thin, round, with lemon and sugar

We've been flipping a few meetings around. Some of last week's sessions received a battering and a couple of new items have crêped up on me, so there's a few hectic days ahead.

Tomorrow could be quite a squeeze.

Although eggcellently, one of today's gaps gave me time to buy a few lemons.

What with today being Puncake Pancake day and all.

no #vatileaks here - just angels and demons

I see the Pope has quit. Well not until the end of the month officially, but that's still pretty fast for something that most consider to be a bolt from the heavens.

For ages there's been an undercurrent of alleged issues around the Vatican varying from smutty scandals, through cover-ups and diabolik financial shenanigans. There's a whole bunch of stuff in an Italian site based upon the so called Vatileaks from last year.

Some of it reads like a Dan Brown plot-line and leads to speculation about whether the current Pope was part of a holding pattern, waiting to get the new dux in a row.

So who next? Another Germanic type? Available but unlikely?

An Italian? There's plenty to choose from so it's gotta be a strong chance. Maybe the Archbishop of Milan? Or the popular Angelo Bagnasco? Or even Cardinal Bertone to keep it in the Italian family?

An American? the Archbishop of New York in the Vatican? There's a thought.

Someone from Africa? It's a big recruitment zone and would show beyond Europe thinking? Cardinal Turkson?

What about a Canadian? We've done it here with the Bank of England. Multilingual Marc Ouellet to show global thought and remove some of the citadel walls around the Vatican?

There's others too. It'll be interesting to see whether they go for Italianate positioning or global reach in the next chapter.

Dan Brown is probably already scribbling.

spring heeled Jack #FAWM 4

Here we are nearly half way through February and I'm still only on lyric four from FAWM (February is Album Writing Month).

Of course, this year I'd decided that the guitar building project would be instead of penning any more lyrics and I haven't set up any recording equipment to convert any of my efforts into tracks.

One thing I've noticed is that when I first started to do FAWM a few years ago, there was a much higher ratio of lyrics to produced songs. The march of Garageband and general home recording has continued apace and now the lyric only tracks seem to be notably in the minority.

One of the early suggested themes was to write a City Song. Mine's a bit late, but here goes!

People call me a night terror
And they won't go out at night.
Slipping through the streets in the darkness
Sharp claws give more than a fright.

I'm a terror
here in London.
I'm a terror
dressed in black.
Just call me the terror
called Spring-heeled Jack.

Don't go walking round the streets in the nighttime
Under street lights flickering with gas.
I'll jump and blow them out in a second
Face away and you won't feel me pass.

i'm a terror
right here in London.
I'm a terror
dressed in black.
Just call me terror
Jumpin' Spring-heeled Jack

Some bet that I'm a shapeshifter
Sometimes a ghost or a devil or a bear.
Bet if you see any one of these as shadows
Around the corner I'll be there.

Cos I'm a terror
Right here in London.
I'm a terror
dressed in black.
Call me the terror
known as Spring-heeled Jack.

They've sent policemen out to find me
And the Lord Mayor's looking too.
They say my hands can cut to ribbons
better if no one knew.

Cos I'm a terror
right here in London.
Im' a terror in cape so black
Yeah I'm that terror
here in London
Just call me Spring-heeled Jack.

time to squeeze the orange guitar (pt 9)

I've been playing the mostly assembled guitar today. The last few pieces come together quite quickly.

I must admit it sounds rather good.

There's a few tweaks to apply. The capacitors I've used are probably too high in value which means the tone control mainly works between 10 and 7.

The multiple push-pull switches for the various modes of serial, parallel, one coil, two coil all work brilliantly and the result is a superb range of tones. I've also reversed one of the humbuckers so that the now inner rails have hum cancellation. It seems to work, although I've no idea what it would have sounded like if they had been the official way around.

The 'everything on' setting is deep and growly and the lead guitar setting is surprisingly clean and clear. Plus there's a whole gamut of in between settings. Not to mention adding back in some pedals and reverb.

I've only put some temporary strings on it at the moment to test it and later I'll be adjusting the heights of strings, humbuckers and string intonation (although at the moment it seems remarkably good with proper harmonics bang on the 12th fret). For tuners I've used the locking type, which are also very simple to use and seem to keep the strings rock solid.

Quite a few people making guitars will copy a specific model. Contrariliy, I think it's given me the freedom to use anything I feel like, so although it may be hybrid, it's also unique.

