Top Cat

One of my childhood favourite tv shows was Top Cat being heavily influenced by Sgt Bilko with a lot of stuff under the cute sharply observed characters of Benny the Ball, TC himself the gang leader, Choo Choo, Rains and co always scheming in trouble with Officer Dibble.

At the time the show wasn't listed as such in the Radio Times because here in the UK Top Cat was a brand of cat food so it was retitled Boss Cat although we all knew it by its proper title.

The action was always centred around the red Police phone box that Top Cat would use lacking any other means, often being caught in the act by Dibble.
TC and the gang could easily run rings around him!!!

Things that calm me down

One thing I have always like and still enjoy is rag dolls of which I have a good number that live on my shelves that I use whenever I am feeling very anxious or otherwise stressed, holding, stroking or 'playing' with them both at home and at work where they do understand needs like this that I have in me

One thing I have always like and still enjoy is rag dolls of which I have a good number that live on my shelves that I use whenever I am feeling very anxious or otherwise stressed, holding, stroking or 'playing' with them both at home and at work where they do understand needs like this that I have in things such as meetings. It's a part of who I am.
 

Angelic Layer & My Neighbour Totoro

I recently picked up this the discounted 7 DVD set by MVM of the CLAMP anime Angelic Layer

Angelic Layer is about a small town girl called Misaki Suzuhara that travels to Tokyo to live with her Aunt. However on arrival the 12 year old Misaki discovers a new game, which the player controls high tech dolls with their minds to battle each other. She quickly makes friends with other kids that are also enjoy playing Angelic Layer.

Angelic layer is based on the Manga series made by CLAMP (the all girl makers of Chobits) and the Animation is from BONES the same studio that animated Rah-Xephon.

The story is great, I was really excited about when it was first introduced in the Chobits. The DVDs contains 4 episodes each and as always ADV has shoved some extras in also.

Hikaru, Misaki's doll from the CLAMP anime Angelic Layer.
Note the very determined to win face.

I recently bought this DVD in the acclaimed Studio Ghilbi Collection.

This full length anime is conceived as a family film devoid of conflict and suffused with the carefree pleasures of the summertime, My Neighbour Totoro sees Hayao Miyazaki create a parable of friendship and imagination populated with unforgettable characters.

The storyline revolves around Satsuki and her little sister Mei (voiced in English by Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning) get away from it all while their mother recovers from an illness in an idyllic rural retreat. Far from the bustle of the city, they discover a mysterious place of spirits and magic, and the friendship of the Totoro woodland creatures.

New Year thoughts

We are exactly a year on from the launch of the New Blog here after getting a taste for blogging at Friends Reunited in 2005 having remade boyhood friendships to people lost to past events that we weren't personally in control of even if we felt they were right ones personally for us.

After setting this blog up I did dual post for a period at fr/cthekissfan/ but then found it better to just leave a link to this, in effect putting on hold but the change to the site since Itv buying seems to have put people off.

For me finding that site coincided with escalating mental health problems which lead me to look back at where they were from, what the site was good for such as finding things about your school, your college , picking up from that dropped past and identifying the missteps.

For me it is that the attempt to mask developmental disabilities through engagement with some of least impaired parts of my functioning lead to me being in social situations I could not cope with because whatever abilities I had understanding a topic, the person standing there remained a child, running an authority, trying to chair a meeting with adults who were not pulling their weight. And no teacher to ask to step in.

That whole angle started from a forth form interest in current affairs through to A and O levels in the usual subjects to a career in politics which ignored my inability to cope to the point I had a nervous breakdown.

This site started with a single and for some uncomfortable premise which is to deal with that whole problem as far as is possible I have to, I even need to, hand back the demands and strains of adulthood I cannot cope with because of my disabilities and resume the status, limits and care of being a child.

To function with stability I need to be put back into the setting of a child, handling what mentally and psychologically I am capable of, protected from and cared for all else.

I also need to be able go with my feminine side however that comes out because that was always a part of the boy me back then as restricted as the opportunities were back then as part of my recovery

This little is being put back into short trousers and junior girls skirts under adult authority to allow me to find my point of regression playing with my toys as I lose my adult status.

That's what 2007 holds for me.

My New Years Resolution is to allow myself to spoken to, treated and handled as child by Adults.

A Classical Christmas

It's three days after boxing day today and the first one of this new blog of mine so I thought I'd mention something I had this year for Christmas.

When I was twelve I remember listening to a radio program that played short pieces of classical music in the early evening which tied in well with when we had a family evening meal when I was home or just after early evening when at boarding school and they played quiet a bit of Boccherini's music.

It wasn't just such staples as the G275 Minuet  but also his cello works and this Christmas I got the complete set of all twelve of his Cello Concertos that the budget cd label Naxos had put out from 1999 include the third volume that came out just two years ago.

Having played them today on my stereo, I have to say I really love these performances which just feel right, lively but not to 'wirey' and are very well recorded.

This disc of four of his Quartets including the infamous Minuet from Op 13/5 G275 is one disc I bought in the early days of compact disc when this labels pioneering use of PCM digital recording was more appreciated and their discs were more widely stocked at places like the local branch of Richer Sounds as well as mainstream record shops with decent classical stocks.

Christmas 2006

Happy Boxing day people.

As is normal for someone like me I still get children's presents and Mummy bought me this years Beano annual.

There's an old fashioned saying that goes "You can't have the one without the other"

So naturally that other staple annual of the comic I had as a child also was in with the presents which included socks, underwear and money for music, sweets and books.

Now doesn't that sound just like Xmas 1974 all over again?

Nausicaa-Of The Valley Of The Wind

This anime was the second animated feature by director Hayao Miyazaki and for it he chose to adapt his own best selling manga whose huge success in Japan help launch Studio Ghibi and this anime bears all the hallmarks that its output over the years  features in its successes, namely magical kingdoms, great characters and stunning animation.

The story is routed in the past, a thousand years ago after a big war where a seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind is one of the few areas that remain populated.
The people of the Valley, lead by the courageous Princess Nausicaa are engaged in a constant battle with the Ohmu, a most powerful group of insects who are guarding a poisonous jungle that is spreading across the Earth.

In the anime, we see Princess Nausicaa  and her brave companions working with the people of the Valley, striving to restore the bond between humanity and the earth.

One of the most important messages in it I feel is that as people we need to work alongside nature  for our own well-being.

Edited 2017 for blu ray pix.