October 2007 Issue

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Apologies

We are sorry that the last meeting turned out to be a non starter. A few of us arrived at Cantell only to be told that our room was in use and that no other room was available. Apparently it was Open Day for the school but no one had bothered to tell us.

This has happened before and we think that it is very bad organising on the part of Cantell. We have a standard regular booking and we at least could be told when we are unable to have the room. We are very sorry but as you see, it was not our fault.

I know that I keep repeating the same subject but as you all know, I have spent my life collecting gramophone records and have progressed through all the modern advances in both sound and vision.

I used to comb church jumble sales, boot sales and any other type of sale where I might find a particular recording. My hobby was partially destroyed when records went out and CD's came in. I must have spent a small fortune over the years trying to obtain the complete recordings of various artists. Frustrating at times but on the whole most absorbing and great fun. I have made many friends over the years with the same interest. There was great excitement when someone discovered a track that had not been available for years and we were able to add it to our collections. A friend and I would go miles to meet some radio presenter who would give a talk and sometimes put us in touch with someone who might have been able to supply a sought after track. As I say, frustrating but most absorbing - That was our hobby!

Alas no more, to a large extent our hobby has been ruined. You can pick up practically anything you want on the internet. We would often buy a gramophone record or later a CD just to get one track to add to our collection. Expensive but we would buy it with great satisfaction.

I have hundreds of gramophone records stored under my house, both 78 and 33 1/3 rpm (sorry I couldn't find a symbol for a third). I don't know what I am

going to do with them but someone else had solved the problem the other day. I was at the council tip and someone had thrown away about a couple of hundred long play records of accordion music. Not my cup of tea but obviously they had been someone's collection. They were all in mint condition and you could pick what you liked for 50p each or have the whole lot for £10. Very sad.

The same can be said of video recordings. I have spent a small fortune on them only to have had them made obsolete by DVD's. Again I have spent years trying to collect particular films only to find that they are now being shown on one or other of the many television channels but often in the middle of the night or when I am away. True you could set up to record in your absence but if there were two films that you wanted to record - hard luck.

I have now purchased a new SKY "Anytime" recorder so I am able to select several films in my absence and later transfer them to DVD via my computer.

Yet again photography was a hobby of mine. Years ago I used to develop my own films in a darkened room. Very inconvenient for the family but again great fun. Then 35mm film came along and it was easier and cheaper to have photo's printed or to have slides made. In the last few years, with a digital camera, I have printed my own photo's and sent them to relatives abroad (I know I could have sent them as attachments to emails). This was alright but a bit expensive. My teenage granddaughter recently presented me with a CD of hundreds of professionally produced photos which she bought at Asda for 99p. I was absolutely amazed at the value. A nice CD presented in a folder with miniature prints of all the photographs. I have just come back from town where I saw a poster in a photographic shop offering the same service for 50p.

Where will it all end? My grandchildren, who once thought I was wonderful to be able to do these things on my computer, are now way ahead of me. But, I wonder, do they get the same fun and satisfaction that I have enjoyed with my hobbies over the years? I think not. They don't have half my knowledge but they don't need it and they get better results. (sometimes!)