddy with him and increasingly any notion of being functionally grown up evapourated on the street as people saw a tall schoolboy instead.  

Things started to get better as we got into the Summer to the point we couldn't just travel further but stay with people outside of households so i went exploring in the Lake District four four days neatly all in full school uniform.

Things that kept me just about sane included comics which I had got organized the previous year such as my Beano, Phoenix, Commando and AdventureBoxMax but a new magazine that was in with the Beano when I got back from going away by and connected to Animal Planet tv channel as a sample.

I took out a subscription to that which meant most weeks I had things to look forward to reading and finding out stuff about which keep the worse of the relentless Covid facts and figures everyday, week after week on the news making me feel any more downbeat as many of us found ourselves feeling off.

I mentioned how I became more still just a little schoolboy but one thing did happen was a well know classic uniform shop was able to place a special order for short trousers in more adult sizes with the white lining we had grown up with rather than the now regular black. 

I had two pairs both adjusted and believe me the view of a "boy" with short trousers with an inside leg of just three inches like I had when I was ten left a clear message I had for all intents and purposes left the adult world and was just happy to be a boy subject to them again.

I had never felt strongly "grown up" and just dropping any pretence to anything other than a tall schoolboy of young years felt just brilliant as I could be more mature as him rather than attempting and failing to function as a grown man.

I'm just an adult little boy today.

Christmas Day Edition

This year Christmas is a little near normal even if it was a close run thing just a fortnight ago so so long as we take care we're having one this time that does including seeing a few people.

I'm a adult little boy so Christmas is always Smol, very much like it was as a child  cos in the end I'm still more like that.

The Beano has been a staple of my life from original boyhood, still reading it today but I prefer to read older annuals such as this which no doubt I had and promptly got tossed away a few years later, while having the current Christmas 68 page special for the comic as it is today.

The Dandy is no longer published as a weekly comic as much as I'd love to see a monthly or bi monthly edition published so we make do with a Summer Special and this, 2022's annual with many of the characters from the past in new adventures.

From the sixtieth anniversary of the Beano and Dandy, D C Thomson have produced a number of specials and themed annual compilations from the vaults showcasing cartoonists and characters and this is their latest looking at art and craft based classic cartoon strips from the past.

That Korky strip which I think was in a annual originally is a lovely touch.

Rupert is an institution and this is a mixture of reprints from past annuals and new stories for twenty twenty two.

Four Swedes and no broccoli reunited this year for a last album  very much in the style of their 80's albums with no concessions to current trends and this was the lp version I had for Christmas for my collection. I quite like it.

Interestingly there was a pre-recorded cassette version issued too!

Main present this year was a Hornby OO gauge British Rail Class 3F "Jinty" 0-6-0 Tank locomotive to go on the layout which was used by in great boxed condition

That mirrors one of the first Christmas presents I had which was a plastic trainset with locomotive coaches 

I had some money to spend when I next get away and some replacement polo shirts.

The Pause before Xmas edition

It was a more agreeable week in so far as weather went from the previous weeks gales and very cold conditions so as I've been recovering from a poorly spell at least I had been able to out, obviously taking precautions to take in how Christmas here is.

There were some interesting sculpture's about in peoples gardens, a bit less plastic, perhaps being a reflection of the better position variant aside we are in compared to last year.

Santa needs a helper and here he is although it is unfortunate the Gas Meter is a bit intrusive on this property.

The Christmas edition of the Beano dated 17 December with supplement and poster is here as is the Christmas Phoenix plus obviously Decembers Match of the Day, Animal Planet and Adventuremax+ to read between visits and going on errands like we do.

Things aren't much different from when that Scorcher! and Score! was published although that was one I only saw at school in the comic box for wet dinner times that we'd share out between us.

Yesterday was the Blue Peter Crimbo special, which is something I always looked forward to ever since the nineteen seventies.

This blog will be taking a pause until just after Christmas when there will be a Christmas special probably shared with the other blog.

The last order of business here is to wish you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

Regards, Chris.

