Grimalkin

The line for Beetlebum is probably my favourite, McCartney-like melodicism.

Is it a 'relic'? Tell her you found it in a skip.

"It ain't bragging if you can back it up." Jaco Pastorius. I think it's refreshing to see, in an age of bragging without backing any of it up.

Tell her that the BBC were auctioning off bits of the old set from "Play Your Cards Right", and that it was a "Brucie Bonus" that was never awarded, and was just collecting dust. It might be prudent to go for "The Big Lie" on this one. Something so absurd, you couldn't make it up.

Back in the day, many moons ago as a lad, it took me an hour and a half each way to get a bass lesson with a good player, plus about an hour walking station to station, the tutor used to let the lesson run on a little bit so all in all it was about 6 hours out of the day. Now, you have the most renowned players and a world of knowledge at your fingertips. A new breed of players with instantly available tuition from some of the best. Bound to make a difference isn't it.

Stamp collecting. You should see my limited edition set featuring the wildfowl of Papua New Guinea, they really are quite spectacular. Foil milk bottle tops. I have an interesting collection with the indentations of various birds that have attempted to break through to get to the cream. They are arranged in a nice pecking order. Simply delightful viewing.

Stereotyping is for the birds.

I'm afraid the US are not that daft, they own us.

Don't worry, since we have taken back control, there will be a reinstatement of that empire classroom classic: "Simon Shoots the Smiling Sambos." Fancy a crack at the mick? There will be a "stupid Irish person" joke printed in the Express every day.

"His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. 1726, Swift may have well written it yesterday. We're not in the position to point the finger at anyone.

"The fools all hide behind the fashion The new age rebels have no cause But little do they realise, that a true change can come from within But that's too simple to be true My hair looks better now in blue..." Fishbone - Another Generation.

"Curtis believes that political individualism as espoused by Margaret Thatcher and implemented though her neoliberal policies is part of the same wider cultural shift as the individualism that punk rock embodied. The privileging of the individual over the community has, he says, had the unintended consequence of atomizing the world to the extent that today “everything is acceptable and everything is ubiquitous”. “Punks don’t like to hear it but they and Mrs. Thatcher were both on the coattails of something bigger, which was the rise of individualism where we could be whatever we wanted to be,” he explains. “The Sex Pistols’ song ‘I Wanna Be Me’ came at the same time as a speech by Mrs. Thatcher that had pretty much the same message." Adam Curtis. He's quite right of course, not a single 'punk' I've met even knew what the definition of Anarchy was... "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Both, there's a bit of Partridge in all of us.

Lots of open string use for positions. The fill @ 0.59 can be played in one position, but he doesn't because it's harder to intonate and it doesn't flow the same. So it's, A @ 12th fret A string, its octave @ 14th fret G string, then open D to shift to 11th fret D string with ring finger string, 11th fret G string with pinky, 9th fret G string with index. You have to get the right hand positions, that's a tricky bit.

You'll soon find out. In the past I've pinched parts from live versions to give the original line a bit of interest. If it's in a different key I transpose it. "Diamonds on the Soles of Her shoes", the bass breaks are very difficult without the right hand positions.

If I need to establish particular hand positions, or particular bits, l look for live versions and try and catch what's going on.

From 2.32 he's playing a static E until the chorus comes back in. When I've played it in the past, I've followed the guitarist's run-up of E - F# - G - A back to G for the chorus. On the C - D mid 8, I've usually played that in 10ths to make up for the missing string part. C on the 8th fret E string while holding the 9th fret G string, move the same shape up a tone for the D. 'Walk On the Wild Side' thing.

"So you think you had a pepperoni Well not like this..."