tauzero

I've been a programmer for 45 years, man and boy. Which I have been enjoying less and less over the last three jobs [1]. In a career punctuated with redundancies, I have also been a motorcycle courier a couple of times when between jobs. [1] Two jobs ago: freedom and pet projects. One job ago: a degree of freedom and standards I could go along with. Current job: no freedom, truly dreadful standards of the sort that made Djikstra say that the teaching of COBOL should be a crime. But the people are nice and I'm going to learn C#.

Seems more accurate than https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 which seems to have wildly inaccurate figures for the UK (for anyone who couldn't be bothered to scroll down, it's 3 - that's 3 cases, not 3 deaths).

BoJo didn't know his address so they couldn't.

A little more progress on my build. After carefully leaving the top panel off till I'd done the felt, I put the top panel on, then realised I hadn't done the felt. Bah. Still, managed to get it done fairly easily. Left to do - sanding and filling, shaping edges, paint front panel, Tuffcab the rest, put it all together.

Mine will be black. As my shed is waterlogged (I think there's an issue with the felt on the roof but haven't had a chance to check yet) and the garage is full of bikes, I took advantage of Mrs Zero's absence last weekend to do some glueing and clamping. I now have a topless cab with port and crossover fitted - next stage (this weekend when I can either put a bike on the drive or paint outside) is primer in the port and rattlecan matt black paint on the inside in and behind the port, then put the top on, stick battens on, paint the front, and felt it up. I think that means sanding and filling will be next week, then the Tuffcab stage will be the following weekend. Then gigging it the weekend after that, with luck. A note to anyone thinking of a Roqsolid cover - they've got a 10% off sale until the end of January, as I've just found out.

Oh yes. Packed dance floor and got told we were the best band ever to play there by a few people.

Took a couple of photos from on stage while hammering out the notes, so they were rather blurry. You can see our fans wearing the T-shirts though. Ticket only do and the first time we'd played there. Apparently the landlady was concerned that we wouldn't be enough of a party band.

Just had a listen to it. Rather good, it was, perhaps a bit dodgy around the chorus where the harmonies didn't quite seem to work. I'm surprised that none of the pitch-perfect BC members noticed the out of tune guitar though. They'd have sounded a bit better with an acoustic guitar or at least an acoustic emulator, Billy Bragg can get away with it but it didn't suit their vocal style so much.

We do mainly 80s, with a fair bit of ska and reggae in the mix. So our first song is always "Space Oddity", which is from the 60s unlike anything else we do and is also the song with the most chords in.

Buggles and "Video killed the radio star". Eludes the Guinness records as there was a subsequent number 16 and a couple in the low 30s. I was going to suggest Sonique and "It feels so good" but a quick bit of research showed that the single after that hit number 2.

The lyrics make a lot of sense when you consider what it's about. The sleeping satellite is the Moon. I shall leave it to the reader to research the relationship (for example) of the eagle. Owen Paul didn't quite hit number one with "My Favourite Waste of Time" (got to number 3) but didn't do much subsequently.

Speaking as one who made the transition 45 years ago, I'd say that if you play (say) A B C D by moving your index finger up three times from the 5th fret rather than playing either open 2 3 open or 5 7 8 5next string, you've come from guitar and you're effectively doing barre chords. I started playing guitar classically, then went on to play with a plectrum, and when I took up bass, used my fingers. I have occasionally played with a plectrum, and when I play guitar, I play finger picking or plectrum as required. Due to the carpal bone of my right index finger being broken when I was beaten up 40 years ago and not being set properly, my forefinger and middle finger are a bit out of line and that (even now) makes even picking tricky, so for what would normally be fast alternating picking, I may use a plectrum instead.

Revolution by the Beatles. A few driving seconds, then drop to dirge mode.

"The Begotten"

In honour of the late great Clive James, "Black Funk Rex".

Ancient Beetles. Hmm, has a certain ring to it.

One local band from a few decades ago was "Emma Gibbs loves badges", which was the headline to an item in the local paper. One band I was in was looking for a name, and the keyboard player came up with "Naked Touch". The rest of us tried our best to think of an alternative, but we didn't manage to come up with anything. Another local band that a fellow BCer was the bassist for called themselves "Good Question", which I thought was inspired.

The neck on my Sei Original needs adjusting on a fairly regular basis as it seems quite sensitive to temperature changes. It's headless though, so access is dead easy and it takes me under a minute to do it (including digging out a capo and allen key set from the gigbag). Just another of the ways in which headless instruments are superior to headed ones.

Ditto, except that all the covers are obscure. I was until recently in a covers band, an originals band, and a tribute band. I'm no longer tributing, but I did have all bases covered for a while.

I have suggested that we do one. "Cum on feel the noiz" - a Slade cover that Oasis did. Although our lineup (guit/vox, keys, bass, cajon & bongoes) means it will sound nothing at all like either.

Oh good, it's not just me. All the other ones in the OP, yes. Got inured to Mustang Sally in one band, and we actually made a conscious decision to do it in another.

The guitarist with a previous band complained that nobody else turned up to a rehearsal. However, we hadn't actually booked a rehearsal for the day he turned up...

Will the stage be reinforced for the purpose?

Try the microfibre one in OakFurnitureLand (really nice, we fancied leather but this was lovely), but do it before the 1st December as their prices go up. And they don't do Black Friday. Black Friday savings - Haynes manuals for motorcycles.