mikel

18 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Thats impressive. One of the front benches neighbours / friends / uncle must be making a killing out of that!

Yep. Firstly is it true? So many lies in the last 8 months I simply don't trust this government. And.....how many will get through to those who need it most? Call me a cynic, but point out any aspect of the crisis they have handled even remotely well.

The Police at the Mayfair in Newcastle, touring their first album. I had never heard of them but went along with a mate as it was a night out. Awesome is a much over used word, but they were nothing short of that. Probably the most exciting gig I have ever seen. They were so tight they were loose, and feeding off each other, improvising and scat singing. I was so impressed I bought a drum kit the following day, and 6 weeks later was doing my first gig with an originals post punk band. They were that good, and Stewart Copeland simply blew me away.

Any Yes concert in the 70s. Mind blowing musicianship and band performance. Watching Chris play bass and knock out those perfect harmonies was a real education.

1 hour ago, Rich said:

I saw this on Farcebook yesterday, it makes for interesting reading. And yes, this chap really is a real doctor (google him, I did) and yes, he said this.

Dr Mark Toshner, consultant physician and lecturer in clinical medicine (Royal Papworth Hospital Cambridge, and Cambridge University respectively) speaking out on social media about the coronavirus vaccine.

"More on vaccines. I'm going to get boring and geeky on this (no apologies) on the 10 year thing. Vaccines 'normally take 10 years'. This is being used as a reason to be fearful (i.e. rushed job).

I'm a clinical trials doc. I can tell you most of that time is spent doing nothing. It's spent submitting funding requests, then resubmitting them, then waiting, then submitting them somewhere else, then getting the money but the company changes it's mind or focus, then renegotiating then submitting ethics, then waiting for regulators...

Then having problems with recruitment and having to open other sites, then dealing with more regulatory issues, then finally when you eventually get to the end of all of this you might have a therapy, or not.

At this point it may not be deemed profitable or any number of other obstacles. However we have collectively now shown that with money no object, some clever and highly motivated people, an unlimited pool of altruistic volunteers and sensible regulators that we can do amazing things (necessity being the mother etc).

These trials have been nothing short of miraculous, revolutionary but in the context perhaps it is not surprising given our ability to innovate when we REALLY need to and we really needed to. Safety hasn't been compromised. Hundreds of thousands of great people volunteered for experimental vaccines. The world watched closely. The press reported every serious adverse event. I am confident that when regulators and scientists pour [sic] over the safety data (and we will because we are a bit that way inclined) that vaccines will only be used if we are confident that the risk is definitively outweighed by the benefit. This should give you confidence too."'

Thanks, that is what I was hoping to hear.

1 hour ago, Rich said:

I am overjoyed at the Oxford vaccine news -- I've been participating in the trial and it's brilliant to see results coming from all their hard work. The technical blurb they showed us is quite mind-boggling, I am in awe of these boffins' capabilities. I had an initial dose (couldn't tell you if it was full or half) followed by a second one later. No side effects to report yet, I still feel absoluhweojfdo fisdfnn jj*73kl;l=++k.

The problem I have at the moment is the time frame. Drugs or vaccines usually take years to bring to market, because they are tested in extreme circumstances, because the cost of failure, ie Thalidomide, does not bear thinking about. Is a few months enough to test a vaccine?

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Agreed.

What we don't need is a bunch of hysterical anti-vaxxers resulting in unnecessary lost lives. Should be made a criminal offence for putting out such harmful dis-information.

Absolutely 😁

Three facts worth keeping in mind - for all the talk of avoiding analogies with war-time efforts:

1. We have suffered more civilian deaths this year from Covid than we did in any single year of two world wars;

2. Government borrowing is higher to deal with Covid economic damage than at any time since WW2;

3. The fall in economic output caused by the March lockdown was at a rate not seen in 300 years.

FWIW - totally not impressed with the cronyism in relation to PPE purchasing. Needs to be called out, found out and if there is corruption, prosecutions to follow. 

Agreed. I have a feeling quite a number of the public don't grasp the fact it is our money, tax revenue, and to blatantly waste it is misuse of public funds, a very serious offence. Not claiming any criminal behaviour, simply pointing our a legal point.

42 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

A bit unfair to expect Senior Dept of Health advisers, who are making recommendations to Ministers on which vaccines to speculatively order before they are known to be effective, to make the right call on exactly which vaccines are going to succeed and which fail.

