Take two Rollers compilations

The last instalment of this series from April this year, looked at four original albums that meant a lot to me at the time and how they were received. 

Some artists have a relatively simple recorded history that sees all their commercially released recordings being on regular albums and perhaps a "Best Of".

Like many British groups the Bay City Rollers had a number of singles not issued on album, unique singles mixes and exclusive 'B' sides because over here issuing singles from from albums fans have already bought is looked down upon.

This new entry looks at a couple of compilations.

This was the second attempt in Japan in 1977 to create a compilation and remains a most essential choice on vinyl because it takes all the UK singles in their original forms from the 1971 Jonathan King produced Keep On Dancing in the original mono to the string less  version of Give A Little Love of July 1975 compiling them in release order with the often non album b sides.

As the title suggests the emphasis is on their earlier recordings.

It also has Mary Anne, the B side of Money Honey which was included on the UK Dedication album and Mama Li, the B side of Love Me Like I Love You and two Japan singles.

The twenty six tracks are spread across two lps for the best sound quality while being more convenient than changing the original 45's by hand every three minutes rather than the auto changers we had with a few stacked up at a time.

It does sound very good.

Following a series of changes in the bands membership and after the issue of the It's A Game album and single, Arista in the US felt the need to issue a compilation even if the first US album "Bay City Rollers" was just that pulled from the UK Rollin' and Once Upon A Star albums.

Most issues followed the US version from the stingy five tracks per side and album art but a number of European countries had their own versions which were different.

This is the original West German version which is particularly useful for having both 1976 non album singles Love Me Like I Love You and the cover of Dusty Springfield's I Only Wanna Be With You, Money Honey outside of its appearance on the UK Dedication album coupled with the lovely decision to start each side with their most current singles from the It's A Game album.

This album featured the North American and continental Europe Yesterday's Hero and Rock & Roll Love Letter singles, the latter being a Power Pop gem.

Keep On Dancing on this album is the remake in stereo for the Once Upon A Star album.

Of the single lp best of editions this is the one that showcases the Rollers talents the best and compliments that Japan Early Collection double well. 

Resetting the buttons

 Today we're back to the Gogglebox in the corner of the room.

We will almost certainly by the month's end be in another cycle of retuning our televisions, something we seldom did back in the days of analogue 625 line PAL Colour due to some changes.

We may not understand everything about but most of us have heard of 5G, the latest and quickest mobile phone and computing service that today includes streamed media.

It uses frequencies previously used by our television service as it is held we need less "channels" that today one each may hold several whole tv stations than we did in the past.

Well the company EE will from july be using another former Tv channel allocated to it and this means a transmitter that uses Channel 55 will be closed down meaning a few stations will go completely such as Forces TV.

It means the BBC will move BBC Four and CBeebies to another group for HD (High defination) services but because there is no longer space for it the BBC News channel will lose its HD version although to be honest in an era where footage is broadcast from mobile phones in portrait (vertically held) mode by people I don't think it'll be missed that much.

This was expected although Ofcom provides no really guidance in how such shortfalls are to be remedied, leaving it to the companies to sort out.

Some ten years on from switchover completion when London was the last to change over, you might of thought we'd of moved transmissions on the mainstream channels to HD by default given there has been no new  tvs without the ability to accept the transission standard for HD for over eight years and most older sets would of gone to landfill by this point.

The inequitious black set top box can still be had - there is a Humax for around £40 from some stores - for those who still have older sets and in an era where the BBC and ITV companies talk about shortfalls in revenue you do wonder what it costs to produce and transmit the output in both standard and high defination.

It is believed by years end the BBC's studios will be able to send news in HD to the regional BBC 1 set up (Midlands West here) as they didn't invest in the technology to do that which doesn't encourage people to use HD if you're having to flick but and forth.

Adventures in comicland

 Weekend was rather busy here so I had a few things partly planned out .

First off, May 31 saw the Schools Out bi monthly edition of Monster Fun come out which as the title suggests has the majority of the stories being centred around that ritual where school takes a break while (hopefully) we do get away.

The resurrected comic continues to bring in a actual child base which distinguishes it from other more retro for adults attempts at doing  new specials such as those for the girls comic Jinty and clearly Rebellion Publishing are putting a lot into building up a new audience.

Meanwhile in The Beano it has reported Pup Parade, the cartoon strip that featured dogs many of Class IIb's pet dogs is set to finish in July after Lew Stringers excellent work in a new mini strip from April without official explination.

One thought I have is given how in some communities Dogs are seen as "unclean" to the point they would not be allowed to be pets or to be say cars and the continuing additions of often new children from the Indian Sub-continent to IIb's class as part of the attempt to diversify and make more inclusive that series that originally debuted in 1954, if it may be seen the dogs get in the way and so axed.

