So the UK awakes to a new Prime Minister. Some overweight privileged slob who couldn’t give two fucks about anyone outside Planet London, except when he needs to harvest votes.
In Thatcher’s day she sold off the Public Utilities cheap to ingratiate common man. Buy underpriced shares, win, win, win. Make a few bob, money for nothing. It was criminal, selling off utilities we already owned by default. I wonder what Boris will have to offer come election day?
I say all this irrespective of your party, if you care enough to follow one. The outcome would be the same whatever banner waved, although the leader would hopefully look a bit less unkempt, Trump-like & sweaty.
More lies, deceit and fiction to take us crashing out the EU. I think the Great British Public has completely switched off now. There will be no change for Joe Average if we stay or go. Every year a little bit more skint, more mouths to feed.
I’d love a general election where nobody votes, not a soul. Show the fuckers what we think.
No use banging on about the EU and a backstop with Climate Change whipping up a storm. Every month there are records broken, hottest day ever in the UK, wettest June, hottest July on the planet, crappiest summer, Arctic wild fires, mass de-forestation accelerating at an obscene pace in Brazil, hail storms, plagues of frogs. I’ve got thousands of the little green fuckers hopping everywhere. And no butterflies, were all doomed with or without Boris and especially with no butterflies.
No butterflies means no caterpillars so we’ll all be overrun with cabbages next.
It amazes me that the problem cannot be seriously tackled. They put a man on the moon fifty years ago, with less technology than your average present day washing machine and yet they can’t even scratch at Climate Change. No money in it, not popular enough yet, needs a few deaths in the West. Buy mosquito repellent I say, the little bastards are coming to get you in a garden near you soon. Zika, Dengue, Malaria, all on the menu. Better than the old bad back excuse for a few days off sick. “Can’t come in today I’ve got fucking Zika again…..” Try that one on your HR Department next week.
So just how did we get to Prime Minister Boris from fine old English names like Winston or Harold ? A gradual slide I guess, drop in standards, scraping the barrel, well below Tony or Dave. And just where did that insidious twat slide off to after causing all this mess? Fucking scarpered dead quick he did. Lardy bastard. Another Old Etonian, talking like he has a mouth full of bollocks. Country’s riddled with them. Jobs for the Boys. Carved up.
We need more than a Back Stop to sort this out. I scribble away while rattling down to London to check out Denmark Street, again. Day off, bus man’s holiday. I like London, so much to do and see and much of it free. Unlike everywhere else on our fair Isle. Cost a small family the best part of £ 80 to look round a crappy old castle in their backyard or some dead fucker’s garden.
Free public transport for kids. Where I live it’s cheaper to jump in a cab than all get on the bus. Something’s wrong with the system.
London – every step feels like you could be missing something just round the corner, down a jitty, alleyway, just out of sight. Crammed with history and architecture at every turn. Budgets for nearly everyone, eat for a fiver or £500.
I walk for miles, never sure where I am but it doesn’t matter as long as I head East. The river and Gherkin my points of reference – an old Indian trick I picked up somewhere. That’ll be indigenous Americans, the one’s who were there first, bows and arrows, not assault rifles. Shot a few Bison or was it Buffalo ? Fucking ridiculous. Why does anyone want to buy an assault rifle for sport ? Unless you are mentally ill. Take a good long look in the mirror Trump, you fuckwit.
That’s the trouble with the US. Too many guns, great guitars but no history. All laid out in grids, where’s the mystery and romance in that ? “42nd Street” – no bloody imagination. What’s wrong with a name ?
Remember those shoes with a compass in the heel ? I was a school kid, always wanted a pair. Imagine your lost, simple – just take your shoe off and look in the heel, brilliant idea. I had to make do with a cheaper pair, no compass, toes stuffed with newspaper so I could “grow in to them”. Then before I knew what was going on I was slapped into work boots. Northern humour.
Denmark Street appears on the horizon, complete reversal, I’d travelled West now.
Surrounded by tower cranes and skeletal scaffolding, like some monstrous bony beast about to chew up the bricks and mortar. Think it would leave a sour taste though.
Sadly unimpressive, smelling musty and last decorated or dusted in 1910. A few reassuringly expensive vintage pieces. One or two I recognize having recently passed through my humble emporium – no longer fully or correctly described, economical with the truth shall we say. One of them was right handed converted from left, but no mention of course.
One thing they do have is customers, scores of them. There must be more through the doors in minutes than I see in a month. The lure of London.
Looks like most shops are attempting to shore things up with the sale of new bright shiny instruments to suit a range of pockets, one or two resort to selling coffee too, fair play.
There are dozens of new Fenders hanging on the wall. Take your pick. Any model, price point, colour. Dealer margins are ridiculously low. No free display stock, that’s all got to be written down and sold off at some point. Assuming Fender will let you. Currently under investigation by the Competition & Markets Authority for price fixing and already fined for withholding evidence. Surely not, not a fine upstanding entity like Fender Musical Instruments Corporation?
Fuck knows why they need an investigation. I recall buying a new Telecaster Thinline Deluxe from a Derby retailer, when Deluxe meant Deluxe. I was told “no discount mate, it’s all price fixed, couldn’t do it, would lose my dealership”. Guess I probably would have done him a favour – and yes I’ll give evidence.
Fucking Fender, wander over here, dictating terms like the Third Reich, squeezing and controlling retailers and you, the customer.
I was possibly told a story recently – it’s all going to be “taken care of”, the responsibility of a rogue employee, paying off some head honcho in to retirement to carry the big EU can of blame. This is all speculation of course as that would be illegal, just like price fixing.
As I write this I discover the CMA has “Closed its investigation on administrative priority grounds” Unbelievable and I’ve no idea what it means. Big brown envelope wedged under their door or Donald stuck his oar in ?
Won’t matter for much longer as there will be virtually no retailers of new guitars within the next five years. Vertical Trading is on the way. Straight from the manufacturer up to the end user – that’ll be you. I guess the systems are in place right now. Click and dropped off by a drone. Vertical delivery.
Bound to need a set-up and dent repair after all that. Try doing that on-line. Checkout our workshop services and don’t buy new. The world doesn’t need another new guitar for the foreseeable future. There are millions of quality used guitars out there at every price point. Stop feeding the huge corporate machines.