It's quite a pleasing project and one where I feel I'm learning quite a lot about how guitars work. With hindsight it might have been easier to start with a Fender style because they use separate plates for most of the controls. Fender's stratocaster shape is also mainly 'open-plan' as well, which would make the wiring and so forth much easier to get at.

I've still got to add the scratch plate, the bits to hold the straps on, some plates to cover the gubbins at the back and generally fiddle around with the setup.

There's a few dinks in the finish from when I was wiring it, and so I may just have another look at the paint job, although it's probably about as good as I could get it for a first attempt.

Now back to February Album Writing Month, with a dangerous musical instrument to accompany my lyric writing.

(Building a guitar? See also parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

the home-made orange guitar body has sound (Pt 8)

Well, all the wires are inside the guitar body now.

Or so I thought...

I decided to plug it in and see what it sounded like without a neck or any strings.

Silent would be a good answer.

Unfortunately, not to be. There was a big hum when I touched the tone controls.

Brrp.

I realised my mistake. I'd been thinking of the guitar body as a ground. Like in electronics, earthing to the chassis is a pretty routine thing. Of course, the guitar chassis is made of wood, so doesn't work too well.

Another round with the soldering iron, this time to make a pretty little silver wire circuit between the four control knobs, so that they share a common earth.

It's worked a treat and I just get a hiss when I turn the amplifier up high now, with everything else ominously silent.

My next experiment was to hold the plugged-in neck-less guitar body face to face with my unplugged telecaster. Strum the strings on the telecaster and see if the new guitar pickups could sense the vibrations?

Yay.

It works. In all the main switch positions. The guitar has sound.

Now to add a neck, bridge and the strings.

Then to learn about intonation and action.

building the orange guitar (part 7)

Everything is starting to look orange now.

Although out of the haze, a guitar shaped artifact is beginning to take form.

As I suspected, the bodywork is proving the most difficult. Some of it has been a question of learning as I go along. I've now reached the stage where some of the metal parts are coming together, although there's still a fair amount of wiring to complete inside the body. I've realised that guitar maker Fender put their controls onto little plates for a reason.

By comparison, my design means threading wires all through the body and I'm starting to wonder if that switch in the 'Les Paul' position was such a good idea.

It creates a diagonal channel right through the middle of the guitar, from the plug socket which is bottom left to the switch which is top right.

I've also had a few dramas with the clear coat lacquer, which does all kinds of interesting things after it's been sprayed. I gather I should wait about a week and then to sand it to get it very shiny, using 2000 grit.

I'm agonising over what to do about the fretboard now. I've got a nice rosewood finger board with some cream coloured inserts, but I don't know whether to paint the exposed wood areas. I'm thinking to leave it 'natural' as a tell tale-sign of the 'Made in England' nature of this guitar.

I'm hoping to fire up the circuits this weekend, to check for hum. There's another 20 or so connections to solder first.

ee-bac-gone?

I see the new Baccalaureate (Baccalauréat?) exam system promoted by Mr Gove is to be abandoned?

A pan-European idea purportedly scuppered by European Union procurement rules?

Or is the red light some handily contrived excuse because everyone in the 'education franchise' thought it wouldn't work?

Gove condemned GCSEs as insufficiently demanding, instead requiring more 'O level-like' end of year exams instead of assessed coursework. He wanted the certificate-less system in place before the next election and the first exams in 2017 - which teachers, Ofqual, many MPs didn't believe in or believe possible.

For le bac, the French have had since Napoleon's time to get it working properly in its various BAC S, ES and L guises.

It will be interesting to see how Gove's climbdown gets spun today. With Orwell still in the syllabus, there's a kind of doublethink around what is being said.

As a member of the Notting Hill Set, Gove is firmly in the Cameron, Osborne, Vaizey clan. But maybe not Bullingdon enough for the support that Osborne receives.

So let's guess which of Gove's advisors break cover over this one?

No 'Gove-levels' certificates for the right answers.

high visibility orange guitar (Part 6)

I've decided that this guitar I'm building will be difficult to lose.

The orangeness is coming along a treat. I know most people wouldn't do this kind of paint job, but I'm thinking that I'd rather have something that obviously stands out instead of another black or red guitar (I've got both those colours anyway).

There's also a well-known term in paint spraying called 'orange peel' when the paint goes on a little spottily. I'm thinking that "it's not a bug, it's a feature" to cover up my own spray painting limitations.

