Disappointment

This weekend I went to Guildford and London, and I heard my niece perform at the Royal Academy of Music where her band won a gold award. My whole family was there, and my mum got all the way to Marylebone and back by herself, and successfully made a call on a mobile phone. However the weekend wasn't without its disappointments:

• The National Concert Band Festival was a complete shambles, and there wasn't enough room for everybody to hear the bands or the adjudications.
• Aberdeen Grammar Concert Band didn't do well enough to enter the competition to perform at the Olympic ceremonies.
• 48 hours spent waiting with bated breath for a reply from the hot chorister whom I've been out with a couple of times.
• I was booked into the wrong hotel, miles from the venue and the rest of my family.
• I wasn't even booked into the wrong hotel.
• Staying in a hotel less salubrious than a prison ship.
• That my room was neither quiet, comfortable, nor dark.
• Breakfast.
• Engineering works between Waterloo and Guildford.
• That the chorister wasn't interested in me after all.

Richard "No, it made me want to drown things" B

Silence

My band played on Saturday, amongst the required pub-rock standards we try to play one or two tunes with some genuine interest. To make up for the Chelsea Daggers, Sweet Home Alabamas and Sex on Fires of the evening, we played a Primal Scream song called "I'm losing more than I'll ever have" which I firmly believe is the most beautiful song ever written[note1]. Bizarrely I didn't spot how wonderful it is until I'd been playing it weekly for a couple of months. The song starts as a ballad with a single guitar and male voice, and by the end has another guitar, drums, bass, brass section, and backing vocals. You'll know the final section because it was remixed to become "Loaded"[note2]

During the song I get five bars of glory. When it's just the male voice and gentle guitar I play really loud distorted stab chords in an odd syncopated rhythm. It's completely unexpected at that point in the song, shocking and exciting at the same time. Those few seconds are often genuinely the high point of my week.

On Saturday during the song I steadied my nerves, counted myself in, fingered the chord, and hit the strings hard and sharp. To my surprise and massive disappointment it came out as complete silence. I then had a verse and chorus in which to do some very rapid faultfinding before the song, and my evening were completely ruined. It was better the second time around.

[Note1] If I were the woman scorned for whom it was written, I'd have forgiven him.

[Note2] Yes you do remember "Loaded", you heard it all the time in the early 90's, it starts with a sample that goes "Just what is it that you want to do?...."

Richard "fan of the soprano soloist" B

Boredom

My life is too full. What with work, social occasions, guitar practice, rehearsals, shows, elderly parent(s), and housework I barely get a minute to myself. It is several years since I knew the cloying embrace of boredom. This weekend I was bored. I didn't work on Friday afternoon and didn't go out on a planned date on Friday night. By tea time on Saturday there wasn't a single thing left in the house that I could iron or wash-up and I'd watched two feature films. I'm half way through a novel that I'm not enjoying, there wasn't a single thing worth watching on tv, I'd had a bath and a stroll, and I couldn't have had another cup of tea [note1] if my life depended on it. I eventually did something else that I haven't done for years. Sit down and listen to music by myself for the sheer pleasure of it. It was good.

[note1 For "cup of tea" read "students' ovaltine", "nescafe handshake" or "blowjob off emu"]

Richard "the hot chorister had a headache" B

Jump the shark

The proud era of the date report is over.

I apologise to my regular readers and the fans of my date reports, but they have to stop. I'm going out on a first date tonight, and I want to be able to try to enjoy myself and to pay attention to what she says, rather than trying to compose a funny blog article in my head. First date reports have got me into trouble in the past. Date Report 2 became a photocopier and fax-machine phenomenon and very nearly made its way back to the woman's mother before we'd even been on a second date. I have never even been allowed to publish Date Report 3 or 6.

We all wish that there had only been one 'Matrix' film, that they'd never made the fourth series of 'Coupling', and that George Lucas had given up after either 'Empire Strikes Back' or 'Return of the Jedi'. Rather than spoil the legacy of the extant date reports with a deteriorating series of shabby copies, we'll end it on a high. Date Report 8 is the best yet. Rather than pining for more of the same, let's promote it to "Best Ever".

Date Report 1
Date Report 2
Date Report 3 - Unpublished
Date Report 4
Date Report 5
Date Report 6 - Unpublished
Date Report 7
Date Report 8

Richard "wish me luck" B

Don't Read This

This blog post is highly offensive. Stop reading now.

