Kiwi

It was suggested about ten years ago on the Alembic forum and Mica explained they didn't want to risk subbing out any work because of the following story. Geoff had been supplying necks to Alembic since 1976 but by around 1982 or so (the last year of neck manufacture) he had been focusing on setting up Modulus and had stopped taking personal responsibility for QC. A number of graphite necked basses came back to Alembic for attention and at that point they pulled the plug and swore to only offer basses where everything was made in house. To be honest, there were issues after Modulus was established. I had a couple of early 90's Quantum 5 string basses that were lemons. One was too bright because the neck was too rigid. It's fretless sister sounded much better but the neck was like a banana (not rigid enough). The 96 Sonic Hammer I had was a peach though. Here is the Series 1 at the 2015 SE Bassbash. I'm not sure who is playing it but hopefully he'll say hello.

Any pictures? I'm always curious about serial numbers. Mine has to be the graphite necked sister of Greg Lakes 8 string monster used on Fanfare for the Common Man - only about 8 serials separating the two.

The poor resolution of the photos hide the road rash. She has had a busy life in and around Nova Scotia passing through the hands of at least three well known gigging bassists until it made it's way to Hugh McMillan who was in Spirit of the West. I bought it from Hugh many years ago. Hugh gave her a new set of pickups as well as the old ones literally fell apart. I could buy some period correct ones off Ebay but no real urgency right now. Hugh is using the bass in sub zero temperatures here:

1979 Alembic Series 1 graphite, one of maybe 50 in total, less in long scale. Each neck was custom made and it proved to be such a ball ache that Alembic stopped offering the option in the early 80's. The neck on this one is nothing short of magical - the action is a gnats wing above the frets and there's no buzz. Sounds just like an Alembic but maybe with a little more attack.

In the early part of my career I worked on some heritage projects for Scott Wilson.

Me too, although most of the meetings I went to were attended by a combination of harumphing ex army mustaches and hyper-neat, pinstriped civil servants. I remember once being invited into the Lord's tearoom and being taken aback firstly by the number of familiar faces and secondly by the realisation that there were no party lines being observed.

I bet you have some interesting stories too. I worked with a few advisors - mainly attended meetings to advise on the visual impact of anti terrorism measures in 2005.

New Scotland Yard was on Broadway before they moved to The Embankment. I remember a very popular fish and chip place there that insults it's customers if they don't pick up their takeaway orders promptly. Is that near/close to Horseferry?

Whoa, missed that one completely...

Yeah most of the commercial developers I worked with/opposed did the same. Old office buildings weren't worth the cost of refurbishment and were frequently outside building code anyway. In the City (who were one of my last clients) they treated buildings like they were disposable anyway (although curiously the City does not have any policies in place for how to demolish a 50 floor skyscraper safely). I was thinking residential rather than commercial anyway but if you were being opportunitistic then maybe there isn't as much in it as I thought. Most of the financially independent people I know got that way out of luck more than anything. And the ones who did it the hard way are borderline sociopaths because of the stress, obstacles and demands on their time.

You're not the only member on here with that highly specific background...who knows, you might even know of each other but unfortunately I can't say anything more than that. Would love to pick your brains offline one day. Specifically about calculating feasibility and returns.

Yes I'm familiar with that, was involved with similar scale of projects by the LDA while Ken was mayor. Did you develop for yourself? Or was it for other people?

Me too, went through the entrance exam, did a shift with my local station in Fareham (four hours gave me a weeks worth of interesting stories) and was offered a place at training college. But was offered one of 25 limited places on a uni course in NZ and decided I could come back to policing later if I wanted...which never happened of course.

I'm really curious, how much did the late nineties property boom contribute towards your success?

Asset management?

England, but moved to NZ when I was 10. Then moved back again to the UK after university. Then back to NZ because of the 2007 recession where I had what was probably a nervous breakdown due to triple redundancies. Then back to the UK because my job was too specialised and then I got fed up with all the travelling. Also with the lack of support for my area of expertise and increasing encroachment by imposters, who exploited the trust and naivety of decision makers and bluffed their way through situations. Here's an example: Consultants wrote a strategic plan for me while climbing the political ladder in the organisation who I contracted for. After 18 months and about 120,000 quid extra in spend they were supposed to deliver a vision for what could be achieved. The actual document mentioned what the vision could do, why it was important, what it meant to other stakeholders and how to deliver it but it never actually stated what the vision was. I picked them up on this and they resisted, drawing on political connections higher up in the organisation to save face. So, with the agreement of senior management and discussions behind closed doors, I ended up writing the vision myself and took their name off the final document. One day I asked myself 'what is the point?' and realised there wasn't one. At least not one that included financial security, stability, hope, job satisfaction, kids and a sense of optimism. My wife was also self employed, earning the same as I was and working half the hours which kind of threw into sharp relief that I didn't need to be a wage slave in order to be financially productive. So here we are. Still stressed, still financially insecure, with the added burden of two kids, a significant mortgage and trying to keep the school afloat. But noone else apart from myself to blame for my problems now. lol Anyway, after the coronavirus thing has blown over, there is still hope.

Closer now than previously, I was in NZ from 2009-2013...further from western civilisation though. :(

I'm a bum. Well, I was. And before that I worked as a strategic planning consultant. If local planning authorities had ambitious development plans, especially in commercial centres, I would be the guy to tell them how much, how fast, how to avoid creating more problems than were solved and how good and/or bad the PR might be. Then I'd set out a plan on how to deliver the best bang for buck with as little shit hitting the fan as possible...and if it did hit, what the options were to deal with it. I also had carved out a niche for pragmatic but outside-the-box thinking on transportation infrastructure planning given my background included implementation as well as big picture stuff. Now I'm involved in a few small business ventures - an English school with 13 employees which is taking a lot longer to establish than we hoped due to the economic climate, a recruitment firm with two employees, and later in the year I'll be setting up an export business for curtain walling initially but it'll expand to include other things too.

Welcome John, Westminster in London? How interesting! I know the area fairly well having worked in St James for a number of years.

Whelp I guess that means we don't get to see any wrestling after all.

Fair warning people, gonna lock the thread if things don't calm down by themselves.

Well perhaps you could offer to throw guinea notes at them along with cheerful encouragement and suggestions? This should not be difficult for a man of your vast resources and reputation.

Chaps, this a matter for Ebay not here. They have policies in place for dealing with both sides of this situation.

It's down the back of the back seat of your car. 50p and a twizzler please. Or we'll phone your mum, via ouija board if necessary.