1ngram

Dave Brubeck?? Isaac Hayes??? Seinfeld???? Tell me this is a joke! Please tell me this is a joke! I mean I can cope with Madona as a Kaballah nutter but really . . . .!

Banjo? Have to say I saw Potter and Krantz at the beginning of their European tour playing here in Aberdeen this spring and thought they were excellent

A trio of books by Barrie Pitt on the Desert War (originally two volumes in hardback then split into three volumes in paperback) called "The Crucible of War". These are by far and away the best histories of the North Africa Campaign. I just wish someone had written a good detailed history of the Italian Campaign, or at least I have never come across one. Best memoirs are Manstein's "Lost Battles" Forget who he was fighting for, this guy was head and shoulders above every other general in WW2. His fire brigade in 1943/44 was a masterpiece oif defensive aggression. If you want a novel about wartime Europe go for one of the Alan Furst novels. They are all excellent but "The Polish Officer" will take some beating for excitement and atmosphere.

Really? Maybe that explains why the latter hasn't made a good record in about 20 years. I still play School Days. Holland I've never taken to anyway so no great loss there. But how about a list - is there a roll call of scientologists (ie very stupid people) in jazz? Who else is daft enough to have been taken in by this nonsense?

Where can I get a hold of this?

I have to say that I don't like plastic cards. Bicycle or, for preference Bee cards are much better. We used to rely here on friends bringing back cards from trips to the USA where hardly used casino cards are available very cheaply even if the colours are for fluorescent lighting but recently I have been able to get packs of Bicycle cards here in UK for about £1.20 at COSTCO. I tried to introduce chips to our home games here after getting a load of them as a Xmas present but settling up at the end of the night when some of us are worse the wear for drink (my wife always hits the Southern Comfort when she is winning and there is always someone else willing to join her) is a pain so we just went back to betting with small change. I dont play real money games on the net and we are all waiting here for the new legislation on the liberalisation of gaming which will allow more and freer casinos to operate. Already there are two new applications for casino licences in this city so I'm looking forward to trying out some real money tournreys in the near future. Maybe we should all go to the same non money site and play each other. I'm on Truepoker.

Without numbers IMHO. That way you can play different nights for different stakes with the same chips. But make sure you get all the chips back at the end of each session.

I've been told a recent issue of this canadian magazine featured an article on Tina Brooks which practically accused Blue Note of purposely sabotaging Brooks' career. Has anyone seen this issue? Does anyone know which it is and whether it is readily available?

"1ngram, sometime when you're in the states, we'll need to play a few hands..." Sorry, been busy these past few weeks. A couple of the regular players in our group here keep talking about taking a looong weekend to Las Vegas sometime and taking in some tourneys. But no idea when that will be. But if I do make it I will take you up on your offer. Poker has mushroomed here in the UK in just a year. We've had a school for over 20 years playing every second saturday, just a social thing, but when Channel 4 started showed Late Night Poker the nation was transfixed. Now everybody and their grandmother are playing for real money on the net. Ladbrokes, the biggest bookie in Britain, is just coining it from the proceeds of their poker site and I keep meeting people who have taken up the game in the past year who freely confess they have lost serious money on these sites. My advice is to invest in a copy of Doyle Brunson's Super System. It is still the best book on Hold-em. Jazzypaul's also right about the players on free sites. Many of them are terrible players who stay on anything and, since the flop almost always improves SOMEONE'S hand, the bas**rds often outdraw you. The trick is to wipe them out as early as possible in the hand by going all in. You may get zapped a few times but there's always another tourney. Truepoker now has Sit and Go games which are tourneys with only 10 players on one table (or 20 players on 2 tables) and its is pretty easy to get down to the last 3 or 4 and then start to play seriously.

Anyone know where I can find sheet music for Blue Skies on the internet, preferably for Bb instruments but really, anything?

Here I am at 10.04 am Monday morning in UK and I'm the only person here - or at least the only member here. There would appear to be a couple of unknown guests lurking somewhere but until I came on nobody else around.

The critical difference between 7-card stud and Hold-em is that in the latter the community cards in the middle dont just improve YOUR hand, they improve the other players cards too. If there are 10 players then it is an almost absolute certainty that any likely improvement of anybody's hand caused by the flop WILL have improved somebody's hand. So if there is a pair in the middle the chances of trips are enormous, three clubs probably means there is flush there. With that many players at the beginning of the hand the range of card combinations available means that whatever flop comes up somebody will impropve their hand. Thats why I always go all in before the flop with a high pair - because if I dont then the flop may well improve somebody's hand better than mine. So check whether the flop, even if it improved your hand, didnt improve some other hand better! If you want to try hold-em and not spend any money there are a lot of internet sites which wont cost you a penny. I play on Truepoker but there are plenty of others.

