I blogged recently about a fantastic new guitar I purchased. The most amazing thing about this guitar was the incredible value for money. The guitar was made in Indonesia and is astonishingly well made. It shows just what can be done.

If Washburn can manufacture a guitar this good in their factories abroad, imagine how good their American stuff is. In fact what about their Custom Shop ...

Unable to resist finding out I took delivery of this beauty today, a USA Custom Shop Washburn WI566+MR, thanks to a very special deal courtesy of the awesome guys over at Purple Turtle Music.

Words cannot explain the beauty and quality of this instrument. Carbon Fibre Fingerboard, Genuine Floyd Rose, Active EMG Pickups, Mahogany Body with Set Neck ... The specification goes on and on. This one is a keeper

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Tags: Washburn, Custom Shop, Idol

One of the lads that used to work for me, Andrew Deacon, started out as an IT Junior. He very soon declared he was too smart to spend his time sorting printer jams and installing software and declared he wanted to do programming.

He was right. He has since become an excellent enterprise programmer and has just released his first iPhone application:

itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/expansion-vessel-size-calculator/id361286794?mt=8

He’s come a long way from the long haired ‘Connor McCloud’ lookalike (from the movie Highlander) that descended on my office for an interview not once but twice - after being told not to re-apply.

He did re-apply and got the job thanks mainly to another employee of mine at the time, Mike Haycox, who saw through the long hair, leather jacket and cocky attitude to the intelligent, reliable and loyal employee beneath.

Well done Connor

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Tags: Highlander, Connor McCloud, Andrew Deacon, IPhone App

I wrote a blog post a few days ago about how companies should stop cold calling us and asking us for our date of birth and other personal information before they continue with the purpose for their call.

The following day I was talking to a lady regarding security and she informed me that her company had been assured by the financial organisations that that practice is no longer used. That is completely untrue, she was mis-informed.

Before I wrote this post I double-checked with three organisations: HSBC, American Express and Barclaycard and all three confirmed that that is how it works and they are compelled to work in that fashion because of the ‘Data Protection Act’.

My advice remain unchanged. Do not comply with these requests. If we all do this then maybe their policies will be changed accordingly.

I suggest a ‘Shared Secret’ where the person making the call gives part of their part of the secret and in response you give your part of your part of the secret. That’s just one very simple idea, with more thought applied I’m sure this would be an easy problem to solve.

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Tags: Financial Instiutions, Unforgiveable Stupidity, Security

The picture below is the guitar I recently purchased. It was relatively inexpensive and is incredible to play.

The guitar is a Washburn WI200PROe. It is one of the Idol Range and unfortunately comes only in black. The shape is distinctive, the neck is the best I have played, better than the Steve Vai Ibanez Jem 7V I used to own. The guitar is lightweight and perfect for playing when sitting down.

The pickups are the Active EMG 81 / 85 as used by Zakk Wylde amongst others. They are my favourite pickups and a pair of them grace my Flying V as well. They sound superb through the Blackstar HT-5.

As you can probably tell, I am incredibly pleased and surprised by this guitar. It’s my new favourite

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Tags: Washburn, EMG, Guitar

I recently wrote a post discussing how I was downsizing my music equipment. Which was, is and still is, true. However I have now run into a temporary setback when this arrived earlier today:

That’s not bad though, at least it’s quite small and compact ... It is a Blackstar HT-5 Amplifier Head Unit, and to hear any sound you need these speaker cabs, which also arrived earlier today. You can see the combined effect below:

You can see my problem. However I must say that never have I turned on a new amplifier, plugged in a guitar and found so many excellent tones so quickly. This is one fabulous amp

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Tags: Blackstar, HT-5, Guitar, Amplification, Music, Downsizing