skankdelvar

No one's - well, certainly not me - is asking you to apologise.You have simply attempted to clarify certain matters and you have done so in a comparatively dispassionate way. Comparative when compared to other posters from whose posts the pearls spill in an excess of clutching. Well, I'd like to be six inches taller and play like Jerry Jemmot but we can't always get what we want

Yes, because none of us ever post something contentious which is founded on the implied understanding that it might be a generalisation. As for pulling the shutters down, well, who wouldn't when there's trouble in the air and women are hustling their children inside. It seems pretty clear to me that Mr Apple threw one out there with a top dressing of hyperbole to which a few people took exception. Only a ghastly moron would actually think that earplugs are not to an extent beneficial and far from twisting myself into knots of patrician concern that such an individual might be misled into eschewing any form of hearing protection I would instead cheer the likelihood that Darwin's Law might take effect and our nation's average IQ be increased when the non-earplug wearer fails to hear an oncoming elephant and walks into its path with fatal consequences to himself. While recognising the distress that might be caused to the blameless pachyderm, obvs. As one who likes to go on and on and on and on it ill behoves me, perhaps, to poke fun at others whose desire to shine exceeds their brevity. But it really is a bit much to ascribe the collapse of Western hearing to the title of a post intended in part - I suspect - to rouse debate and even more so to suggest that Mr Apple is manifestly delinquent in his resps as a custodian of the forum. I detect a large bee in a tiny bonnet. In any event, I am now off to B&Q to effect the purchase of a rattle-can of black paint, the better to daub the bridges, overpasses and walls of Salisbury with the legend: "Billy Apple Is Innocent". It is time to go old school and I will not rest until justice has been done. The forum can paste that in its collective hat.

You didn't miss much. Basically 47,000 paragraphs of sententious tosh about issues of 'responsibility as a moderator' with a garnish of preposterous nitpicking. You go, girl. Nee-naw, nee-naw! It's literally the Literal Police. Bang him up! 47,000 paragraphs indicate otherwise. Speechless would be an improvement.

With absolutely no offence intended to the inhabitants of the dependent regions the Welsh, the Scots and the Northern Irish I must point out two salient factors: * Mr @Bluewine 's spiritual home is Liverpool, Ingerland * Notwithstanding his inner Scouse the language of Mr Bluewine's comments indicate that he is - in fact - a Cockernee. As support for my dialectological observation I commend to the forum's attention one of his recent posts: " Just done a 8 hour gig at this minging boozer in downtown Milwaukee. We orl tip up and the guvnor says to set up in the garden room away from the bar. Fakkin' muppet! So we goes on, like, and this hen party comes in and some fat munter who's been on the sherberts orl arfternoon goes ar5e over t!t right on our lady singer's mic. So she hauls one off on the munter and orl fakkin' hell breaks loose". Res ipsa loquitur, I think. Our very good friend Mr Bluewine is English.

Were I to find myself in the OP's position I would at this point be suggesting that a piano might work better with a cajon than a guitar and that the guitarist could take over lead vocals on a few of the songs while the lady singer moves to trombone.

An entourage is something I have resolutely discouraged over the years. Too many good people have died as a result of getting too close to me - and not by my hand. Not having any friends is the curse of my former profession but that's all going to change now I've retired from The Life. I've even joined a book club.

^ What he said ^

If it's bog standard covers, they're too loud, zero presence and the singer uses a music stand I'd expect them to pay me. Tenner just to sit there and a score on top to fake some enthusiasm.

