The Blue Agave Forum: The Blue Agave Forum -> The Mumpsimus Blog

I probably wasted my money, but I just ordered a copy of Fritz 12, the latest version of the best chess-playing software available for a personal computer.

Frankly given my lack of practice these days, I could probably be beaten by my dog or by a talking smoke alarm. Still, I persist in wanting to play.

Certainly all of the existing chess programs I already have - including Fritz 10, Chessmaster 10 and several free chess programs - can beat me at a rather embarrassing level. So F12 is easily overkill if I'm looking for an e-opponent.

But I live in hope. I was once a much stronger player and I sometimes fool myself into thinking that, with a little practice against my digital opponent, I could revive those skills. Probably true if I was in my mid-20s. In my late 50s, my brain is probably so ossified that any hope of significant improvement is self-delusion. In the 70s and 80s, I played chess daily, often staying up all night playing chess with friends. Nowadays I'm happy when I can play monthly. And more often as not, that's against the computer, which beats me without gusto or verve, merely mechanical skill.

I don't have a lot of opportunity to play chess these days, outside the computer. My best opponent is an old friend who lives...

I picked up two CD sets of George Formby Jr.'s music this past month. Easily the most comprehensive collection of Formby music ever compiled, the two sets comprise five CDs each, with almost 250 songs on both. Arranged chronologically, the music takes us from Formby's earliest recording (mid-late 1920s) to the effective end of his career, in 1951. For both ukulele players and Formby fans, it's the ultimate set.

The sets, published by JSP Records, in the UK, are divided into two eras: pre-war (1926-39) and war/post-war (1939-51).

While there have been many other Formby collections released in the past, this one is by far the largest - it comes from the largest and most complete Formby archive, collected by fan Kevin Daly. Daly was not merely an avid fan; he became a recording engineer and producer at Decca, in 1960, so he was acutely aware of the need to preserve old 78s for optimum reproduction on more modern technologies.

The quality of the reproductions in this set is excellent. The only previous collection of this calibre was Decca's 2-LP reissues, The World of George Formby, which also used the Daly collection as the source. That Decca set is long out-of-print and contained some different versions of songs not in this series. But this new...

Been buying a lot of old song books and song sheets on eBay of late - and a few at local used bookstores, too. I'm looking for songs with ukulele chords, of course. Back in the 1920s and 30s, many songs were arranged for uke and piano. But many were arranged for uke alone. The instrument was that popular.

Much of the material I've collected is pre-1930, so it's generally outside anyone's copyright. A lot of the post-1930 material includes arrangements of songs written pre-1930, some as early as the 1890s. It's hard to find copyright records for most of this material and, frankly, few people give a damn about it simply because it's old, it's forgotten and no one is getting any royalties from it. It's yard sale material.

It's not expensive to buy a few song books or sheets, but it can get pricey when you start to be serious about collecting. I'm scrambling to find things to sell on eBay to pay for my purchases. Shipping is often more expensive than the purchase itself*.

Of the several dozen songs I've collected so far, I recognize only a handful. The rest have simply come and gone, unremarked and forgotten. Jeepers Creepers, Sunny Side of the Street, Side by Side, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Me and My Gal, Sweet Sue,...

Ukuleles have been a challenge to me of late. Fixing same, not the playing thereof.

First, I recently purchased a Boat Paddle uke online, secondhand, but a trusted seller. Unfortunately, it arrived with the neck separated from the body. Apparently the glue joint was affected by the climate in transit, probably drying it out, and the pressure of the strings (about 39 lbs for a tuned tenor uke) caused the glue to let go. The result was the neck pulled away from the block in the body. Still playable, but any pressure on the neck during play pushed it outwards, and the uke went out of tune. Despite the advantages for travel of a folding uke, I thought it had better be fixed.

The seller offered to pay for the shipping and to refund my money, but I was intrigued by the instrument and had been eager to get it, so I decided to keep it and make the effort to fix it myself. Keep in mind I'm not a carpenter or woodworker of any skill. I'm more the fence-and-deck type home builder.

I called the uke's maker - Jerry - and discussed options. While he offered to fix it if I shipped it to him, the cost of shipping across the border, plus the time lost while it was bring repaired, seemed excessive. I asked for advice about fixing it myself. He recommended epoxy,...

That rather handsome young man to the left was my father, at age 17. So serious, so formal looking. My brother scanned and emailed the picture to me, part of my search to find out more about my family and its roots.

That photograph was taken in 1931, between the wars. It was also taken during the Great Depression in the UK, which lasted from 1929 to 32. He was baptised Watts Chadwick, but was known as Bill to his friends and family.

Northern England where my father was born and lived - Oldham, near Manchester - was particularly hit by the economic downturn because it was the heart of the British industrial region. Unemployment swept the north those hard years and stayed longer in the north than in other parts of Britain.

Although the depression ended (officially if not actually) in 1932, economic recovery was slow, especially in the north, and it wasn't until the country started re-arming in the mid 1930s that recovery finally came. But then the world stumbled into war, again.

Thanks to the memories of my Aunt Mary, in South Africa, I know a little more about my father and his family in those days. Here's what I recently learned.

My grandfather, Frank, was a journalist who worked at the Oldham Chronicle (still in business today). My grandmother,...