While we're on the subject of fancy woodworking, this is my new bass. It's rather lovely.

I built it myself (well, put a collection of parts together and then got an adult to help me fit the neck to the body, I didn't carve it out of a solid chunk of oak-topped alder or anything).

that is indeed a work of beauty.

can you play?

I'm good enough to get away with it most of the time, and to fake it when I can't.

It's ended up sounding really good and has a nice feel to it, which is encouraging me to whip it out and play with it more often. Which is good. Unless I go blind.

at least if you go blind you won't be able to see bob laugh at you

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*takes sealed envelope from pocket*
*opens envelope*
*shows gathered crowd prediction of what Greg would say*
*basks in applause, gets mauled by tiger*

Very handsome. Never carved Alder - generally, woods from riverside growing trees don't carve well, though they have great tensile strength, which is probably what you want in a geetar.

My latest hemisphere in exchange:

Eeeef. Boy got skills.

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(Yay other-Steve, is it buying the dragon a pint?)

Curiously enough, given that my subject matter is the two patron saints of Jersey, SS George and Mary, this is actually a Mary ball, not a George one.

It's the story of the Seigneur of Hambye, a Norman Lord who slayed a dragon in la Houge Bie, Jersey, which had been causing the natives some upset. The other half will show him being cowardly (cowardlily?) killed by his own manservant, in order that he can get into the knickers of his master's missus.

When she found out out what he had done, she had him hung, then built a Maryan chapel on top of a huge mound (actually, a celtic barrow) so that she could see it from Normandy.

Interesting iconographic stuff going off there, I think: barrows, long associated with dragons (rumours started to protect contents? Or because, when they are dug, a hoard of treasure is found inside?). Maryan chapel, (which is still there today) symbolic conquest of Christianity over paganism? And an interesting Freudian twist, with Mary overwhelming the dragon. Girls on top...

An education in every nut.