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Spelling by Microsoft, advice on English and how she is writ courtesy Peter Holland
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Spelling by Microsoft, advice on English and how she is writ courtesy Peter Holland
Last year's Uncle Joe's can still be read by clicking here and 2010's here
4th Feb
Snowing! At last Time to practice the guitar
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2nd Feb
Day out in Leicester with Colin Arrogant and Nige. We drove down to Broughton Astley in Leicestershire to visit a chap Colin and me met in London who turns out a nice line in banjos amongst other things, so watch this space I may be turning up with a banjo under me arm in the near future. There is a folk club that sounds interesting in the village pub there so I am proposing we make a visit one Thursday to see them. We made our way back into Leicester city centre to Sheeans for another drooling session, they have some very nice instruments from mid-range Takemines to high end McPhersons and Lowdons but with price tags in the thousands, several thousands (about eight was the top) you will not be seeing me with one any time soon. We made our way back to Colin's for a coffee where he spent an hour explaining harmony and chord structure to Nige who's head has now exploded.
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Club 1st Feb
White Rabbit's! I know stupid isn't it? but apparently if you don't ill fortune will beset you and with Fire & Brimstone in the club we don't need any more bad luck.
First feature night of the year tonight with Terry doing the honours, we had a quieter night than of late nothing to do with Terry of course I didn't publish the feature spots until late on the 31st. We managed to provide a varied night of entertainment with many of the usual suspects and Sue & Wal making one of their rare performances. Of course with Sue in we had a drum kit available including the great Gatlin Boys bass, this enabled Fire & Brimstone to perform not only with me n' my bodhran but a drummer as well, to be fair they could have managed with just the drummer but why should I miss out. I decided it was high time I got up and did a spot again and so set about finding a suitable instrument (I didn't bother taking my guitar). Now the good folks in club are very generous and there is normally no problem borrowing a guitar but getting one in tune and with a strap big enough to fit round me proved almost impossible, my thanks to Martin, Johnny B and Colin for their assistance, I was well pleased with the result in the end.
Next Thursday session at The Larklands 9th Feb
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31st Jan
Terry has sent me the list for this year's feature spots:
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31st Jan
To everyone who has been receiving spam emails from me over the last month or so, good news I think I may have finally killed them off.....Hurrah! Truth is I wasn't sending them they were going off my server, so just to reiterate - if you receive anything from keith.clark2 in future it will be spam, that address is never used to send mail anymore so don't open it that's how I got the problem. Word to the wise if you get an email from anyone, even your bestest friend (especially your best friend) that has an attachment that you don't expect or seems unusual either delete it or ask said friend before you open it, OK.
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Club 25th Jan
Burns Night and another very full club, as you might expect we had a couple from Hugh but no pipes this year unfortunately and no haggis either by the way (new committee please note). Greg smuggled (not very well, Billie noticed them immediately) a packet of extra hot pork scratchings in, we thought it best eat the evidence and by about 9 managed to work our way through two bags of the stute's scratchings as well, it is not our fault other people tend to steal them whilst we are not looking. We let Bob mc the first half again he is getting wise to us though, whilst we let him do the work we secretly plot in mc's corner and barrack him from the side lines, still it gives the performers a rest.
This week we had Drew from Spondon, our old friend Ray whom we haven't seen for a while, John Chambers from Beeston and new lad Chris who despite being warned about playing above the fourth fret got straight in with some really impressive playing and singing, Johnny B said it was ok as my short fall would make up for it, thanks John.
Mo has some Robbie Williams Tickets for sale, OK it's not really Robbie but if you are a fan you will not be disappointed he's really good. They're £8 each at the Festival inn at Trowell March 3rd proceeds for Sandiacre youth football team I believe and whilst Mo is flogging tickets Terry is organising the feature spots for this year, if you want to do one see Terry soonest.
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Club 18th Jan
I am back from me hol's a little older, slightly tanned (I'm English and meant to be pale) and raring to go.
We had a very full night this week, Richo seems to think that the new committee is responsible! (it'll be the first committee ever to be responsible if it is), I think we are in ascendance, I only say that to get Peter excited he likes me to use proper English. Talking about Peter, he launched proceedings this week with a jolly good sing song, well done, a little bird tells me that we are soon to be without him as he is off travelling again. We let new club secretary Bob mc a bit in the first half this week, he's got a big gig coming up and feels he needs the practice, I would have thought the last 50 or so years practice would suffice. So you are expecting me to turn on him and list a catalogue of disasters, not so he was professional and polished, although Greg and Myself blamed him for our hopeless over run in the first half, in truth things just got away from us, of course we re-jigged the list and no one noticed, except perhaps a few people who ended up performing a lot later than expected. By the way have I said if you fancy a go at mc'ing just ask us we really don't mind.
A couple of new faces turned up this week all
the way from Bridlington, seems they have been run out of Yorkshire and taken up
residence locally, Jenny half the couple (sorry didn't get the other half's
name) is a good guitarist and gave us a couple of instrumental numbers, let's
hope we see more of them. We also had Steve who we last saw before
Christmas, John who comes about once a year, a guy called Phil who I
recognise but I'm not sure if he has played for us before, sorry Phil I'm
not a full shilling at the best of times but names and faces completely baffle
me and Sutton Mick who hasn't been since..... well last week actually but a good
while before that. John got a double dose of IFC hospitality, I gave him
the usual treatment on stage and Suze managed to roundly insult him later before
he had chance to leave, to be fair Suze wasn't trying to be nasty it
just comes naturally and John a rather big imposing looking gentleman took it
all in his stride, I do wish he would come down more often, maybe we should let
Suze off the leash.
Derek bless his heart turned up this week in his new waistcoat, best described as fustian I am at a loss to describe it adequately so I have taken a picture for you, I thought he looked somewhat Tudor and lacked only a ruff, his wine red shirt was matched only by Martin's wine red trousers!
Finally, our good mate Al has landed his dream job, I know he has agonised over accepting it as it will take him away from home for a while but good sense has prevailed and he has accepted it. Where is he playing? on a cruise ship of course, bless him we will be having a whip round to get him some arm bands.
A
short note from Peter
Next Thursday session at The Larklands 26th Jan
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Club 11th Jan
Not here this week, gone to Fuerteventura to torment Johnny foreigner.
Keith xx
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Club 4th Jan
Special night this week with Greg celebrating his sixty fifth birthday, Where have we heard that before? Unfortunately no-one thought to get a birthday card, not even his best mate Dek so I got Billie to make him one with a running order, a page out of a note book and a biro, it's the thought that counts. Happy birthday Greg.
This week we had Chris in for his debut performance, he turned up with a Martin and wowed us with some slick blues playing, not a bad singer either lets hope we see loads more of him.
It's a new year and like everyone else I am starting afresh, last year I broke my own rule and started doing weekly reports, thankfully there hasn't been any histrionics but I am bored with it, I am sure a list of who played doesn't thrill you either and I am far too polite to comment on the acts so I am dropping it again in favour of some witty blog writing, lets hope inspiration hits me soon! We'll see how it goes, of course I will report the gossip, the highs and lows and should anyone do something stupid I will be there (hopefully).
I am off to the Canaries on Sunday so I will be absent next week.