It wasn't as if every child in that class had one Cuthbert Cringyworthy for instance was never given one way back in 1972.

We'll see what replaces it in due course.

The return of Toy Cars

This week we're going backwards really because  person I know who outside of their day job had a number of side businesses talked recently about the reason they enjoyed those things and that was their interest in tapes and putting out special music releases was actually connected to the things they liked  when they were young and that this spilt over into other things such as toys.

Now the tape business dealing in new old stock had to go simply because in Europe there's few hidden warehouse finds and prices go beyond that which people are prepared to pay and the record side of the music releases hit a snag with massive delays with vinyl pressing prints doing the umpteenth Abba and Dark Side of the Moon re-issue while independants with new music struggle to get time.

Now this person has children of his own and shares interests that any dad would with them and that was the genius behind Tony's Toy Chest his new online venture taking in gaming and model cars.

He specializes in getting harder to get models in rather than the everyday stuff toyshops already do such as these Tomica models produced for the Japanese market in Vietnam which are high quality die cast ones that remind me of those Lesley models I bought in the 1970's over here. 

They come packaged in outer polyproperline box with flaps to push out the main card box and the care itself is wrapped in plastic.

The genius of the Nissan Silvia line goes way back to 1965 comprising of  small sports cars built on the Nissan S platform some of which were sold under the Datsun brand name.

The models are finely cast and have that feel of real quality about them with things like the wheel assembly and tires spinning smoothly so they can be used as intended for playing with obviously with some care.

These are great models, a step up from Hot Wheels.

That was why I bought this one as unashamably a boys toy to be played with slotting in well with engaging with my younger inner boy self.

Saving children's television

This week we are going topical by talking about a proposal likley to affect children in the next three years that was announced by The BBC director general, Tim Davie last Thursday to a good deal of controversy.

In a response to the funding settlement involving the UK's Television license by the Government, he issues a raft of proposals dressed up as repurposing the BBC for the modern age and this envisioned moving to a "digital" online only system involving the iPlayer where the programs would be listed to be watched at any time rather than having programs scheduled in linear time going out as a channel.

One channel outlined for this approach is CBBC, Children's BBC, which grew out of children's programming segments for family viewing from the earliest days of BBC tv when there was just a single BBC channel on tv and as we moved into the 1980's the establishment of a Children's BBC Unit with strands of labelled programming.

As the UK moved toward digital multichannel television in 1998 with the advent of digital terrestrial and satellite boradcasting children's only channels started to emerge and into this came ITV Kids and in 2002 CBBC which simicasted cbbc linear tv content from the main BBC1 channel and added extra programming.

When during the period 2009 through 2012 the analogue terresterial service was turned off, it was decided to move all children's programming to dedicated channels so anything of pre-school audience went to Cbeebies and all else went to CBBC exclusively.

CBBC is the home of some iconic shows such as Blue Peter and Newsround  and does show or have produced for it UK produced programs including drama such as  Jamie Johnson, So Akward and Almost Never and some specialist programs.

They include Book Club which is designed to introduce and get children talking about books which is not something that commercial channels touch and involve a good deal of interection between the audience and the show.

Some have suggested that actually to loose the channel but keep the programming online isn't a big loss but it does cut into interactivity because an audience often asks questions in real time on a show creating an air of suspense and surprise which if people didn't know when it was "live" it couldn't happen.

A big part of CBBC is the sense of community - the sense everyone is together watching - from the days of "The Broom Cupboard" with Gordon the Gopher and Edd the Duck to todays HQ (Headquarters) with Hakker T Dogg.

In real time quizes and appearence by stars of CBBC happen between the programs born of the old continuity announcer links that children interact with today online but in the past by letter and phone calls.

In a very real way it makes CBBC a "homebase" for children supplimented by things such as Blue Peter Fan Club where they talk about and during the show with each other and afterwards with presenters.

It may seem odd perhaps to broadcast a whole channel when between say 8:15 in the Morning to around 3:30 in the afternoon most schooldays the audience is at school and like all the BBC's services it is sent out in so-called Standard and High Defination feeds which is costly.

The times you as child looked for extra programming were school holidays and weekends simply because at all other times unless you were poorly you were in school.

Many children themselves have pointed out the numbers of families with poor or no internet, a shortage of devices big enough to watch on for period of time without squinting  and in some households a combination of Mum or Dad working from home, an older sibling playing multiplayer games and younger members tring to watch could lead to freezing.

This was one reason Ofcom, the regulator ruled out a regular tv switch off until 2040 when the infrostucture might be ready.

There is the also the increasing concern over screen time increasingly younger children are spending stearing at small screens and unlike the past they may well of looking at screens also in school.

