Lichfield Dean

Kozak scoring has made me smile as much as Delph not leaving. Really pleased for him. Got to be good news.

Yes, so who is Mason? Can't say I recognise that name.

Played a gig last night. At the Streetly Sports Club. Think we were a bit loud for the venue and most of the regulars left, but at least all our guests stayed and had a good time. Hopefully we can build on this and get some more gigs in and around Sutton.

The Reddrum performed admirably (as did the little Henge snare that I used as my side drum).

Anybody else here perform regularly in the area?

The thing I like most about all this is that Delph has made Sky seem like an even more amateur bunch of hacks than before.

Well done Fab and glad you are still on board.

Clark.

Or Kirk.

One or the other.

I'm sure Brian May, Alex James and Brian Cox could use a drummer for their astrophysics supergroup.

Yeah, there are a surprising number of physicist rock musicians around. Dunno why... Probably some attempt to shake off the 'geek' image or something :-)

Well worth searching for avtv in twitter right now :-)

Some angry people who are rightly concerned about the £45 they have already paid!

£45? Is that the cost of AVTV?

I'm guessing here but I'd say >90% of AVTV users are people who get it free with a ST

Whoever mentioned man city, that exactly what I'm thinking, that's the future not this bullshit

£44.99 a year for this superb new HD service anyway.

Well worth searching for avtv in twitter right now :-)

Some angry people who are rightly concerned about the £45 they have already paid!

So my story Leemond is this:

I did the standard childhood stuff like recorder/piano/oboe but either through lack of ability or interest never got anywhere with them.

Then one day I was listening to the then-new live Genesis album The Way We Walk vol 2. I was astonished at the way the drums were used and started backtracking through their catalogue. The way Phil Collins used the drums in the seventies completely amazed me - so musical and complex and well considered. I was inspired enough to buy my first beginner's kit from the Birmingham Drum Centre and try to teach myself by playing along with various tunes, trying to work out how the difficult bits were done.

Later on at Uni I formed a covers band with several fellow astrophysicists (as improbable as that sounds). Twenty years later and we are still together, and still all best buddies.

From those beginnings I joined other bands, writing our own music, trying and failing to make a success of ourselves. One of those bands is now trying to get going as a covers band, we have started playing a few gigs locally.

The moral of the story? If you can, join a band. You will have some of the best times of your life and you will make friends that will stay with you forever

You won't make any money though!

My mini kit. It is a 10" mahogany snare and a tiny 14" kick with some 10" hihats. I have since added a kickport onto the kick drum.

I call it the Henge Kit (after the famous scene in Spinal Tap)

You are all looking at it wrong. If you focus your eyes twelve inches beyond the screen you can see a dinosaur.

So one hobby of mine is building drums. Here is my newest: an aluminium snare drum that is really rather loud!

Nice! How 'bout a shot of the interior? Cast or rolled shell? How thick?

I have a Noble & Cooley Alloy Classic and it's quite a nice drum.

3mm rolled and welded aluminium. The chap that rolled and welded it for me did a stunning job of hiding the weld. You really cannot see it. However the shell does go very slightly out of round at that point but not enough to make any noticeable effect on the sound or tuning.

The holes and snare bed and bearing edges I cut myself using standard stuff like routers and even just hand files. I then sprayed it myself (I considered going with powder coating but decided to just stick to doing it myself) and added tube lugs and DW throw off and butt end.

I also have a mini kit I made that I will upload a picture of later. That uses mahogany shells from what used to be Carrera drums.

So one hobby of mine is building drums. Here is my newest: an aluminium snare drum that is really rather loud!

You don't see enough Ludwigs about these days.

Hehe. As a drummer, this made me double-take because I have one in my garage :-)

"Aston Villa 2015-16 Home Jersey is maroon with sky blue sleeves"

Claret! Get it right!

"Dark red vertical pinstripes"

Horizontal! Get it right!

Say what ? We have bid for a Vulcan ?

Well, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

Nearly fell off my chair when this popped up on my twitter feed. Got to be a great appointment surely? He was so highly regarded when he worked as coach at Chelsea.

Optimistically-named company :-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/32971963

"An Asian-based firm have been granted a two-year exclusivity period to bid for Birmingham City by the club's Hong Kong-based parent company.

After months of speculation, Birmingham International Holdings Ltd have made a statement to the HK Stock Exchange announcing that Trillion Trophy Asia Ltd have become the preferred bidders.

Trillion Trophy have promised the club a loan facility of £12.5m.

That will be secured against the club's 109-year-old home at St Andrew's."

Overall cost of wham's free new stadium is £702 million - more per spectator than Wembley! http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33214058

I seen suggestions that the announcement that the VMF restaurant will be closed is an indicator that Lerner is sure of a sale - because he apparently subsidised it and it meant a lot to him. I don't know much about the resturant so I can't say if that reasoning stands. Thought I'd mention it.

VMF is closing??

NNnnoooooo!!!!!

I love VMF, there is nowhere else where you get food of that quality for that sort of price. Dammit!

Faroe Islands 2 - Greece 1

Their best ever result surely.

And they are now ahead of Greece in their group.

So, looking good for the Faroe Islands then!

erm... it's... I think that... I mean... you know

I suggest avoiding the BBC live text today... It is literally just Gerrard Gerrard Gerrard Gerrard. Aaaargh

Our fans entered the field before the game had even finished. The fine is warranted on that basis, in my opinion.

But they just thought it was full time when it was a free kick - they were dumb yeah but I can see why they went on early.

Besides which, I thought the stewards handled it just fine. Any attempt to properly force fans back could have actually resulted in things kicking off. What else could they have done?