Orifice Capacity Scale:

• Paper Cut
• Mole's Eye
• Mouse's Ear
• E Minor 7
• E Minor
• A Major
• E 7 Sharp 9
• Clown's Pocket
• Wizzard's Sleve
• Hippo's Yawn
• Ripped Out Fireplace

Richard "pc" B

Instruction Manual

Congratulations on taking ownership of your new worn-out and modified Atco cylinder lawn mower. A few decades spent familiarising yourself with the operation and maintenance of the machine will pay dividends in the coming months.

The machine is fitted with a seriously worn Briggs&Stratton Villiers F6 two stroke engine which should have been thrown away in the 1970s. It will provide rattly and unreliable power to both the cutting blades and the roller.

1. Charge the battery.
   The magneto failed in the early 2000s and was replaced by a lead-acid battery and a dc coil. There is no charging system fitted to the mower. Connect the battery to the charger and turn the charger on at the mains. You will notice an old light bulb soldered precariously into the charging circuit. This provides both a visual indication that the battery is being charged, and some degree of current limiting.
2. Mix the fuel
   The annotations of the correct fuel mixture have been illegible for many years, instead use the black mark on the greasy polythene jug (supplied with the mower) to measure the petrol. Use the scratch on the side of the 35mm film canister (supplied with the mower) to measure 2-stroke oil.
3. Fill the fuel tank
4. Food the carburettor
   Open the fuel tap. Depress the float valve override until fuel drips out of either the venturi or the float chamber. If fuel does not drip out, proceed to the section "Rebuild the carburettor"
5. Prime the engine
   Ensure that the ignition switch is OFF. Set the throttle to 75%. Fully close the choke. Briskly pull the starting handle twice. The kick start wore out in the 1980s and was replaced by a large pulley and a length of sturdy cord.
6. Start the engine
   Turn the ignition switch to ON. Set the throttle to 25%. Open the choke a crack. Briskly pull the starting handle twice. In the unlikely event that the engine fires you should instantly start operating the choke and throttle such that the engine neither stalls nor floods. If the engine is now running proceed to the section "Cutting the grass"
7. Rebuild the carburettor
   The machine is mainly assembled with whitworth fasteners, except for the ones which wore out in the 1970s and 1980s which were replaced with A/F fasteners. Fasteners replaced in the last 20 years are mainly metric. The kit of tools (supplied with the mower) contains both pre-war and post-war whitworth spanners so their markings don't correspond with the fastener dimensions.
   You should usually only need to bebuild the carburettor once or twice for each lawn that you mow.
   Disconnect the fuel hose from the float chamber. Withdraw the carburettor from the crankcase spigot. The carburettor body is deformed and the spigot is corroded so it is very difficult to remove the carburettor. Remove the float chamber. The set screw which holds the main jet in place has stripped so the main jet should now have fallen out. clear the main jet, reseat the needle in the float valve, clean the float chamber and reassemble the carburettor.
8. Cut the grass
   The clutch lining is absolutely irreplaceable so operate the clutch as little as possible. In particular you may not open the clutch to turn corners or to turn around at the end of a run. The tick-over adjustment is broken, instead simply try not to close the throttle so far that the engine stops. Open the throttle a little to increase engine revs and close the clutch. Cut the grass. Close the fuel tap approximately two minutes before you finish cutting the grass so that the float chamber is empty. Turn off the ignition.
9. Clean
   Use the toothbrush and broken china teacup of oil (supplied with the mower) to lubricate the cutting blades.

Below is a list of common faults, their causes and cures:

Sympoms	Possible cause	Remedial action
Fast tickover, low power	partially blocked main jet	Rebuild the carburettor
Poor starting, runs badly	partially blocked main jet	Rebuild the carburettor
"	partially blocked float valve	Rebuild the carburettor
"	partially blocked fuel filter	Rebuild the carburettor
"	dirty spark plug	Clean spark plug
"	poor seal at spark plug	Re-seat spark plug
"	accumulation of oil in crankcase	Drain crankcase
"	poor seal at crankcase drain	Re-seat crankcase drain
Does not start	too numerous to list	Diagnose and rectify
Not interested in lawnmower preservation	?	?

Richard "text flirting with a hot chorister" B