Spam Lite, Tone Rite, Looking Good, Spelling Shite

I dropped in on Sal, Andy, Milly and Will the other day. There is always something new chez Roberts. Sal was up to her tush organising a Mother Funkers gig (www.mother-funkers.com) and was suffering from a severe case of mobile goal post syndrome. Milly was off to a cast-and-crew after-show party following a production of Grease. And Will was off on a bike ride, returning to practice his growing array of musical instruments, currently euphonium, trombone and piano.

Meanwhile, Andy was busily decanting some evil looking hooch from a demijohn.  It had been donated by the owner of a hostelry that he and fellow twang-meister Hank, had patronised the previous week on the grounds that “it tastes disgusting, and if you don’t take it away I’ll pour it down the drain”. Actually, it tasted rather good if you like liquid Christmas pudding with a side order of marmalade, and was not a little volatile. OK, somewhere between dry-cleaning fluid and rocket propellant. It would probably be rejected as airline cabin baggage on the same grounds as they take a dim view of Semtex or nuclear waste.

Another culinary goody collected in the furtherance of the ‘No Hall too Small’ tour was a can of Spam Lite which Hank found in the US.

"Great New Look, Same Great Taste" Hmmm...

Like Spam Original but even better…

 

Fortunately it comes with a comprehensive user guide – I kid you not:

 

On a more musical note Andy found a rather splendid armoured jack-to-jack guitar lead while on safari in Camden Town.

Two and a half metres for under a tenner – bargain!

I suggested a three-step destruction-test program involving trapping it in a flightcase lid, shutting it in a door and crushing a doubled over length beneath the heel of a cowboy boot heel. I await the results with interest but have little expectation that the test will take place, well, not in controlled conditions anyway.

Talking of which, down in the basement there is something of a studio-cum-guitar-laboratory where Andy gets up to all sorts of musical experiments.

Reader competition:
Using your skill, judgement and imagination
devise an experiment using the items pictured above.

It is also where he keeps his guitar collection. 

Some are old and have been conditioned by years of use. These have developed a mature tone which is usually an improvement on their original sound. The process is much valued by plank virtuosos but takes valuable playing time – until now that is.

Technology has intervened in the form of Tone Rite ™. Simply attach to the immature instrument and set the desired parameters and turn on.

Before you can say something that takes a few days, your guitar will have developed that Strad sound and will be ready to deliver a lifetime of sultry sophistication.

Blimey! Who'd have thought it.

So much to learn, so little time...