Dom's Rambles

Part of Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Separated At Birth?

Is it just me or does Radovan Karadzic, the most contemporary practitioner of the quaint mainland European tradition of ethnic slaughter, look like a hairier version of self-loathing useful idiot and Arch Dhimmi of Canterbury Rowan Williams?

posted by Dom # 9:35 AM 1 comments links to this post

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

At Death's Door.

Your gracious host has a horrible stinking cold at the moment and is feeling like death warmed up. Consequently I've been unable to summon up the energy to reply to the very flattering e-mail I recently received from a reader in Baghdad of all places! I do apologise for that.

Also, and speaking of my dazzlingly cosmopolitan audience, I see we've been getting regular visits from a reader in Saigon who found the site by Googling the term Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln.

Who the hell is that I wonder?

posted by Dom # 10:27 PM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Still not finished!

By way of an apology for not having finished the next instalment of the much trumpeted Unfinished Business... quadrilogy here's a picture of auntie Mabel catching her left tit in the mangle - especially for the Derek & Clive fans.

I'd also like to say hello to the BBC employee who has spent so much of their weekend perusing the site after arriving via a link on the Facebook group 'I Spent My Youth At Rock City'.

posted by Dom # 11:15 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Another Bloody Delay!

Having received a very informative e-mail least night I'm afraid there's rather more to write in to the next part of Unfinished Business, so it won't be online until at least the weekend. In the meantime here are a couple of drag racing videos off YouTube. First up we have the first ever side by side 4 second, 300MPH plus run on British soil. The second is a rather splendid cut 'n' paste job of assorted drag racing at Santa Pod (including several spectacular crashes) put together as a tribute to the late, great Slammin' Sammy Miller - although it could have done without the annoying Euro-pop soundtrack!

posted by Dom # 12:51 PM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Okay, okay...

...I know I said I'd have the next major piece up by now but I've been drinking and need to give the thing a sober appraisal before I upload it - particularly as roughly 3,000 of its 4,500 or so words are dedicated to tearing an ex-girlfriend of mine to pieces. But by way of consolation here's a little taster.

Perhaps the biggest give away as to Jenny’s fucked up personality was the obsessive body piercing thing. Although I’m not a fan of multiple body piercings, I will admit they can look good – or rather effective – on people who have the kind of theatrical or fetishistic dress sense to compliment them. Unfortunately, Jenny, who possessed all the sartorial flamboyance of a twelve year old tomboy, didn’t have the kind of theatrical or fetishistic dress sense to compliment them and succeeded only in making herself look stupid. Not that this dampened her enthusiasm for the things and there wasn’t a protuberance on the girl without a ring or some kind of decorated spike shoved through it. She even had one in a particularly intimate location which made rooting for truffles (as the act is referred to in polite society) a little unnerving as I was in constant fear of chipping my teeth on the thing.
Like I said, I’m not keen on body piercings, I find them neither aesthetically appealing nor a sexual turn-on, and when, as in Jenny’s case, they are quite obviously symptomatic of a deeper malaise, a sublimation of some masochistic or self-destructive urge, I find them a little bit disturbing. When I got Jenny naked for the first time in fourteen years it came as no surprise to see the latticework of self-harming scars covering her thighs.

Hopefully I'll get it done by close of play tomorrow or if not then definitely by Tuesday.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Jon 'Wobbly Jon' Kwasnyczka and Ian 'Dog' Staves, two of the old Sheffield crew who have checked in after coming across the site recently.

posted by Dom # 9:13 PM 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Another Forgotten Eighties Classic.

This bizarre looking specimen is the Washburn AF-40V Ace Frehley (of Kiss fame) signature model which was released in 1986 to mixed reviews (the main complaint, as I remember, being that it wouldn't stay in tune). I had a go on one of these guitars at the same trade fair I sampled its stable-mate the HM-20 and was quite impressed; the action was unbelievably fast and the sound - through a headphone amp admittedly - was awesome.
In other news I'm hoping to polish off the next part of the Unfinished Business quadrilogy over the weekend and am aiming to have the thing online before Top Gear airs on Sunday evening.

posted by Dom # 10:32 PM 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, July 03, 2008

More Guitars.

Having recently set my heart on a Sam Totman signature model Ibanez guitar I’ve been doing a little online research, looking for the best deals and such, and have subsequently discovered that there is a new version of the Iceman available, the very sexy looking ICT-700, which is just as tempting.

It also transpires that Washburn have reissued the HM-20V, which is another lost classic of the Eighties – although the original was white with a red binding and sported the Wonderbar tremolo system. This used an internal torsion bar, rather than the traditional spring arrangement, but never really caught on despite being a radical new design which undoubtedly held better tune than the Floyd Rose (even so, Wonderbar tremolo units always attract lively bidding on eBay and never go for less than £100).

I remember that the budget version, the HM-10V, was in a finish called ‘bloodburst’ which is best described as what a white guitar might look like after it had been used to cull a few seal pups.
I had an extended play on an example of the HM-20V at a trade exhibition in London in the summer of 1986 and was well impressed. Until I lot my job in September of that year I had every intention of buying one to complement the Ibanez Destroyer which was my workhorse axe.
Coming back to the present day, I am torn between this trio of guitars and think a trip to Denmark Street is in order to subject all three to the acid test. However, whichever one I go for I will be buying it from the USA as all of the above can be had for substantially less money (not to mention a hard case and a shorter delivery time) from there than from any UK or European based retailer.

posted by Dom # 10:25 PM 0 comments links to this post