Schubert dip

One thing I do a lot of especially if I haven't been good is play a lot of music as it is routed in childhood and has a very soothing regressive quality with me   and I have been playing these two sets a lot over this period I haven't been too good in myself.

Originally I had  a set of cds on Naxos bought bought several years back this classic set of performances.

Karl Bohm bring so much more out from the score it's unbelievable.

The Melos's performances are much better than the original cds I had and this set is more complete for good measure.
When I look at recordings what I look at is something that will hold up for several years rather than some new revolutionary account whose approach loses favour and the Melos I find is timeless.
I hadn't mentioned them here before and I thought this is a good opportunity to bring my entries up to date.

Christmas musings

Christmas bring back memories of past Christmas's such as the "wrong" presents from relatives who ignored what they know for sticking at what stereotypically boys wanted or the right presents that couldn't be mentioned and had to be hidden from visitors.

What I'd of given for having the sort of clothes and toys I'd like not just around but to had been photographed for the family album in as that feminine boy able to wear a dress around family.

I was always hyper affectionate, making a bee line to hug and stroke pets wanting to give and receive hugs but that was frowned on at the time.

I just adore animals.

Recentring

 

It's the start of the morning here so I thought I'd  make a bit of a start on this weeks entry working through the various things on my mind.

I think the first thing to say is I feel more vulnerable emotionally today than I have for a good many years between the feelings brought out from the previous week, the never ending inter communal supremely childish discourse on Tumblr losing a couple of followers, having a remove and I'm blocking you for being in the "wrong" community as defined by them order and having our age regression  questioned by an exclusive group of ...age regressors!

Toss in the English FA youth soccer investigation into abuse by a man who lived but 100 yards away from me from whose face I can still recall with a shudder and you get the picture,eh?

I just feel very much in need of a hair rustling and a hug, just to know everything will be okay and in fact I'll just colour and play with my stuffies I think cos that'll help recentre me to a point I feel good rather like the "Restore" point on a Windows computer helps when the software don't work right you restore the operating system to a earlier point where it does!

Looking out watching the snowfall during the Winter months was always a thing I loved doing the Winter months as the intensity of the bluey-white snow was just so intoxicating, as you saw it fall mounds that later on you would make into snowmen or have playful  snowball fights with.

That's what I really need now.

Sharing the magic of the season, learning to embrace it's possibilities when suitably attired (snow pants anyone?) the zest for a positive approach for life can be nurtured

That for me always was and is where age regression was at rather than anything really adult and why generally things had been running that much better for me over the last few years cos I worked more with what's right for me rather than performing an act of impersonating others and falling badly when the real life developmental issues plowed into reality, leaving me an emotional mess.

I may not be around some sites as much as had but I think this is really what I need is to switch off from all that adult negativity.

Remaking the Pink Floyd Collection

Recently Pink Floyd Records, the groups own label have started a new vinyl record campaign with newly cut versions of their albums.

This suited me as I had over the years lost a number of my Pink Floyd lps so here's a little about my collection.

Meddle released in late 1971 was an example of an album with a main work spread over one side and shorter pieces on the other.

My copy is a original Canadian one I bought from a friend.

My older brother had a copy of Obscured By Clouds from 1972 which broke the Pink Floyd on American FM stereo radio and I recently bought this 1978 copy and cleaned it using the clean I wrote about.

Dark Side of The Moon is the 1973 multi-platinum selling album, home of the track Money, often played at hifi shows that came with stickers and two posters.

My late 80's copy got it's jacket clawed so I bought this 2016 new copy which sounds just great.

Wish You Were Here from 1975 was an album I borrowed a lot, and is really about how the music business exploits musicians and I bought this for the first time on vinyl a month ago in this 2016 edition.

Animals, the 1977 album looks at conformity, small town small mindedness and how societys values are shaped by those who run it.

I did have this on record in the early 80's but lthat went so I bought this newly cut version that came out last month.

The Wall was a massive seller looking at the effects of losing a father during WW2, the way some schools abused any child who had a genuine spirit, how playing in a band location to location for months on end takes its toll on the mental well-being of stars.

