The year began with a few constant things such as a week punctuated by the arrival of comics as it was back in the 70's and early 80's from a mixture of the new such as the Pheonix, Commando the D C Thomson part reprint part new story war based adventure comic, the monthly Adventure Plus Max mixing a short story with comic strips, a quiz and some humanties based facts.
That mix works well I feel.
Munster Fun was missed a victim possibly to the slim profits of comics and magazines today not bring helped by the National Insurance hikes by the Chancellor of the Exchequer which makes employing people significantly more expensive.
The Beano continued in its unapologetic uber inclusive wave which can give us new stories, new characters that reflect modern britain which is great for today's children but sometimes overly sanitized or lacking credible backstories for how new characters enter old cartoon strips.
The Dandy made its appearence in the Summer as has been the pattern since 2013 although I felt relying mainly on the early 2010's Jamie Smart drawn Desperate Dan was a mistake and had the obligitory annual, now more modern with the adventures of The Dandytown Scouts and the like rather than a rehash of old strips but I feel all the better for it
Blue Peter was back but with much more filmed content as per outgoing BBC Director General Tim Davie's idea of digital first programming rather than long form linear tv shows.
Having spent a fair bit on Little Boy clothing and refined appearences to allow for more blending in during the school hols I only needed to renew a few sweatshirts of the sort favoured by a number of Junior schools today, more period socks including banding free grey ones which stick out a bit less and some Cub inspired uniform items,
Christmas saw me pulled over by the Police for a welfare check as someone had reported me probably thinking I was a boy escaping issues at home in cool weather in his shorts which is a bit conflicting with me as while the overall welfare side is commendable and they were thanked for their concern, in reality I didn't need it and obviously how I looked was very much as I see me.
I didn't get out as much for several days at a stretch as much as 2024 due to numbers issues spending days with the more likemind for very much totally innocent child-like fun with not one jolt of anything kink, ikky or off whatever some may choose to believe. They could not be more wrong if they tried, happyasagrownup?
Musically we did on balence spend more on records often new reissues as we found they sounded better than previous cd editions and a few choice used titles from a handful of quality sellers.
More Monkees lps in high quality re-issues were brought, a number of classic DG and digital era Hyperian classic albums plus 70's Now Yearbook isues and a few of interest in the Vaults series looking at minor hits and U.S. hits that didn't do anything here.
I got the Fii0 M21 Digital Music Player with its One Tb microsd card capacity for high defination 24 bit classical downloads which there are more than super audio cds that can connect into my hifi and have a Sptify account that allows for 24/44.1 streaming which is ideal to explore artists and albums before purchasing.
I found my 7Digital account that had been dormant since 2017 which enabled me to restore some materialfrom missing cards and do the same at Presto for Classical albums.
Concerns over Dad's well-being showed up with a couple of hospital stays related to cancer related health issues that sometimes pull me away from things I'd sooner be doing
We should be away in Easter and a few other extended weekends as the issues around venues, numbers wishing to go and just finding affordable venues for 16+ with full array of bedrooms and the like is difficult.
Onwards and upwards regardless of pressures is more my plan for the New Year.
