So long Mwaksy

It's that cycle I've been going through for a long time and that younger fans often appear to dread as they form attachments to particular presenters as if their world is about to end and that is Blue Peter presenter 39 announced on Friday September 15th she would be leaving at the end of the month.

Mwaksy Mudenda joined the longstanding show on May 14th 2020 which was a very difficult time not just for children as we were in middle of the Covid Pandemic with schools, recreationial  facilities shut but even restictions on when and how often you could play.

If that wasn't enough the show itself couldn't take place within the studio with a lot of restrictions on any outdoor recorded segments so it was she burst into our living rooms from her own.

Like many she also tested positive and had to stay home.

The main challenge was helping children cope with the disruption, maintaining social connections and showing what you could do to keep positive, trying out new skills and sports even in an era of social distancing,

In that her zest for life, resourcefulness and tendency to break out into song aided by her personal Christian faith helped a great deal.

Makes were something she excelled in such as cooking meals, learning how to be Chocolater and she did take part in a Doctor Who stage show playing a Dalek.

She learned British Sign Language and joined a sign choir signing away to hymns.

A special "looking back" show will be aired tonight on CBBC looking at her three years and One hundred and twenty four days tenure.

While at times she may by older standards appeared to on the edge of getting a bit carried away she provided what the core audience needed at that time and I wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

Smol updates

This Friday we look at a few things as one recovers.

The Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and Christopher Robin always held a fascination for me an recently there has been some news around that.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Tales from the Forest, a brand-new sequel is to be published by HarperCollins’ imprint Farshore on September 28.

Author Jane Riordan was inspired to introduce the little dog Carmen after discovering that Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne had taken a toy dog mascot called Carmen with him to the trenches in the First World War. 

In a rediscovered article from the Sunday Express in 1966, Daphne Milne, A.A. Milne’s wife, said: "My husband took a toy mascot, a dog called Carmen, to look after him in the First World War. He was saved from the Somme by trench fever.

"He wrote to say that Carmen had found a French germ in the trench and blown it on to him. Four years after that Christopher Robin was born."

WW1 had its challenges and to me this seems like a well thought through way of adding interest and making a connection between all that that conflict bought and the world A. A. Milne brought to life to inspire children.

Another is CITV, which was the children's arm of ITV that morphed into a seperate children's channel on the post digital tv switchover period has ceased to be with the majority of its content being put onto streamed services and a limited so-called Linear channel aka a run of programming in real time on ITV X within its own content.

ITV cite the popularity of streaming which is a more modern replacement for setting up the video cassette record to "tape" shows to watch when it suited us but I feel putting more children's content which prior to all this ITV had been opting out of despite the Public Broadcaster obligations on the main ITV 1 channel instead of the repetative adult series during the day would of been a better idea to try to bring audiences together.

Daytime adult tv is frankly a wasteland of quiz shows, makeovers and endless babbling by people who don't know terribly much.

Thoughts and recollections of Autumn term

At least it has actually cooled down this week although with heavy rain apart from maigraine issues I didn't get out as much as much as I wished unfortunately so there's been a bit more washing as I don't know about you but I don't like damp feeling stuff next to my body.

There's been the usual fuss around school uniform, for instance a 12 year old at Acedemy in this district was put in detention for turning up in tailored school shorts but told "he" could wear a skirt instead if he was hot as that was "uniform".

Yes in otherwords it's okay to wear something associated with the other sexes uniform than something linked to your own sex!

At least on this estate for infants and juniors we're not that stupid and actually I have seen more boys in proper school shorts, admittedly longer than those I current have on reflecting the length I wore when I attended the same school but at least they're wearing them.

Perhaps someone has realized it's cheaper to put plasters on knees than try to patch up longs damaged in a game of footy at recess or missing aim when playing scraping knee against tarmac and anyway isn't it better for them to be active playing anyway?

I've enjoyed the Now Yearbook 1973 - a feature was on Monday's "other" blog - taking me back to that time where we were at the old Victorian building for the last full academic year September 1973 through to July of 1974 when we moved into the Twentieth century with a new building with much more modern facilities like a kitchen!

It was the last Autumn of the curse of the bell tower wasps as running low on sugar they'd come out after us and our snacks usually in the infant playground where I'd help out with playground activities for the younger school members.

We left the wasps behind upon moving thank goodness.

Seeing the way out of the woods

 It hasn't been the best three weeks or so being reallty rather poorly trying to get through it while carrying on with things that need to be done at home and elsewhere such as on the forum, blogs and tumblr which on a number of days were put a bit of a backburner as I was well short of spoons.

I am starting to recover with the infection clear and the nasty deep cough slowly but surely starting to go away which given some of my medical issues has always been a long winded affair. 

Support, love and yes, prayer have all being of great use and comfort in getting through this and all being well by a couple of weeks it'll all be over with for good.

This weekend should see Monday's blog being worked on which will be a bit lengthy as the subject of it is already here and enjoyed.

Being a warm dry week I've been out working on my breathing to further aid recover.

The airplane returns

Tomorrow should see the great off even with a load of stuff to get through current conditions as fresh air probably will do more good for me than what passes for fresh air here.

It's a badly kept secret that bands such as the Byrds, Country Joe & the Fish and Jefferson Airplane were the first anything like serious music interests I had and over the years I have put together full selections mainly on compact disc with the odd legacy vinyl compilations.

The second Airplane album was the one that saw Grace Slick join the band bring with her a couple of songs from previous band the Great Society and that album wasn't just top five but for many remains THE album that sums up the Summer Of Love.

By that point what was the norm in the US until late 1967/8 having stereo and mono versions had moved to just the stereo version kept on catalogue and the stereo version of this album doesn't just have different versions  that for the two singles don't relate to what was hits played on radio but had a lot of reverb added - cave worthy amounts in places.

While a reissue on record had restored this version, splitting it between four 45 rpm sides was tedious to me and recently I did manage to get a sealed copy of the deleted super audio cd too.

This apart from not having that echy feel also sounds smoother.

For me there's nothing that matches hearing the mono Somebody To Love and White Rabbit.

Everything starts somewhere and this is their debut album with the original lead vocalist Signe Andersson with the classic Blues From a Airplane, Come Up The Years and Marty Balin's It's No Secret.

As the rear jacket correctly stated it was indeed a "jet age sound" and this 2005 edition reinstated one song removed in its entirity by RCA Records over concerns during that 1966 drugs clamp down in California that refenced to "trip" would fall foul radio stations and senators and the edits to another in their original mono forms.

In 1967 the Airplane were on a high old time having two iconic top five singles and a top selling album so given an advance and paid studio time time spent three months working on something with absolutely no consideration for commercial success or appeal whatsoever and with Grace Slick pratcising singing Armadillo scat style just cos she liked that.

Ron Cobb's artwork shows a vintage late nineteenth century San Fransisco townhouse flying over the wasteful consumer society while on the left that is the rear of he jacket by the pile of waste it says "Every litter hurts" sourround by U.S. Law enforcement aeroplanes after drugs, a comment on the reality of those times.

The songs are arranged into suites and this does feature The Ballad of You, Me & Pooneil, Wild Tyme and Young Girl Sunday Blues  apart from having a high old time at the recording console A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly freak out.

It arguably is the least compromised album ever issued by them and as left field as this album is in places it is my personal favourite.

This Sundazed edition presents it in mono where most copies sold were stereo and there are mix and track segue differences apart the top and bottom strips missing from original UK pressings being present here.

I replaced my stereo UK copy for this as it sounds so much fuller.