This is the first vinyl copy I have owned and is this years newly mastered version which sounds most vivid.

The "Barney" Mysteries

The old adage "You can't but a good book down would seem to apply around these parts of late  as some more new to me books by Enid Blyton arrived recently.

These copies are actually editions from the very early nineteen-seventies where while still in hardback form they have been cheapened by printing the frontispiece and spine direct to the jacket and missing off the rear of what would of been the back of the paper dust jacket the original hardbacks had.

 There are six novels in this series of mystery adventures that feature Rodger and Diana Lynton and their cousin Peter, orphaned, who goes under the name "Subby" in the series and his dog Laddie who are also joined by Barney an motherless circus boy who has been on a quest to find his absent father and who has a money called Miranda.

The "Barney Mysteries" is the title these usually are grouped under although some use "R Mysteries" with the "R" coming from the R in the names of all the titles.
The children visit sleepy villages and seaside towns that it transpires are riddled with intrigue and it's that they look into.

One of the strengths of this series is the stories are full of atmosphere and good humour, the strong characterization making for much more depth  than most of her work and more sophisticated language that made it the only series Enid herself recommended just for those of eleven years and upward being very suitable for boys like me.

Away day schooling

 It's a bit of a while since I wrote anything around the re-creation of schooling a form of words I'm now a bit more for as "school based role play" for me implies in part I am role playing the child at school and with me this whole whole thing is more like I have that child running 24/7 in me.

Effectively you've created a school with all the things I recall of my education that I just attend.

One of the things I did involved having a math  lesson taught to me by a person being  a teacher doing what was called "chalk and talk" where they would talk away but write important concepts and any questions on the chalkboard for you to do.

For my part I was dressed in a traditional black tunic (Brit speak: "Gymslip") with tie and school socks as they prefer me in feminine boy attire at a equally traditional wooden desk with a  hole for in, grooves for your pens and a lift up slightly sloped lid that before flat "Go-Pak" stacking school furniture such as tables became popular you had together with matching wooden chairs with an S shape bottom.

Like most I was taught metric units as my home country went metric during this period  although for somethings imperial never went away like road distances and part of this lesson covered an introduction to Imperial weights and measures that I had to sit and write down from the chalkboard including the questions set on each unit.

This covered ounces, pounds, stones, hundred-weights  and tones when it came to Mass, inches, feet, yards, cubits, chains and miles in linear measurement.

I also had set some multiplication and division work too that I had to copy, answering all the questions.

The work from the point of view of presentation, neatness of writing and showing of workings out was examined in addition to marking the answers to questions set and my attitude toward studying.

My work was then written on in red pen.

Overall I hadn't done too badly but I had made a few mistakes down to not being as careful as I should of been as when asked to show how I got the answer where I had made mistakes, I did get it right first time so it wasn't a question of not knowing or comprehending.

Because it was that and nothing to do with my actual learning limitations which are NEVER a reason to, I was instructed to bend over the desk at each unit where this had occurred to be spanked either by hand with a slipper or for one which was more around not paying sufficient attention to the work, the tawse.

This needless to say did hurt persisting for some time but to be honest, it is what lead to it that really is more the problem: I don't take the care I could to produce work that limitations aside I am actually capable of, that reflect my abilities rather than my disabilities.

In that sense what might in the past of been called "school based role playing" has real benefits in helping to change because it identifies in real-life situations those attitudes and behaviours that need correcting and delivers the lessons that in all honesty people who were less centred around the dis in my disabilities excusing me and more on abilities and training me to use them properly in same way my peers were really should of done.

For me then this bit of the weekend away was really beneficial.

Think pink

 

The Pink Panther was a childhood favourite of mine both in the Cartoons made during the sixties that I saw as a child and also the Peter  Blake directed movies staring Peter Sellers as the hapless inspector on the case.

I collected a lot of merchandise as a child such as plushies, notepads, toys and calendars and bought Pink Panther themed bubble bath so you could say it was an obsession of mine. 

The fascination with pink or plushies didn't end at the Pink Panther they went into Hello Kitty, pink dresses and panties as while the seventies turned into the eighties I explored my sissiness.