MarkW

A has-been flicker, more like. Who the hell told her she could sing?

Excuse the ignorance. But what is it Mark? It's a Zoom G3 multi effects unit and amp simulator - basically dozens of stomp boxes and amp sounds in a single unit. ">

The law now says you can't shoot anyone unless they really piss you off. I think they're quite strict on that point.

That looks like a nice tactical rifle sir. Similar to the one I want So....... you say fill with a scooba diving tank? I thought it had to be nitrogen in a PCP rifle not Oxygen......or is it nitrogen in a scooba tank? Not a clue It's a Gamo Phox, and it's been great! A standard scuba fill is filtered air, and is fine for an air rifle. You can get a nitrox fill if you've got the cert card, but I don't know why you'd bother - it's an expensive way to go about it.

I got one of these earlier in the year for getting rid of the rats in our warehouse: Since the ratties have been despatched my boys have been enjoying using it for hole-punching paper targets. A fill gives you about 70 shots before the accuracy starts to decline, then it's either a case of re-charging it using the stirrup pump or, if you're lazy like me and happen to have an old 15L scuba cylinder kicking around, you can fill the cylinder at the dive shop and pick up a charging whip for the rifle at the same time. [mention]cockercas[/mention] gave me loads of good advice when I was looking - maybe shoot him a PM (if you'll pardon the expression).

I've got one of these knocking around that I've been meaning to stick on EBay. He can have as many guitar sounds as he likes!

Actually, just thinking about bands with drummers wot I knows, here are three: I went to school with Laurie Jenkins and played in an orchestra or two with him back in the 1980s. He was Heather Nova's drummer on the early stuff, including this track - London Rain: "> My oldest school friend was Paul Murfin (sadly no longer with us and very much missed) who lays down some tasty stuff on Captain Yange's Calm Oceans: "> And just for [mention]Six30[/mention], as well as having played for Chantel McGregor, me old mucker Andy Mapp also plays for Sam Fox: ">

To be fair, her presents were a disappointment too: I struggled for ages with the Dyson Ball Vac, but they're just as clean after a shower. And as for the ultrasonic ring cleaner...

No takers for the Stu Hamm videos then? Perhaps all those aspiring bass players know they can get this guy for free. Watch him go full retard at 0.55... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=magl05aGplU Drugs: just say 'No' kids...

Woke up on Christmas morning and gave my wife the present she'd asked for. I thought she looked a bit surprised - turns out this is what she meant:

What's the one at the back? Cool colour!

Whilst we're doing festive pedantry, every time I hear Chris de Burgh's sodding Spaceman Came Travelling it makes me cross. Even if "'Twas lightyears of time since his mission did start" wasn't scientifically illiterate (a lightyear being a unit of distance, not time) it would still be a tautology. Lazy writing from the monobrowed purveyor of ultimate filth.

A few simple adjustments and a couple of easily user-replaceable parts tightened my old ZZR1200 up no end when I got it, just as Bob suggests. Then I swapped it for a Harley, and the belt drive was even smoother. Then I swapped that for the BMW, and the shaft drive is better still!

