Wasting Time
Ale, music and enjoying life.
Moq Vs Rhino Mocks
What follows is simply a few rough notes I made with experience with a Moq framework and converting to Rhino Mocks:
Hugh Cornwell – Louth Town Hall 1st November 2017
Just collected me thoughts after a mini break part of which took in Hugh at Louth.
Top 10 Guitar Solos (as of September 2017)
Buzzcocks – Boredom
A real punk two fingered salute to the prog rock guitar noodling before it. Shelley’s two note solo leads the way. B’dum b’dum!
XTC – Books Are Burning (Late Show Version)
XTC’s Andy Partridge called a halt to live performances following an unfortunate bout of anxiety whilst performing a gig in 1982 (captured on video below)
So he must’ve dug deep to perform on TV 10 years later to promote their fantastic Nonsuch album. Andy’s guitar solo has to be up there with the greatest.
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
Robert Fripp’s guitar work throughout this track is pretty nuts. The guitar work towards the end is quite something.
When Bowie toured in the 90s this was a regular in the setlist. Reeves Gabrels gives it some welly.
Incidentally Reeves throws a wonderful solo into Tin Machine’s Roxy Music cover of If There Is Something
Big Country – Wonderland
I have to throw Big Country into here. The band’s “bagpipe guitar” style and their output is worthy of a mention. Here we have Stuart Adamson and co extending the middle section in a live performance of Wonderland. They were always great live.
The Damned – Noise Noise Noise
I could’ve chosen just about any Sensible era Damned track for inclusion here. Captain Sensible is such an underrated guitarist.
The Stranglers – Goodbye Toulouse
Taken from their first album this track paves the way forward for Hugh’s signature guitar sound (Telecaster, no pedals, “angular”). A unique guitar sound which would see The Stranglers as the most successful punk band and gave them hit after hit from 1977 to Hugh’s departure in 1990.
Ultravox – All Stood Still
Losing serious cool points here I know (not that I had any to lose). So Midge Ure makes it into my Top 10 guitar solos?! Yeah get over it. Another underrated guitarist. Legend has it that Midge was called up to play for Thin Lizzy when Gary Moore left. Midge didn’t have time to prepare and only had the Concorde flight from UK to US to learn the tracks by ear that he was about to perform. Not a massive fan of Ultravox or Midge but this deserves a nod.
Frank Black – Bad Wicked World
Frank’s Teenager Of The Year album is a humdinger from start to finish. So many great tracks and a natural progression from his time in the Pixies. And Pixies guitarist provides us with this quirky solo that made me LOL when I first heard it.
Velvet Underground – Heard Her Call My Name
The steam train progression and feedback all over this solo make it something to behold. The live version of this track is also worth a listen on their reformed 1993 Live album.
Julian Cope – Charlotte Anne
Donald Ross Skinner laid down some fantastic guitar which was always buried in 80s production treacle. A great example is on Cope’s Charlotte Anne single from 88.
Docs 4 Life – Making a claim
Update
Since publishing this article Dr Martens have announced that they are ending their “Docs4Life” range. They will still honour existing owners so if you managed to get in there before they ended the range then you’ve potentially saved a bit of money in the long run.
Further Update
In addition to the above the claim process has changed slightly to the original process below. Notable changes are as follows:
- After contacting customer services they will instruct you to send the docs back to them by printing out pre-paid postage, Get a proof of postage and proof of payment of the £20 admin fee.
- Once you’ve carried out point 1 above and emailed them they will pretty much send the replacements on to you.
- You will receive a replacement pair from the “hardlife” range. With docs4life being discontinued you will never receive a branded docs4life pair was the original process (outlined below).
Disclaimer
Each process may differ slightly to the one I described below. Always start the process rolling by sending photos of your docs first (to contact@drmartens.com) with your docs4Life membership number).
Background
Ok I admit it I currently own 5 pairs of docs 🙂 . One of the pair I bought a couple of years ago were from “Docs4Life”. The Docs4life range cost a little bit more than standard docs but are reinforced in terms of their soles and for an admin fee of £20 you can chip your docs in once they’re knackered and receive a new pair. So I worked out that once I’ve put 1 claim in I’ve made my money back. So after 2 years (as you can see) my docs were in a pretty crappy state so it’s time to make a claim…..
The Process
In order to make a claim you’ll need your docs4life reference number and some photos of the wear and tear on the docs themselves. Email contact@drmartens.com and they will get back to you within 5 days. However, as you can see that’s a pretty generic email address and if you phone them once you’ve emailed and explain that you’ve sent them a claim they will dig your email out and process it quicker.
Once they’d assessed the photos and confirmed the damage I was advised to cut the tongues out of my doc martens?! and provide photos of the docs with the tongues cut out and photos of the tongues on their own. I realised that in doing this I’m effectively destroying my docs and there would be little point me posting these on. This was confirmed when customer services got back to me and stated that I wouldn’t have to post my docs out. All that was left was for me to pay the £20 admin fee.
Limited Replacement Range
Disappointed to learn that the brown docs I bought are no longer in the Docs4Life range. In face the only colours available (at time of writing) is black and red. Went for black and after 3 days the new pair arrived.
Git: Setup Beyond Compare as Difftool and Mergetool
Change config file
Depending on your Git setup (mines Git for Windows). You’ll need to locate your .gitconfig file (mine’s %userpath%/.gitconfig and make the necessary changes below.
Note that the “prompt = false” stops the Y/N prompt for each difftool file compare in the set. Can also be added as git config –global –add difftool.prompt false
[diff]
tool = bc3
[difftool "bc3"]
path = c:/Program Files (x86)/Beyond Compare 4/bcomp.exe
[merge]
tool = bc3
[mergetool "bc3"]
path = c:/Program Files (x86)/Beyond Compare 4/bcomp.exe
trustExitCode = false
[difftool]
prompt = false