Happy Jack

Don't be a pain, Douglas. Woe there! Bilingual puns ... what is this site coming to?

Imagine a box or package whose dimensions are not a million miles away from a Fender hard case in a cardboard box. Doesn't matter what it really is, that gives you a decent steer as to what I'm talking about. This box or package is in New York, in the possession of a well-known, reliable, and completely trust-worthy seller. This is someone I've dealt with before. The seller provides an estimate of $800 - $950 to ship it to me in London. Bear in mind that the exchange rate today is £1.00 = $1.40. Erm ... what? Shurely shome mishtake. That's enough money to buy me a return ticket from Heathrow to JFK and collect in person. The seller checks, an replaces his estimate with an actual quote. The very cheapest he can manage is $733, which is with a UPS economy service. He sends me a copy of the UPS quote. OK, that gives me everything I need to run the same request, but using the UK website for UPS of course. So ... precisely the same dimensions & weight, the same origin and destination but flipped around so I'm shipping to him, and up comes a screenful of options using various UPS services. The most expensive one there is £183, the cheapest is £135. I take a screenshot and email it to the seller. The seller re-runs his own request and also takes a screenshot of his screenful of options. He sends me his screenshot. The cheapest option is $733, the most expensive is $1200-ish. That's the same package, being sent by the same courier firm, almost certainly on the same aircraft. If he sends it to me, it costs me £524 (i.e. $733 / 1.40). If I send it to him, it costs him £135. Only it doesn't cost me £524, of course. I have to pay 3.7% Import Duty on the entire cost of the package, including courier costs, so that makes it £543. Only it doesn't cost me £543, of course. I have to pay 20% VAT on the entire cost of the package, including courier costs and Import Duty, so that makes it £652. I can't help but feel that I must be missing something ...

He's small and Scottish ... they're the worst.

In the 70s it was considered dreadfully uncool to actually watch the support act at all. You were supposed to spend their set in the bar, or chatting up the merchandise girls, or having a joint in the toilets, pretty much anything rather than be seen watching a support act. Being young and naive I didn't understand all this, and therefore saw some great acts who I probably wasn't supposed to see ... Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias, Stray, etc.

You've seen Coldplay, then?

What, and have HHH coming after me with his chopper raised? Bwahahahahaha!!!

Ah now, the big advantage of open mics is that the audience is also the other performers. If they make a racket during your 'turn', revenge is just around the corner.

So it was jazz, basically?

Now that's entertainment ...

All fair enough, but ultimately it's our job to entertain them. If I'm being ignored by the punters then it might be because they're all self-obsessed, selfish Mr and Mrs Silly Billy who should have been drowned at birth. Or it might be because I'm not doing enough to entertain them. Just saying ...

I bought this: 'Twas a long time ago now ...

Depends whether the video is shot in a post-industrial landscape, I guess.

Dunno about EUB but, if the sound is similar to a DB, have you tried the obvious ... Fishman Platinum Pro?

So Marylebone would become Marbun and Herstmonceux would be Herkymoo? Works for me.

The step up from a Kala is not likely to be significant, I'd have thought. I stepped down from a Kala to a Harley Benton and was quite surprised (and pleased) at how little I'd lost. Since you can't really play it acoustically, by the time you've fed a bass uke with flobbadob strings through a preamp and a PA, there ain't a lot of the underlying sound to hear. IMHO. YMMV. WTF.

Is that a 3/4 bass? Did you experiment with different strings? I'm thinking that string choice for an aluminium bass will be rather different than for a ply bass.

So I guess Lemmy's old band should have been Mo-teurgh-head?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/vintage-double-bass-bow-Snakewood-GB-Lecchi-Genova-1952-18ct-White-Gold/142695303556?hash=item21394d8984:g:s6YAAOSw6DtYVSmU

You might want to try that in London, Blue. It's quite large really.

Thank you for all your good wishes for my recovery. In a bizarre stroke of luck, the PA pole fell in such a way that, with my back to it (I was adjusting my amp), although I didn't see it coming the speaker missed my head and the pole fell against my shoulder. Comfortable it was not, and you can hear Silvie shriek my name to warn me since it really did look lethal, but in fact I was completely unharmed, Paul the Drums leapt up to take the PA back upright, and we launched straight into Delilah.