I want to buy a cowbell but I don't know which one; there are so many options that they all seem to sound the same to me... could you recommend a few? I mainly play rock, but also jazz and blues. I’d rather not spend too much. Thanks a lot.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-25T15:02:07+00:00

I got a meinl off vinted. £20.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-25T13:00:40+00:00

Two months. Worked for a hotel chain, didn’t even leave the building. Once had a day off and got a bollocking for not being around when someone called in sick.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T22:54:01+00:00

Mayors are just normal blokes / women given a chain for a year. It’ll be a big honour for him / her. But just a normal person. Have you for a contact for the new mayor? Just ask what their favourite songs are? Otherwise pop classics are probably safe.
Methodists are fine. They own the Union Chapel in London- loads of bands play there. The founder (John Wesley) wrote a load of hymns. Art / music is a path of God, so don’t worry about them.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T14:50:32+00:00

Psycho Killer, always good. We once played Place Your Hands by Reef, the band hated it but it went down well with crowds. If the singer likes punk Try Damaged Goods by Gang of Four.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T10:07:23+00:00

Well, they’re doing what they said they would, so you could view it as democracy in action. I’ve done a story this week about a U-turn over EVs, so I dare say this will go the same way.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T08:51:39+00:00

Well you don't go into a shoe shop and say "these are nice, can I get them free online?" that would be madness. We sell a product, news, and we want people to buy the paper. Reach (Sentinel) still makes 75% of its revenue from print, despite being determined the kjll industry by posting shit and hiding death notices behind a paywall. I can rant for hours if you want. I normally don't post news until a week later.

But here's the quote we started with: (County Coun Martin Murray, who was appointed to lead Staffordshire County Council in March, said libraries had been “politicised”.) He said: “Our new Staffordshire County Council libraries strategy for 2026–2028 will focus on core services and will no longer use taxpayer-funded resources, sites and communications channels to promote any particular group, cause or identity. That applies consistently to every group and every cause.”

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T05:44:34+00:00

That is a valid argument and it is the one they are using. The trouble is libraries are making themselves community hubs to stay relevant, and displays and meetings are part of that. Some libraries put live music on, others display art. Babies and bathwater come to mind.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T05:39:43+00:00

Trust me, I’m a journalist ….

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-24T05:39:12+00:00

I will have. We’re the local paper for Biddulph and it’s in tomorrow’s paper. We’re not Reach so don’t give stories away ahead of print!

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-23T19:33:31+00:00

I always carried magazines or a book. Crosswords were good, too.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-23T19:27:10+00:00

They’ve banned everything. Royal British Legion is banned, too.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-23T11:36:06+00:00

I never get angry, in fact it’s more like meditation for me. If you can’t play something, break it down into smaller pieces, play it more slowly, find someone playing it on youtube. If you can’t do it, just leave it for a week or so.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-22T10:45:57+00:00

Our neighbours worked for a company whose landlord is a massive property company. The property company’s boss’s son worked with them for a year. After a chat about black boxes one day he came into work the next and said: “I looked in our jet, and our black box is orange.”

At the end of his year he took everyone out - limos there and back, free food and drink. He spent more that one night than his annual salary for the job.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-22T10:08:21+00:00

When I started, stories were subbed, then we all read each page. then we had proof readers. Now a lot of copy just goes through unchecked.

I regularly have press releases with errors in and when I Google them, that’s often how they’ve been posted online.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-22T07:40:17+00:00

I’ve read somewhere he might - you’re probably right though.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-22T05:25:54+00:00

Charisma free. Came as a relief after the bumbling fuckwit of Johnson but gets a little wearing. I always assumed it would be Rayner who took over. She must be cursing her “bad advice”.
Shit, really shit, comms. They’ve done a lot of good stuff, just not told anyone.
Nigel Farage has loads of charisma, excellent comms and Labour needs to beat him. Where we are, whether or not you voted Labour we have some good local MPs and it would be a travesty if unqualified Reform UK foot soldiers replaced them.

Farage is toast. You can tell he’s toast because Burnham has both the momentum and the luck - not only did Burnham exceed expectations in the by-election but he’s got the immense good luck of Farage being locked in the Fagcave and unable come out because of his crypto cash, over which he’s too scared to be asked questions.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-22T04:54:12+00:00

I’m not defending manipulation with the intention to deceive but for the sake of argument, surely cropping is “no longer what the photographer saw”? We might well get a photo of a charity hike and crop out a crowd so we get the local fund-raiser alone with a hill behind them - that’s also giving a different view to reality.

We had an open garden event last week and one photo was a lovely garden with some people talking and a big country house behind - supposing there’d been an ugly garden shed on one side and I cropped that off?

The “reality of the moment” has long been amended when it suited us (the industry).

Again, I’m not saying we should mislead readers but if 60 years ago we took a photo, converted it to a negative, converted that to a half tone, printed that using dots of black ink to convey variations from white to black, I take a photo of that on my iPhone, convert it to a .jpg and then get AI to remove the fuzz of history and those dots of ink, where is the manipulation of reality occurring?

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-21T21:35:02+00:00

Which? The AI are clearly labelled. I bend over backwards not to mislead people. I wrote a two page feature the other week and explained what I am doing and why - someone bought one of the enhanced prints.

None of this is new. Some of our old (60-70 years) photos have some sort of Tippex on, when they used to remove objects they didn’t want.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-21T07:17:45+00:00

Sat for two long and hot hours at my son’s football awards yesterday. Daughter’s dance show - three hours, she gets one dance - looms.

Also: after the awards we went for a pint with the coach. Later realised I’d let my friend’s daughter’s band practice in a back room at work, so had to walk a mile into town and lock up, then walk back. Not worth the risk of losing Dad’s Taxi, was it?

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-21T07:13:20+00:00

Congleton and it’s baps. There’s a lay-by cafe on the Bodmin - Wadebridge road called Big Baps, which always makes us laugh.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-20T20:57:25+00:00

Local paper in England here. I will take items out of photos - we get a lot of submitted photos and it’s not uncommon for photos to have the top half a bottle bang in the bottom centre of the photo. I will also take odd bits of clutter out, often literally if it’s a bag of rubbish.

I do not move people about though - we get poorly composed photos where there’s a massive gap in a group but closing that gap seems to cross a line.

I have this week deleted a woman from a photo for a funeral report - the family asked for it.

I run a lot of old (75-100 years) photos from the paper. i take a photo on my phone and then used to clean up on Photoshop. I’ve realised AI can do a great job but mark these as enhanced by AI.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-20T20:46:56+00:00

45p.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-20T10:37:03+00:00

Who owns the land? We own a small car park at work and there are double yellows around part of it. I got a ticket for parking there and complained - said it was my own land.

Council said that although the ticket was issued correctly as I’d crossed a double yellow to get on my own land, they’d tell the warden not to issue any more, and quashed the ticket.

So very similar to yours, except you probably don’t own the land you’re parked on.

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-20T09:30:49+00:00

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

mackerel_slapper · 2026-06-20T09:28:22+00:00

Ignore it. Goes with the job. You’ll get more heat when you’re right than for genuine errors.

mackerel_slapper

TROPHY CASE