Despite being one of the most famous guitar intros around, I hadn't been able to find a tab of Guitar Man anywhere, so there was only one thing for it - do some work myself for a change.

The Elvis version uses a standard dropped D tuning and the Jerry Reed one has the whole guitar then tuned down a semitone. I think it's pretty accurate, but this is my first attempt at tabbing so let me know if you think there's any mistakes.


E-3s|(5)-5------5-------|(4)s5--5------5-------|
B-5s|(7)-7------7-------|(6)s7--7------7-------|
G---|-------------------|----------------------|
D---|--------------0----|-----------------0----|
A---|-------------------|----------------------|
D---|-0----0----0----0--|----0----0----0----0--|


E-(4)s5--5------5-------|--4--4------3--------2|
B-(6)s7--7------7-------|--6--6------5--------3|
G-----------------------|----------------------|
D------------------0----|---------------0------|
A-----------------------|----------------------|
D-----0----0----0----0--|--0----0----0----0----|

E----------------5----|
B----------------5----|
G----------------6----|
D----------------7----|
A---------------------|
D-0----5----6----7----|

Your thumb hits the low D string on every beat, use your 2nd and 3rd fingers to play the E & B strings, and your 1st finger the higher D. Easy!!! The chords to the rest of the song is standard 12 bar blues in D, and I'll let some other brave soul tab out the solo.

During a meeting with his advisors at the The White House, George Bush is told that 'two Brazilian soldiers had been killed in an incident.'

George looks shaken and then bursts into tears. A little taken back by the sudden emotional outburst, Dick Cheney says 'Mr. President. Are you OK?'

The President, drying his eyes, looks up and says to Dick Cheney, 'That's terrible news. How many is a Brazilian again?'

Ok, I've succumbed. After 3 years of saying I'd never buy an iPod because you just pay for the name, the iPod nano looked too tempting to pass up. The size, capacity and price all beat the competition by a country mile.

My conclusion - a good player, but not a great player. Let down by average sound quality, no remote and only being able to charge it using the USB port.

You'll find the full iPod nano review here, and I've also put up an iPod nano photo gallery.

I received an email from PlusNet on the 27 August telling me officially that the terms and conditions were officially changing and that if I did not wish to accept the new terms to contact them. I did so and, as they had to let people migrate with no notice because of the change, I requested my MAC key. My ADSL was migrated to Freedom2surf last Friday (who I am very happy with), and to be on the safe side I cancelled my PlusNet direct debit.

Read more!

Maybe problems follow me about, or perhaps I'm just really bad at picking an ISP, but after my problems at Virgin I thought I'd made a good choice by migrating to PlusNet. Wrong!! At the time I moved they had a good reputation, with customers who sang their praises.

It's amazing how quickly an ISP can throw away that goodwill. If you would like to follow a similar business model, here's how:

Read more!

For anyone who's ever been flashed by a speed camera they didn't know about, or for those who want to avoid it (is there anyone that doesn't!?), I've made a new tool - a UK speed camera map. It uses the safety camera database from Pocket GPS World overlayed on to a Google Map using the API.

Of course, we all know that speed cameras are only sited in areas that are accident blackspots, so rather than avoiding speeding fines and points on your licence it is designed to help you avoid accidents.

A good idea on the BBC site today - add a contact to your mobile phone, ICE, with the names and numbers of emergency contacts in case you're in an accident or in need of medical attention. Originally proposed by a Cambridge paramedic in April, given what happened last Thursday it certainly can't do any harm.

It doesn't matter if you play blues, rock, classical or jazz, or whether you play electric, acoustic, semi-acoustic or classical, this tip will make you a better player. It will make your playing more accurate, faster (if that's your thing) and much more enjoyable.

It was shown to me by a guitar teacher about 10 years ago and helped my playing immensely; I only wish I'd heard of it earlier. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, so here goes. It assumes you're playing right-handed, so if you play left-handed obviously switch left and right when you're reading this.

1) Play the following sequence over and over, each time hit the strings harder. Let the notes ring freely, i.e. no muting.
E----------------------------------------
B----------------------------------------
G----------------5-7-------------5-7-----
D--7-7-7-7-7-7-7-----7-7-7-7-7-7---------
A----------------------------------------
E----------------------------------------

2) Still playing at your loudest, just play the the D string, 7th fret over and over.
3) Release the pressure in your left hand until the note starts rattling, then increase it gently until it stops.

