The Youngest Girl in the Fifth

Seeing Christmas  and New year is out of the way, here's the latest installment of a series of short bits on the stories I read at boarding school and this edition dates to 1970 and isn't in quiet so good a condition as the others apart from having the price in the old UK money that was changed February 1971.

I still have floating around my conversion device for old and new currencies I had as a young child.

The story is is set at an all girls boarding school where fourteen and a bit Gwen Gascoyne, is moved in the middle of the term from the Upper Fourth to the Fifth Form as her Principal, Miss Roscoe feels the work in the Upper Fourth is too easy despite her years.

In the World of the school girls she is seen as stand-offish, treated very much as an outcast by all except Netta whose malicious scheming nature leads Gwen into trouble and deceit.
All of this isn't helped by a spell of bad luck either!

Gwen comes into her own during an accident during an accident in her forms geology expedition and from then on begins to earn the respect of her classmates.

I always found Geology interesting as a child.

The Care Bears and me

One of the favourite tv shows from the mid 1980's for me was the Care Bears which had a lot tie in merchandise.

I am a sissy gurl who cares about things that happen to others be they close friends or communities miles from here, feeling their sadness, anger and pain and truly doesn't want to cause that to happen although I am also sometimes naughty too.

I'd would do almost anything to help my friends if I could  deal with their emotions and needs being prepared to share whatever I have at the time and I have.

Into 2008

Christmas is officially over two years on from establishing this new blog of mine which is as well as Friends Reunited more or less went way with ITV buying it for clickbait and removing that which was good about it.

Ever since I have been on here I tended to write something for the New Year but before I get on to that, this time of year is connected with me to annuals, usually by comics, magazines or popular tv show that you'd get at Christmas from your parents or relatives

Many annuals have been produced and are found by people emptying lofts  in cardboard boxes and here's a good sample that from the bottom of the right pile has a number of the themed collections issued in recent years by D C Thompson, publishers of The Dandy and Beano from those comics archives.

Many of the others are annuals of now deceased comics I had access to such as Cor!, The Eagle, Sparky and Wizzer and Chips which were mainly boys own comics and The Dandy and Beano annuals of the year.

I say Boys Own because there is a style and format in story telling in either comic or novel form that engages directly with a boys interests, knowing what he is interested in and avoiding what he's not often looking toward adventure, science and battles.

Trying to write between the sexes while not impossible is hard to pull off and moreover as boys these are what we gravitate toward so it is entirely right that things should be gendered to what each needs and looks for.

Going back to that introduction, while I did read and will talk about some books written mainly for girls that I got some mileage from this new year, this blog is a adult littles blog with a twist for I am a feminine  boy, happy to be called a sissy gurl.

So between that I'll be looking at boy interests the ones that started in my boyhood , things that I started since and going to the beginning looking at presentation for little sissy gurls like me as they come together on one frilly package.

Tchaikovsky the Karajan way

Seeing it is new years eve I thought I talk about a box set I had this year.

One character that loomed large in my childhood discovery of classical music was the conductor Herbert von Karajan who rather like André Previn during that era were superstars, always recording and performing and promoted by record companies more than most.

During that period I acquired a number of  his Tchaikovsky recordings on record, listened to more thanks to the municipal library and the radio who'd have show playing recordings and even live concerts.

Recently I bought this 8 cd set that has many of his stereo recordings made for DG of Tchaikovsky's works that included a good number from those I owned but what is so good about this set is the six symphonies have a separate disc each to which overtures and other shorter pieces are added rather than being put together that often leads to two of them being split between cds which is a pain.

The 1972 disc of the Sleeping Beauty and Swan lake ballet suites that original came in their memorable silver foil lp jacket are joined by the 1967 Nutcracker Suite that originally coupled with Serenade For Strings as a single cd. 

Talking of which in this set they don't use that Serenade for Strings but the 1981 digital remake which is odd but it's very similar so the only real difference is improved inner detail.

The final disc has Christian Ferras's 1965 account of the violin concerto which is rather sentimental but one I loved at the time and the 'about-face' 1963 Richter performance of the piano concerto which always gave me the impression pianist and conductor were at odds with each other about how to play this piece.

The re-mastering for cd is completely new unlike some previous cd issues in the past with the sound in the 1812 Overture with the Don Cossack choir sung introduction sounding fuller.
While my tastes have moved on, this set is highly enjoyable for the performances and also for bringing back those childhood memories.

Xmas 2007

It wouldn't be a Christmas for me without my annuals so here's this years set for endless fun for me reading and doing the competitions in while the groan ups talk about stuff that really doesn't interest me.

And here's the other, The Dandy's that my Gran used to buy me copies of the regular comic of as a kid.

Desperate Dan is sat by his fire on the range singing folk songs with his horse.

Jacqueline Wilson is more my kind of authoress writing more for girls that works very well for little sissy gurls like me so this is so so up my alley.

I go out for Christmas lunch with mummy and daddy and siblings after meeting up locally so mummy gets a day off from cooking.

Judy Patrol Leader

The idea of leadership is one that interested me so characters in what I read around that topic always appealed to me.

This is quite an old book - my copy is from nineteen-seventy - and shows it but while not perhaps the best example of Girls fiction is one that does tackle that topic when Judy, who does to an all girls school becomes a leader of the Girl Guides section for the school and tells of her many adventures as Patrol Leader.

That's why although I grew up on more boy based stories I like this because the theme speaks to me and that there are lessons in it I can use.

Chobits

I liked this anime for a long time dealing as it does with technology and that age old question if you could fall in love with a robot in this case a persocom (personal computer in an human looking form) called Chi.

Unfortunately the first dvd set of it got from Ebay I discovered was a fake. It had been made on a computer from a official dvd issue but they had radically reduced the picture quality in an attempt to squeeze 12 episodes on a single sided one layer disc! The discs had inkjet printed labels and no case.

In total the used just three discs for the whole set!!!

Normally a PAL disc can take upt to 6 episodes on a dual layers.

Recently I have replaced it with the US official 4 dvd NTSC set  issued reissued and remastered which looks much better.

This is Chi who is a PersonCom