November: A month of colour

So it's another month in the history of this blog but we are still in autumn although the storm I can here as I type this up suggests to me many leaves will soon be gone until next year having notice a lot while out walking this weekend in the woods.

One thing I like about leaves is not just the rich colours at this time of year but their very distinctive shapes.

No doubt today and especially tomorrow many of us will see and hear the bonfires with accompanying fireworks of Guy Fawkes Night that always a great boyhood memory.

Here is a Catherine Wheel in full spin spreading colour into the night sky while the air smells very much of smoke.

Stay safe and have fun this Bonfire weekend.

Meet Joel on Friday

Spookiness is very much in the air this week providing a much need respite from more challenging adult concerns this week in a very fast moving period in our countries political history.

Regular readers of this blog know I'm a superfan of Blue Peter from a very early age and so today I'm reporting on it.

On Tuesday it was announced County Down, Northern Ireland magician and social media star Joel Mawhinney has been appointed as the newest presenter of the BBC's Blue Peter.

The 25-year-old content creator, who was born in Bangor, becomes the 41st host of the long-running CBBC children's show.

Mawhinney will start in his new role on Friday 11 November, co-hosting alongside Richie Driss, Mwaka Mudenda and Henry the Dog.

He effectively replaces Adam Beale who left the show on July 15th as the third presenter.

He said: "Becoming the 41st Blue Peter presenter is a surreal and - dare I say it - magical experience.

"I've always loved making people smile with my magic and I want to do the same for the Blue Peter audience.

Having seen him fill in during the summer months on the show I am sure he'll succeeed on what is the shows 64th year that was marked earlier in the month..

Spooky preparations and music

While I should be off at the end of next week for some spooky fun that I'm sure will include making Pumpkin Lanterns other things are on my mind like Monday's Covid booster rocket I'm due for that I had expected my GP Practice to contact me about but they didn't so I booked mine at the local Pharmacy electronically like you do.

Also as a twisted spin leads to problems getting a good fit in short trousers to avoid the about to fall down feeling I now have a pair of braces to hold them up.

Just feeling them takes me back in time and I feel so much that young boy in what are quite short short trousers just like it was 1974 all over again.

In halloween colours this four compact disc box set should be with me today that takes in the main works of the French composer Maurice Ravel in a set of acclaimed recording from the early nineteen eighties a few of which I have on record from the days I listened mainly to them.

This set apart from obviously being a bit more convenient adds a few more works such as his Paino Concertos and Schehérazade that at one point I had a record of on Decca's Jubilee series and is recorded digital as most recordings from the early eighties onwards were.

There's a lot happening in the politics with polly tricks galore but I'm leaving that stuff to the grown ups!

 

This space reserved...

While that space for ones tooth must last 63 years we also need to keep that space for a boy to be boy for at least that long with his inquisative, curious spirit and his love of adventure recognizing that life is really like that rather than to put down life as downpayment for those things you never truly get back.

Some people find ways of allowing that side out as parents although demands are such that money and possessions often leave spending time with your child takes a backseat, uncles and leaders in community programs for children.

It introduces children to the idea that things need not be structured or results centred but more about what you gain from the experience such as fun, friendship and being a good leader of your group and BEING ALIVE.

Far too many adults of both sexes are just going through the motions to be seen to have what mainstream society sees as most important but finding and holding on to that joy of living enriches you more.

That some of those things may be found in your own childhood isn't a new idea but it's more the question if you have the courage to bring back those things that really gave you a buzz and the zest for life before talk of school options, exams and applying for a job marked a full stop in having a satisfied life.

 

Hifi magazines featuring Hifi World

 Nothing really lasts forever even if slices of it remain unchanged.

I've always been interested in sound and music ever since I was originally a little boy and one thing growing up in a household of Dad who was into electrical engineering was having access to his magazines.

He also liked reproduced music so from the early 1970's onwards I had a free run of his magazines that covered the then burgening interest in high fidelity stereophonic sound as like many we moved from a restrictive stereo radiogram, an all one wooden piece of furniture with stereo record player , radio and built in speakers to the exciting world of hifi seperates and speakers with real distance between left and right.