It's my fault for ending a sentence with a preposition. It should have read 'something to which to gavotte'. Local gig circa 1790

Basically we're getting back to the model which pertained before the 1960's. Pubs didn't have bands. If they had any music at all, it was a local amateur piano player who knocked out requests and singalong favourites and did it for beer. From the mid-19th century to the mid 1950's there was no commercial 'market' for amateur bands. Professional musicians played in the pit or onstage while amateurs formed choirs or colliery bands or scraped around the edge of the pro-scene. Read: Spike Milligan. Prior to this, we're back in the 19th century and looking at the lost tradition of village bands where a bunch of old boys turn out for weddings, harvest dances and other communal events. Gear? A fiddle, a squeeze-box and (insert cheap instrument here). They'd play for beer until they fell down drunk and everyone went home or ended up shagging someone in a haystack. Further reading: Thomas Hardy. Slightly different in the towns where it was more organised, the middle classes wanted light classics or something to gavotte to. The musicians were a bit more accomplished but still got paid a pittance. Read: Jane Austen. Going back even further, we're basically talking about peasants tootling away on flutes or bagpipes and banging a drum while their in-bred relatives clod-hop around. View: Breughel Local gig circa 1568 So: amateur or semi-pro bands making decent money out of playing loud music at people in pubs is a lost world. Time to re-embed ourselves in our local communities and chop out stuff that punters want to hear - and more importantly - in which they wish to participate, i.e., dancing, singing along. Upside? You might end up getting mullered for free and shagging someone in a haystack. That's got to be worth more than £30.00

Surely there is much to be said for Pidgin English. I'm sure any pilot would comprehend the injunction: 'Na put 'im big silver bird nevah on ground wi'out wheel-sticks dem makes smiley down light shine'.

F'narr.

Written in English English as opposed to American English.

The Evolution of The Gibson Guitars Logo Henry Juskiewiecz Era Logo New 'Hedge Fund Management' Era Logo

I think Gibson's assertion that the Firebird X's were unsafe is fundamentally bogus unless Gibson meant that the mere sight of a Firebird X would cause strong men to weep. They were horrid guitars that only someone like @ped would covet. Well, I think it was Ped. I'm happy to be corrected.

I think it's unrealistic to expect that Gibson wouldn't. Gibson officially stopped selling B-stock in 1985 yet since that date the examples are legion of theoretically 'perfect' guitars with flaws worse than the old factory seconds. Which is why their QC has been derided for years and is the subject of intense speculation since the new lads took over. A nation thanks you.

According to the Gomer who was in charge of destruction it seems that Gibson management required visual proof of destruction and insisted that events be recorded. They just didn't think for a moment that everyone would go crazy when they saw Firebird X's being destroyed. For myself, my heart joyously skipped a beat as the noxious things were sent straight to guitar Hell.

If not mad then considerably miffed.

That actually made me laugh out loud.

It strikes me that the policy of destroying guitars because they are slightly sub-standard is a mistake. As a child I recall confectionery shops selling 'Mis-Shapes' i.e., chocolates which had emerged from the manufacturing process in a less than perfect state. These Mis-Shapes sold for less than the price of a perfect chocolate yet afforded their youthful consumers a not inconsiderably high level of satisfaction while stoking an ambition to purchase 'the real thing' at a later juncture and when possessed of the wherewithal so to do Messrs Gibson and their competitors are in my opinion missing a trick here. Surely it is better to get £500 for a B-stamped £1500 guitar than hurl it beneath a caterpillar vehicle with all the attendant obloquy which ensues when the practice becomes public knowledge. Of course, one can always make exceptions. Trashing Firebird X's was very much the thing at the time of that unhappy instrument's introduction. Why change now?

I didn't know that Chief Ten Bears out of the motion picture The Outlaw Josey Wales was Welsh. I did - however - think that Josey Wales was Welsh, because obvs. How odd that two characters in a Western movie would both be Welsh. Bears, Wales, Wales, Bears* * Copyright: The Estate of the late Mr Tommy Cooper

Mr @Skinnyman seems to have been among the first to identify the reason. They were trashing them to get them off the books before the end of the financial year. It also seems that these events may have taken place during the interregnum when Unhappy Hank had been sent to the end office without any windows but before the new 'management team' had fully taken their seats at the table. Either way, it is unfortunate timing that the vid appear at a moment when Gibson are on a reputational knife-edge

Mad as a cut snake, every man-jack of us.

I must confess to some apprehension when I heard that Mr Alister Jack would be replacing Mr David Mundell as Minister for Scotland. It's important that he build bridges with the Welsh Secretary Mr Alun Cairns who remains in office.