Norwich DO play nice football but they have a truly terrible defence. WBA completely fluked it. Its the Robbie Fowler effect. If he hadnt missed a penalty for God's sake!!! Of course the real excitement isnt the boring bloodbath Cup final in England but the gigantic tussle for third place, and thus European football, in Scotland. Aberdeen were six points behind Hibs with a 7 goal deficit to make up on Saturday with only two games to go. Abedeen V Hibs Saturday produced an Aberdeen win 2-1 even though Hibs hit the post. Now the last game is the Dons versus Hearts who now have nothing to live for and who are Hibs Edinburgh rivals while Hibs play Rangers who are themselves now desperate to win to take top spot aginst Celtic. This the best finish to the seasaon there has been since Aberdeen narrowly avoided relegation a few years back. We need to win saturday and Hibs lose and we need quite a few goals to be scored by ourselves and Rangers in the process. This must be the first time in my life I have wanted Rangers to win by a bucketful!

Here in Scotland I rarely see Downbeat but those I have seen haven't impressed me much. Jazz Times is available and I've bought a few but they just seem full of puffs - lots of words not actually saying a great deal. In that sense its similar to Jazzwise here, in my opinion, lots of stuff only bordering on the kind of jazz I like and always too fullsome in its praise. Jazz Review I hardly ever see anymore but Jazz journal International I subscribe to. Its like walking into a musty old Club in London, full of aged jazz aficionados. Even when 90% of the issue is about people you never heard of and, once read, probably wont suffer too much if you never hear of them again, its interesting in a geek sort of way. But the reviews are excellent, worth the cover price alone.

Zawinul. Haven't played this in yonks.

I Giganti del Jazz 31 with Lucky Thompson, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. LP is in italian so I'm not sure of the date of the session and I dont have my Lucky discography handy but he is in fine fettle on soprano sax.

got duff review in Guardian today from some wee kid.

IMHO its an excellent book. It introduced me to artists I had barely heard of and has an excellent section on Tina Brooks. I was also impressed by his assessment of the importance of heroin and its relevance to need of black artists to "distance" themselves. Its a book I go back to. Well worth restrieving from the remainder bin.

Is it possible still to find guys who will repair very old audio equipment? I have a great 60s(?) Grenadier stereo record deck with a separate chunky speaker with its own controls which I found in Falkirk a few years back for £30.00. A couple of weeks back the motor drive just packed in though everything else is still working. I haven't a clue where to even begin looking in the UK for someone who could fix it but its a lovely piece of kit and I don't want to throw it out. Mind you I am still using the Trio amp I bought in 1973 (and I have managed to find another two for when this one gives out) on my main system.

Just back from a five and a half hour walk up and round Lochnagar in driving, torrential rain, wind and mist, soaked to the skin and completely knackered. Put on "John Coltrane Live at Birdland with Eric Dolphy" probably my favourite Coltrane LP. The version of Miles Mode on this is quite simply superb.

Nice to see Ian MacLagan and the Small Faces featuring. His organ work just made that band. Over the past few years a lot of the instrumentals they did have come out on CD and his work features prominently. Well worth seeking out.

Next up a HMV /Verve ep of Anita O'Day. No named accomps but orchestra conducted by Marty Paich. Never heard her before but nice, esp with vocal version of Night in Tunisia. Bit overwhelmed by orchestra. Anyone know who ts is on this? Last up a very dull Andre Previn Giving his Regards to Broadway etc.

I picked up three jazz eps at a boot sale recently - just got round to playing them. First off is Sidney Bechet "Souvenirs of New Orleans" with Claude Luter and his Orchestra on Vogue. Not my cup of tea really.

I would hope the tremendous advantages of living in a place like Cambridge will become more obvious to your wife the longer you are there. All of Britain, from London to Scotland, Europe even, are only a heartbeat away. With oil here in Scotland I've got lots of American friends and acquaintances and almost without exception they love it. The only worry has been the educational system and the efect on their kids when they go back if they cant arrange a US style school here.

"UEFA is afraid of the famous and rich clubs." Money doesn't talk - it swears. Uefa IS the rich and powerful clubs. Thats where the cash is generated and they don't want the bonanza to end so they go with whatever these clubs can get away with. Did anyone see the blatant nazi/fascist slogans among the Lazio fans at their game this week - truly sickening.