Happy Jack

If you're Googling "sillouhette" then you're unlikely to find anything.

Yup. That's what he wants.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dansette-Vintage-Record-Player-In-Teal/203027588667?hash=item2f4563263b:g:AcsAAOSwAa9e7xg9

Must ... resist ... fight ... temptation ... step ... away ... from ... keyboard ...

You weren't alone in that - apologies from me too if this was too much of a thread de-rail!

Who are? What are you talking about?

???

Understood, but where does that "as many as a third" stat come from? Have they done clinical testing on how many operator errors will be made by all those who may have to operate the testing kit? I rather suspect not, which translates as "that's yet another made-up stat". So no number of such tests run on me, for example, would ever know that I've had Covid-19. Which was pretty much my point. But "broadly speaking" is exactly what we DON'T want. What we want is accurate and specific testing for Covid-19, and the above responses offer little encouragement that any such test actually exists. Please let me stress that I will be DELIGHTED to be proved wrong on this and on so much else besides, but I've spent my entire adult life calling it as I see it, and that's not about to change. I see NO evidence that we have ANY reliable testing, which means that we have NO idea how widespread Covid-19 now is in the UK population. Can I use some MORE capitals yet?

How reliable is that testing? Not a provocative response by me ... I mean that as a genuine question. I doubt that I'm up to speed on the latest in Covid-19 testing, but very little I've read or heard in the last month has suggested that the testing is anything other than patchy and unreliable.

Disagree. Excessive noise is a non-starter (good) but there's no actual law that actually requires so-called musicians to make excessive noise. Quiet music is very often good music.

This really isn't about "just letting people die" any more than it's about "no person left behind". The disease isn't a government policy that can be changed, or a dangerous behaviour that can be outlawed ... it's a thing that exists and that we now have to deal with, like cancer. We currently have no cure. We currently have no evidence that a cure will ever be available. We currently do not know whether herd immunity exists or whether you can get hit by this twice. We don't know how many different but related strains of Covid-19 exist or whether there can be cross-immunity between them. In fact, there's a staggeringly long list of things we don't know. What we DO know is that our entire approach to civilisation has had to be modified, and not everyone is entirely happy with that. We also know that our current approach to that modification involves spending unbelievably massive amounts of money that we don't have, which then impacts on every other aspect of life for decades to come. I've spent my entire life so far aware of the risk of dying from a very long list of potential causes. As far as I'm concerned, I've now added Covid-19 to that list and I want to get back to living my life. Many others feel the same way, but of course there are plenty who disagree. I'm not saying that I'm right at this precise moment, but I do know that eventually we WILL have to get back to living our lives. All we're doing is bickering about the timing. Will people die? Yes, of course they will, just as they always have.

I note that this 5% figure gets quoted endlessly at the moment as if it's a fact. In practice, the (almost) complete absence of effective testing - both now and especially when this thing was peaking - combined with the extensive evidence that very many people have had Covid-19 whilst displaying either very minimal symptoms or none at all means that the 5% stat is almost certainly wildly understated. 5% is one in twenty. I live in London, the most heavily-affected place in the UK. I can easily identify 20 people who I see very frequently, and pick out 10 of then (including me, of course) who have had Covid-19. Not only is that a 50% hit rate, but NONE of those ten have been captured in any sample. Can I prove that? Of course not, but I'd much rather rely on my own direct experience than the panic-stricken pap provided by the media over the last three months. When the Public Enquiry into all this finally happens, I suspect that it will make for some very interesting results.

If he's your son-in-law and he has a girlfriend, how does your daughter feel about this?

A two-minute trumpet solo ... who knew that was a thing? I actually prefer the vocalled-up soul cover ...

Seeing as we're not allowed to sing, we'll need to make a few changes to the set list. I'll start: Apache

Not a bit of it ... @MacDaddy has now named some songs, but it was a long wait!

Erm ... cos it hasn't yet happened?

I'm still waiting for someone - anyone - to name a single song from the 80s that I have ever covered, with any band, ever.

Are you anywhere near Harrow, Mike?

No, it's a single piece of moulded fibreglass. The neck does NOT come off.

Translation?

When I think about "the basses that matter" - Macca's Hofner, Jamerson's Precision, Squire's Rickenbacker, etc. - I would feel genuinely and utterly embarrassed to find that I owned any of them. Put in dreadfully predictable terms, I am not worthy. It's one thing for a top-notch world-famous bassist to end up owning a famous bass from the past, quite another for a mediocre semi-pro Weekend Warrior like me to have one. I'm much happier NOT owning a famous bass, with or without provenance. Additionally, you also need to factor in whether or not you actually like the music that the famous bass was used on. We're talking about Nick Beggs' old Wal here, so let me just point out that one of the main reasons I stopped listening to new music in the 80s was Godawful bands like Kajagoogoo ...