Notice how much less effort you need to play the note than you had been using before? How much more relaxed you feel? Now go back to step 1 and play that sequence again, starting quietly and gradually getting louder, but this time only pressing down with your left hand enough for the notes not to rattle.

The hardest part is trying to seperate your left and right hands, and not automatically pressing harder with your fretting hand when you hit the strings harder.

Pressing down too hard with the left hand is a habit most of us pick up the first time we play. Get out of the habit and everything becomes much easier - vibrato is less effort because you're not fighting against so much friction from the frets, bending strings the same, and you can play far quicker and more accurately because your fingers aren't so rooted to the spot.

Enjoy!!

It didn't take long for the vultures to put their tickets to the London concert on ebay. It looks like some people put them up within minutes of receiving the text message confirming they'd won; they obviously had no intention of going and entered purely for the profit. The people selling these are scum, so here's what to do:

Register a new ebay account - use fake name and address details, but you'll need a real email address. If you use a Hotmail or Gmail account they'll ask you for a credit card number, so use a disposable one from your ISP, or on your own domain if you have one. Then go to an auction for live8 tickets and bid silly money. If you happen to win the auction just don't pay - the worst that can happen is that your new account will get banned.

It looks like Ebay only allow you to bid on one item without giving them your credit card details - no problem, just create more accounts and repeat.

It's your call if you bid on the ones that say they'll give anything less than 100% of the money to charity. My opinion is that they're just as bad - why aren't they giving all the money?

I hope anyone profiting from Live8 is thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

**Update 07:30 14 June 2005**
Our first entrant into the live8 tickets hall of shame:

Paul Bullivant, Strood, Kent

who left his full address in his Ebay payment instructions. Any more, let me know.

**Update 08:15 14 June 2005**
Another idea is to bid sensible winning amounts on other items being sold by people selling Live8 tickets. If you win the auction you'll be able to leave them negative feedback (something Ebay sellers are terrified of.)

Oops, looks like someone at BBC online hit the wrong button. This screenshot taken as the verdicts were being read out.

I've been threatening to buy a PVR for the last 6 months, trouble was there was always something new around the corner. I started off planning to get the DigiFusion FVRT150, then moved to the Panasonic TU-CTH100 and then the Inverto IDL-7000T. Finally I found one that seemed to match my requirements - large hard drive, USB connection and the ability to upload custom applications - the Topfield TF5800 PVR.

I hadn't heard of Topfield before, but reading around they seemed to be very popular in Australia and Germany. The Toppy, as the Ozzies affectionatly call them, also has a good reputation for reliability. So I took the plunge, and £300 later I was the owner of the newly released box.

For those thinking looking around for a PVR, here's my opinion of it.

Read more!

Yes, this site has a Google Page Rank of 5. Yes, there is a recent and top referers section on the front page. No, you won't get on it by hitting the page every 6 seconds with a faked http_referer header. The site automatically checks for fake referers and any subsequent hits from that referer are redirected back to themselves. So it's your own bandwidth you'll be using up, not mine.

I've been using this now for about 4 months. If you live anything further than about a mile from your local video shop I highly recommend it. If you're like me, getting the DVDs out wasn't a problem, but taking them back was, so you always end up spending double the original amount on fines.

Renting them by post means you don't have to worry about getting them back on time, nor having to drive miles to return them.

I started off with Movietrak, who were fine for about 2 months, but then they got taken over by DVDS365.com and the service suddenly became appalling - the website was unusably slow, they started taking an extra day between receiving my returned DVD before sending out the new one and didn't bother replying to an email when a DVD was lost in the post.

I'm now using Tesco DVD rental and couldn't be happier. There's a much wider choice, more often than not I get one of my first choices and they send a new one out on the day they receive my return.

You've thought about it, you've talked about it, you may have even dreamt about it, now here it is in the flesh. I present for your culinary pleasure the egg that Cadbury should be making - the giant, full-size Creme Egg.

Following Jamie Oliver's calendar a couple of years ago comes part II of 'there's no way they didn't notice that' or 'designers having fun'.



