Christmas 2023

As mentioned the christmas entry is a duo-post because in reality what it is about is the same on both this blog and the other.

Christmas got made after the messy one of 2022 and this years events that impacted many of the rituals as you notice that missing face, the usual conversation around wrapping, card writing and the like.

So it was different but with some certainties which showed in presents.

Somethings are repeats from original childhood such as the Dandy annual or reprints from classic Beano and Dandy comic strips making perfect since in the world of this short trousered little boy.

Today's Beano is almost a magazine comic mash up with much in the modern child's world where for some of us including children comics that just humour still cut it so rather than getting this years Beano annual I had the Christmas Special, a good representation of the modern Beano.

We wrote about the cd version of enlarged classic Beatles 1962-1966 compilation but I had from Dad the record version which has the extra tracks on a third disc.

I had this compilation of Erasure that covers all their hits and is fairly up to date too. 

I bought the singles but never got an album until this was obtained from Mr Claus.

Classical music is something I like and as I had been getting some brand new records I was given a copy of this classic 1970 account on vinyl.

Books did feature too with this look at the life of Biddy Baxter who was the origiinal Blue Peter producer by Richard Marston.

I tend to forget things so this very vintage Winnie the Pooh A5 dairy will no doubt prove most useful to note visits and things to remember to do

I had some money and vouchers for the New Year but while it was difficult emotionally I was glad we had Christmas again.

The Christmas break

 This is being put together at the weekend as that's very much when with me things drop off as Christmas comes into its own with places to go and people to see before the day itself starts which is normally when they'd be a post as Christmas Day this year falls on a Monday.

From memory we were strongly encouraged to sing without an electrical amplification, projecting our voices when not singing our own versions of "Jingle Bells, Robin Smells Batman fly away" and "When shephards washed their socks by night".

Santa was about on his sleigh last night ho-ho-hoeing to carols and modern christmas classics going from house to house and that's more the side of Christmas I enjoy the most

Christmas with me has always been a boys thing and no doubt if you were to drop in I'd be looking very much like these boys having just the same sort of christmas as any bio-boy which suits me right down to the ground.

Tanks to everyone enjoying the forum.

******HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!******

Christmas in comicland

We're almost at the final post before Crimbo which will be a "duo post" as that much will be happening here there simply won't be time to post immediately before then and believe or not those of us who run blogs and a forum do need time to pause.

Things that I'll be dipping into between things will include this years Beano Christmas Special, a 68 page special christmas themed edition that isn't included in your regular subscription but if you joined the new Dennis & Gnasher Fan club is included in the £20 per year subscription to that.

Meanwhile in  a ghoulish land what is now the monthly December edition is given over to Christmas with Christmas storylines featuring all our favourite characters and readers letters.

There will no doubt be a special reversed Christmas/New Year edition of Phoenix arriving soon too.

R.I.P Denny Laine (Wings)

Born 29 October 1944, Denny Laine's death was announced early on the week on Monday 5 December in Naples, Florida, U.S.A. 

Denny was a founding member of the group The Moody Blues from 1964 where they score a massive world-wide hit with Go Now until late 1966 where faced with declining sales the group decided to embark upon a mixture of progressive rock and orchestration.

After a period in groups such as Ginger Baker's Army, Denny joined a then little know group called Wings formed by Paul and Linda McCartney to continue in music without all the baggage of being a "Beatle" who had a lot of hit singles  like Let 'Em In and albums such as Band On The Run and London Town.

After some disagreements in 1981 he left to persue his own musical interests.

The reason this entry exists isn't just a rest in peace post but because the records he was involved in were very much records I loved as a kid in the 70's playing for enjoyment often tied to memories of situations and events of that time.

For instance this record, which I still have, is a massive part of all my Christmas's from when I bought it while visiting my late Nan in December 1977 from the districts main record shop whose lyrics and bagpipe playing by the pipers evoke the feel of being together celebrating as one.

Its other side as it was technically a  double 'A' side was the rocking Girls School which was a delight who thought Paul McCartney had forgot how to rock, preferring to write "silly love songs".

This still from the video shown on the late Michael Parkinsons show before being on Top Of The Pops evoke so many memories and emotions for me with Denny on the left.

For me Christmas without Mull Of Kintyre is unthinkable.

Rest in peace Denny.

Upgrading the sound from records

I generally don't talk purely about objects on this blog but I have the odd time talked a little around my stereo system and the last time I wrote a piece was in January this year when I talked about the Tangent II VHF FM/DAB+ tuner.

Today I'm talking about a phono stage at which point you'll say and what is that?

Mounted in your record deck is a cartridge that put simply converts the ups and downs of how the groove on the record is cut to a low level electrical voltage, much lower than a regular amplifier circuit can use to fill your room with sound.

It will also sound tinny with little bass even if you tried to turn the volume on it right up because to make the music fit on the record when it is cut they take out the bass and boost the high notes to reduce any noise.

A phono stage is an additional circuit that boosts the level so an amplifier can reproduce it as well as any line level source such as a tuner or compact disc player and restore the bass and treble levels to how they were in the original recording.

In the heyday of records amplifiers often had that circuit built into them and the shoe box shaped record player you had did too but in the age of the compact disc many took them out.

Even when they were fitted, they tended to be good enough to give good sound to get you going but being designed to a price didn't reveal everything your record deck and cartridge was capable of.

That is where the stand alone Phono Stage comes in, bypassing that being connected to the amplifier via a line input and improve on sound apart from being kept away from any electric noise from the amplifiers mains circuit.

The built in stage in my Rotel amplifier tends to be be a bit noisy with hiss so I always used an external phono stage.

I had that Rotel unit for a good number of years but while it was very good, my system had improved and it was getting in the way of what it was capable of.

That is where the Pro-ject DS3 B comes in which offers better facilities for the more expensive moving coil cartridges to get the best sound from them and even on regular moving magnet one such as my Ortofon Concorde 30 with its fine line nude stylus has the ability via the loading settings to tweek the sound to its best

There is a subsonic filter which reduced by some 18 decibles at 20hz the effects of any warps on records while leaving the music intact.

Users of Moving coil cartridges wired in balenced mode on their turntables have the option of balenced inputs to reduce noise pick up on long cable runs and more expensive amplifiers that used balenced inputs can be wired in that way for similar benefits.

It does take traditional unbalenced RCA inputs with a grounding tag (Brit Eng: Earthing) and with the left and right channel circuits being seperate for the best stereo the inputs and outputs are symetical in layout.

There is a silver version available  and from the inside you will notice there are no intergrated circuits amplifying but instead a very high quality circuit with transistors and top quality components instead based on the high end and super expensive RS2 phono stage.

What you do get with this is a extremely high standard of reproduction from your records with no noise and lots of subtle details when the music gets busy coming their clearly.

Comparing my original 1986 Talk Talk's The Colour Of Spring cd and original UK record, the record offers superior low level detail with lots of space between the different instruments and vocals leaping at you from beyond the speakers.

It is simply stunning for the money.