Craig Sawyers

Also happy belated!

That was recorded in 1982, when both singers were at the height of their vocal powers aged 38. Astonishingly both of them are now 80.

Alternatively use the speakers to play this

Yes it is loads of dosh. But I think it is remarkable that the same company who made and makes affordable decks, decided to launch the original Reference in 1980, and that astonishing piece of engineering last/this year as the new Reference. An original Reference has just sold on eBay UK for £51k in stunning condition

OK found the price - Euro220k. Then you have to buy up to three tonearms and cartridges. And find somewhere that can take the weight. The original Reference was about a tenth that price (converting for inflation) when it was launched in a 100 unit limited run. In today's money about 25k.

If you are going for a record deck, Thorens have just launched a new version of the legendary Reference turntable. Price unspecified. If you need to ask the price you probably couldn't afford it. https://thorens.com/en/thorens-news-infos/302-thorens-204-news-en-mobile.html and https://thorens.com/images/presse/reference/Reference_Brochure_05_2023.pdf And in the flesh

Well that was click bait - I had not come across the term "baby backs", and the image that came to mind - well you can guess.... Anyhoo - they look delicious

Very happy birthday Shelly!

That Finnish entry was wonderfully outrageous! Oddly un-Finnish. I've worked with the often dour Finns and visited the country on business many times (once when it was a ridiculous -40C or F). One guy that was on a project I was running sounded particularly miserable all the time. I said "Are all Finns as miserable as you Mikko?" he replied, slowly and miserably "Oh - I'm known as the cheerful one" It is also high on the gun crime and gun suicide rankings. 18% of suicides and 15% of homicides. The country only has 5.5 million inhabitants. Per 100,000 it is second after the USA.

Similar thing happened with Tektronix back in the day. A big part of their business was supplying to the US DOD. But in an attempt to reduce cost the DOD placed an order with Hickock and Lavoie, saying that they wanted them to copy the Tektronix scopes. Tek got wind of it and started putting a random hole in the rear panel of the vertical plugin. When this appeared in the Hickock copy, Tektronix sued the UK government in 1961. Took a while (18 years!), but Tek won $4.5m in damages from the US Government. Described here https://vintagetek.org/clone-scopes/ So "mistakes" can show up a plagiarizer of the design.

I remember his role in Boys from the Black Stuff in the early 80's Gizza job - go on gizza job

The horns are a Nelson Pass design https://www.passdiy.com/project/speakers/the-kleinhorn-part-1

Alternatively

Happy birthday!

Broadcast by the BBC in 1959 https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/hi-fi-fo-fum/zjt6kmn

Indeed. From https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/outrageous-life-notorious-chef-marco-21602394 "Allegedly, Marco even once made Gordon Ramsay - renowned for being a tough chef who regularly causes jaws to drop on shows like Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - break down in tears. Australia's news.com.au reports Marco trained Gordon at his restaurant Harvey's, and "exposed [him] to daily rituals of humiliation, foul language, flying knives and almost unbearable pressure," according to a 2006 profile in The Telegraph. Marco said: "I can’t remember what it was about, but I yelled at him and he lost it. The next thing I knew he was sobbing in the corner, holding his head in his hands, with tears rolling down his cheeks. "He was saying things like, 'I don’t care what you do to me. Hit me. I don’t care'." The problem is that the bullied and humiliated become the bullier and humiliator. I've had two bosses who fell into that category, alas (Both now safely dead). The poet Philip Larkin wrote a bleak poem called "This be the Verse" that describes this sort of process: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

Thing with Ramsey is that he is a very serious chef. His main restaurant (Restaurant Gordon Ramsey) has three Michelin Stars. His "persona" in the various shows he does is just that - a persona. I'll bet that the three star kitchen he has is calm. The chef team cannot cook at that level if the main guy in the kitchen is yelling at people. In Le Manoir au Quat'saisons, Raymond Blanc's three star restaurant, it is very definitely calm. The first time we went there, it was a mate's significant birthday. Now he trained as a chef, so I had a quiet word, and organised a kitchen tour for him. They had just spent a quarter million refitting the kitchen. And there were the same number of chefs in the kitchen as there were diners. And that is why it costs loadsa money to eat there. It will be the same in Ramsey's three star. Calm.

RIP those stabbed to death in a Sydney mall https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68805401 Story is still emerging https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-australia-68805458 currently 5 confirmed dead and many injured.

Think back to ancient prehistory when Telex messages were a thing. In those far distant days, I worked for a technology consultancy company. Now noise on a Telex line could give rise to garbled messages. This is one I received from a client company: "WHATEVER HAPPENS, THE ASSEMBLY MUST FIT IN A QWAK NOT P-KNOB"

At least you don't have these lurking. They are prevalent in the area my daughter lives in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider

Swankiest butt plugs I've seen 😁

A very happy birthday, Al!

Wen we bought our house, new, maybe 30 years ago, I went into the front room and jumped up and down. "It's a concrete floor! We've got to buy this!" Mind you my speakers are a fraction of the weight of Wilsons. But I get no floorboard boing. Note this guy has ornaments on the shelf behind one of the speakers. I eradicated those in our room, after clapping my hands to listen for anything untoward, there was a chorus of pings from glass ornaments and plates. And he has a guitar behind the other, which will resonate nicely. Yuk.

Alternatively

On the set of Skyfall. Having a laugh and a joke.