The average age of a Charioteer is most likely in the Chris Woakes bowling speed range. Well played, those said charioteers for being long lived. Your blushing, “youngish”, modest, unassuming Arts Editor hits the big Hawaii Five-O this autumn.
I don’t expect any round of applause for making fifty. I won’t raise my bat, 5-0 is not the middle of life any more. Fifty is the new twenty. However, as I near the new twenty a crisis has happenstanced.
There is a new woman in my life. She understands me more than my wife. This woman…
She is Black.
She is slim
She is pretty.
She has shark-toothed fret markings.
Here she is.
Yes, Dear Reader, JW has joined the musicians club. Me and my guitar are making beautiful music….while the whole world gently weeps. Not content with listening to loud Metal for Muthas music I am producing my own. Admittedly, I am at the novice stage of axe Shredding (A Heavy Metal term to denote fast guitar playing, in case you were wondering) but hey, from its awful beginnings just look how good my blogging became. Good at one, good at the other, don’t you Fink?
House prices have shrunk South Of Heaven in my street as the neighbours have Slayered off this mortal coil. It must be something to do with my G5 power chord played on the amp in overdrive mode at full blast. Now, that’s what I call a sentence.
Aye wheel, as mid life crises’ go the six stringer is better than having an affair or buying a motorbike.
Play it, you know what.
Boadicea's Chariot 
JW, I knew you’d been up to summat. Can’t hurt a 50 year old to pluck and strum but do it quietly, please. I’ve had to explain that to Backside.
Fifty and left-handed? Happy autumn, JW.
“Maybe get a blister on you little finger, maybe get a blister on your thumb…..”
Tum tee tum
OZ
Ahem, you’re far from the youngest here, JW! Good on the new lass, by the way. Better to always find something to do and try rather than wilt.
The septuagenarians hereabouts rarely wilt! 😊
Not that long ago, I bought myself an Epiphone Les Paul. Not quite a true Gibson but the same company. Still trying to get the old fingers working again, but it is a slow business. However, none of that Heavy Metal noise shall pass through my amp and I have a gizmo that lets me feed the output straight into the jolly old computer. 🙂 BTW, I prefer Strats for sound but the Gibsons are a bit easier to play.
Greetings pop pickers,
J-Man, seventy is the new thirty. Trim those hedges with more vigour.
Hello Oz, wolf cousin, we are Brothers in Arms. Don’t know where the leftiness came from. I fear that, in the bygone days of yore, one of my relations fought for the other side at The Battle of the Boyne. This rogue gene, a spawn of Satan, has awoken from its crypt and infected me with its devilish way. (my only other leftyleaning is that I play Table Tennis LH)
Young and clever, Christopher. You are nobody’s “stupid Boy” even though you hang about a lot with The Dad’s Army Charioteers.
FEEG, you are a chord sequence yourself. My son (right-handed, he escaped the devil’s clutches) has an Epiphone acoustic. Brilliant instrument, great sound. I still have an old acoustic that I hammer away at but the electric is in a different league. I’ve done a Dylan.
G D Am
G D C
What’s a birthday? Don’t believe in them, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, (note to self, trigger land mines for fairies, bound to be shirt lifters!)
I have a stepson who is a professional guitarist, actually makes a living and pays a mortgage on it. Does a lot of work in Hollywood these days I am led to understand. In his younger days he made our home in Dallas HELL. The bloody place used to vibrate on its foundations when he used it for band practice. Fortunately in due course he could afford a rented soundproofed unit downtown and we moved 2000 miles for a bit of peace and quiet. Bad enough getting throat cutting Wagner, let alone bloody twanging guitars!
Only thing worse is a banjo, I have the overwhelming desire to kill any banjo player with their own instrument of torture. Better yet, just set fire to their house!
Certainly divorce territory, good case of unreasonable behaviour.
Christina, I call your banjo and raise you a ukelele.
OZ
OZ, I call your ukelele and raise you George Formby! 😎
J, I call your Formby and raise you Skiffle.
I call your Skiffle and raise you a Donegan.
Cor, my blimey trousers! I’ll fold.
No stamina, huh? And only 50….. 😄
Even worse, 49.
I sailed through 60 without so much as a whimper last St Swithin’s Day (or Swithen’s or Swithun’s for the philologists and sundry pedants), six weeks ago, because of which I call your Donegan and your Cor blimey trousers and raise you a Little Black Bull.
Game over, methinks. Mornington Crescent. Close the thread.
OZ
Game over with a Flash Bang Wallop! Yeah!