A birthday for one

 

It is very much that time of the year again whatever else is going on the world that causes a birth date to go around after three hundred and  sixty-five days but in reality I am and feel no more older than I did decades ago even if what we use may be different.

A few things remain messed up after these last two year like ones family and any kind of going out is likely to be later on in the week as work continues on refitting one place we like to go.

Anyway given how this thing is with me it was entirely fitting that one neighbour bought me a bar of chocolate cos I really don't have any inclination toward anything specifically adult or interests even.

One thing I did get which goes back a few years for inspiration was a very special four cd and dvd set of the classic Elton John album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road that came out in 2014 which probably contains the highest amount per album of his best ever work including beyond the title track to take in Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Bennie and the Jets and Candle In The Wind.

I was a bit strapped for cash in that period so I bought a two cd "deluxe edition" that had the whole album plus on a second disc some remakes of the songs by today's artists such as The Band Perry and a selection from a live recording made at the Hammersmith Odeon in December of 1973 that was broadcast on the radio.

Really it was this set I wanted which give you alternative mixes and non album tracks used on the singles, the whole concert in its two halves and a dvd with surround sound mixes couples with a 100 page book.

I was very fortunate to have it bought for me from a store that still had a copy in.

 Similarly my original Blu Ray of this anime tended to make some funny noises while it played due to some fault in how the film was written onto the disc so the blu ray player can play it so I got a much recent copy that also includes the dvd which didn't have this issue included.

 There are other ways that past in the present in me shows.

The boy then had his records and this year is little different for having a few although three are to replace the records I had in a box set I was bought way back in 1978 being replacement  copies for the originals in my 1978 Beatles Singles Collection box set that miraculously still survives even if some of the things I had around that era do not.

The strength of that set always was hearing a set of world changing singles, then the pre-eminent type of records for teens as they were compiled and to which I have a strong emotional connection.

When the video was a thing I bought these, the first two feature films by the Beatles on stereo VHS tape and later on got the dvd replacements.

My parents bought me the fiftieth anniversary Blu ray editions with remastered  sound and image quality from the original film negatives to upgrade them  with .

There was a thing very much before BBS and Wikipedia that schoolgirls and boys used to look up facts and figures and find out about things they could join outside of the Encyclopaedia's your school or municipal library held.

Pears did a cut down version a mini Encyclopaedia in one volume and from that the even slimmer Junior Pear's which I had in 1978 which just had key facts and figures coupled with topics of interest which you could use as an aid to researching a topic.

That institution folded in 2017/18 but I had the 1994 34th Edition of the Junior Pears one this year because they still are of use helping to reduce time searching online for things.

I also had some money, white chocolate plus stocking filler things such as underwear and new socks.