Christmas in comicland

We're almost at the final post before Crimbo which will be a "duo post" as that much will be happening here there simply won't be time to post immediately before then and believe or not those of us who run blogs and a forum do need time to pause.

Things that I'll be dipping into between things will include this years Beano Christmas Special, a 68 page special christmas themed edition that isn't included in your regular subscription but if you joined the new Dennis & Gnasher Fan club is included in the £20 per year subscription to that.

Meanwhile in  a ghoulish land what is now the monthly December edition is given over to Christmas with Christmas storylines featuring all our favourite characters and readers letters.

There will no doubt be a special reversed Christmas/New Year edition of Phoenix arriving soon too.

R.I.P Denny Laine (Wings)

Born 29 October 1944, Denny Laine's death was announced early on the week on Monday 5 December in Naples, Florida, U.S.A. 

Denny was a founding member of the group The Moody Blues from 1964 where they score a massive world-wide hit with Go Now until late 1966 where faced with declining sales the group decided to embark upon a mixture of progressive rock and orchestration.

After a period in groups such as Ginger Baker's Army, Denny joined a then little know group called Wings formed by Paul and Linda McCartney to continue in music without all the baggage of being a "Beatle" who had a lot of hit singles  like Let 'Em In and albums such as Band On The Run and London Town.

After some disagreements in 1981 he left to persue his own musical interests.

The reason this entry exists isn't just a rest in peace post but because the records he was involved in were very much records I loved as a kid in the 70's playing for enjoyment often tied to memories of situations and events of that time.

For instance this record, which I still have, is a massive part of all my Christmas's from when I bought it while visiting my late Nan in December 1977 from the districts main record shop whose lyrics and bagpipe playing by the pipers evoke the feel of being together celebrating as one.

Its other side as it was technically a  double 'A' side was the rocking Girls School which was a delight who thought Paul McCartney had forgot how to rock, preferring to write "silly love songs".

This still from the video shown on the late Michael Parkinsons show before being on Top Of The Pops evoke so many memories and emotions for me with Denny on the left.

For me Christmas without Mull Of Kintyre is unthinkable.

Rest in peace Denny.

Upgrading the sound from records

I generally don't talk purely about objects on this blog but I have the odd time talked a little around my stereo system and the last time I wrote a piece was in January this year when I talked about the Tangent II VHF FM/DAB+ tuner.

Today I'm talking about a phono stage at which point you'll say and what is that?

Mounted in your record deck is a cartridge that put simply converts the ups and downs of how the groove on the record is cut to a low level electrical voltage, much lower than a regular amplifier circuit can use to fill your room with sound.

It will also sound tinny with little bass even if you tried to turn the volume on it right up because to make the music fit on the record when it is cut they take out the bass and boost the high notes to reduce any noise.

A phono stage is an additional circuit that boosts the level so an amplifier can reproduce it as well as any line level source such as a tuner or compact disc player and restore the bass and treble levels to how they were in the original recording.

In the heyday of records amplifiers often had that circuit built into them and the shoe box shaped record player you had did too but in the age of the compact disc many took them out.

Even when they were fitted, they tended to be good enough to give good sound to get you going but being designed to a price didn't reveal everything your record deck and cartridge was capable of.

That is where the stand alone Phono Stage comes in, bypassing that being connected to the amplifier via a line input and improve on sound apart from being kept away from any electric noise from the amplifiers mains circuit.

The built in stage in my Rotel amplifier tends to be be a bit noisy with hiss so I always used an external phono stage.

I had that Rotel unit for a good number of years but while it was very good, my system had improved and it was getting in the way of what it was capable of.

That is where the Pro-ject DS3 B comes in which offers better facilities for the more expensive moving coil cartridges to get the best sound from them and even on regular moving magnet one such as my Ortofon Concorde 30 with its fine line nude stylus has the ability via the loading settings to tweek the sound to its best

There is a subsonic filter which reduced by some 18 decibles at 20hz the effects of any warps on records while leaving the music intact.

Users of Moving coil cartridges wired in balenced mode on their turntables have the option of balenced inputs to reduce noise pick up on long cable runs and more expensive amplifiers that used balenced inputs can be wired in that way for similar benefits.

It does take traditional unbalenced RCA inputs with a grounding tag (Brit Eng: Earthing) and with the left and right channel circuits being seperate for the best stereo the inputs and outputs are symetical in layout.

There is a silver version available  and from the inside you will notice there are no intergrated circuits amplifying but instead a very high quality circuit with transistors and top quality components instead based on the high end and super expensive RS2 phono stage.

What you do get with this is a extremely high standard of reproduction from your records with no noise and lots of subtle details when the music gets busy coming their clearly.

Comparing my original 1986 Talk Talk's The Colour Of Spring cd and original UK record, the record offers superior low level detail with lots of space between the different instruments and vocals leaping at you from beyond the speakers.