The season begins...

It is Friday but as it was been both a very stormy and probably will be snowy for good measure midweek this is being typed ahead of publication date.

Another reason is Wednesday is booster rocket injection day so I want to ensure I'll have a few clear days to recover from the grogginess that can bring.

Back to post and it is starting to look more like Christmas about with houses including ours sprouting various lights, seasonal creatures such as Reindeer and posters have appeared for a community church based Christmas show in three sittings no less!

We have our community Christmas tree put and funded by us, the people this year as the Council decided not to for reason too wrapped in political talk I prefer to keep off blog just said they weren't doing it.

Frankly I much prefer reading this which I had pre-ordered not being a regular issue included in my subscription a while back which is the Christmas special rather like the Summer ones with all new adventures.

I usually save them unlike the majority of regular comics simply cos I'd never have the space for all of them.

Before I forget, we will pause briefly after next Friday for a Christmas special which will be synchronized with the other blog.

The long and short bite of it

This weekend I would think is a bit better for not having the snow storms and the minus degree c temperatures although I liked it once it had settled making for great snowballs and snowman building.

It is of course the countdown to Christmas which curiously enough lead to two advent calendars this year, a Paw Patrol one with a colouring book and this that unexpectedly arrived from Dad of all people.  

I quite like white choco, it doesn't seem to give me as many migraines as regular dairy or especially the dark sort.

It appears AP's specially made white lined short trousers commissioned in the late Spring from David Luke are selling so well stocks for certain sizes appear to be close to selling out which does indicate the appeal among the stores users for that lining colour.

Allied that is the whole question around short trouser lengths as those in that exclusive batch are at seven inches which on taller boys still looks more like short trousers rather than say, those of this boy which appear to be touching the top of his knee cap!

Many of modern short trousers tend to be just above or at the knee.

These while a bit longer than some of us wore to me are much more short trousers with a fair bit of skin between the centre of the knee and the leg of them probably around the five to six inch mark.

The only bone of contention I have is those ankle socks which are only suitable for summer,  for the rest of the year at least long socks would make more sense. 

This was how it was when short trousers were uniform items at school, pretty much for the nineteen seventies and early eighties and while for me the pair from AP was taken up to emulate those I wore then and being consistent with remaining that boy today.

For me, it just feels right.

The miniature record collection of the past

After last weeks post we return to more everyday things here from the days from late 1972 when I first had my first stereo record player which was a advance on the small suitcase single speaker one I had.

This thing couldn't be found in the shops although a few similar things could because it was home assembled of commercial bits comprising of a Long and Medium Wave radio for essential stations such as Radio One for chart hits from the likes of The Carpenters, Osmonds, Wizard and co plus Radio Three for classical broadcasts taken from a portable radio, a Garrard record deck with ceramic stereo cartridge which went to a stereo amplifier.

The left hand channel went to a internal speaker in a case shared with the main unit while a separate wooden box housed the right hand speaker both of which were "full range" elliptical shaped units designed for  nineteen inch televisions.

If you are moderately technically aware in the UK at least you can't get stereo from AM radio so for stereo and so very best sound sound you needed a supply of records.

Daddy had a account with the Concert Hall Record Club that commissioned classical and light music recordings that were made available on a try before you buy basis which as he was building a collection of stereo discs helped.

One unusual thing they did was issue seven inch 33rpm classical music EP's increasingly in stereo which were cheap or offered with the regular lp issues as bonus and I had them!

Take this one, a pretty good recording of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto from the mid 1960's which remained in print for a good while.

Just the one work across two side but to my young ears it sounded just great.  

It was a similar thing here with Mozart's 27th symphony a whole symphony in wide ranging stereo sound compared to the then mono sound on 464 Metres on Medium Wave.

If I was good sometimes I'd be bought a second hand classical lp or a new one from the likes of either Classics for Pleasure or Decca's World of series budget disc that were great value but this filled gaps.

This was a selection from the full ballet suite lp which daddy actually had but I got this selection from recorded in 1970.

