MarkW

I have seen them. For me, it began one lost night on a lonely country road, looking for a shortcut that I never found. It began with a closed deserted diner, and a man too long without sleep to continue my journey. It began with the landing of a craft from another galaxy. Now I know that the Invaders are here, that they have tak... ...Oh hang on, I'm getting confused...

That's a better version that the Keanu Reeves one! Very true! Even my kids prefer the original.

I was watching the original 1951 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still with my kids today, and my eldest asked what else Michael Rennie (who plays the alien Klaatu) had been in. I did a quick google search to find out and discovered that he's buried at Harlow Hill Cemetry in town! Small world.

Oh yes. I took the boys to Duxford last year on our way back from a week in Suffolk. My eldest (then 6) was fascinated by the land warfare exhibit, and particularly by a soldier in full face paint hiding in the jungle. He studied it closely for a few minutes, then solemnly turned to the handful of OAPs behind us and said "Never go full retard." I tell you, if the floor could have opened and swallowed me up...

Cheers Neil - I was wondering what to do with them this weekend and that sounds perfect!

I think it must be a bit painful: when my first child was born my wife squeezed my hand so hard it got quite uncomfortable. I don't know what she was thinking...

Most of my basses are 5-string, which I use 90% of the time, but I do switch back to my 4-string Precision and Sterling basses every now and then with no problems. I had a Warwick 6-string for a while too, but it was completely beyond me so I sold it last year to buy the Stingray. Anyway, apologies for derailing your thread Mr B - I'll behave myself from now on.

Yeah, you're right. I was just a bit reluctant 'cos it's been in their workshop more than in my garage over the last 6 weeks!

Thanks fellas!

I've not been having much luck with the bike recently. I took it in for an MOT a couple of weeks ago and had them do a service and replace the head bearings at the same time. When I picked it up the steering was completely transformed, and it goes round corners almost telepathically. Unfortunately the front brakes were lethally bad, with no stopping power at all until the lever was almost back to the bar, and then what braking force there was all came at once. I took it back last week, and the problem was tracked down to the generic seals, which were duly replaced with Kawasaki ones. Bingo - when I picked the bike up this mornirng the front brakes are now back to being razor sharp. Unfortunately the last couple of miles home were accompanied by a steady stream of black smoke from behind the front fairing. I stopped to investigate, and found this part resting on the exhaust manifold and rapidly melting itself onto the downpipes. It practically fell out when I prodded it, and you can clearly see where it has been resting on the hot pipes. But what is it, and do I need it? It looks like some sort of baffle to me, but I'm guessing it can't be heat shielding because it's plastic. If it's important I'll take it back for repair, but if it isn't I'll bin it and carry on riding while the sun's shining!

Brilliantly: plenty of punchy Stingray growl, and with 1200 trouser-flapping watts on tap I can instantly punish our guitarist at the first sign of any of his widdly-widdly nonsense.

Nope, haven't understood a word of this so far, and nothing to add as I'm a life-long non-smoker. But in the interests of completely esoteric information, I'm currently running a MusicMan Stingray 5 through a Trace Elliot AH1200-12 head into a 1015H cab at 4 ohms with a separate 4052H Brightbox.

Today is the last day of our annual three day gig in the Black Sheep Brewery tent at the Great Yorkshire Show. Yesterday was the usual Wednesday carnage that comes from serving strong beer all day to a tent full of people who combine the twin dangers of great physical strength and extremely low intelligence: there were several fights (a friend who works in the local A&E said they had 25 admissions within the space of two hours, including a bloke who had managed to lose most of the skin off his forehead and both his eyebrows in a punch-up), numerous stage invasions (my favourite being a couple of paralytic women who seemed to be trying to mate with our keyboard player mid-song), and a hefty dose of agricultural-grade lesbianism aimed at our female singer. She took it in good spirit, and although she said there were no tongues involved in the kissing I'm not so sure. Let's see what today brings!

One of the best photos of me as a youngster was taken by a bloke who lived down the road who turned out to be a massive paedo. On the positive side, all the families on our street had great photos of their kids.

I know what you mean: my first job was in Haverhill (on Homefield Business Park). I remember being shown a rental property there by the estate agent, and there was a bullet hole in the living room window! We took a house in Bury St Edmunds instead.

Left the house this morning to take the kids to Yorkshire Wildlife Park, pulled the door shut and realised I'd got the office keys in my hand instead of the house keys. Not wanting to disappoint the boys I told my wife to take them to the park whilst I waited for a locksmith. Two hours and £90 later I was back in the house, and had to spend the rest of the day replacing the glazing bars he'd had to cut out to get at the keys that were dangling from the lock inside. The only positive is that if a professional locksmith with a bag of picks couldn't open either of our doors the house is probably pretty secure.

That's a problem lots of my friends have: they've made their hobby their job and ended up hating the hobby. I'm fortunate in that I'm not good enough at any of my hobbies to be tempted to try making a living from them! I have looked at the DSLR IR conversion, and some seem far more suitable than others. At the moment I'm using a filter on my X100S which seems to be working really well, but I'm not sure which DSLR would be the best candidate for surgery: I read somewhere that Canon aren't suitable. What would you recommend?

I'm pretty much 50:50 film and digital now. I went fully digital about ten years ago, but there was something about analogue photography that I really missed, so last year I resurrected all my old gear. I'm not one of these who thinks film is better though: image quality from digital cameras is now so good that to my mind the only reason to go analogue is the enjoyment of the process, which is why I do it. And kids think it's magic! I'm also shooting loads of digital infrared at the moment, which I'm really enjoying. I'm a crap photographer, but it's fun.

...mixed in the right proportions makes a very good developer for black & white film. My two boys were bored this evening so I raided the cupboards, and now they think I'm a magician!

Don't use a massive needle then.

Cameron is leaving, and there's to be a vote of no confidence in Corbyn. So not a completely disastrous day then

Well I must say it's all going swimmingly so far...

You must have that wrong: I'm sure it was only a few days ago that Michael Gove dismissed fears that the pound could drop as far as it did in 1992 if we vote to leave...

OK, on one hand the pound has just hit a 31 year low now Brexit seems likely, but on the other, Senior Labour MP Chris Bryant has said he'd like to punch Ed Miliband "because he's a tosspot." Swings and roundabouts...

JUST OVERHEARD THIS PHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN OUR STUDY DIRECTOR AND HER HUSBAND: Can you pick my mum up and take her to the polling station?... Because she wants to go and vote, why do you think?... The polling station? It's where it always is - at the Spiritualist Church... What do you mean 'Won't they already know how she's going to vote'?... Look, just for once in your life do as you're told and stop being such a f**king bellend.