Perhaps one sensible way that some grown ups have suggested is to run first showings between 3:30 and say 6PM which gives you two and half hours a day into which as most childrens shows are half hourly allows for five shows a day and most shows only have one episode a week.

You could then show 25 shows on schooldays backed up by the iPlayer for later viewing, keeping the HQ interactivity and critically access to all while tackling cost issues.

Such an approach does mean a return to idea of BROADCASTING, making things for wide appeal and sharing spaces rather than the niche NARROWCASTING that has left daytime BBC 1 into lifestyle tv about makeovers, buying houses with bar like quizes and antiques with the odd soap tossed in.

That's similar to what we had before but if idea of transmitted linear channels is to provide it needs to do something other than just playing out shows, it must be for all and be involving directly an audience while those who do want to pick and choice from lots of shows even from decades ago are able to too.

I'm not so convinced a entirely virtual digital world is where we all are when we know sales of records have increased, that despite the use of electronic readers, even children read physical books and magazines of which there is much competition for rack spaces still sell and where live contact is still valued.

We need to find  away offering this that does fit in with the digital world  too rather than just scrapping an actual transmitted channel and identity (and BBC4).

Remastering a blog

This week I am struggling a bit with very painful, swollen fingers so I have not been as able to be about online as much as I might like needing to take much rest between tasks.

Something I have been working on in dribs and drabs is dealing with a legacy issue on Scouting & Me, a blog of mine as a few might recall that started its life way back in December 2018 on Tumblr and the blogger version was just a more extended version.

Posts,typical pictures that came from others followed the Tumblr convention of reblogs with extra content but in time a good number of accounts that I reblogged from went and Tumblr started either removing or putting up banners covering pictures.

This had caused a few problems before needing me to research and replace those images, the last time being around Christmas time but while checking through the blog at the beginning of the week I noticed a further group had gone.

This meant that firstly those need replacing straight away with the picture research that goes with such a task and secondly that it was increasingly obvious I needed to set up a program of capturing and reloading all that posted that way to ensure they were not lost.

Generally if I originated the whole post or needed to correct an image because of issues with exposure or colour fades then I posted that as saved file to Blogger rather than linking to the original with a back link.

Thus I'm slowly getting through them, which probably aggrovated my hand and wrist condition and while at it correcting a few altering text layouts and adding the odd bit of additional information.

You might say I'm polishing or 'remastering' the blog seeing the tumblr form went in 2020 completely so there's less of a need to keep to that format as much as those early posts do matter to me not least when some observations are painfully personal.

The resumption of the Adventure of Life that started with that blog in its original form, through the many challenges we have all faced  going forward did me more good than anything.

More Action Man

Today we are going backwards and yet into the present by returning to my favourite toy ever and the world he and I lived in.

Here is Action Man in one of the many uniforms I dressed him in, neatly to the point of getting his cap on right pictured next to the legendary Field Radio which used small multi grooved discs that when the push to talk button was pressed he'd issue a command.

The Red, Blue and Yellow discs were the initial set although others were available which I aquired at the time.

Had the Palitoy Action been around in the Two Thousands's this would of been a iTunes file but as it was 1976 we had a double sided cassette which featured an adventure  story which we'd play on our recorders to play with our figures with.

Helpfully down the side of the cassette case it told us what equipment from the range we needed to get out to reenact this adventure in our play.

I had several of these tapes and recently rebought this one.

The Action Man Intelligence Manual came out from 1973 through to 1979 and was a useful small pamphlet full of information that related to the Uniforms and Roles of the character our Action man was playing.

This was the space for your to personalize it in rather the same way you did with your Warlord Secret Agent kit you had and yes I had both.

The first sections covered each uniform for the character you were playing and had bought the kit for - you normally bought one Action Man fully dressed with accessories and got the others which stores had in stock.

The next group of pages would feature equipment available that went with them such as the Landrover, Support Rafts, search lights and so on

We then had features on the weaponry typically used by British, French Foreign Legion, German and US Military during WW2, replicas of which were available for realistic play.

The Search light at the rear had a built in Morse Key for sending messages but we neeeded to learn Morse Code so helpfully the booklet has a code page we can use 

That was the end paper.

I bought a replacent to one one which with all of my original childhood Action Man set was taken from me when they decided  I no longer played with it although I did and the issue was more one that tey felt I shouldn't in my mid teens.

It is obviously well handled with folds when it was used during play by the boy who original had it but frankly I'd soon have one used and loved by a boy in that condition than some pristine artifact kept in a draw by some collector type who doesn't get the fact toys matter because we play with them and they are made to played  with.

To share a toy used by another boy in your return to your own childhood is above all act of love, the love of being that boy, carefree playing, having fun.

Embrace it.