Things I've learned from the Cycle Superhighway

I was in a pub in London last night (really) and saw this poster about Transport for London's new Cycle Superhighway scheme. In just a few seconds it taught me more about this metropolitan 21st century life than I could ever learn from free papers or chick flicks:

1. People of all genders and races can own and ride bikes.
2. Black people are safer than white people.
3. Black people are faster than white people.
4. Black people are more vibrant than white people and reflect this in their choice of vehicle and outfit.
5. Women have baskets on their bikes, probably for make up, shiny objects, shopping and babies.
6. White men have the most important jobs and dress accordingly.
7. White men are so busy at their important jobs they can't even afford the time to change into suitable cycling clothes.

I hope having read this you are now as enlightened as I am.

I hope it's unnecessary to write this but just in case let it be known that the above is satire.

Three Shades Of Gimp

Shade 1: Guitars

From time to time as expenses, eBay, and wild ideas permit, I will share with you some of the guitar gimpery that Great Men get up to. Recently we've undertaken 2 projects:

The Bennecaster

As a gift to our good friend Benn for recording our album, we got him a guitar. As it happens this one needed no real electronic work doing on it so I just went to town with some black spray paint and some permanent markers.

On Saturday R-Man and I travelled down to London in the Prickmobile to watch Ulterior's triumphant London return. We spent the afternoon in the Hunterian museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, which was engrossing and horrifying. We recommend it. Then in the evening we watched the boys pull a great show out of the bag; the highlight for me was when Benn strapped on the Bennecaster for the first time. Like what I imagine a proud parent to feel like, a tear welled up in my eye.

White Hondo Les Paul

I also recently acquired another late 70s Les Paul Custom copy from the Japanese Hondo company. It needed some TLC so I busted out a cloth and got R-Man's steady hands involved in fitting some chrome Hot Slag pickups, and wiring a coil tap to each. Have a look at our Facebook page for a fuller photo commentary.

Shade 2: Politics

I've been a fan of Nick Palmer MP since he invited constituents to a public Q&A on the expenses scandal. Ever since I've been an avid reader of his email newsletter and found him to be a rarity: an honest, intelligent and open politician. We were all saddened when he was narrowly defeated in the recent general election, so when word came through that he was holding a drinks party in a Beeston pub, naturally Strike Team mobilised. I personally hope we've not seen the last of his kind, and as ever remind you kidz to get interested in politics: it's about how you live.

Shade 3: Middle Earth

This weekend I'm looking forward to a back-to-back marathon of all the Lord of the Rings films - extended editions of course. I expect to receive respect and disdane in equal portions: letters of opinion to the usual address please. R-Man is playing it cool and insisting that he doesn't like LOTR (as we call it in the biz). I might make a crude costume. I definitely won't.

Tales of a Sweaty Idiot, vol. 1

So in addition to cooking food and drinking beer, Great Men do actually play music from time to time! Last week such an event occurred in Nottingham at a lovely place called the Golden Fleece, organised by a fellow called Will who has broken every bone in his body but still didn't let that be an excuse to miss us. Excuses that other people successfully used were "my friend got spewy" and "it's warm outside".

Before I go further let me mention a guitar that I call the Black Lodge Telecaster. It's called this because I spent ages with a ruler, masking tape, and spray paint to give it some stripes to look a bit like the floor of the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. Lemma 1: I am an idiot.

Back to the Fleece: Supporting us were a band called The Cupid Stunt from Leeds, who I'm pleased to say were a pleasure as gentlemen and a pleasure as a band. Great Men approve of The Cupid Stunt. Hopefully we'll get a trip to Yorkshire to play with them some time. Like us they have guitar, bass, and electronically generated drums: a soundman's dream! They do have vocals, but that's probably because Greg can sing and I can't so fair enough!

Then we came on and played all our hit singles. I could talk about the music all day but there's only 2 things you really need to know:

1) Although the night before I'd been planning on playing my red Les Paul, some weird technical glitches meant I played the Black Lodge Telecaster instead. Incidentally guitar gimps I've recently upgraded to 11s and I'd recommend it.

2) It was a hot day. Ignorant commoners everywhere claimed it was a heat wave and that they might die. I crossed my fingers. I also played guitar under some lights near a kitchen that had just given me some tasty fish and chips. Lemma 2: I am sweaty. I am portly and maroon, I am the sky and the water.

Some of you may be scientists, some of you artists, still more of you just not as stupid as me. Long story short when a sweaty idiot plays guitar quite aggressively and said guitar has dubiously painted lines on it, this happens:

I was actually quite relieved because when I first looked down at my guitar I thought I was bleeding black blood.

At this point perhaps you'd expect a moral to the story, or maybe just to discover that I'd learned my lesson. Well yesterday I stabbed my hand with a fork, and now I'm off back to the garage to put a fresh coat of spray paint on my new Les Paul...

Afternoon drinking, Duck Soup and Soviets in space

Things we've learned this week:

• Beeston has many tolerable pubs, but our recent favourite the Hop Pole does offer cracking beer in a good atmosphere. Particularly when you head out to Sainsbury's to buy lunch on a sunny afternoon, stop off for "one", and end up ordering Chinese takeaway at dinner time about 5 Harvest Pales later.

• The [relatively] new Nottingham Contemporary art gallery is pretty cool, and we enjoyed the Star City exhibition. I also liked the use of space and atmosphere within the exhibit, prompting thoughts of how this could translate to a future Evening With Great Men.

• Marx Brothers films are still as brilliant now as they were 80 years ago. In fact is it wrong that I found Duck Soup slightly topical what with the general election looming? To be honest I think Groucho would clean up on these televised debates.

Speaking of the election, make sure you go and vote! One of the candidates is going to become your MP whether you like it or not, so exercise the right to democracy that our grandfathers fought to protect for us. If you really don't want to vote for any of the candidates, turn up and write my name on the bottom of the slip: attendance without a vote is still better than staying home, as you're standing up and being counted (yes I am a mathematician as well as a rock star...).

And if you won't take my word for it, take Frank's!

We're Great Men and we think like this

One of the few drawbacks of being in an instrumental band is that we can't expose you, our adoring public, to the many things we have to say - not just about ourselves, but about philosophy, science, current events, film and which is the best pub to go to in Beeston on any particular evening.

Hence welcome to our new blog, which hopefully will be a forum for us to engage with you on the hot topics as well as updating you on the continuing adventures of Great Men.

If you've stumbled across this blog and don't know us, we're a 2-man band from Nottingham, and we sound like this.

Don't be a stranger!