h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fred was one of my best friends in school, though we only were in school together for two years. He came from Kilkenny College, which only went as far as fourth year at that time, sending those boys who could afford it to go on to sixth year in Mountjoy.

Mountjoy School had about a hundred boarders and a hundred and fifty daydogs, as we called them. I was a weekly boarder, meaning I could go home for weekends. That helped keep the cabin fever down; most boarders only got home for half-term and holidays.

In 1963-64, when Fred and I were through the Leaving Cert and into the Maths Scholarship class, two new teachers decided to put on a school concert. Plays were cast and directed, and I was approached to form a band. Within the Christmas term I taught Fred to play the guitar, from scratch, and together with the supercool Jos Power we performed

I Saw Her Standing There
Maria Elena (instrumental)
All My Loving

We attached a pickup to my arch-top guitar, and I can't remember whether Jos had a pickup on his guitar or played into a mike, but the big excitement was that we got permission to hire a bass guitar and amp. I played bass on I Saw Her Standing There, the full whack as done by Paul MacCartney, and Fred played bass for the others.

We had to practise on acoustic guitars, though, because we only had the use of the bass for forty-eight hours. The day before the concert we had our first go on it.

All went to plan. We sang our harmonies and played our bits. Nobody fainted or screamed, but we got off alive and exhilarated. We packed away our equipment and took our parts in the plays.

I've been teaching ever since, on and off, and I have had pleasing successes, but I have never since had the experience of bringing someone from beginner to gigster in twelve weeks, or played in public an instrument I had first handled the day before. Climaxes are followed by anticlimaxes.

My relationship with music is weird. I'm not musical. But I can appreciate the thrill of teaching.

That sounds like a rather magical experience, Recumebentman.

TRiG.

This seems to happen quite a lot with you RC - I have a duplicate conversation - but the contents are different ?

I'll levae both in my queue for consequent investigation.

Sorry about the duplicates. That's because when I post my journal entry and then spot a typo, I have to copy, remove, start a new journal entry, paste, correct and post again. If it were a normal entry I could edit.

I know I should read my preview carefully and edit before I post, but I've got in the habit of posting things unchecked if I'm

Must ask the italics if they can make journal entries editable, at least until they have had a reply.

I certainly can't talk about preview.