Hello from Staffordshire

[KC Jones]

Hello Art Of Sound .

I have been aware of your site for the past couple of months and have been occasionally viewing as a guest and thought it was time to join. I was made aware of this site from the WD forum of which I am a member. The reason for my joining is, I have owned a Technics SL1210 for a couple of years and are gradually going down a mod route, so this seemed the site to be.

My other kit also being gradually assembled is mainly World Designs stuff- Phono3, Pre3. I have no CD player, Power amp, or speakers yet, and have never heard my Technics, strange or what?

Cheers

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Kevin

Welcome to AOS :)

Enjoy the forum and have fun.


Regards D S D L

[chris@panteg]

Hi Kevin and welcome

So no speakers ! so everything is in storage ?

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hi Kevin,
Surely you can get something together to act as a stop-gap?
Gawd - do something quick, or you might forget what music is for!!!!

Welcome to the Art of Sound!

[KC Jones]

Nothing in storage I'm afraid, should get it together towards the end of August.

In the meantime a very cheap 'off the shelf' provides the sound.

Also the music room isn't quite ready yet, Its full of junk to be removed to the shed, which is currently having the base laid so I can erect it, and so on and on, and on, you have to swallow the spider to catch the fly, Perhaps not the best analogy, but you get the gist.

[Steve Toy]

Staffordshire. You live close by.

[KC Jones]

Stafford to be more precise, nothing much going for it, but Staffs and Shropshire border corridor down to worcester is one of the country's best kept secrets; undiscovered by footy players (no decent teams over here, well maybe the mighty Stafford Rangers and Stoke?!) and them folk from down south looking for cheap getaways.

Its a bit thin on the ground for HiFi dealers and off the curcuit for most bands/concerts. Spent the last 5 years working in Sheffield, so I was spoilt for bands and good times up there.

Anyway now back to the reality that is Staff.

[Marco]

Hi Kevin,

Steve lives very close by and may have picked you up in his Taxi - do you use taxis much? :)

I agree about Staffs (at least what I've seen of it); it comes across to me as a rather 'dour' area, although Steve (and perhaps you) may have a different opinion on this.

The only reason I'd ever want to go there is to visit Steve.

Marco.

[Steve Toy]

Unless he's had reason to head to where I live he wouldn't have been in my taxi.

I used to be a customer of what is now Music Matters at the end of the Wolverhampton Road, formerly known as Acoustica.

The best parts of Staffordshire are the Moorlands (in the Peak District), East Staffordshire District and Lichfield. I live near Cannock Chase which isn't an "area of outstanding natural beauty" at all. It is a 25 square-mile wasteland where nothing grows due to stony soil other than man-made coniferous forest where all the trees away from the road side resemble a military parade ground and the bloody place has become overpopulated with deer in recent years to the extent that some insurers won't give me cover for my taxi. :( I'd shoot at least three quarters of them!

[Marco]

Unless he's had reason to head to where I live he wouldn't have been in my taxi.


What about when you worked for your last company based in Cannock? :)

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

It is a 25 square-mile wasteland where nothing grows due to stony soil other than man-made coniferous forest where all the trees away from the road side resemble a military parade ground and the bloody place has become overpopulated with deer in recent years to the extent that some insurers won't give me cover for my taxi. :( I'd shoot at least three quarters of them!

Funny how people in the UK hate to see coniferous forest, but conversely they almost universally love, and need to use wood in so many aspects of their lives. You never see that same attitude with regard to other crops like fields of barley or cabbages.
Everywhere else in the world all types of woodland are seen as a valuable resource.


Apart from that Steve, I have some very good venison recipes that you could try!

[Steve Toy]

Chris, I have no issue with Cannock Chase being used to grow trees for wood. I'm just fed up with it being treated as a sacred wilderness because it bloody well isn't.

I do like venison but I'd rather not be hunting it with the front of my car. The Forestry Commission have a duty of care to manage the area. That means not allowing the deer population to get so far out of control they are sometimes roaming the streets and eating plants in our gardens!

