Now That's What I Call Music CD Part 2

Well the last time we looked at this series was in November when we remarked about how long it had been for the original NOW albums to be freshly minted as cds for modern generations and a few issues with them.

Now 5 came out in August 1985 a good while after Now 4 which I remember well buying the lp on the day but was delayed until May 8th this year on cd thanks to that goddam Covid-19 virus slowing everything up.

 One thing to do is compare and contrast with the original cover.

The first thing you'll note is that top cover tag line "Thirty Top Ten Hits - Double Album" isn't there but was on three of the four previous cd issues in this series.

The one that wasn't of course was NOW 3 as that one had two tracks removed as you might recall

Curious cos I'm a Neko of course I looked at the tracklisting per cd and notice there are only 14 tracks on the first cd which you'd know can only indicate one thing as 14+15 can only result in 29 when I was last in school.

Anyway look just to the right of the Number Five above Marillion for a clue.

Sure enough even in this scan you can see how the first disc had 15 tracks and the on that is missing happens to be This Is Not America by David Bowie with the Pat Metheny Group not his biggest hit but a notable one sandwiched between Slave To Love and Don't You (Forget about me).

Why it isn't there I have no idea as I know as a Bowie fan it made his 2007 Best of 1980-1987 cd compilation cos I bought it and that's like thirteen years ago.

Perhaps the co artists have a do not use on various artist albums clause in a contract???


So first off we have an issue from the start and they don't even address it by saying "We regret being unable to bring you  This Is Not America by David Bowie with the Pat Metheny Group featured on the original lp/mc because ..." leaving people under the impression this is how the album was which is misleading.

As a Now album this was less hit laden than the previous four for two reasons, the first being two other groups of record company's had issued similar hits compilations only months before such as the CBS/BMG records Hits 2 that had hits by Paul Young, Foreigner and ZZ Top and  their own excursion into compilations of hit 12" dance mixes.

 Five 12" Singles per side of two lps. Wow!

That said while it's low in chart toppers what does contain are key tracks such as Don't You from the Breakfast Club film soundtrack, A View To a Kill from that years Bond movie, Walls Come Tumbling Down, the last biggie of the Paul Weller vehicle The Style Council , Walking On Sunshine  plus some fine soul and dance tracks like Feel So Real by Steve Arrington and the unforgettable Magic Touch by Loose Ends.

It was a teen essential purchase in that year but as I said the tracks that would of made an excellent volume or two were being spread too thin to give the kind of overview we'd of loved but the MCA/Chrysalis Out Now series soon folded strengthening subsequent Now albums and the Hits series.

When it comes to versions as I expected a number of the original edited or remixed ones appear to be lost and have been replaced.
  
For instance tracks by Scritti Politti, Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy, Paul Young, Marillion, Bryan Ferry, Sister Sledge, Simply Red all appear on the CD in longer ‘album’ versions and not the 7” mixes included on the original.


By way of contrast ‘Cherish’ by Kool & The Gang is featured on the CD in a shorter version than the original release.To conclude I would say it is flawed cd version of a desirable Now album, enjoyable for the tracks selected even if the version differences may irritate those of us who know our records inside out but the bigger loss is This Is Not America which is a great reflective Bowie performance.

Summer comic fun

It is that time of year some of us look forward, the recreation of a ritual we observed as boys religiously and don't tell me rituals don't play a part on LB life as I haven't met one that didn't try to recreate a few.

The Dandy Summer Special is special for different reasons than we had as boys in that it is the only print edition of the comic we get since closure in December 2012  where as for most of us before then it was the bigger more colourful edition that had quizzes and the like counterpart to the weekly edition.

The Summer Special is aimed more at those of us who remember it as it was rather than being more like its stablemate The Beano very much in the present and so for most of the current period we've been treated to reprints from the older Summer Specials, albeit those we loved to revisit. 

This years is a bit different in that the compilers have gone to pick a selection over a set of twenty years starting from 1940's making their way through 1960's, 1980's and the 2000's in chronological order.

