Olympics 2024

 

Today sees the Olympic and Paralympic Games open in Paris, France at 18:30 BST with a fantastic opening parade co-ordinated by Thomas Jolly the ceremony's artistic director.

It will begin at Austerlitz bridge and end among the gardens, fountains and palaces in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower at Trocadero where there will be almost 100 boats carrying more than 10,000 athletes, plus a host of dignitaries, which sail past Paris' iconic landmarks, including Notre Dame cathedral and Pont Neuf.

He says the aim is to "Illustrate the richness and plurality shaped by its history, which has been influenced and inspired by the diverse cultures that have passed through it, while itself serving as a source of inspiration."

I'm mightily looking forward to watchiing it and the many events.

The tale of the tape has run

 Well it didn't come home losing by two goals to one and the manager resigned but we're back this week with a different entry.

The tale of the tape as  told over the odd entry had a move in  December of 1985 with the arrival of a auto reverse seperates deck with Dolby B and the then new C noise reduction but that turned out to be a disappointment as it its recordings were less than open.

By November of 1991  thoughts were moving towards a major change withing the hifi aided by a large pot of money so I bought what I thought was the best value cassette deck a Technics three headed machine so you could hear what was coming off the tape and some fancy tape tuning stuff to get the best from whatever tape you used to record on.

That didn't sound too great with the internal circuits masking much detail so for a long period we moved to MiniDisc, the domestic digital format until the last home deck died (and the format being dead).

We'd bought a decent Yamaha deck from the early 90's which although it only had two heads actually sounded better than the Technics ever did but I was still longing for that monitoring in real time advantage.

Well I saw recently a suitable machine that had the advantage of being fully serviced, calibrated serviced, and aligned which given this machine was made in 1994 really needs to give of its very best as like us, they are getting old.

The AD-F 850 was made in Singapore at a point where a newer form of Dolby noise reduction, type S was on the horizon aimed at seeing off the challenge of digital recording by improving on what cassette could offer but just missed this mode.

Although it is a little plastic feeling compared to top decks by people such as Nakamichi, it was cheaper and does make extremely good recordings aide by adjustable bias and record sensitivity although it lacks a calibration oscillator.

The biggest gain though is it has a dual capstan transport to provide the smoothest most accurate passage of the tape across the heads for the highest quality which is something that Technics model never had.

Compared to that, it is a revelation, sounding very open, stable to the point you wouldn't know you were listening to a reproduction.

The wheel has turned finally getting the machine I wanted.

Is it coming home?

Yet another wet day in what is supposed to be the Summer months and it's been the kind of day you couldn't go down to the park to play or for a kick about  so it's been more of a matter at catching up with a bit of tidying up and sorting out things like why my portable cassette deck doesn't feel like spinning.

Fortunately for those of of starved of of a kick about we've had a competition in Germany for the men's Euro 2024 competition.

Although England's playing had been somewhat lacklustre with me thinking I'd seem more action in Sunday morning community club matches, scraping through to the semi finals on penalties.

If you're English, then you know, possibly driven mad by, all the stuff about winning the 1966 World Cup and how they've not done much to match that over the decades.

Well with a second ninetieth minute goal, they've got themselves to the final against Spain which will take some preporation for as they are a great side so we'll see if  Football really does come home this time.

Polled reflections

 As I write this I'm blasting out a couple of albums, the Christopher Cross debut and Out Of Our Heads, the American version of that Rolling Stones album, looking out on to the street seeing people go back and forth.

Earlier on I had been out to the Polling Station seeing people vote, having cast my postally a good six days in my grey short trousers and turn over top socks, talking with them, obviously NOT discussing politics.

The last time we had a General Election, December 2019, was notable for being the first one I turned out to vote quite openly as an adult boy and was the last one before losing an Aunt and obviously Mum on a cool morning walking in to cast my vote in what whatever your leanings was a very decisive vote.

It was also decisive for being the first time many people had seen me in public and it had to be it was accepted, setting the scene for what happened during that period non of us foresaw and to so many are living with, Covid and the Emergency when our paths were forced together and I resumed being a boy all over again.

Now, we don't do politics on this blog - the odd bit of current affairs at times - but yesterday may well see major changes as results are counted today.

To whoever forms a government: Good luck as things are tough, tougher than we thought four and a bit years ago.