It is simply stunning for the money.

400th post

 Yes that number does just happen to be quite true on this blog as we have indeed reached the 400th post.

The blog apparently started in 2008 which seems a good many years ago being based around photography into which we moved into other areas over the years just a couple of years after being on Friends Reunited when I was looking for a digital replacement for a note pad that in an increasingly internet based world I could post a link to.

Friends Reunited after being messed about came to an end and with it my involvement with any kind of social media as a site that dealt with connections from school and college worked better for me for having spaces to talk about those times.

That was it until I came to Tumblr in April of 2018 where I found people who were into past boyhoods and even as I did as reticent as I was about posting all over the place about it, actually feeling and acting more as that very much schoolboy like figure.

There were a couple of other places like asb.net and the short trousers for schoolboys Misterpoll poll where I talked a fair bit about it before venturing forth with a one of kind forum I set up just for good natured past and present schoolboy chat and reminiences with nothing that is seen as adult content on them.

As issues upon issues abounded on Tumblr, the Misterpoll poll with topics had its own one off problems and people got despersed, we took off, even meeting up.

I found over covid I could just be little boy me and even be accepted for it in the community, others found their ways of doing this which in turn inspired others to give it a go.

From that small acorn in 2008 a grew little tree grew where people could just be their little selves.

Memories

Well this week we're one off the "big one" being typed on Thursday with temperatures around 4.5 degrees c with some wind chill having been out in my short trousers and dufflecoat this morning to the local store.

Just being out like that bring back so much the memories of being out to play or if like this morning going to school which needless to say I actually past mine enroute as the sounds, smells and sights bring it all back.

One thing that also brings back memories are books and while this blog is less an article on a book or series never mind that of any other material item you'd care to mention, this kind of book does bring back memories as not only would of borrowed it but building a music library was a part of my boyhood experiences.

Doing something like that involved doing some research into composers I did enjoy so you'd borrow recording or listen to them on the radio, and then look at books such as that for a good recording at a price I could afford.

Being a boy and not really able do many odd jobs for money given my disabilities meant more reliance of your pocket money, learn to spot the bargains.

To get a copy of such a book isn't just useful from the point of view of rebuilding a bit of the collection where because of only fairly small scale issue of new classical records you may need to look at older used copies but actually reminds you of when you got some of the others.

Some of the skills I learned while doing that stood me in good stead in world of adult work.

A penny for the guy

There's a few things going on here such as sorting bits of the old record collection out but that does rather take me back to the period where just a week or so before we'd be doing other things.

I can't speak for anyone else but in this district we always made a guy up from bits of wood, straw and old clothes and go calling "Penny for the guy?" although in that era we'd be hoping for rather more than literally a penny given the crazy inflation we lived through back then.

You'd get all sorts of reactions from "what are those meddling kids up to?" to those who appreciated the effort we put into it and would gives us money rather than threatening to call the police on us, not that later on we realized we were doing nothing illegal.

You still see some about but between concerns about stranger danger and changing times it's nothing compared to how it was when I were a lad.

Saving the Ticket Office

This week we return to the big train set that runs the length of the Country having been along it last week.

As you might recall there was a call to shut the ticket offices, the places as the name suggests you buy tickets from on railway station concourse from the overwhelming majority of stations mainly to save money.

Part of the arguement was only around twelve percent or a tadge above that of all tickets sold are from ticket offices.

Many of us as children recall lining up with our parents as they'd buy their tickets on the day trips and that we went on at a counter like this one pictured below.

Back then, that was pretty much it and obviously a bit older as I went to college as smaller stations had the staff reduced or eliminated, you encountered the new fangled ticket machine installed.

In the more recent era we've seen they ability to book tickets online which initially was still on paper tickets which I'd have to say is a boon to me personally and the E-Ticket which is sent to your smartphone  and can be read by ticket barriers and conductors both of which have proved quite popular.

There was a short three week consultation which was extended which showed widespread opposition to the plans.

Part of reason was some people simply cannot use or access ticket machines or smartphone delivered E-tickets because of visual disabilities, issues with dexterity while others pointed out often the cheapest fares just were not on the ticket machines.

The proposals would of made independent travel impossible for some and more costly for others.

The other issue is it isn't unknown for a train to be cancelled or running late which may mean you require assistance in finding an alternative route or reworking any connections which ticket office staff knowing their way around these things can help with.

That's something with my disabilities I do need.

A connected matter is you feel more secure when there are staff about able to intervene if incidents break out as while it doesn't fit that strong independent disabled person idea that is projected we are more at risk from assaults and abuse from others and this applies to other groups too.

It seems going by Wednesday's announcement this won't be going ahead anytime soon although  I expect some changes like merging ticket office duties with passenger assistance and some attention being paid to the positioning and ticketing options available from machines.

Sometimes we do need people rather more than machines.