Being modelled by Big Baldy Roy from Danny Baker's Internet Treehouse is a Morrison's multi-pack of Cheesy Puffs. Schoolboy humour at its best.

I'm no Charles Darwin or Richard Dawkins, I don't even have any qualifications in biology, but there's a part of evolution that I've never seen properly explained. When I was at school, the teaching of evolution went something like this:

'Life started as single cell amoebas. Over millions of years these developed into multi-cell organisms, which in turn evolved into invertebrates.' Ok, fine so far, seems plausible. 'These invertebrates then gradually evolved into fish-like vertebrates. After another few million years fish began crawling out of the sea, using their fins as legs, to become amphibious...' Whoa, hang on there, rewind a second, fish began crawling out of the sea?

My understanding of evolution is that, through natural selection over many thousands of generations, genetic mutations that are beneficial to the species become dominant. The 'using their fins as legs' part I can accept, I can imagine that they were crawling on the sea bed well before they moved to land, it's how they breathed that I don't get.

What type of freak genetic mutation is it that suddenly gives a fish the ability to breathe in water and in air? You can either breathe in air or you can't, there's no in between, so it's a huge leap.

I'm sure that there's a very good explanation, it's just I haven't been able to find it. Everything I've read on the subject explains the transition from fins to legs, not the change in breathing mechanism. From single-cell amoebas to vertibrates I'm fine with, and likewise from land-crawling 'fish' to mammals and birds, it's just the bit in between I get stuck on. And in case you're wondering, this isn't an argument for creationism, it's questioning the current evolution teachings.

Can I just say absolutely unbefuckinglievable. I can only assume that Stephen Green and his disciples (as that's surely how he sees himself) have never had someone they know suffer and die from cancer. In some ways they've done us all a favour by doing this - perhaps now everyone but the most fundamental Christians will realise how loathsome this organisation is.

I would urge you to drop an email to Maggie's Centres to express your support for them to accept the donation, and to contact Stephen Green at either this email address or on 01994 484 545, to express your disgust.

Until yesterday I wasn't sure what I thought about the ban - a centuries old tradition versus killing foxes with dogs. Then last night I saw a picture of a member of a hunt in tears with blood on her face after being hit by a hunt saboteur and thought, 'that's exactly what the fox goes through'. So how about a comprimise? The hunts are allowed to go ahead as long as the saboteurs are allowed free reign to attack the hunters. Fair?

West Kent Hunt was what he was trying to say, but that wasn't quite what came out. Warning, contains strong language.

After spending 20 minutes on hold to my credit card company this evening I realised that by calling their 0845 number, not only was it costing me more than a normal call, but they were also making money out of keeping me on hold. The solution was to call their 'if you're calling from abroad' number which is a standard landline number.

Why should any company make money from you calling them? If you have an inclusive minutes package on your phone line it's also unlikely that 0870 & 0845 numbers are included. A quick Google led me to Say No To 0870. The next time you need to call an 0870 or 0845 number, search by company name or the number and it will give you the landline equivalent. And stop paying companies for something they should be providing for free

Another four series of Humphrey Littleton's stories about Samantha:

Samantha In The Gramaphone Library - Series 32 - 35
Samantha Has To Go Now - Series 32 - 35

Full index here. Enjoy!

Having given up on my search for a Modular Technology PCI card (£130 on ebay seemed a bit excessive) I decided to buy a Pure The Bug digital radio. It has a timer that you can set to record to an SD card, so it does essentially the same as the PCI card, plus I wouldn't have to leave my PC on to record a programme. It also allows you to pause and rewind live radio.

It's solidly built, quite large, but not excessively so, and has a design that grows on you. Before it arrived I was a little unsure whether I would like the rather unusual shape, but it doesn't look out of place.

When you first switch it on it auto-tunes to find the available stations, then you're away. I live in a bit of a dead spot for FM, but am able to get all of the BBC stations at 100% signal quality and a number of others at between 70-90%.

Apart from a brief play with another Pure model at Christmas, this was my first real experience of digital radio. First impressions were that it sounded good, comparable to the quality of a portable CD player. Certainly not hi-fi, but I wasn't expecting that from a radio with two small speakers.