That, better quality seperates, with a turntable, stereo amplifier  and speakers later joined by radio and 8 track tape player allowed us to hear more of our favourite recordings but like most things you are interested in, seeing if you can do better comes in so he got magazines like Popular Hifi and Hifi News that reviewed the latest equipment and records.

They also reported on short lived developments such as quadraphonic sound in the home, Elcassette the jumbo sized mash up of cassette handling and open reel tape and the battle between DCC, the digital compact cassette and Sony's radical rival, the MiniDisc.

As time went buy I started to buy my own magazines and some of the old ones went and newer; more lively presented ones started.

One I loved from the very start beginning in early 1991 was Hifi World which was edited by Noel Keywood.

Unusually it did not just feature the latest and greatest new turntables, compact disc players and so on but did have features on older equipment comparing them with more recent models because not all that glistens is gold.

Coupled with this it did look at tubed (british term: valved) amplifiers which had been declared obsolete by the very early 1970's but had started to creep back in during the mid 1980's as people realized they tended to have a richer, more warmer sound.

That was the very opposite of early compact disc, I might add.

They also went back to where this Hifi thing began in the 1950's by launching kits based own bespoke designs offering the functions you wanted and higher quality per pound than mainstream mass produced equipment.

I bought and built a tubed power amplifier in 1994 from them that when assembled looked just like a shop bought model for a lot less than they went for.

They also were the first to do features on computer based audio with portable digital players for Mp3 and Lossless Flac files and "needledropping" -copying your records to files to play anywhere and "ripping" copying your own cds to play on the go.

That inspired me to get a series of Fiio portable players that offered excellent sound for the money and even the ability to hook up to the main hifi for playing High Defination better than cd quality downloads.

That was the September 2022 issue showing among other things a new turntable as records close to extinction in 1992 had bounced back in thirty years with considerable sales even among youngsters who grew up with cd only owning parents.

Sadly shortly after that issue came of the printing press, missing the chance for a official Goodbye Issue, it was forced to close as the publishing group went bankrupt having been seriously disrupted by covid as many sales came from airports, train stations and news stands even though in 2019 before all this crazy stuff started it was very profitable.

There were many memorable issues of this publication that I'll miss but one that was the August 2014 issue that previewed the all analogue sourced re-issue of the Beatles mono albums on vinyl, which were and still are acclaimed as the very model of how to do a vinyl re-issue series properly.

R.I.P Hifi World.

Keeping the records clean

 The week might of started better for missing both the weekend football and a story reading site online I like wasn't good but the thing was actually I felt pretty off and so had to be resting and very much off line.

Usually I tend to have a bit of background music on when I'm like that as apart from being soothing it does mask a bit of the general noise indoors from next door and outside as I really don't need that when I'm unwell.

I did mention on the other blog about having a new record, well the thing is records do demand a bit of maintance such as putting away properly and keeping the surfaces clean to get the best they can offer.

Indeed I often find even new records need a clean if as seems to occure these days the places that make them don't seem to a clean as you might expect.

Thus yesterday this cleaning kit came with some stuff to fetch any debris out of the groove and off the surface and some stuff to take away everything it had removed so it doesn't end up on your stylus.

I find this stuff by Vinyl Revival is really effective and doesn't leave anything behind unlike some I recall from the past.

Reflections upon the Funeral of HRH Queen Elizabeth

 Week is almost over with things moving more towards where they were before just over a fortnight ago following the sad but beautifully executed funeral of Her Majesty on Monday, choreographed to a tee with immaculately turned out people performing the ceremonial roles. So british.

I was with my parents who could remember George VI's funeral in February 1952 reading accounts as at that point neither had television at home although by June of 1953 and the Queen's Coronation Dad had got television with pictures on the one and only BBC channel from Birmingham and Mum saw it at a cousins who had a set.

This time sat together having prepared a light midday meal so no one would miss much I was in my green jersey, grey shorts and grey with green bars turn over socks, a nod towards Cubs without going the whole nine yards just looking like a kid following it as they talked about the past.

For me it didn't just bring back memories of the Queen Mothers Funeral on April 9th 2002 but Prince Philip's outside of those family funerals I attended when I was younger so I could understand what Prince George and Princess Charlotte would of been feeling.

These things are a bit hard to get your head around when you're young.

Photo credits: BBC/PA