A good number of the Concert Hall recordings did use famous conductors even if the orchestras were second tier to the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra or The Berlin Philharmonic.

I still own these records in their glossy covers with program notes and inner sleeves just like a regular lp but smaller.

Thanks

There's really two things that come into this week.

The first is I know people do appreciate my quick decisive nature once I have reviewed all the relevant points and formed  a clear view on where the priorities lie not being one to prevaricate on them.

To me not to make a decision is itself a decision by default with consequences so you can't which was why things happened the way they and the one person it applies to cannot expect to return to the fold.

It's also clear that others dealing with same said person took a robust line themselves.

It was always the case from being in Juniors that I would deal with things if they needed to be from bullying to casual racism when a few others preferred a quite life to later on in my life.

I don't duck acting and don't get involved in any plotting nor bare grudges.

Americans will be marking Thanksgiving next week, Canadians had theirs a month earlier where people will be giving thanks to those things and people that make lives more bearable even possible which outside of a few communities in the UK we don't mark.

Never really understood why not personally.

To them I say Happy Thanksgiving.

The return of The Aiwa

 We've talked a bit about portable music but for me the portable cassette player starts off with a friend at boarding who got a Walkman in 1981 and getting a basic Dixons store brand model around 1983 as a number of important events in my life were happening.

That was the period where pre-recorded cassettes started to outsell records that could have bonus tracks and even special cassette extended play singles were issued like Warner/Elektra/Atlantic's 12 Inches on Tape series although I recorded many of my own.

This was my first proper Walkman, bought from a store at an amateur radio rally that sold B grade and shop returns that served me really well beating big brands like Sony's in the 1990's into a cocked hat.

The Aiwa HG-S 35 MkII to give it its clumsy name was a solidly built tape player that had auto reverse using gears and a dedicated four channel head that was switched electronically which was more reliable than the rotating ones on home decks for staying properly aligned.

Made in 1986 it came with a three band equalizer while some had five band models that were potentially more useful for taming too bright headphones rather than the gawd awful "Mega Bass" Sony inflicted on their later models adding a thud to the sound it messed up.

Unlike my first one , it had a equalization selector for regular (120 us) and Chrome/FerroChrome/Metal (70 us) tapes for accurate replay and its quality was extremely good for having a decent mechanism with metal parts.

It lacked a radio which the mark III added but neither had Dolby B noise reduction which may of been an issue to some back then but I don't use it much finding it touch and go if works without being too obviously intruding on the sound quality.

The small amount of background hiss is hardly noticeable at normal listening levels when you don't use it and you can forget using Dolby C as that sounds horrible without a dedicated decoder.

My original got lost but recently I picked up a used new to me one and ordered new drove belts to keep it going as it was something else in the days of Bros and Swing Out Sister.

Deja Vu and reset V

We started this mini series of posts last year very much subdued with Covid at its height thinking back to what got me through the crazy era I was first young and things I most looked forward to.

The comic world isn't what it was in the nineteen seventies and eighties but it was comics that helped with that and so I decided to order a comic I loved as a boy and a new comic that appealed to me.

In time that was added to by an monthly adventure story and fortnightly football magazine taking over where Tiger, Roy of the Rovers and its ilk had left off, Commando magazines filling a bit a gap in war based adventure stories that connected with my boyish ways and more recently the nature and animal magazine Animal Planet.

At the height of comic sales in the nineteen seventies and eighties, it was common for new comics to launch and then it would be "sink or swim" if they continued  or got discontinued.

Monster Fun was one that started in 1975 but only run for some seventy three issues before it was discontinued as a stand alone title but incorporated into Buster although it kept a separate annual going until 1985.

Strangely enough through a whole series of mergers as the comics market declined the cartoon associated with it remained in regular publication until January 2000 which makes it one of longest lasting publications of the IPC/Fleetway group.

Monster Funs forte was ghostly based humour strips, aimed at children such as Gums, Kid Kong, X-Ray Specs, Mummy's Boy, Draculass, Teddy Scare, Terror TV, and Martha's Monster Make-up.