And in their defence, they've recommended a spread of 350M doses from various manufacturers to give us a very good chance that we will have ample supply; as the CEO of Moderna said today they are in near final discussions with the UK to supply the NHS. 

Bingo! The rest as someone has just said is boring...

Hindsight is 20:20 vision.

Aye, 2020 has made most of us much wiser.

1 hour ago, steantval said:

What, you talkin bout me.

 

If only. I would have way more confidence that Shrek wouldn't be making a fortune out of it.

2 hours ago, Basinski said:

In August the EU reached a deal with Moderna to buy an initial 80 million doses of its vaccine with the option to buy 80 million more. The UK could have been part of the EU's purchasing programme, but declined. Moderna have just announced that their vaccine has almost 95% efficiency.

Presumably before any potential UK doses are delivered, Moderna would have to prioritize delivering on existing commitments to the EU, and any others who have already signed contracts to buy up vaccine stock?

Another rip-roaring UK government success story, particularly when considering the added benefits the Moderna vaccine is likely to have, being much easier to store/distribute that the Pfizer vaccine which requires storage at -70° C.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/moderna-covid-vaccine-candidate-almost-95-effective-trials-show

Yet another breathtaking co*k up by the establishment. Led by donkeys.

"In my life" The Beatles. Perfect pop song with a perfect ending.

4 hours ago, chris_b said:

I'd always suggest listening to everything. I can learn from  stuff I don't like. It might be a challenge but if it improves your playing then it's a worthwhile exercise.

In lockdown #1 I reacquainted myself with the sets I'd played in the previous 3 years,  then I charted about 30 Stevie Wonder songs. They're good, I know them but have rarely played any. It was a great learning experience.

Now we're in lockdown #2 I'm looking at Bobby Bland (the California Album era), going through the Daryl's House videos again and looking at Kylie Minogue's Glasto set. There are songs here that I know and like, some which are technically more demanding and some where I don't know the style at all.

Learn from everything.

Fine, but I am not interested in learning from things I dont like. Life is too, too short to take time up with that.

I can only learn from stuff I like and enjoy listening too. As someone semi famous once said......"I couldn't wait to get away from school and having to learn what other people thought I should know, and read books about what I  wanted to know." I'm paraphrasing but you get the gist.

6 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Appreciate it's a bit of thread de-rail, but I can't let such a blithe statement go unchallenged.

A simple poem long etched on my mind:

History repeats itself.
Has to.
No-one listens.

Steve Turner

There's a reason today is Remembrance Day,  "Lest we Forget" and why many of us have just now observed 2 minutes silence to reflect on things long past.

I guess we will need to disagree on this one.

You can remember something, in its context, without using it as a tenuous analogy for today's situation. Sadly we Brits have a reputation for using it with depressing regularity. Almost every country in the World was involved to some extent in WW 2, most tend not to drag it up every time they have a national problem.

43 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

A year ago I sent in a rock block list containing toons by Pixies, Killing Joke, Queens OTSA,  Clutch, FNM, Julian Cope, JAMC, Stranglers, Curve, Ministry and Rammstein. Also some of these for the English Breakfast thingy on Pail Anthony's show but niente, nada. They are rock after all so errm yep I still live in hope

Good bands but "Classic Rock"?

11 hours ago, peteb said:

I do wish that people would stop romanticising WW2 and pushing this dangerous view of British exceptionalism. While the RAF may have had less pilots in the Battle of Britain, they had massive technical and logistical advantages that were expertly utilised to ensure that there was never any real danger of losing that particular campaign. The narrative of ‘the few’ and the ‘plucky British underdog’ was very useful as wartime propaganda, but not 80 years after the event by a later generation who have never known a day’s conflict in their lives. 

If you're interested, see ‘The Battle of Britain’ by James Holland – you can even get an audio version narrated by Al Murray.

Exactly. Still banging on about the war? Whatever your personal glass is we need to be realistic. If the vaccine is safe and efficacious, can be rolled out quickly and is available to those in need then great. But pardon me for being cautiously optimistic, too many false dawns recently.

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

And we were 40,000 personnel short in the Battle of Britain. Too much negativity.

