[BITList] Onions, and other urban legends

[HUGH]

Mike,

I was at a Humphrey Lyttelton concert in Glasgow one day before I ran away to sea.  At that time, early 1956, there were firm views held by many on what constituted proper, God-approved jazz.  Humph was skating on thin ice by employing a saxophone player, Bruce Turner, but it was a full house that greeted the band.  All went well until the band played (and sang) a tune called Onions  - not only that, at intervals the band would shout "onions !".  By that time I was into Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan and worse, so Onions didn't disturb me, but one bearded gent, clad in a wooly jersey at least one size too big, open toed sandals, horn rimmed glasses and shapeless trousers, stood up and shouted various uncomplementary phrases, none of which the band heeded.  The next time I saw Humph in the flesh was when he played at a concert in London while I was with BI. I was going steady with Janet by then, and I got a bollocking for going to a dance where women were present.  I think up to 6 couples danced in the space at the front of the stalls, but Janet classed it as a dance.

On Itzhak Perleman playing on with 3 strings, my daughter and I attended a recital in Egeskov Castle in Denmark where the guitarist broke a string in the middle of Sor's Variations on a Theme of Mozart.  He didn't play on, that being impossible - he apologised, changed the string, tuned up a bit, and went on to loud applause.  I read somewhere that Paganini was apt to do broken string tricks to amaze the masses.  Still on broken strings, I was sitting my motor bike driving test one winter's day in  1955-56.  At that time the examiner didn't follow on another bike, but walked from point to point, having directed the candidate to proceed similarly, though on the bike.  Bank Street in Greenock is very steep indeed, and there is an open space about 100 yards up it, near where the building stands that used to be the bank.  I was told to go up and do a U-turn on the open space without putting a foot on the ground.  No sooner had I started my turn at the place, than it became clear the whole area was black ice.  So over I went with 495 pounds of Royal Enfield Model G, breaking the clutch cable in the process.  I got over to the gutter and sat the bike on its stand, took a spare cable out of my pocket and fitted it.  When I got back to the bottom the examiner grunted an apology, then told me just to go back to the Test Office, or whatever it was called.  All I had done till then was drive to Bank Street, up it, and back down again.  When he arrived, he told me I had passed.

Many years ago, same period as the above, I heard the "drill" story.  At that time it was some firm who had sent a very very slim drill to a firm in Switzerland, asking if they could cap that.  The Swiss drilled a hole along its length and sent it back, so went the story.  Such drills were used in Kincaids when I was there, for making the very small holes in fuel valve spray nozzles.  These were jig-drilled, probably in the tool room.  I know it wasn't the fitting shop - we'd've broken 10 a minute. At the other end of the scale, the holes to take the studs for the B&W eccentric rod feet were made by an 8" drill.

Hugh.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20100121/2b97f36e/attachment.shtml