Well timed for Halloween Rebellion Publications who own the rights to the title and a good number of series decided decided to issue a new special edition in early October with new stories from a good number of those strip series.

The art style is closer to the originals although they are full colour with more density compared to those in days of newsprint.

It was brilliant.

Better still it returns in a every two months form from April 2022 so we get to have a comic very similar to one we had back then, still aimed at actual children rather than just a retro publication for adults.

That's a must if we are to raise a generation of comic readers and wean them off the forest of plastic tat covered publications that are offered to them at present.

I've got a subscription set up to ensure from next year I'll get my copies.

Christopher Wenner - R.I.P

 This week we return to my favourite show.

It was announced  Thursday October 28 the 14th September 1978 - 23rd June 1980 Blue Peter presenter known to us as Christopher Wenner but who know now goes under the name Max Stahl  and as such had a career in film making had died from cancer aged 66 years.

Christopher was the son of a former British ambassador to El Salvador and something of that rather rigid upbringing showed in his presenting style however his derring-do commended him to viewers and the production team.

It is fair to say he was one many of us didn't really relate to probably coming in after  the likes of John Noakes and Peter Purves who with Val Singleton and Lesley Judd set a very high bar it might in hindsight seemed almost impossible for him to had made the connection the others had.

This is Blue Peter book 17 published in 1980 that shoes him with Tina Heath and Simon Groom which has write ups of some of shows, stories and quizzes.

I might just add he also appeared with Lesley Judd when he joined initially and Sarah Greene

This is photo from a feature on Television Centre, the BBC and the programs headquarters in this era in London to which we wrote into for competitions, gaining badges and sharing ideas.

His biggest moment was Abseiling down the East Tower BBC Television Centre.

Christopher returned to celebrate Blue Peter birthdays in 1983 and 1998 when he also took a cameo part in that year's Blue Peter pantomime, Back in Time For Christmas.

In his filming career he was able to get covering of the East Timor uprising and massacre out in 1991 and make a new career for himself serving as a ITN as a journalist for Channel 4

In addition he also had a walk-on part in the Doctor Who story The Awakening (1984).

While he was not one the most memorable presenters, I am sorry to hear of his passing. Rest in peace. 

Questions and answers

The latter half of this week hasn't really been a great one for being out, just grabbing the odd opportunity as it presented itself between the dark clouds and rain so I've been rather more busy with reading comics and working on a new project.

This week we'll have a question and answer session.

Has Christopher got a music collection?

Yes. He has  a good number of Compact Discs and long playing records plus his singles from boyhood.

Has Christopher got a toy?

Yes. He has a few Action Men who are his favourite closely followed by his lego sets.

Does Christopher have a car?

No. Due to his disabilities he cannot drive a car, he can only drive you round the bend!

Is Christopher disabled?

Yes. It is part of what him who he is.

What does Christopher wear?

Christopher wears traditional boys clothing such as grey short short trousers, long turn over socks and dress shirts. 

He wears T shirts for playwear together old school pe shorts and ankle socks and owns a football kit.

What was Christopher's boyhood dream?

To be taken out in the Pink Panther's stretch limo.

What stamp did Christopher most look forward to in 1977?

The Twenty-fifth anniversary issues for Queen Elizabeth II. 

What is Christopher's biggest influence on how to live?

The teachings of Baden Powell, Scouting and his Christian Science faith.

Observations

This week I had reason to review on of the blogs simply because it is the time of year I'd look at what really what it was about and the importance to me personally, a whole batch of posts that covered what it was I'd gained over a period.

It also has been a week where on a failed Tumblr replacement service I saw for the first time in a good while some of those landmark early deeply personal posts as I began the emotionally painful process of taking stock of who I was and where boyhood was within it that were lost in last Aprils battle on Tumblr.

That was the start point of my recovery, finding and reconnecting with where that was last parked, picking up that sense of adventure, the love of discovery and the outdoors seeing it as my playground growing as that boy.

