Top'n'tails night

A small gathering of TLOGS took place on Wednesday to run through the starts and stops. Just Ian, Tod, Charlie and Anthony joining in where he could on bass. A very productive session, although, despite only doing stops'n'starts, we still only got through half the set.


Kilmeston gig back to 16th July, by the way.

Out of the mouths of babes...

So I was in Homebase the other day, shopping for a different colour pint to replace 'Rum and Raisin' (which looked like a muddy puddle to me), when young Jonathan came charging over.
"Dad, Dad, we've got to get one of these for Tod. He'd really like one. They're down to £9.99!"
"What is it?" I asked.
"I dunno. But they're down to £9.99!"

Last night's lack of rehearsal

Very sad to have had no rehearsal last night. Still, when Ms Humble is on our screens doing Springwatch, what else can one expect? (Very disappointed that the BBC haven't taken up my idea that the lovely Kate should do an in-depth feature on all-girl mudwrestling, but there we go.)

More birthdays

I dunno. 21st birthdays are like buses. You wait ages for one, then, er, two, come along, hold on, that's not right....

Anyway, a very Happy 21st Birthday to Old Git (temporarily non-member while storming her way across North America) Tessa. Rumour has it she's due back over here soon, so she might be spending her Great Day in mid-air somewhere.

Incidentally, Kilmeston have asked if their gig can be brought forward to 2nd July. 'Ayes' and 'noes' to Tod asap, please.

And finally, a very Happy St George's Day to everyone.

Last Night's Rehearsal

First things first: a very happy 21st Birthday to Jesse, ex-Old Git (not permanently, we hope), and now full time Shorthorn.

Back to last night's rehearsal. A bit hot'n'sweaty (even before anyone mentioned Ms Humble), but a really purposeful evening. we learned many things.

1. The magnificent contribution of Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803 - 1887) to 19th Century engineering, standardising threads for the first time.

2. The merits of the Selectaspeed gearbox in tractors of a certain age.



3. Fat people are harder to kidnap. (We never found out if this is due to the fact that they are harder to bundle into a boot, or because they take longer to plead for release due to hunger. Ian said he'd last three minutes.)

4. Dave is getting married. Yes, you did read that right.

The music went very well, with a room full of satisfied smiles at the end of (almost) every song.

All we need is for Ian to come out of his shell a bit, and we'd be away.

Potential new gigs

Hot news from Rat's Castle's very own Harvey Goldmith:

Two more gigs have been suggested, on 23rd Sept and 1st October. Time alone will tell if they qualify for the 'No Passports Required' tour, or whether we'll have to come up with another witty and amusing name for them.

A quite odd evening....

The boring stuff first: there were five of us (Ian, Tod, Dan, John and Charlie), it went very well, lots of confirmations of gigs. Blah blah.

Here's the odd stuff. First, it appeared that Tod had been studying Shed 3b's Feng Shui, and most of the amps had been rearranged by the time we all got in. Second, Ian had been down to cymbals'r'us and cleared out the whole stock.

Next, it appeared that Tod, while studying Feng Shui, had stumbled into a Morris Dancing club; in the end, it was nothing more than another set of pedals that were making him skip round the floor daintily.

Next up was a rather bizarre conversation between two Old Gits of a certain similar age as to why we spend longer at the urinal (or scrap skip, in this case) than youngsters do; and why blue jeans are a no-no (the same reason).

The evening finished with the inaugural meeting of HAKHAC, which is the Hinton Ampner Kate Humble Appreciation Club. This came about after a discussion about 'Lambing Live' on the BBC ("Oh no! Blood! Quick, go to 'technical fault screen'!!!"). And we all agreed that Ms Humble is enormously wholesome, pretty and yummy, and we'd all very much like to give her a big hug. Or something like that. Oh, and that Julia Bradbury isn't quite in the same class.






Several variations of 'giving her a big hug' were discussed, one particularly bizarre one (prompting further clubs to be formed, like the KHAKC, the KHALS and TKHTABAWHFH)turned out to be the cue for everyone to stop drinking lager and go home.

Anyway, the music rehearsal went very well indeed.

Just to clear things up...

It had to be pointed out to drummer Ian that the '37f' in the gig list for this summer refers to the shed in which the wedding is taking place, not the bride's bra size.
Dirty old man.

Getting back up to speed...

There's a lightly amusing film called 'Wedding Crashers', in which two young men take advantage of the 'bride or groom?' question to sneak into weddings and have a good time.

We had something similar last night. We were mid-Mustang Sally, when this fellow stumbled into Shed 3b, shouted "hello everybody!", plonked a couple of armfulls of beer bottles down on the table, opened a couple, and settled down in 'Wakeman Corner' - next to the huge banks of organs. Well, we smiled politely back, and kept playing, all assuming that he was someone else's mate. Anyway, a couple of bottles later, and he was joining in with harmonies, and then grabbing the mic and taking the lead in 'Don't look back in anger' and 'I will survive'. "I'm not gay" he insisted after excelling at the latter. And then he was gone.

Of course, this is nonsense. I knew who exactly he was; the man who has provisionally booked us for his 50th in a few weeks, and wanted to see what we were like. The rest is true, though.

Another damned good rehearsal. There's nothing like having the dates of the 'No Passport Required' Tour pinned up in direct line of sight to raise the intensity levels a bit.

Freebies for the band

I've been discussing our fee with the good people who organise the Kilmeston Village Fete. "Perhaps a bit more then last year?" I tentatively suggested.
"You'll have to do without free beer," was the grumpy reply.
"But we hardly touched a drop last year," I pointed out.
"The barlady noticed that one of the band had seven free pints!" I was told.

I could only apologise and suggest that Tessa might not be back from Chicago by then.

The 'No Passport Required' Tour 2011

So I met this chap in the pub, who said "You're my besht mate, will your band play at my fishtiethsh birthday hic party..."
"Of coursh we shwill" I replied.

It turns out he was serious. So, I've taken that as the signal to get on and list the flood of dates that have suddenly appeared, on the Phil Collins-like 'No Passports Required' Tour page.