The fuck up faerie appeared!

Yes, at the end of this long and arduous day (ahem) the phone goes. A customer. Who says they have sent in an important bit of paperwork to us along with an application form. Did we get it. I cant remember because we get so much crap here so I say I will check and get back to them.

Well. From my records it seems we didn't get it. But they need the bit of paperwork - the ORIGINAL important bit of paperwork returned to them after the form is processed. The form we never got.

So.

That is going to be a fun conversation tomorrow morning isnt it.

Eeeep.

That little nagging voice that is saying

"You have not done enough work today!"

Little bastard.

FUCK OFF!

I will not let it bother me. Oh no. Imune to its little voice I am. Gone all Yoda have I. Hmmm yes.

In other news.

Tonight is a Pagan festival I cant spell. So there. It is supposed to mark the first harvest of the year I believe. It's pronounced loonessa, but the spelling would (and does in fact) make a dyslexic panic - so go look it up.

So some mead will be quaffed later. And thanks given.

So tomorrow will be another in a long stream of highly productive days. You know, those things I am renowned for.

Ahem.

My amplifiers, by Nick aged 44 and some bits.

1st one was an ickle transistor job that came with my first electric guitar. About 5 watts output – sounded like crap. So I would (in the pursuit of a more rocking tone) put a bit of old cloth between the speaker cone and the metal speaker chassis. This would muffle the speaker and make it distort. Mmmmmmmmm distorted fuzzy goodness. Then the speaker died – for some strange reason so I replaced it with one from an old stereo. Then a friend of mine built me a box of tricks that boosted the guitar signal and made the notes go all swooshy or blippy and all sorts of groovy things. I spent hours on my knees with my guitar in my lap fiddling with this device (almost said box but that would have been far to open for smutness) till my legs went numb up to my hips and would then lay on the bedroom floor in agony as the blood flowed back into them. This is why my knee joints are fucked up.

2 – a huge wooden box of a thing built as an experiment by another friend of mine. Also all transistor, also sounded like crap but it was louder.

3 – we started to rehearse in a band but had to hire amplifiers from the studios so we would not get A – drowned out by the drummer and B – laughed out of the building. These were generally HH100’s – again all transistor but sounded a bit better. And they had control panels that glowed green! Which we thought was well cool. Didn’t hide the fact that we couldn’t play but there ya go.

4 – after some time with some more rubbish that escapes me, the band I was in invested in two Sound City 120w valve heads. Huge heavy things with speakers to match, loud as hell but not big on rock distortion. So distortion pedals where needed.

5 – my first Marshall. A 50w valve amp with two 12 inch speakers. A classic non channel switching rock box.

6 – My first and only Marshall stack. Can be seen in the header picture on Old-Nick blog. That bastard used to move some air!

7 – Ahh the rack! We all had them in the 90’s baby. Marshall JMP 1 Pre amp, one multi effects unit and a Marshall 20w per channel power amp, all in an SKB moulded flight case. Still got all of it, but now it is in “storage” around the house. Sounded great and was the rig I gigged most with.

8 – two Marshall 50w amps (exactly the same as the one at No 5) one of which I still have and use, the other I think is living in Brighton with a guy called Jim Clarke, who teaches at the Brighton Music Institute. So it is technically still mine although he has been borrowing it for over four years.

This does not take into account numerous effects pedals and other bits and bobs stuck in front of, or added to them to make them noisier.

And that just about killed enough time for me to go to lunch.

You can wake up now.

Has been the arrival of "The trolley" pushed by little Gary from the canteen.

You can tell its not being the most productive and exciting day so far eh?

The trolley is loaded with sarnie goodness and fizzy drinks and such. I have got my self a bottle of coke and after a few swigs can now let rip with basso profundo belches when ever needed. Which pleases my female co workers no end. Mr Charm after all.

Gary is a geezer of Greek extraction, and he makes the best home made Scotch eggs I have ever tasted.

He had some on the counter of the canteen once and I asked him if they were his, he said yes, so I just had to bite into one.

Yeah, I know - you can have fun with that last prargraph if you want, my gift to the blog nation as it were.

Sooooooooooooo.

Busy busy busy.

I have an unrivaled skiving opportunity today and can blog when ever I choose.

Can I think of one single interesting thing to say?

WELL CAN I?

no.

So no change there then.

Oh bugger it, coffee time.

About all this wet weather has been that my hayfever has not bothered me too much.

Now I am starting to remember what a joy it is to have a runny nose, itchy throat and (on a bad day) itchy ears! My ears itch because the irritation in my throat speads to my ear canal. It is soooo annoying because it is impossible to scratch. Unless I rip my head open, which I do get tempted to do after a time.

Can't we have some more rain?

ahem.

Now for reasons that I will not and cannot go into here, our office is totally free of managers today.

Not one. All gone.

And we do have a lot of stuff to be getting on with as well.

But.

Exactly how hard, on a scale of 1 to 10 do you think I will be trying, with 1 being "coffee and blogging nonstop" and 10 being "a blur of well planned working fury"

Hmmmmmm?