It was so appropriate then it was also the week my brand new white lined grey school shorts arrived having been commissioned back in May as David Luke no longer as a matter of course supply them with white linings, only black.

Being sat here on the floor crossed legged in my grey shorts just feels right because the thing we learned in that time from the original ASB and that first Tumblr account the only thing I was were just him.

A little boy who wears shorts all year round of the brevity when I was in Junior School who is happy with that status, playing, scouting and having fun. 

Actually being smol together

 

As I lie here typing this out, I'm thinking over a few things I read at the Reddit I mentioned on the other blog and what could be described as role playing within a thread.

What this thread was about were chat rooms often used by gaming people and also age regressors  amongst others for in real time conversation around various things between people who do know at least of each other.

I must say on the outset I generally don't do them as most of people involved are in the Americas and the time zone difference for something that doesn't get going until at least mid afternoon over there is such I'd be in bed or heading there in UK time having been up from around seven PM UK time which is a good while.

The essence of this persons comment was because there's not a good popular age dysphoric one they'd used a an age regression one only to find much of the conversation to be around school and work with little about and involving play which it was they were looking for.

I kind of get that, actually it's a pet peeve of mine from experiences that while you understand that to do things like get a meal organized and that if you're physically staying together matters, all too often play doesn't seem to break out even afterwards.

People might be offloading their frustrations but really they're not letting out the little boy or girl in them and they felt they could not "play" with others or talk about their special interests .

They had tried to find one which did but that one didn't have anyone interested in things like colouring or watching cartoons such as Paw Patrol seeing to deal with more older boy/girl regression.

I get that frustration as when I'm not out say walking or visiting places I too like to play things more aimed at younger children not least as role playing games are too taxing given my memory and related learning disabilities.

Is it beyond of the remit of people to fix this?

The restored tumblr going forward

It's a new month starting from today and it is clear as I type this we are in Autumn as it felt damp and a bit cooler when I went out this morning , actually light drizzle at times, requiring a jacket and woolly hat on for a stroll out.

I mentioned a couple of  months back the work I was doing in transferring the one blog that remained after the events of late May which while going back to October of 2020 itself was a mixture of the more past childhood and related posts of other 'lost' accounts and some of the commentary the original tumblrs had.

Well that task was completed very much on time as laborious and painfully slow as it was between bouts of ill health and now does appear to be picking some new following as some of the issues were to do with their interests.

One of things that kept me going was seeing some of the kinds of Tumblrs that I loved come on such as BoyWithDragon and especially 12thbirthday because they are more the kind of Tumblr I always wanted.

Tumblrs that are very much boys own tumblrs that mix in age regression and being age dysphoric to about how we present and live as boys playing on the floor in short trousers, following our special interests more as eternal boys.

Blogs that do feature a small number of pictures about and from traditional boyhood but not going down a more "adult content" take on being that boy where pictures are indicative of the boyhoods we knew and are recreating in the here and now and are not fetish or in any way kink related.

Blogs that honour our eternal boy selves in other words.

That going forward is where this recreated one is headed for now.

Modern Boys Tv II

This week more of a follow up to last weeks post with a bent around the use of things such as my Chromebook rather than any external box although you can "cast" to Chromecast or use ye olde usb to hdmi to connect the Chromebook to the tv if you wish.

What isn't generally understood is because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its Act, because you cannot collect data from children lawfully when using any streamed tv service on free to air channels you do not need to create an account to access them.

Just click on the programs and tell it you have a license if they ask and it all starts to play

This comes into children's programming because as most UK people would be aware the BBC and ITV originally started out producing programming for children that was shown on the regular channels before we switched off our analogue tv system in 2012.

Around 2002 what had been launched in 1985 as a branded block of programming for children entitled "CBBC" (Children's BBC) became a separate channel to which after 2012 much of the BBC children's output moved over to exclusively. 

The output for those up to Seven years of age became Cbeebies (Children's BBC for infants).