There are a ton of folk losing their jobs / on part time work due to Covid-19. I appreciate the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at very low temps and the medics amongst us will be able to correct me: but I'm not sure it would require a huge amount of training to up-skill unemployed graduates / school leavers who are facing a brutal jobs market to administer injections under the supervision of a qualified nurse?  If need be, we can deploy 40,000 military personnel - a plan that is already underway in relation to mass testing. 

If we, as a species, can come up with a successful RNA vaccine (amazing scientific achievement) it's surely not beyond our abilities to work out how to make sure we get it to folk who need it most urgently?

Well quite. Excuse me for being a sceptic but recent history would suggest the powers that be have a less than firm hold on either the virus or indeed how to combat it. And I am a glass overflowing guy, but also a realist when it comes to Britain's response to this crisis and the bumbling that has helped it thrive. I live in hope rather than confidence.

45 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Lol! There clearly is lot of negativity - fair enough it's been a brutal year.

As an annoyingly glass-half-full sort of guy - I reckon with the available GP nurses, nightingale hospitals and testing centres geared up for vaccinations we could get the most needy done in a few months - they manage to get the flu jab out don't they without massive difficulty without all this extra resource. The younger / healthier 80% of the population can get on with their lives in the meantime.

Happy to wager a lot of us will be back gigging by May 2020. 

The problem being finding enough staff to run the nightingale hospitals. We are 40000 nurses short to run our regular hospitals as we stand.

6 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Oh, absolutely, I agree, and perfectly understand that kind of mindset, even if I can't say I am big Waters fan.

I myself have developed into and see my self as more of a composer/song writer kind of musician these day than really an instrumentalist kind of musician. 

Still I love playing bass and consider bass as my main instrument of choice.

 

 

Agreed. The bass is also my passion, I just wish I could compose an albums worth of great songs that I could play simple bass lines on and be as successful as Floyd. We can dream.

17 hours ago, Al Krow said:

At least our govt have managed to get hold of enough vaccines for millions of us, which (I understand) unfortunately can't be said for 27 of our immediate neighbours; so we're defo on the right side of the Channel for once.

Well, it is being manufactured in Belgium and has to be stored and transported at minus 70 degrees. I just hope nothing goes wrong at British ferry ports in January to hold anything up. Oh, wait........

9 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

But...

Then you have something like this :

 

 

Pretty horrible bass playing as far as I am concerned.

He did however record some pretty incredible bass lines for Pink floyd's first two albums, after that it kind of went downhill for him though, as a bass player at least, and as far as I am concerned.

Guess he was more focused on writing songs and taking over leadership of Pink Floyd than being a great bass player. 

But I suppose Gilmour is right when he says he could be, or rather could have been a great bassist, if that is what he really wanted. 

 

 

 

I suppose he found it more enjoyable and rewarding to help create some of the 20th centuries iconic music, rather than become a "Great bassist". I know what I would have settled for.

15 hours ago, arthurhenry said:

Here is David Gilmour's July 1998 letter to Bass Player magazine in response to their March  '98 retrospective review of Animals (also attached). I have referred to this letter before in related discussions and have been surprised to find no reference to it anywhere online. If you're a member of a PF Facebook group or website, please feel free to share it.

Reading that I could hear Dave's voice in my head. He has one of those voices I could listen too all day, he could recite the phone directory and I would find it soothing.

16 hours ago, miles'tone said:

"I just loved your bass, I could feel it inside my pus*y.."

This was actually said to me during a load out once. A very pretty yet hammered girl.

I was stone cold sober (driving) and honestly didn't know which way to look or what to say other than "thanks"

I'm alright at playing rock n roll, always been crap at being it!

What was she doing taking a pet to a music gig? You should have been straight on to the RSPCA.

Caitlin Moran wrote a very entertaining book (Damn, is that me being a critic?) about music journalism. How to Build a Girl. A good pi*s take on the subject.

My prefect career, being paid to have an opinion. What could possibly go wrong.

On 06/11/2020 at 17:08, SpondonBassed said:

I grew up with Irish Country music sometimes known as Country and Western.  Some of the artists lean heavily on the US accent.  Ugh!

It's an interesting one though.  The US accent owes a lot to the Irish.

Shane McGowan.

Aye a bit like trad folk music. It seems a nasal West country accent is the thing. I remember a folk busker in Hexham who I knew through a friend. Heard him singing in the street and I thought "Hang on, he had a softly spoken Geordie accent in the pub last night".