The Great Experiment & Nerddom Blog

9 July 2013

The Great Experiment had its first major trial last night. The Great Experiment, as you may know, is an attempt by Richard Pite and me to give Jazz a wider appeal than it currently has. Given that its current appeal is no wider than a camel’s bum in a sandstorm, it may appear to the casual viewer that we have a relatively easy task.

Thus far, the signs are promising. The music room at the Hippodrome down in London’s Glittering West End was open specially, and our chaps had the rare treat of playing to a large audience of normal people. Not a whippet or sandal’n’sock combo to be seen! Sticking rigidly to our format of regular rhythm, short but intense solos and loads and loads of riffs, I’m pleased to say that the large audience of normal people responded exactly as we would have liked, with shouting and hollering in the exciting bits, and even a limited amount of Jazz Dancing. Largely comprised of folks who had either never been to a jazz gig before, or who thought it was unapproachable and deeply tedious, this came as a double-strength victory. The comment we got over and over again went along the lines of “I never knew that Jazz could be exciting like this”, or “I never knew I liked Jazz”. Watch out folks, maybe, just maybe, it’s on the way back.

Here’s a picture of me playing the first eight bars of “Lady Be Good”. You can clearly see a segment of the large audience of normal people, and also a gentleman known as Tall Paul dancing with his new wife. Tall Paul is a stalwart of the London jazz dancing scene, and had just got married on Saturday gone. To celebrate, he and Mrs. T.Paul set a new lindy hop record for staying on the floor for the duration of the whole track, which in this case ran to seventeen minutes! Just for good measure, here’s a great shot from last night of the new Matinee Idol of the trumpet, George Hogg getting stuck in during the big trumpet battle on Sweet Georgia Brown. You can see fellow trumpet heavyweight Tommy Walsh smiling in delight in the middle distance. His appearance has nothing to do with the focal length of the shot- he was enjoying George’s playing so much that he really did go all blurry and fuzzy!

I mentioned in the last edition of the Plog that there was a threat of Her Indoors getting an Argos Paddling pool. It has become a reality, and in the current heat wave her basking evenly-bronzed form is now a common sight in the Home Aqua Park, or Garden. However, as I was sat cogitating in the shed this morning, I had a flash of inspiration.

It turns out that here at the Plog we are doing rather well on the web hits front. Between 250 and 500 a day, so webmaster Phil informs me. Interestingly though, the big spike in the ratings occurred on the episode where I put up a picture of the Blohm & Voss 238, which will form the centrepiece of the Seaplanes Of The Axis Powers diorama. I am curious. This is mainly a curry and music show, so I am surprised that the bit with a tiny sliver of aeroplane nerddom should top the chart. As the theme of today seems to be amateur social experiment, I have decided to post some pictures of the work so far on the Seaplanes Of The Axis Powers diorama. As it has been all Seaplanes and no actual diorama thus far, it suddenly came to me that the calm waters of Her Indoors’ paddling pool would form a good temporary replica of one of the giant concrete flying boat marinas constructed by the Germans during one of her short breaks from her rigorous aqaerobics schedule. From the subsequent examination of the stats, webmaster Phil and I will now be able to more definitely ascertain the power of avionic nerdmusk online. Anyway, here’s the work so far, all made by me in my Home Workshop, or shed.

Arado 196 spotter seaplane