Well, the Christmas preparations are well underway in our house, and this year, for the first time ever, we are spending Christmas at home instead of travelling down to my brother’s house in Stoke. This departure from the normal routine is not entirely of our own choosing, since we were not actually invited to my brother’s house this Christmas after last year’s regrettable ‘brandy butter in the conservatory’ episode. My brandy butter is the stuff of legend, and is the only foodstuff that comes with a Safety Data Sheet and that requires a COSHH assessment before it can be served. The recipe is simplicity itself: chuck half a pound of butter in the food-mixer, turn it on full whack and add sugar until the motor starts to struggle. At this point you lubricate things by pouring in as much cognac as you can lay your hands on, and at least enough to make the resulting concoction a suitable substitute for Semtex. My view is that if you’re going to eat something this unhealthy you may as well go the whole hog, and in any case your ability to ingest it is self-limiting due to the loss of hand-eye coordination that follows after the second or third mouthful. Last year, as is the tradition, I took some of this fine material to my brother’s house for Christmas lunch. At this point I should explain that my brother and I have absolutely nothing in common, and are about as different as two people can be. He approaches life by controlling and compartmentalising it: before his son was born he had designated specific areas of the living room for various parental activities, and has a printout taped to his freezer with the location and expiry dates of every item in it; I approach life by embracing the fact that exciting stuff happens when chaos reigns, and so long as nobody dies or goes to prison the vast majority of things that life throws at us really aren’t worth worrying about. Unfortunately his in-laws are also very much of his mind-set, and are some of the most excruciatingly tedious people you can imagine having to spend Christmas day with: prim and proper - the sort that never explore beyond the ‘easy listening’ aisle and are haughtily contemptuous of anyone who doesn’t give the curtains a good clean every month. The obvious dangers of bringing two polar opposites together in close proximity are exacerbated by the fact that the filter between my brain and my mouth is prone to catastrophic failure, especially when my brain is being anaesthetised either by alcohol or by a pair of low-brow parochial bores - an effect we might for convenience term ‘yokel anaesthetic’. My wife has witnessed the lamentable outcome of this on innumerable occasions, and describes it as ‘Hunter S Thompson meets the Women’s Institute’. Anyway, last Christmas we finished lunch and decamped to the conservatory for pudding. My brother added a teaspoon of brandy to the pudding – “All things in moderation, dear boy” – and stood well back as he threatened it with a lit match. Dismal. Then the brandy butter was passed around. It reached his mother-in-law, who recoiled in horror and grimaced as she passed it on as though someone had handed her a turd in a bowl. “Not for you then, Janet?” I said. “Oh good gracious no. I’ve tried it a couple of times but it’s just too much for me – it makes my eyes water.” My mother, who is hard of hearing, caught what she had said but not what she was referring to, and asked me to tell her. And before I could stop myself I’d said it: “Anal sex.”

Funny - I always imaged Six30 was a bit older than that...

Steel Pulse - blimey! Got into them for a while in the 80s after Selwyn Brown appeared on an episode of Rock School!

The guitarist in my old band was her teacher in the early days, and another mate has played drums on a number of her tracks.

This year my wife and I have had the grand total of three days off when we took my mother to Bournemouth over Easter (so not exactly a holiday) and one day off for our wedding anniversary in July, which was sandwiched between client visits. It's been crap for our kids - they spent the summer at our offices, bored to tears - so we're off from yesterday until they go back to school on 8th January. Other people are in over the holidays, but not us for once!

Never mind the bands - I wish I'd seen the 1960s, especially in London or San Francisco! Everything back then looked so much more interesting than it does now - the music, the fashion, the design. I was looking through some old photographs of the places I've lived that were taken in the 60s and they all looked much nicer: loads of different independent shops rather than the homogenous identical high streets we have now, fewer cars, colourful flower beds instead of car parks or one-way systems, and a damn site fewer people. My mother isn't much comfort when I say that not having been born until the early 1970s makes me feel that I missed out on a unique time to be alive: "The 1960s were amazing. Everything nowadays is shite."

'Nursery Cryme' was one of the first albums I owned as a kid, which I got when I started high school. Having spent almost 11 years listening to my mother's music (Boney M, Leo Sayer, the Everly Brothers etc) it was a revelation! I completely lost interest in them after Peter Gabriel left though. I'll bet Motörhead were memorable: I only have two rock'n'roll claims to fame: one is that I know Jerry Scheff (bass player for Elvis, The Doors, John Denver, Bob Dylan etc) and the other is that I went to the same school as Lemmy.

Some cool stuff there! Would love to have seen BB King, SRV and Led Zep. I'd also like to have seen The Who before Keith Moon was unable to make it through 'Won't Get Fooled Again' without passing out on his kit.

Believe it or not, my kids were listening to 'Cars' on YouTube when your post appeared!

I'm also pretty jealous of my wife, who saw Primus back in the day. "Jerry was a racecar driver..." On the other hand, I'm glad she'd got most of the cock-rock gigs out of her system before we met. Skid Row, FFS...

bast*rd!