When the iPlayer, the BBC only streaming service launched online those two channels had their own presence and the easiest way of accessing is via their own tabs which lists programs such as Blue Peter as well as having an option for "linear" timetabled tv channel viewing as we did with tv in the past when it was tune in at 5pm or miss out!

Itv expanded its output into a dedicated children's channel Citv, (Children's ITV) that runs throughout  the day and that does include the new version of the seventies classic How! show apart from other shows and bought in cartoons.

My5 is the streaming portal for the whole Channel Five group but the main value from my point of view is the Milkshake block that includes shows like Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig which you can select to watch episodes of.

This enables you to put together with any paid for streamed service by making a mini list of the portals, a set of channels you can watch in HD or if you have a older spare Chromebook (or laptop) dedicate to tv which you can set to a height you can watch from the floor just like you did free from anything too grown up.

If like me you've good internet and Wifi, it's easier than adjusting the "rabbits ears" antenna we used to do!

Modern Boys Tv

It's recovery Friday here as I get through my comics and magazines taking my tablets ready for another week

There is of course another form of entertainment in my life which is Television and that is what I will be talking about this week.

Like most of us it entered into my life in the living room certainly with recollections from being a bit over five years of age on a 19 inch 4:3 aspect ratio black and white screen mainly in 405 lines as the BBC 2 channel in 625 lines was a bit weak and amongst the early shows I liked were Hector's House, Camberwick Green and Trumpton.

I also started to watch a show I still watch then Blue Peter of which there's a fair bit around the blogs but suffice to say the magazine format got me hooked at an early age.

As time moved on I did watch programs around the natural world and science such as Tomorrow's World and many of Jacques Cousteau's marine life explorations and really from around about the age of twelve the sorts of shows I watched became fixed.

Television went colour although it wasn't until the mid 1970's we had a colour set.

Like many people as vulgar as whopping great big satellite looked slapped on properties looked I had Sky Television from the early 1990's  more for additional programming such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Discovery and Eurosport and for a period Sky Sports.

For me television pretty much has to be in short trousers because much programming aimed at older teens and adults just flies over my head being hard to follow and understand what is going on in popular soaps so it's no surprise just like I was back at ten to twelve years of age I watch children's tv and a mixture of sport and documentaries.

For several years we've had BT Tv, a mixture of BT's two sports channels a mix of mainly children's channels and discovery in standard definition via the internet through a YouView box that allowed HD FreeView but recent changes in the package upping the price brought a rethink.

Generally I find the two BBC children's channels mainly CBBC and sometimes CBeebies and Itv Kids offer most of the shows I like especially as the BBC do show a few more imported shows that in the past you needed Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network for and the only show that I do care for that's not on those three, Paw Patrol can be seen on YouTube via a computer or streaming device.

I do find Eurosport handy for things such as cycling which is relaxing to watch, tennis, minor motor sports and winter sports such as skiing which I loved in the days of Ski Sunday on BBC 2 and that lead to look at ways of getting that.

Discovery+ had combined Eurosports tv platforms with it's own which feature channels like Animal Planet and it's Science based channels plus Quest and Really on a streaming platform which could be had for £5 per month if you took the annual payment option.

That unlike Eurosports original streaming option uses HTML5 through the browser to render the pictures unlike the original MS Silverlight that was so susceptible to letting computer viruses in even Microsoft discontinued it (and didn't allow Edge, their newer browser to work with it).

That means I can watch via a Wifi Computer anywhere in the house that   of BBC and ITV content online stretched out across the carpet in my grey shorts just as I did when we had to use a Tv watching similar programming for pocket money prices.

The week in rest

 

 

To be very honest I have not been feeling very good all week and that is but one reason why firstly I've been in bed a fair bit during the week and I'm taking a couple of days off mass reposting over my Tumblr although we *should* be at the point of having completed 1,900 posts out of a good 2,300 odd.

The other is with this infection - whatever it might be - I just have't felt up to much at all so I've needed to conserve my energy which has affected participation at various places across the week, feeling pretty drained.