In 1995 there were about 900 of them. Now there are approximately 3500. Why did that happen and who allowed it to? :mad:

[Steve Toy]

What about when you worked for your last company based in Cannock? :)

Marco.

Cannock is even further away from Stafford than where I live which is 8 miles away.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Chris, I have no issue with Cannock Chase being used to grow trees for wood. I'm just fed up with it being treated as a sacred wilderness because it bloody well isn't.

I do like venison but I'd rather not be hunting it with the front of my car. The Forestry Commission have a duty of care to manage the area. That means not allowing the deer population to get so far out of control they are sometimes roaming the streets and eating plants in our gardens!

In 1995 theere were about 900 of them. Now there are approximately 3500. Why did that happen and who allowed it to? :mad:

Hi Steve,
My first point was just me thinking aloud about a uniquely British phenomena rather than a dig at you, sorry if it came across that way.

Regarding the deer population, the increase in numbers you refer to is mainly, I believe, due to the Foot & Mouth outbreak, where deerstalking was not allowed, because the countryside was essentially closed for the duration. This allowed the numbers to get away & they've been on the rise ever since. The responsible management of deer is one of my particular interests as someone who's work is often eaten by them! Well organised annual culls are focussed on the females in order to keep the breeding potential down to a healthy figure. By healthy, I mean healthy for the deer population in order that they have a sustainable source of food and that weak animals are removed in a way that is compatible with a natural habitat that contains predators. Trophy hunting is as carried out in other countries is barely compatible with this philosophy.
Having said all that, the Forestry Commission, who own & manage Cannock, have a pretty good record for effective deer management. (I don't work for them, by the way!)

[KC Jones]

Yea I'd shoot three quarters of them too, what we talking about, Deer, locals, taxi drivers?

Occasionally popped into Accoustica come Music Matters in the past. You ever been throgh the chase to the 'tacaroo'?

Still say West Staffs is a beauty. A quick blast of some music, then goodnight, and thanks for the welcome parlez.

[Steve Toy]

what we talking about, Deer, locals, taxi drivers?

All three.

Deer - my insurance premiums may come down and I can then drive faster across the Chase without feeling paranoid.

Locals - the indigenous population of Stafford have to be the most miserable, antisocial cnuts I've come across anywhere on my travels and they're only 8 miles away. I believe even Dickens commented on their inhospitable attitude. There are exceptions of course.

Taxi drivers - less competition ;)


You ever been throgh the chase to the 'tacaroo'?



That dodgy pub on the Brindley Heath end of Hednesford that hosts tribute bands or the campsite near the rifle ranges?

[KC Jones]

Yea thats the one, the dodgy club with the tribute bands, had a good night at 'Fred Zeppelin' there a while back with a mate from Rug, its a stunner over there, the more local/ rough the place is the more it makes me laugh.:lol:

If you think Stafford is bad, you want to try Wellingborough - or not, on my way over there in a few hours for work, to earn money to buy amp to listen to music.. Ah just remembered what this forum is about.

Cheers Steve, I'll book a ride next time i'm stuck.

[Steve Toy]

I used to live in Kettering. I remember Wellingborough because some of the pupils from the school I used to teach at lived there. It is also half way to Northanmpton.

[Alex_UK]

I was born in Northampton, lived in Rushden 'til I was 8 and my Granny lived in Wellingborough... I don't have fond memories!

[halvis]

I'm originally from The Wood (Burntwood), which is just the other side of The Nock (Cannock) from Stafford. I can't think of a shortened word for Stafford, but you have to shorten everything in The Wood, cos its far too much effort man to say the whole word. We are too posh to pronounce our H's as well.

The chase is great and infact a mountain biking mecca. I remember the shop in Stafford alright, I think they used to sell Creek and Rega, don't think I bought much from there though.

Great driving roads around that part of the midlands, once you get well west of the Black Country. If I remember rightly, the A448 between Bridgenorth and Kidderminster in something mildly quick is most enjoyable.

