Back together again by the camp fire

Friday was Founders Day where we give thanks to the Founder of Scouting, the modern Scouts Association and GirlGuiding UK for what he learned and set out to apply for children and young people to help them reach their full potential while having fun as part of World-wide family and in various ways being of service to and becoming fully fledged members of the Community.

One way some mark it is though lead discussion around what he did and what the importance in the modern scouting movement is such as with group of Cubs in Surrey, England, looking at what Cubs means to them.

As you can in cubs as the remainder of Scouts today girls as well as boys belong which they did not when I was officially younger.

It's quite probable ways of of finding ways around things such as being a feminine boy would of been available and generally there is greater acceptance of difference today mirroring the changes in society as a whole.

Like many I will renew my Promise to uphold the Scout Law.

Easter 2022

It is the Easter edition just a little bit later than you might think thanks to the publishing schedule here  as we don't deviate from it much apart from things like Christmas where you can't post before it and afterwards misses the joy of an "on the day" post.

It's very vintage but actually all those frills and satins do tie in more with this blog when boys could be more dainty which is no bad thing.

This is very much a little sissy gurl blog albeit coming from a feminine but biologically boy and there's no reason why I ought not to have a girls Easter card and still let my feminine side out because I am a Gurl like but never the same as a girl.

Didn't we all enjoy the thrills of chasing around hunting the easter eggs and just think if I could of done that in a pretty dress? That would of been just super.

Well little sissies like me have cutesy girlish eggs with bunnies on them cos that's so so us all over and that was mine this year before it ended up in my tummy!

Minidisc a go-go 2022

Today it must be said hasn't been a great one with much rain and wind and indeed yesterday It even hailed stinging my legs which meant a quick return from the paper shop and brewing a hot cup of tea.

I haven't written much in recent years around MiniDiscs for a number of reasons, one being the demise of my home recorder and issues trying to get a solid reliable working replacement given home decks have been out of production even in Japan since around 2006/7 and lasers don't last long.

Another is because of, the majority of use had been mainly for purely personal headphone based use such as lp records copied to disc which is a faff on computer based systems as the interfaces aren't easy or selections from cd because for whole albums it's easier and quicker to just "rip" to Mp3 or Flac and play from a personal audio player especially as mine have line outputs too.

My circa 2004 Sharp MT MD 270H developed issues with the catch holding the disc getting out of alignment so the slightest nudge caused errors so I was able to get a similar era Sharp MT MD 170 that had had next to no use in its original box just needing a new "Gumstick" battery which while not very easy to find can be still bought as new manufactured stock so still capable of holding a full charge.

This works very well with the controls operating the same way with both digital and analogue record levels being able to be set and a button to start charging when the power unit is inserted for mains operation.

Axia made a bunch of Hello Kitty and other Sanriotown banded blank uber kawaii MiniDiscs which are now highly collectable and those go for around £30 per disc unopened

They did so at the time Hello Kitty branded players including a MD Boombox!

Here's some discs together with a Sony portable recorder with inline remote that become common in the very late 90's that you'd clip on your attire for ease of operation.

I will have to say however in my experience Sony's personal recorders outside of the early MZ-R 30/35/50's from the mid 90's had by far the worst ergonomics for the controls of any, indeed those on my HiMD NH600 are an absolute beeping pain to use especially with sub menus that the rotary encoder is erratic at moving through. 

Their home decks were in the main, much much better.

A spot more Beethoven and his violin sonatas

This blog has always had features and reviews on things I like from its earliest days and music is no exception which is we this is our current entry.

Sometimes people may say "But you've got one recording of" as you take ownership of another.

The amazing thing in the world of classical music is that often different combinations of conductors and players have different things to say from the same score of a composition over and above any technical differences in the sound.

For me this group of three Sonata's as performed by the acclaimed violinist Rachel Podger with Christopher Glynn on piano brings a freshness to the score I haven't heard before and there is a magical airiness in the recording that just takes you into the venue.
 

Recorded in a gap between covid restrictions that hit performance live and recorded hard  this is one to keep I feel.

Technically this plays in stereo on a regular cd player and stereo plus surround sound for those with super audio cd players or other equipment that can play them such as some Blu Ray players.