Guitars and Life

Now I'm sure this has been a problem for many of you over the years.  Well we know have the solution. Aston Martin guitars and amps!!! Inspired by the Gibson Corvette guitar (Yuk!) and the Fender Jaguar Strat these are now available for order. The guitar is a high tech carbon fibre affair made by Status. Love the logo between the pickups and the Aston style "vent" on the upper bout, although I wonder if any punks out there might find that injury inducing as they thrash windmill style around.  Punks playing this... maybe not. Anyway so you've got the DB9, Vantage or what ever and your beloved has bought you the guitar.  You can't possibly just plug it into any old amp can you?  No of course not.  Enter the Aston Martin amp I love how this looks - the grill has real 1960s DB4 look about it. More info at Aston Martins guitar and amp site. Now for the painful bit... The guitar is £5,995 and the amp is £7,995!!  Available from World ...

So now we know. The verdict of "misadventure" brings a close this sad story.  "Misadventure" - sounds almost a playful word, a lark, mucking about and something went wrong.  Drinking yourself to death is not just mucking about that went wrong. The official level of alcohol in her body was 416mg per 100ml.  Apparently 350mg per 100ml can be considered likely to bring on fatal consequences.  The drink drive limit is 80mg. I dread to think what levels were in my system at times - especially towards the end.  I was barred from a pub for life in the last few weeks since I was drinking pints of Guinness faster than they could be poured.  I know one day I gave up counting at 20 pints - got off the stool and drove home!  Utterly ridiculous -  somehow I never killed myself or others. The story of Amy having been abstinent for a while then picking up again isn't novel either.  I hear this time and again in the rooms of AA.  I myself stoppe...

I'm seriously ill by the way - I have the man flu - which if you are male you'll understand that I am very very nearly at deaths door and how I struggle on is a triumph against all adversity.   Hang on why I just slurp my extra strength LemSip.... Right - I'll not dwell on my serious medical condition clearly... I watched a couple of great programmes last night during a "home alone" period when my daughter and wife were at swimming training. Firstly Dr Alice Roberts has an entertaining and educational programme on at the moment about the evolution of human beings.  This was the second in the series.  It is interesting the kind of things they are showing in the development of bipedal humans from tree dwelling apes in the forests.  Driven by climate and forced change of habitat as the world changed around our ancestors.  Interesting stuff - looking at how we evolved to a particular type of diet, why cooking might be the reason we developed bigger brains...

Only a week after having to share the sad loss of Dan Wheldon very sadly MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli died at today's Malaysian MotoGP race.  He had a front end fold on the second lap and sadly instead of him and the bike sliding straight off into the gravel trap for some reason the bike came back across the track and he was hit by two other riders.  His helmet came off in the impact and it was obvious from that split second that this was very bad news.  The race was abandoned and soon it was announced that Marco had not survived the crash.  He was 24.  He'd come 2nd last week for the first time ever - had struck a deal to be a brand new Honda next year and would have won GPs soon and possibly been a champion. A very very sad loss - This year Marco I watched you mature and try hard to get rid of the wild man image some branded you with and the last few races showed you were a true threat to the top riders.  Love and prayers to his family and friends tryi...

Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell. The latest in Cornwells Lord Uhtred series.  This one finds devout pagan, Danish raised Uhtred still fighting for the Saxons.  Alfred the Great is nearing the end of his life without seeing his dream of all England united in a single kingdom... the squables with the Danelaw in the majority of the north of the country overshadow this.  With Alfred near to death some scheme to take the crown of Wessex for themselves, others eye Mercia the puppet kingdom that is a buffer between Wessex and Danelaw.  Others want peace - peace?  With Uhtred about?  No chance!  Even in his 40s he is the most feared Saxon warrior.  This brilliantly tells the history around the narrative of Uhtred and his follows. I love Cornwell's stuff - if you love old history and fictional novels based way back when - read this.  Makes you proud to be British and descended from these tough guys!  As I sit there reading it on a Kindle in...

This post is about change, fear, anxiety, faith etc. I'm slowly getting into the new job.  It has been an interesting journey so far.  Basically I've been recruited into a new position in the organisation that actually is yet to fully exist.  This is because they are only a certain way through all the proposed changes to the division I'm in and therefore I've joined as head of a group that won't exist until all the changes are completed and that is still a little way off.  So it is a little bit odd at the moment, there is stuff going on in the existing structure which I'm listening to but not actively involved in.  I've been involved in some of the organisational change stuff working with my boss and others on the job descriptions and gradings with HR. Work is beginning to come along that I can pick up on since new stuff, like some bids for new projects don't have an obvious owner other than myself so that is ok. But overall I just feel not quite the...

My post about champions is more poignant than ever in the cold light this morning.  I had half thought of holding on hoping to be able to report another British Champion - name Dario Franchitti as Indycar champ for the fourth time.  Whilst he is champion the manner of the last race leaves all that in the shade.  The terrible loss of Dan Wheldon another great British driver who had conquered America was just so so sad. Motorsport is dangerous.  I watched the movie Senna over the weekend and was in tears around the final few mins when they covered that awful weekend in 1994 when he and Roland Ratzenberger lost their lives - motorsport is much safer now than then but it is still dangerous. Dan Wheldon was a great driver, sadly not with a regular drive this year which for a past champion was mad frankly.  He turned out once this year at the Indy 500 and won!  Shows the quality of the man without doubt. A sad loss and over shadows motorsport...