[Steve Toy]

I live in Rug (pronounced rudge not the floor-lying room acoustic treatment device.) Thus there is a group of towns shortened to one syllable, some carrying the definite article and some not depending on whether the last or first syllable is taken:-

The Nock

The Wood

Rug (Rugeley)

Lich (Lichfield.)

Nearby a bit further South and East we have the O-suffix replacing the last syllable family:

The head is Wolvo (Wolverhampton) and his little brothers are:-

Blocko (Bloxwich)
Penko (Penkridge)
Darlo (Darlaston)
and
Fetho (Featherstone).

[halvis]

My wife (not from the area) was most impressed (not) when she found out we even shortened my mates name Steve to Ste.

[Steve Toy]

Indeed names do get shortened in Southern Staffs and the part of West Mids that used to be in Staffs.

However, not content with leaving certain monosyllabic words alone either, they actually become lengthened to two syllables. Examples being words that rhyme with cow although oddly, cow itself remains monosyllabic:-

Pewand (pound)

"Yam gorra pewand futha parkin'?" (Have you got a pound for the pay-and-display machine?)

Dewan (down)

"Yam goowin dewan The Nock furra poyint?" (Are you going into Cannock for a beer?)

"Aah, it's moy rewand!"

Note the above language is widely spoken in The Nock and the O-suffixes but less so in The Wood and not at all in Rug or Lich. Lich is too posh and Rug has a more Northern/non-Yam Yam parlance.

[KC Jones]

Further up north staffs they drop and add to words, just to mak things more akward. There is Sto (Stone), Eccy (Eccleshall) Up 'anley duck (Hanley-Stoke)

I used to see a bird from Blocko, who had moved to Sto, we often went Up 'anley duck forra poyint and it was always moy rewand.

[Steve Toy]

In Rug the younger locals try to create a point of grammar that exists in virtually every other language apart from English - the second person plural:-

"Yous two, packitin willya!"

"Don't argue wivim. 'Es me bruvva!"

[Barry]

In Rug the younger locals try to create a point of grammar that exists in virtually every other language apart from English - the second person plural:-

"Yous two, packitin willya!"

"Don't argue wivim. 'Es me bruvva!"

In modern parlance you are quite correct, but there used to be a distinction between the second person singular and plural: 'thou' (or 'thee') and 'you'.

Regards

[Steve Toy]

Indeed. I believe it was around the Restoration at the start of the 18th Century that the second person singular began to disappear and had done in William Congreve's plays at that time.

[KC Jones]

The West midlands tongue is the purest to old English, or so they say, and is the closest to diaogue spoken in act by shakespear- 'wherefore art thou Romeo' - still used to this day in the Black Country - 'wherefore am thou Gavin'. It is said, William Shakespear was infact born and bred in Upper Gornal and not Stratford!

[aquapiranha]

Hi Kevin. Nothing wrong with Staffordshire. Welcome.

[KC Jones]

The wonderful Wirral indeed, another one of UK's best kept secrets, definately the best Fish and Chips to be had in the world are at Parkgate, forget Harry Ramsdens. Followed by an Icecream from...? and a pint at the pub at the top corner. Happy Days.

Kevin.

[aquapiranha]

The wonderful Wirral indeed, another one of UK's best kept secrets, definately the best Fish and Chips to be had in the world are at Parkgate, forget Harry Ramsdens. Followed by an Icecream from...? and a pint at the pub at the top corner. Happy Days.

Kevin.

Haha! I am told the chippy there is first class as is the ice cream. The pub at the far end is the Boathouse, I assume
you mean that one? I have taken a freind and her kids there several times, they love it.

[DSJR]

I used to stay in the Wirral several times a year in my youth (I had an aunt in Bebington) and knew it well.. My Mother lived in New Brighton in the 30's (when it was a proper resort) although by the 60's it was a bit run down. Neston and Parkgate were lovely as I remember..