So if the finish is slightly textured, then it will be a proper orange peel finish for an orange guitar.

I should have listened, baby, to my second mind
Everytime I go away and leave you, darling, you send me the blues way down the line.

Oops. No. That's from the lemon song.

adding orange bits inside the home made guitar (Guitar Part 5)

That's the 'outside' view of the controls for the guitar that I'm building. I decided to put them on a cardboard template because all the pieces look rather similar and I'm sure I'd get them mixed up.

Fortunately I already have various electrical tools and equipment, so the new cost of controls is quite small, a few resistors, capacitors and switches.

I'm part way through assembly, but I'll have to wait until the guitar body is further advanced. I need to thread certain components through the body before completing the soldering.

Yes, I have assembled plugs in the past only to have to take them apart again when I realise the outer shell of the plug had to be threaded onto the wire first.

I decided to use two volumes and two tone controls but make them push-pull switchable. My plan is to have any combination of the coils covering series, parallel and out of phase.

I'll draw a tidy version of my circuit diagram later. The one I'm using at the moment is getting somewhat messy.

the home made guitar reaches the tack cloth stage (Guitar Part 4)

The guitar project is proceeding in the background. I've a few days at home this week, before I travel to Liverpool for work on Thursday.

It's quite useful because I'm at the spray painting stage. This appears to require frequent sessions spraying very thin coats, first of primer and now I'm moving on to the Ford Focus GT Pearlescent Orange middle layers.

The face mask seems even more important because I can see all the tiny aluminium particles used to make the pearlescence as they float in the air.

I've also got a whole selection of 600, 800, 1200 and 2000 wet and dry silicon carbide paper for the intermediate sanding and something called a tack cloth to wipe down the prepared surface. That's a whole new learning curve for me.

The timber for the body is alder, which is relatively inexpensive but quite stable.

It is more suitable for painting in a block colour, rather than staining to bring out the not very interesting wood grain.

I see that fancy guitars get made of harder woods and they can have very attractive patterning. I suspect that is why they get stained to show the natural wood grains. I'm realistic enough to know that I'd just ruin anything too fancy.

They say that the wood affects the guitar tone too. I understand the basic physics, such that no-one makes electric guitars from hard rubber or plastic, but I also wonder about the whole maple vs mahogany vs walnut discussion. I'm sure the guitar's own resonance must make some difference, but I can't help thinking that on an electric guitar the signal chain of pickups, tone controls and amplifiers will be the more dramatic factor. Maybe someone should run some blind tests of different guitars.

Anyway, I see lots of Fender guitars are made from alder, so it can't be too bad.

I've also started to] marshal some switches for the various controls. I decided to make a cardboard template and screw the controls to it. Even with just two pickups there's a surprisingly large variety of wiring options.

(Building a guitar? See also parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

CAPS ON MENUS? (sorry if I appear to be shouting)

49ers lament #FAWM 3rd lyric

I wrote this whilst watching the game. It's another FAWM February Album Writing Month lyric - although I don't think it would make it to any album.

It's based on a true story when we went to see the 49ers at Candlestick but didn't get in. I was thinking of a tune along the lines of 'The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' when I started, but it's kind of wandered.

Come gather ye round and I'll tell you a tale
Of the legendary park known as Candle-stick.
We Brits decided to go, to see the big show,
But events, they conspired against us.

We should have known best,
as we moved from Milpitas
To the luxury hotel in San Francisco.
We all had big suites
Where we should have to meet
A man from a company selling.

Instead in my car, we travelled not far
to the 49ers game at the stadium.
The concierge said he could get us all in
but we'd have to pay five times normal.

Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.

So "No" we both said, "we'll snag tix at the park,
Someone is bound to be sell-ing"
And sure enough, near the game
some guys said they could help us to get in.

We'd have to wait on the lot
In their chosen special spot
for their man with the tickets to ar-rive

Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.

We waited an hour and things just turned sour
We'd no ticktet and the game had now started
So we drove to the coast to shoot pool in a bar
and watch it play out on tel-e-vision

Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.

Our bad luck wasn't done
Cos when we left we forgot
Friend Steve's new American leather jacket

So next day we drove back
To Pac-if-ic-a for the coat
then back to San Fran-cis-co airport

Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.

I still have a tee-shirt, with 49ers on
But somehow the glitter has faded.

Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.
Go 49ers, go;
Let us see you 49-ers, so.