It is the end of the motorsport seasons... so we know Vettel is now the youngest ever double world champion, his dominant win at Korea is another in his remarkable year.  Will he rewrite all the record books?  Possibly the way he is going. MotoGP wrapped up in Australia aptly enough with Cassey Stoner fully deserving his second world crown - he has been slightly Vettel like on his Honda whilst Rossi has struggled to get around with the Ducati, which whilst Cassey didn't win the championship on it last year, he at least was in the hunt.  Rossi unfortunately fell off again today in the nasty Philip Island conditions.  I wonder if he is thinking "Maybe I should have walked away from this before now?"  Next year will show the man. Nearer home Matt Neal won the BTCC crown in the last meeting which was not really that exciting as Plato couldn't challenge on a circuit where the outright speed of the turbo powered cars showed.  However it was a see-saw...

... well that has to be a bit (er... a lot actually) tongue in cheek to be honest but I do have somethings to be proud of. I got an email from PRS yesterday which outlined my recent royalty earnings.  All bar a little bit of change I'll soon be £50 richer!!!  Now that may not cause the bank to call me in for a wealth management interview but I'm pretty chuffed.  I have a piece of paper (well a PDF but I can print it out) that has a list of my songs on it and the amounts paid due to the performances of them.  See I can show this to my grandkids when I'm old and grey :-) The income is from me playing my stuff live at various gigs etc.  But it does show the value of becoming a member of PRS if you are a musician performing live music.  Every venue should be licensed for live music if you are playing there, they have paid a sum to PRS already based on size of the venue etc. for that.  Therefore there is a pot of money that PRS has hold of already that ...

Regular commenter on this blog JohnJayJay posted a comment on my Birthday Post the following wise words To paraphrase: "Getting older isn't necessarily fun, but it beats the hell out of not getting older...if you know what I mean."    (He quotes his mother as the source btw) Events in the news over the last two days bring that succinctly into focus. Steve Jobs founder and CEO of Apple Computers has passed away aged 56. Graham Dilley ex. Kent and England fast bowler has died aged 52. Now - both of my generation, Graham Dilley I remember watching back in the early 80s when I went to sample cricket at Canterbury with an old school pal. Life can be cruely short and makes me realise I should live my life with a bit more happiness, smiles and passion and less frowns, angst and resentment. Sad too to note that Bert Jansch has passed away.  Davy Graham, John Martyn and now Bert, they may not be names that every household is aware of but their influence in the folk...

Long time no reviews... I need to put that right. Firstly here is a first for good old Luddite Furtheron, funny I work in IT and generally do believe that technology is a great thing, look at what it does give us... just look around you now; simply from the clothes you are wearing, the chair you are (probably) sitting in, the computer you are reading this on, the internet that delivered it, the electricity needed all over the place to do that and provide the light, heating, cooling etc. etc.    I'm going on a bit but anyway... the first of these reviews is actually... a download review!!!  I know, I know but it is true Furtheron for once didn't buy a hard copy CD so that he could then read the lyrics, timing of tracks to the nearest second, muse on the value of the various engineers on particular tracks etc.  I decided to buy something, went to Amazon, clicked on it, downloaded it and bunged it on my MP3 player in a matter of seconds... damn clever all this ne...

I owe you all some book reviews... and CD reviews.. Books first... Conquest 1066 - Stewart Binns This covers the life of Hereward who is a legendary figure from around the time of the Battle of Hastings about whom little is known about his life.  This is an attempt to therefore create a fictional account to embellish his life in which he is made an outlaw at an early age, travels widely and becomes a hugely respected soldier.  Up to the point of the recounting of the Battle of Hastings this was a captivating read.  Sadly after that you know that his attempts at the rebellion fail so it is a bit of disappointment from then on I'm afraid and I lost interest in it - that is also disappointing since he is portrayed as a man who after that went on to live further adventures but these are not covered.  Sad, I'd have preferred a briefer recount of his rebellion and more on his later life story. For anyone into historical novels it is a reasonable read. Marks of Ca...

The really observant of you all may have noticed a single character in my profile has changed.  An 8 and changed to a 9 - yes folks it is my birthday today and I've entered my fifth decade on this planet.  My daughter is constantly now reminding me that I have only one year until I'm 50, however I was thinking it funny that we actually count our ages as years past.  You are nought when born... funny you don't count money like that or houses... who lives a 0 Station Road?  If we counted years like money I'd be 50 already. An inevitable sign of my age is that I needed new glasses, the biggest problem the last years is reading I have to take them off to read then back on to look at the TV etc.  So I've got a pair of varifocals now.  I'll see how I get on with them but so far not too bad.   Although I get strange looks as I move my head about looking at things at the moment, I'm trying to figure out the best bit to look through for this or that. A...