Decidedly NPFR. Even if its one of them.

I missed the chance earlier to bore you rigid with something in the Sunday papers last week. So I'll do it now instead, with the aid of my beautiful assistant, the lovely Nick Mason. Yes, he's talking about cars, including how he learned to drive. I suspect his recollections are only half true. Quoth he, on his specialist subject:

'My dad was a documentary film maker and he made a series of films about motor sport. He also raced, so I used to go motor racing with him when I was a very small boy. The ultimate treat was to go to Silverstone. I learned to drive in an Austin Seven with no brakes, which taught me a few basics: I stopped by finding some place that went uphill. A perfect day for me is to drive on a circuit, because the joys of driving on the open road are fast disappearing. I started racing in the 1970's with old Aston Martins and that led to my real ambition to race modern cars at Le Mans, which I've done five times. Even if I hadn't been in the music business I would have still gone racing, but in a much smaller way. Fortunately, I've been able to indulge myself. I have a collection of 25 to 30 historic competition cars. The oldest is a 1901 racing Panhard, which still does the London to Brighton run; the newest is a McLaren GTR, the racing version of the road car. My favourite car is probably the Ferrari GTO, which I've had for the past 25 years. No car can do everything but the GTO comes pretty close. It looks fabulous; it's fun to drive and flattering to the driver. You can push it. The GTO is forgiving, it will let you get away with stuff.'

Ah, fine words, Nicky. All the same, I don't think it'll forget if you use it to carry some fence panels, two drums of agricultural fungicide and a new lawnmower back from B+Q at the weekend. But then again, a man who learns to drive on a car with no brakes probably knows no bounds. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the opening line. I recall that when he was on Letterman, he said that his father still made films. So has he become too elderly and infirm, or has he died in the meantime?

Sad Ken - five years on amp-f, and still none the wiser

Maybe the term 'was' was to signify that he no longer did it, not that he was no longer.

Thanks for sharing!

Classic quote that. I'll do some digging about his dad (which might turn out to be a terrible pun... stay tuned)

Nothing on Bill Mason so far - but I did find this: http://www.chez.com/pfasso/faqwaters.htm#'What does the morse code on _Radio KAOS_ say?'

[-] 13. 'What is the 'Lost Verse' to 'The Tide is Turning'?'

There was supposed to be another verse to this song, but it was removed because Waters was worried about lawsuits. He did, however, sing part of it (the last two lines) during some live concerts. The lyrics are:

Now the past is over but you are not alone Together we'll fight Sylvester Stallone We will not be dragged down in his South China Sea of macho bullshit and mediocrity

This is also who Waters refers to later in the song when he sings 'The tide is turning, Sylvester.'

Well, this is what I suspected, April. But it just intrigued me, so I thought I'd check with the good people here in case they knew different and/or better. Perhaps it struck me more in the sense that Mason never seemed to be overly miserable or out of kilter at any time I've seen him in the past few years (well, if we discount the Barrett Omnibus PR disaster). So in hindsight I should have drawn the nearly obvious conclusion, even if Mason senior is getting on a bit.

You know, I'm sure there was a point to all this somewhere at the beginning...

Sad Ken - five years on amp-f, and still none the wiser

Any point on amp-f is lost within three posts. You can pretty much set your clock to it.

..unless it's one of those god damned ISSUE threads that just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

Speaking of which...

No, I was about to raise some fantastically important subject as a joke, but, while naming no names COUGHOrawnzvaCOUGHZnpxvrCOUGH, I am fairly sure that someone would actually start talking about it...

Toad licking, anyone?