I just hope this thing goes away in a week or so.

New term, new tools

Today officially in this district is the second return to  school day which is a bit different from the norm because usually we would not go back until the first full week in September but with losing a fair bit of studying due to Covid last term and the Queen's Coronation extra day's holiday, the 2021/2 timetable has been rejigged.

The art dept brings a new thing for this term that bridges the gap for when we are out and about exploring and part of the origins of this blog is photography.

The Canon SX 10 IS is an unusual camera that starts with having a fixed 28 to 560mm (in 35 film terms) zoom lens which is rare even within the so-called Super Zooms speciality companies such as Tamron and Sigma make as extras meaning without  changing a lens you can tackle practically any subject you might wish to.

The other thing is not just are the focal lengths marked on the barrel but the mode selector allows both Aperture and Shutter priority auto exposure as well as full manual for more creative control using that lens to say blur out distant objects or waterfalls.

You will note it even has a hotshoe for a Canon Speed-lite flashgun like a DSLR  has.

The rear panel isn't especially complicated for all that but it has both an electronic viewfinder like a DSLR with in effect a miniscreen fitted you view through but also a fully tilting screen that helps taking pictures at awkward angles so you can see where the lens really is pointing.

This means you can use it in effect as a mirrorless dslr with no "mirror slam" when taking pictures where you don't want to be heard.

It's a few years old so its resolution is only 10 megapixels but that is more than adequate for printing out to A3 size (and frankly most websites compress the image quality to increase the uploading time) and uses the easily found AA batteries.

It just lends itself to days out when having everything at hand speeds up taking good pictures and weighs less than my Minolta XD7 did with the 75 to 150 F4 zoom fitted.

R.I.P Charlie Watts

 As I've always said from day one on this blog we don't do much talking about music or the arts generally as the focus is very much on me and this life, which given the traumatic history of my tumblr accounts you'll realize I need a safe place to talk around that without posts and accounts just going.

Still, sometimes we break that rule such as when we looked at artists that played a part in some aspect of my life and this week it is the same.

The Rolling Stones were many things, outlaws of society, cultural icons, a part of the development of youth culture that still impacts on today's youth as it did in ours but above all else a part of the soundtrack of our lives for decades.

I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones with my first recollections including hearing Brown Sugar on the radio when I was very young and almost certainly heard Honky Tonk Woman as we watched Top of the Pops and it would of featured on the end of year program and the best sellers pop chart rundown being a bit over four fingers and a thumb years of age.

I had the music bug then, which may of been connected to my at the time undiagnosed autism so within the limits of my development over those years followed artists such as the Rolling Stones who as we moved further into the seventies were seen as more the established acts compared to our likes of The Rollers, Gary Glitter, Sweet and Slade.

What as the years went by I appreciated was Charlie's drumming, the rhythm section is at the core of jazz and rock music, driving it forward which was not particularly showy but was as Joan Jett put it neither too little or too much - just right.

Unlike Rush's Neil Peart, Charlie had no formal credited input into the Stones' songs so their were few moments to highlight his contribution but then Charlie always saw himself as the drummer of the band and that was the extent of his involvement, preferring to step outside the rock star lifestyle spending time with his family and pursuing hobbies such as breeding Arabian Horses, collecting classic cars and so on.

This said listen to the playing on say Far Away Eyes, Hot Stuff and Flight 505 and you can hear his jazz influences showing in how he played percussion.

He was by training a graphic designer having gone to Art School to study it and when he joined the band was employed working for one, one of the few Stones who had a 'proper' job and his abilities showed with this 1966 singles sleeve design and his involvement in designing stage sets and tour launching events

It probably means at the end of the postponed tour that just prior to his hospitalization he said he'd need to be at hospital but felt the fans needed the tour with how the pandemic had affected people agreed to a substitute drummer, the Rolling Stones will cease to be a touring and recording entity.

Thus his death as said as it is is also an end of an era one we can be thankful for what he and the remaining Rolling Stones contributed to our lives.