Rich

Oh great, you just had to bring that up. It's taken me 18 months of counselling to get to a stage where I could even think the S-word without hyperventilating, and now that's all down the drain. Back to square one. Thanks a bunch.

Back in the day, Mrs Rich saw Golden Earring with Focus in support. Apparently the Earrings were dull and Focus totally blew them off stage.

Curved, he said without a hint of bias *coughcough this is mine cough*

Pick snobbery gets right on my toot.

You forgot: * General good behaviour thanks to the ever-present threat of being lured to a deserted warehouse and shot in the face.

Yes dear, of course he did. And I suppose he was the one who sewed your nametags into them as well..? Tsk.

This is my favourite photo of me. Mainly because my lovely Shuker is in it but my face isn't.

Pixies. They come out at night when we're all asleep -- well, most of us -- and they tidy the place up a bit**, stick a new hamster in the wheel and away it goes. ** they have a request for Teebs, by the way; if you're going to leave those things hanging around, could you at least put them in a bin bag. One of the pixies is having great difficulty getting the stains out of his tunic. Yup, it's been a lot nicer.

It's actually 31... you forgot to include the stacked knobs and the one holding the camera.

Take 1 x rack of basses, 1 x old wardrobe, 1 x dull afternoon, a selection of hand tools and several cups of coffee.

I have no experience or knowledge of Xvives Al, but all I will say is that I haven't heard one single glitch from my cheapy Ammoons yet.

Oh it's not just you, don't worry. I already had a very lovely Line 6 G55 but I still bought this anyway. I blame my guitarist.

I've got these exact things and I have to say they're absolutely marvellous. I now use them at every rehearsal and have also at several gigs. Works a treat. There is a notable latency on anything with a bit of 'attack', but not so much that it puts you out of time or anything. Definitely recommended.

The last time I ran an amp bridged into too low an impedance, it got very very hot very very quickly. I'm pretty sure it would have died if I had carried on. I would not recommend it at all.

The Horseshoe, Downend, Brizzle. All 12 of us shoehorned into this not exactly huge pub. God it was hot in there but oh man, what a night. You know how every so often you get one of those gigs where nobody in the band puts a foot wrong all night and everything just works? Yup, one of them. Our new trombonist's first gig and he played a belter, he'd even learned some of the silly dance steps (not that there was much larking-about space ). And without wanting to big my/ourselves up too much, we in the Engine Room were absolutely on fire, grooved our arrses off all night. Best gig I've had in months. Probably in the last couple of years. I want to do it all again tonight now.

If I do ever make it to the show, I am definitely going to take earplugs, cans, and headphone amp. As others have said though, it's the 5-hour round trip (and £70 rail ticket) that puts me off.