This means we start to see such legends as Keyhole Kate, Korky the cat, Desperate Dan and Corporal Clott which was discontinued in the comic July 25, 1970 plus Owen Goal from the 80's as they emerged which compared with the Beano makes for a more retro, regressive, reliving the past feel when you read it as inevitably you recall those days.

For that feeling I would say the Dandy Summer Special is better.

What is great about this years is we have some newly drawn strips of Postman Prat originally drawn by Lew Stringer from October 30, 2010 by the man himself that survived the misstep that was DandyXtreme in 2007 to October 2010 when they tried to add Viz style "attitude" to push sales in a fortnightly form plus new Winker Watson for 2020.

The new strips are funny, not departing from the world those characters come from but showing where they would of been in a regular comic so Winker Watson remains in Greytowers in the third form but he can use a computer and printer while being the Blazer and Shorts clad boy whose wanglers we loved in much the same way the modern prep school mixes modern technology and the old (and true) ways.

Do yourself a favour and get a copy!

The Skorting of Tammy

What becomes established as your defaults often goes back a long time to the point sometimes you will see generational differences as most of any one period do and often kept to the things they grew up with.

Some defaults are to do with gender during the period you grew up which would include, playgroup, school and outside social activities because you were instructed to wear specific items.

For me as a boy there was no way around of it, when playing games or taking structured physical education (P.E) class you HAD to wear shorts as that was a hard rule so my default remained top, suitable socks and footwear plus shorts and if you'd look through my stuff now you spot it.

The thing is although I'm a boy by sex and have no inclinations toward transexuality, I also remain a feminine, rather sissy one who while seeing why shorts are used by girls as well as boys for playing football wasn't really that keen on wearing them for all games occasions.

Back in the nineteen seventies girls wore wrap around short skirts for games but that's changing for something newer, the Skort.

The Skort while being a bit more accepted in North America tended to be looked down on in the UK comprises of shortish skirt with thin shorts built in that often you pull on to your waist.

One basic advantage is that when we are playing we bend and twist which does make it possible with with a conventional games skirt to see your knickers which is embarrassing especially as you get more self aware.

Even through traditional gym knickers don't show much they still show but they don't with skorts.

For me an advantage is self image: there are times I long to see a hemline on my body which the skirted layer provides while smoothing the lines rather two holes with legs popping out. 

That's the kind of side view and what as a feminine boy I'd like to present as when I am playing.

It's no longer the nineteen seventies and it is time my defaults changed both as girls own have and also as sissies like me are now more recognized and I too move on toward what is me at the core.

By years end Tammy will have been skorted for all games outside of football as my new default appearing with a skirted look feeling more feminine as he exercises and takes part in team sports.

My friends may not get this straight away but it's time I did what is right for me.

Getting it together

We have been looking at this whole topic around being developmentally much younger than your years and the extent to which there is age dysphoria that you do feel that mismatch and what is not so generally understood is to a large extent it only gets worse over time as peoples expectations around where you "should" be become more pronounced and for some when they look appreciably older they tend to stick out more.

Fortunately I do look a hell of lot younger than my years even if my hair has signs of ageing but I'll add I have cousins fifteen years younger that are totally bald and some by nineteen are starting to lose hair.

Some feel that going to some sort of school as this xx age going on in my case ten self helps ground us and I can see how the structures just might.

To me it would have to be a place of actual lessons and break times that you be attending pretty much a "real" school setting even if it had the rules and that of one in my era and not just a backdrop for adult services and the like.

They way I look is so much like that with my dresses or skirts being as short on me as they were as a ten year old in the nineteen seventies showing much leg even with turn over top over the knee socks on.

There is just no way any *real adult* female would wear school uniform - theirs would be just above the knee too - and my charcoal grey ones scream out junior as my community accepts my lack of adult status.

Losing it may seem hard and it has been but it's been a relief to not be seen as anything other than functionally a little  who men and women look after as their own child.