tauzero

Indeed, and my suggestion elsewhere of a multimeter between the battery and the clip wouldn't show up battery drain if it only happens when the preamp is in situ. I think you could detect that with a multimeter and a stereo jack plug by checking the resistance between ring and sleeve, which should be open circuit (have been trying to work out if you could have a situation where the preamp powers up with ground and battery negative not connected to each other, and I don't think you can but ICBW).

McMillen Batt-O-Meter. Tells you what the battery voltage is under load. https://www.thomann.co.uk/keith_mcmillen_batt_o_meter.htm

If you have a multimeter, you could check to see if there's still a current drain when the jack plug is disconnected. Just unclip one side of the battery and connect the multimeter, on a low current range, between battery and clip.

That's a very bijou settee.

I would say the chrome. The walnut is attractive in isolation but seems to conflict with the bass body when they're put together. I can't explain why though.

I had a Vester Clipper that had been defretted - the Warwick copy (not exactly a faithful reproduction).

The bit in the earlier video when the nauseating couple were banging on about moving to LA and being in the Tesla and waving some toxic energy drink around was truly horrendous. Sadly, this is the dreadful world that social media has brought us to, and these parasites will grow undeservedly rich from it.

Here's the grille I've got - perforated aluminium sheet, 10mm holes, with the speaker on top to give a good idea of scale.

It's certainly in COBOL - COMPUTE statement. IIRC it's also in FORTRAN although it's 55 years since I used that. BASIC used ^.

Also can be notated as x**2 (which has strangely moved the asterisks so they aren't level with each other).

Mrs Zero and I do the Eva Cassidy version of Time After Time.

Got there after a 90 minute drive. Walked in with bass and speaker stands, and the landlord said "who are you?". "Dirty Roses". "Oh, really sorry, I've double booked you. I'll pay you all the same". So home we all went (not so far for the guitarist and singer, a bit further for the drummer). At least I didn't have to carry all the gear in and out with a gouty foot. But Mrs Zero and Sub Zero had gone out for the evening to celebrate their birthdays (one day apart, 65 and 30 respectively) and I could have joined them, or we could have taken up a panicky last-minute request for a band from a place two miles from my house. Oh well.

Jamerson yes, Carol Kaye no.

Last night was a curate's egg of a gig for Dirty Roses. The venue was the Old Court, King's Heath, Birmingham. It's on a busy road, with a residential street of tightly packed terraced houses by the side of it, so parking was a nightmare. I managed to squeeze in by the pub, making use of Mrs Zero's blue badge (Mrs Zero was with me, I wouldn't use it illegally). Went in and was "greeted" by the most miserable looking and unwelcoming barmaid I've seen in my life, who led me to the doors through which I was to load in. I've just had a flare up of gout in my right foot, so it was rather painful bringing everything in - this is the band I do the PA for so there were numerous trips to the car. While I was doing that, Mrs Zero asked about moving the furniture out of the way, to which the miserable harridan replied that it was busy (there were five people in the pub plus us) and there were only two of them on, so we'd have to move the furniture. The singer arrived and he and Mrs Zero moved the furniture while I was loading in, then the guitarist arrived. We'd got pretty much set up by the time the drummer arrived - I was still rigging the PA so the others helped bringing in the kit. Anyroadup, we had a fair bit of space, and a whole one mains socket each side of the appointed area. There was a bit of response from one somewhat enthusiastic woman and what I presume was her equally enthusiastic daughter, but as the evening went on we got more and more of them moving and singing along. At one point in the second set we have a choice of two songs depending on reading the room, and we went for Time Warp - a good choice. The WAGs did their duty and led the calls for more. Oh, and the big TV behind us? They left the bastard thing on all night. There was another (younger and friendlier) barmaid who told us afterwards that we'd gone down really well, and then asked us to put the furniture back. We loaded up and then buggered off - we shouldn't have had to move the furniture in the first place, and we CBA to move it back too. So it's somewhere we never want to go back to, though the gig itself was good.

We have been a purportedly metric country since 1963. There really isn't any excuse for hanging on to imperial measurements (the very last vestige of British empire), only officially used by three pretty much third world countries - Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.