Then I tried it through headphones . It sounds absolutely appalling. There is a constant background hiss even with the sound paused (not disimilar to the hiss on the iRiver mp3 player I had) plus what I can only describe as a growling sound. It doesn't make any difference which station you're tuned to, so it's not being broadcast, nor is it interference as it's the same anywhere in the house. It's also independent of the volume the radio is set to, which suggests it's a poor quality amplifier at fault. Once I'd heard it through headphones and knew the background sound was there, I was also able to hear it through the speakers.

There are three possibilities - either the radio is faulty, the model wasn't tested properly or Pure know it's there, but have decided not to do anything about it. When I speak to Pure technical support tomorrow, if it's anything other than a faulty unit it's going straight back for a refund.

**UPDATE 28/01/05**
It seems I'm not the only one to have noticed the problem with background noise. I've just found this forum post that describes exactly the same thing. This doesn't make me very confident that I've just got a faulty unit.

**UPDATE 30/01/05**
Spoke to Pure Technical Support. They said that a certain amount of background hiss is to be expected (so bear this in mind if you plan to listen through headphones) due to the amplifier, but there shouldn't be any other sound. It's being replaced next week, but I'm not holding out much hope the new one will be any better.

The New York Times puts it beautifully:

Before Mr. Bush's re-election, the prevailing attitude in Europe was definitely: "We're not anti-American. We're anti-Bush." But now that the American people have voted to re-elect Mr. Bush, Europe has a problem maintaining this distinction.

Exactly. The thinking goes something like this - in Europe, George W Bush is universally portrayed as being a bit thick. Alright, downright stupid. It is almost unheard of for someone with a low IQ to be voted in to head a government in Europe; you're unlikely to vote for someone who is less intelligent than you are, therefore 51% of Americans must be at least as stupid as Bush is. And does anyone actually believe this empty rhetoric?

Some shameless self-promotion here, but if you're at all interested in politics and the upcoming general election, get yourself over to my new site www.electionwatch.co.uk.

Partly inspired by Manic's call to arms at Bloggerheads, and partly so I don't gunge this site up with political posts, that will be my place on the interwebnet to post news & views in the lead up to this year's general election. And before anyone says it, yes, the layout may look a bit familiar - I was too lazy to do a new template.

If you have a website, please join me in starting a new Googlebomb. The target is the website of Christian Voice, the organisation who have the audacity to complain about Jerry Springer The Opera, whilst preaching their anti-gay, anti-abortion, racist message, and the link text is ignorant bigots. Once again, ignorant bigots.

**UPDATE 16/01/05**
A fine effort chaps, thanks - Christian Voice are now 1st in Google and Yahoo for the search ignorant bigots. Now it's there I'm going to change the title of this post to try and drop from 2nd.

Thanks to UKNova, I recently aquired mp3s of 43 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, a total of 219 show (it's not as if you can buy them anywhere). Amongst the most consistently funny parts are Humphrey Littleton's anecdotes about Samantha, the scorer - tales of her in the gramaphone library, recounted before the game Pick Up Song, and the reasons why she is leaving early. Rather than keep them to myself I decided to begin transcribing them. I'm working backwards and have done series 40 - 43 so far - more to follow.

Samantha In The Gramaphone Library - Series 40 - 43
Samantha Has To Go Now - Series 40 - 43

**UPDATE 09/01/2005**
Ok, I've done another 4 series, 36 - 39. See this page for I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue quotes.

Congratulations to the BBC for not giving in to the vocal minority, and for showing Jerry Springer The Opera tonight. Thanks to the religious zealots and defenders of all things decent, as without them I'd probably have missed it.

As far as I can tell there were two groups of people complaining - those who objected to the swearing, and those who were worried it undermined their religion. To the first group: those buttons with numbers on your remote control change the channel; if something offends you, use them. And if the god squad are getting this upset that a piece of fiction questions their religion, I presume that none of them have read The Da Vinci Code.

Incidentally, this website belongs to Christian Voice, one of the groups mentioned in the BBC article. Just a quick skim shows that they aren't just pro-Christian, they are right-wing nut jobs. The list of things they are against is incredible: gay rights, abortion, against other religions in the UK, for some reason particularly Hinduism, and the teaching of safe sex in schools. Certainly not the type of organisation I want dictating to me what I can and can't watch.