Royal Oak

Thanks Hans - brilliant as always.

Is that Wagner on the shirt? as i recall Bach wasn't the only thing switched! Mm-hmm..........

Walter Carlos, the man behind Switched On Bach, has an interesting life story.

When I used to work on a dementia ward, we had that poster on the wall at the nurses station! Haven't seen it in years!

I like this cover, FWIW

Hans - I'll take the Stanley. Can't have too much Sonny Clark

Your cover is not showing? Maybe you're right though. . Maybe personally, I just have a highly sensitive paranoid 'smug' meter that goes off in my head. Perhaps anyone mugging for the camera with a happy and content face can be projected onto as 'smug'. So maybe a bit of 'poetic' licence to the term smug. But every time I look at these covers and think of 'smug' I can't help laughing. Especially those Classical ones Now that Mahavishnu/Devadip album. That is the worst kind of 'smug'. It is 'passive aggressive' smug . I have involuntarily sworn at that cover ever since I first seen it when I was about 14. Thank God they marginalised Larry Young on the packaging/project Orrin Keepnews is the winner. I agree. Rieu is 'smug'. Jeez I hope his 15minutes are over. Having never heard of the Mahavishnu album, I found one at a car boot sale yesterday. I had a little chuckle to myself as I flicked past it.

Is it me or is Sir John anxious to fend off that hand job? I've looked long and hard at this cover, and I agree, he's not really looking forward to his birthday present. You know what's weird? This cover image was photo-shopped. If you google for different cover images, you can see that her abdomen isn't actually disappearing (as if Scotty is beaming her up to the Enterprise) as it is in this image. I guess they thought the original was too sexy: I see it - they have her hand on a fake arm of the sofa. For my post I pulled a random Ebay shot - it seems like the other listings have the unedited image. Another reason to say "uuuh?"

John again. My son has this picture on his bedroom wall - I don't know how he sleeps under the weight of JL's disdain

Is it me or is Sir John anxious to fend off that hand job? I've looked long and hard at this cover, and I agree, he's not really looking forward to his birthday present.

Eewwww.....

^ Good call!

Look at the size of that woman's hand

You'd be smug if you could balance 3 inches of cigar ash......

I pour scorn on your feeble attempt to photograph me....

"Hey Mischa, we RULE" "Damn right Lenny!"

As smug as you'll get 'em......... Holy crap!

I'm with Bev here - the classical realm has this thread sewn up.....

Check out HvK out front

Any UK members watching "Utopia" on Channel 4? Certainly has me hooked.

I like to think I would eat horse if offered.

All of them? Nah - just the one, but a good one.

Arrived today, very nice. Thanks Michael

None taken; I knew that was the reason. We prefer our sports odd and complicated. Now that cricket thing has some possibilities; I can't figure it out for shit. I don't really get the scoring, but a sport where a guy can score 100 runs in one at-bat is intriguing. The ball they use is hollow, which I found out by chance while walking by a cricket game and picking up an errant ball to toss back to the players. Cricket is pretty big in Brooklyn because we have a large number of folks from the Caribbean who all played it in their home countries. No cricket ball I ever got hit by whilst batting inadequately was ever anything but solid and very hard. Not sure where the hollow Brooklyn-ball comes from. Always happy to derail a thread with cricket talk and I can't believe I missed the opportunity here earlier and now back to what I suspect will be an excrutiating and cringe-making performance by LA - how can it be anything but? Cricket's got it's own scandals, of the match-fixing variety. And yes, cricket balls are indeed solid. The one which broke my (now permanently dysfunctional) finger in 2009 felt particularly so.