Toys out of the old toy box

Recently I was tidying up in my room parts of which hadn't really moved much in ages and I found a few things from my childhood I want to share.

I loved the Wombles at the time, really I did having pictures, records and having watched the Tv series and here's my Great Uncle Bulgaria which is a late 1990's version as I think I lost the original like you do.

Also I found a C70 battleship made by Lesney of England in 1976 which is in very good shape with just a few marks on the underside. 

I was into war related toys  much so I think someone bought it me (kind of forget who just now) so naturally I took care of it putting it on a shelf so it wasn't damaged with unlike my dolls or thumbed like my annuals were.

I gave it a bit of a dust before taking this picture

Crosby, Stills And Nash on Audio Fidelity

The late 1960's and early 70's is a period where I do remember rather more than many of my contemparies do and I guess for me it involves numerous automotive journeys with the clunking of dads in-car 8 track player and the sometimes downright screwed up track orders of the albums we played and given that is even know how they 'play' in my head, perhaps our generation ought to be compensated by Lear Jet for it!

Crosby Stills and Nash fit that era to a tee and recently Audio Fidelity a small Californian reissue outfit re-issued their first album freshly re-mastered by Steve Hoffman.

Songs like Wooden Ships, Marrekesh Express and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes were always on tape player plus the FM radio and what they've tried to do on this cd is to bring out a more natural bass quality and improve the clarity of the individual instruments on what has to be said is a so-so original recording. 

It works well even if ultimately this album is one you enjoy for the performances and songs some of which like the Graham Nash ones were originally intended for his 'old' group the Hollies during that period when he wanted to write songs with more meaning while the groups record company (EMI) just wanted simplistic pop songs to sell hit 45's instead. 

In Crosby's case he famously fell out with the Byrds as they didn't wish to issue his songs and so Graham Steven Stills and himself formed this 'supergroup'.

Shortly afterwards Neil Young a now celebrated Canadian singer-songwriter joined them for the Deja Vu album which was a good a distillation of the ethos of those 'Woodstock' days as any I can think of from the cover of the Joni Mitchell song of the same name to Almost Cut My Hair, Nash's Our House and my favourite Neil's Country Girl a seemless suite of three songs.

I owned this originally on 8 track and later the casette version during the 'Walkman era'.

Sometime in the mid 1990's ('94 I think) Joe Gastwirt remastered this and pretty much all the C,S,N &Y output for compact disc and these can be got cheaply with decent sound from the likes of Amazon. They are only just a little louder than a specialist remaster and I like his version of this a lot.

In the fall of 2013 Steve Hoffman tackled this, the 1977 album (aka "The Boat") for Audio Fidelity catalogue number AFZ 144, the home of Cathedral and several other fine compositions. Having heard a number on the 2013 reissued box set CSN, my interest was piqued so I bought it. 

The sound is really good on this issue maintaining its analogue warmth and can be recommended 

*Updated 2013 by Tammy*

On bears and affection

 I slept during my earlier childhood with a teddy bear named after my first Headteacher because he reminded me of the warm affectionate, adult authority figure this man was in my life, taking an interest in me and disciplining me in his office whenever I needed it.

In my world as a child this bear was there keeping an eye on me as I slept so perhaps it's no wonder when I look upon his spanking of me, I associate it with a warm fuzzy feeling of love and affection.

An adult little gurl like me is best dressed and treated as that child all the way.

Chaka Khan

Seeing we've left Christmas we can resume the music posts on this blog.

This like most of them is connected to my past in as much as this artist Chaka Khan as part of the soundtrack of my life as I grew up (don't laugh!) with her sounds being on the radio as well as the emergent MuchMusic and MTV television networks.

Born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago, Ill. in the late 60's she took the name Chaka from the Yoruba word for 'fire' and following the break up of her marriage to an Indian bass player kept the Khan surname as part of her stage name. 

Unlike most of her generation, her singing career didn't start via Gospel singing in the Church but more from her listening to Jazz and in 1972 she joined what became Rufus, a R&B band (when R&B had rhythm and blues) who signed to ABC Records recording seven albums as their lead singer.

By 1978 however the lead wanted to a solo career and so signed  to Warner Bros working with producer and arranger Arif Mardin creating five albums together.

That is where she entered my life though the radio play given to her '45 "I'm Every Woman" where that voice and Arif's arrangements hooked me although the 1981 album with "I Know You I Live You" passed the casual R&B fan.

By 1984 she was back getting column inches with the funk and electro influenced "I Feel For You" complete with turntable scratching helped by popularity of the previous years "Ain't Nobody" a product of the last contractual release with Rufus followed by the "This Is My Night" and "Eye To Eye" in 1985 which remain favourites of mine from that era.

What makes this pack of five original albums attractive is it offers the first five albums taking in soul, disco, funk, electro and guest MC'ing  so you see beyond the the hits and can explore her more deeper cuts.

Front and rear cover are is reproduced with the discs in slim box.

The sound quality is very good on these discs and  being inexpensive makes for a good introduction to her catalogue.

Heroes and heroines on screen and in print

We are just heading into a New Year here where we're talking through what makes me Me after finishing off things like my Christmas selection box and reading a Ben 10 Annual.

You may not of thought it but big bold super heroes were a thing I followed in tv cartoon series, comic books and looked up to which would include things like Batman, Superman and his child version Superboy depicted and cowboys like Roy Rogers and his horse, Trigger.

That was added to later on by things such as Thundercats and Transformers.

That said it wasn't all like that which is really where what would be stereotypically boyish moved out by the standards of the era such as having a love of The Moomins.

Shows like Bagpuss, the stories narrated by Bagpuss "a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams" really connected emotionally.

Bagpuss and his friends are toys in a turn of the century shop for `found things'. When young Emily, pictured, brings them a new object, the toys come to life to work out what the strange new thing could possibly be.

It is Emily that runs the shop, finds things to be repaired, and wakes Bagpuss up so that he can identify and repair the latest thing with his friends.

Emily just loved him in all his sagginess as indeed I would too apart from just loving her dresses and that series feminine but not too soppy feel was something that gave me much comfort in 1974/5.

Reflections on 2011

The year 2011 was a big one for me and this blog because I came to embrace more and more of what being a feminine LSG really meant because the thing for me always was it was always on not being something you might do for a few hours, possible with other people meeting some place.

It's also how it is your responses to many things are essentially that of neither just a boy or a girl, which no amount of added sophistication within your life changes so the extent to which I may know about current affairs makes me no more an adult than a comprehensive knowledge of gaming makes a fourteen year old one and when I was fourteen I knew about current affairs but at least then I was treated as that fourteen year old albeit one who was mentally ten.

What this year has shown is the extent to which I need within the limits of working, I need to switch back meeting my little sissy gurl needs and break off from adulthood enjoying the freedom within new childhood to be me.

That to me isn't just about the material interests of this LSG but also about getting outdoors, making adventures where the adult side is pushed back to enable the littles side to go forward enjoying the day the way that I did back then.

It is also about fully embracing my feminine side and learning to enjoy presenting in uniform assigned traditionally to girls as the little sissy gurl I am.

Perhaps you should deliver a firm slap to my frilly pantied bottom and tell me to get on with playing with my dollies?