A leprechaun and two discs

 Spring does indeed appear to making an appearance here with it warming up with the daffodills out along the main road here after sitting on a bench in the park with just a thinner jacket on with my shorts and grey socks enjoying the sun.

Time to play a couple of discs  starting with the all time early classic Harry Nilsson Nilsson Schmilsson album issued in 1971 came out on a Super Audio cd edition with just a print run of 2,500 world wide in October 2021.

This album, the title of which may escape you was a massive seller in that era and was the home of the #1 single Without You written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of the Welsh group Badfinger.

Recently Mobile Fidelity Sound labs issued it's follow up.

Harry Nilsson's bold proclamation on the opening track to Son of Schmilsson immediately makes it evident the singer had no intention to repeat the approach of his commercial breakout, the preceding Nilsson Schmilsson – harbouring no desire to hold back on any front or advance any traditional notion of a career. 

The madcap album goes all out, delivering a wild ride infused with horror-movie effects, crass jokes, then-shocking profanity, snoring, and even a belch – strangeness that belies the fact it went gold and landed a Top 40 single in the form of "Spaceman." 

Both come as hybrid super audio cds meaning they will play on practically all cd players while offering the best sound on a dedicated super audio cd player and packaged as a mini lp.

Going one hundred and eighty degrees away from the his new audience didn't damage him!

Birthday and moving on

It's been a different week for reasons that would be obvious to anyone following the other blog and yet elements tie into things that have been a common theme.

Birthday was marked with presents including some cds, a couple of blu rays and books and I went out to  lunch on Tuesday pretty much as little me but toned done a little in a bit longer than usual grey shorts and argyle long socks but nonetheless a grey jumper, white shirt and off white and blue tie.

I had Cod, green garden peas and chips with the cod being in batter and a glass of orange which as the initiated know is normal given I don't do alcohol and am trying to drop off tea consumption.

You could say it was a fairly modern era boys birthday minus any kind of special venue but then covid did put pay to that for a good many in last two years too.

I've always liked animation and cartoons, buying certainly from the last years of the early two thousands a number of complete anime series of the shirt that tend to have twenty minute or so episodes.

There have been a number of streaming sites in existence for as long as the modern internet has been around, some authorized by the anime studio rights holders others not which can be useful for either trying out a series before buying or in some instances the commercial and geo-politics of licensing mean a physical release just isn't going to happen.

I have an account with one completely legal US based one which sometimes has problems around showing animes in a few territories since around two thousand and nine which was pretty handy and to which I actually have a annual membership of.

Rather like a few other places I joined in this era bits around my profile were muddled so recently I decided to renew chunks rather than starting entirely from scratch cos in fourteen odd years a lot does happen in peoples lives and it was obvious those people I had associated more with in its forum and clubs had moved on in life and so were not in any way active.

I also resumed watching the short animated feature Chi's Sweet Home which has episodes around the three to four minute part featuring the really cute and sweet cat.

It just felt right now my preference of profile description and avatar, confident in me.

Reflections two days before

However you look at this unparalleled period of rapid changes, reversals and general reversal of much we've taken for granted for well decades when it comes to travel, contact overseas or just the ability to see each other.

Sometimes that feeds into other things to such as how broken contact and rituals - as people we seem to just love them to varying degrees - can bring about fresh thoughts and changes.

For some people as awful as coping with the forever changing restrictions have been it's helped the shift out of relationships that just dragged them down.

With others it may be much less about being with those people so much as just what it is they like to do and present more as around them and when like me you're very much around the (adult) Little Boy area it may not be necessarily the most understood thing in a world that likes grown men and little boys very much apart and dressed very differently

From not exactly going far for me lead to thinking more about what I do wear especially more when I do go away looking at and trying things on as things started to improve from the mid to late Summer of last year.

At least one thing posted last November showed a newer part of how I might well look that I feel good in that fits around my perception of where along the continuum I slot in, liking short trousers and nearly always from a more adult as child angle where much of that adult world just doesn't apply.

Wearing my latest white lined grey short trousers with the blue banded turn over socks the decision not just to return to grey short trousers from longer karki almost Bermuda ones but to have my shorts taken right so proportionately the are as short as they were when I was in juniors just feels right for being stripped of anything remotely adult.

I reality I was that boy and I'm a zillion times better today for just being him.

You ain't going nowhere

 

I haven't really been very far in the last few days which meant I wasn't able to make much out of the more settled weather after the severe storms of the last week which on Sunday and Monday were genuinely frightening.

Trees were swaying and indeed in the woods a number of branches did fall and fairly substantial ones at that littering the trails with quite noticeable flooding too for good measure.

Thus I was reading things like this fortnights Match Of The Day magazine, the beano and playing indoors for most of the time.

So it was really disappointing to wake up just before four in the morning, then experience a most agonizing, horrendous pain in left calf muscle as it was "twanged", gritting your teeth as you felt like screaming and improvising at speed compression over it trying to get into a halfway comfortable position in bed.

When I eventually got up, it was a struggle to get dressed as I found the tightest most supporting pair of turn over top socks to wear before having several attempts to get upright and hobble in agony to the bathroom.

Then I found the stairs were too step to walk on without putting too much pressure on that calf so I ended up going down the stairs clutching my plushie in my grey three inch inside leg shorts feeling very little to get some brekkie sorted.

That was the point I realized I would need to keep movement to the minimum as getting about on your bottom is slow and literally a pain in the rear.

I'm feeling a bit better with it but I'll need to give it time to fully recover. 

Comic relaxing

 

We're nearing the end of February and you might just wonder why I'm featuring an annual, something we'd associate with Christmas and one reason would be I've haven't been feeling that great  so something like that cheers me up.

The other reason is some people may not of realized beyond the D C Thompson titles, there is a traditional more eight, nine plus comic annual that's not more like  Young Adult graphic novel but still pitched to a younger crowd.

Drawn by a team of young artists who see the value of the traditions this is great laugh a minute read updated for the modern age.

It's been a pretty wet week over all but I was out in Dufflecoat and traditional short length short trousers exploring around when I spotted these berries just starting to come out and a few insects flying about.

Three hundredth post

 Surprisingly this marks the three hundredth post on this blog that had some older posts around photography restored to it after being started just before I joined Tumblr originally because they kind of connected to what the remainder of it was all about.

Photography as a medium lends itself well to the capturing of moments and memories and some of these may be of those points in our pasts we recall well, of people and places that may no longer be the same or even around.

To even look at pictures of others pasts in the same era often is to unleash vivid and most powerful memories  and a homage to past days and memories is in part really what this blog is all about.

The past for some of us is in the present as we follow similar interests and where we can relive our best moments caught in the moment playing and exploring in a carefree way as we we leave the parts of the world of the adult to one side having discharged any responsibilities and obligations to it.

It doesn't matter exactly where it comes from or what name you give to it in the end, it's that a new-old more child-like headspace helps to restore what you loved about your life back then and that in truth no one needs to jettison for the advancement of your birthdate.

You may of felt lost trying to find your way along the track but you can find your way back and in these days when covid has left many of us feeling weary, it's what we need. 

Symbolism

 

This post isn't about Jefferson Starship formed from the legendary Airplane of the nineteen-sixties as much as I followed that bands evolution.

No, it's really about visual imagery, which makes for a great cover photograph.

What we have is this young boy who is a Scout chasing that object eyes trained upon it as he tries to capture it. He's running with and for that freedom being who he is.

He's neither daunted by the challenge of gaining it nor by the consequences, the need to handle that well to make the most of what it has to offer. 

That's why I've always loved it