peteb

It's not a question of 'right or wrong', it's a ridiculous narrative from nearly 80 years ago being kept alive as a means of justifying an invasion and an ongoing, damaging war that, until Trump came to power, they had little chance of winning.

I don't think that there is any doubt that there have been Nazis in Ukraine and that some committed atrocities in WW2. However, you could say the same about any Central or Eastern European country, including Russia. Stalin committed many atrocities, both during and in the aftermath of WW2, including (among many others) mass executions of Russian soldiers who had been taken as a prisoner of war by the Nazis.

Basses on which I would normally install a Badass Any non-recent Fender I think that they do give you a bit more sustain and I prefer the sound and feel of them, although others might prefer a BBOT. But let's face it, it's all very marginal and it makes very little difference in a mix. However, both of my 70s P basses have a badass on them, while my more recent Fender Jazz basses (both American Standards) do not!

This is all a bit 'nothing to see hear, move along'! Why doesn't it mention the common practice of the very wealthy to not take a appropriate salary and to re-invest dividends into stock, which is never taxed as the the profit in the stock is never realised, but then to borrow money to maintain a lavish lifestyle at a far low interest rate than they would pay in income (or even capital gains) tax, using the stock as collateral? The argument here is that you can't tax wealth held in stocks as they could tank and be be worthless next month, but somehow these potentially 'worthless' stocks can be used to secure low interest loans, to be used instead of taking a taxable salary. Also, no mention of K2 type schemes, which became famous when Jimmy Carr was publicly shamed for participating in!

Well that's a ridiculous idea for a start. The large amounts that are saved by taking advantage of these loopholes are generally by the super wealthy who then shift the money into an offshore account or into buying assets. The money is never circulated in the general economy. A lot of loopholes are created for positive reasons, but are then allowed to be exploited by those with lots of money. For example, allowing tax relief on money invested in pension funds is supposed to encourage medium earners to build up a sufficient pension so that when they retire they can still live a good quality life, still contribute to the economy, still pay tax and never have to use top-up pension benefits. However, the same scheme used by those earning £60k is used by those on huge salaries to build up huge pension pots to avoid income tax, so that they can access a massive tax free payment when they retire. There are those on the right lobbying for there to be no limit to what this tax free payment could be.

Yes there is, in that it only exists where governments put laws in place that have unintentional loopholes that the wealthy then exploit. Of course, the law should then be amended to get rid of these loopholes, but somehow this is always presented as attacking the poor rather than getting the super wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.

But was it the bogeyman 'elitist liberals', or was it an elite of super rich people viewing every downturn in the economy as an opportunity to hoard an even greater proportion of the country's wealth?

Well, for one thing, they are pushing the rest of the population closer to poverty. Elites generally comprise of people born to that position, rather than achieving that status by merit. In the post WW2 era it was very possible for someone from a normal background to improve their situation and obtain a reasonable amount of wealth / status. These days, the drawbridge has been brought back up and for every one working / lower middle class kid who makes it, 999 don't. It is now almost impossible for a kid from a poorer background to work hard and get the things that they're parents got, things most of us took for granted, like a family home, etc.

That's a great example - relatively easy to play, but all open strings. No chance of playing it properly in any other way!

Unfortunately, I don't think that the average Brit does blame the (super) rich, but rather immigrants, foreigners in general and 'scroungers' on the welfare state (even they appreciate the welfare state and NHS in general). The average septic seems to think that they are temporarily embarrassed billionaires and don't want to be paying tax when the money rolls in (this time this year Rodney / Hank)!

There has been a lot of work to update the grid in recent years. Whether it would be enough if everyone were to buy an electric car is another thing, but the grid is in the process of being upgraded.

Really? To be frank, that must have sounded bloody awful! The crowd might have enjoyed it, but they will notice the difference the next time they hear a band play it properly! If you're going to be a musician, you have to be careful about trying to get away with the bare minimum a crowd will accept. That's a sure way of never getting beyond the lowest pub gigs. To be fair, you can go too far the other way and get OCD about doing everything note perfect. But it's still better to be able to play things right than trying to get away with doing it wrong.

I would suggest that the OP insists the band makes its mind up and commits to one tuning or the other, with presumably Down 1 (i.e. in Eb) being the way to go. I play in different bands that play in different tunings, so I have some basses set up in Concert (using 50 - 105 gauge strings) and others down 1 (55 - 110 strings). I do have a P bass with a slightly higher action in Concert than my other basses, so I have the option of tuning it down for certain (mainly blues) gigs.

But as you will know, playing it an octave higher doesn't sound right. A mate of mine put a Hipshot Xtender on the E string of a 5 string bass, for playing this song and stuff like Soundgarden (where loads of songs are in Drop D).

The example I was going to use was Slither, which would be near impossible to play authentically on a bass in standard tuning or a 5 string! A lot of riffs utilise open strings, especially on guitar, but also on bass.