Lunch
For lunch today I’m having left over Goan fish curry from the weekend, served on coconut rice and heated up in the office microwave. Goan fish curry is probably my favourite Indian dish and contains fried onions, chillies, cumin, ground coriander seeds and mustard seeds. It is all simmered in a tomato based sauce with coconut milk and the fish is added at the end to keep it nice and moist. Tamarind or lime juice can be added to give a slightly sharp, sour edge. If it wasn't for all the coconut milk it might be considered healthy. Maybe.

Like most curries, it tastes best the day before it turns. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow you’ll know I was a day late…..
G&L Topic
I have 8 guitars and the last 3 of them have been G&L’s. The main reason for this is the high level of build quality in each instrument. I’ve played about 2 dozen G&L’s in different shops over the years and I’ve never seen a neck joint that is not super tight or frets that are poorly finished. Since G&L have invested in a Plek machine it is obvious that they aim to take build quality to yet another level again.
Yet, despite the high build quality of my G&L’s, the pickups still hum noticeably. It’s a problem that has always afflicted single coil pickups and player’s responses seem to range from ‘just put up with it’ to ‘I can’t stand that darned hum one second longer, get me a humbucking guitar’. I keep buying single coil guitars so I think I'm somewhere in between.
But does it have to be like this?. Another of my other guitars is a mid-90’s Fender strat. It’s nothing special as far as strats go, but it has always been quiet. Not silent, but much quieter than my other instruments. A couple of months ago I dropped some new pickups into it and found, on removing the pick guard, that it had been shielded at the factory. The swimming pool routing was coated in a thick layer of black conductive paint, and the whole reverse surface of the pick guard was covered in aluminium foil. It wouldn’t have been very difficult to do, but it was very effective. I popped the pick guard off my S-500 (probably my noisiest G&L) and there was no shielding to speak of - just a small triangle of aluminium foil on the pick guard.

So my question is should/could G&L do more to shield their guitars in line with the overall high build quality of the instruments? I suspect the old black crinkle pick guards used to provide some shielding being metal, but I wonder if anybody has any concrete evidence of this versus the current plastic guards?
Does anyone know if Fender still shield their guitars, or was it only a 90’s thing?
Off Topic
I’m really stoked because last night I won one of these on Evil Bay for $61.

I had one way back in the late 80’s primarily for delay effects, but it also had a very strange backwards tape looping effect that was fantastic on anything from voice to guitar to percussion. De-tuning the pitch shifter ever so slightly gave a great fatness to guitars too.
My unit was stolen during a burglary in 1996 and I’ve been looking for one ever since, so my quest is almost at an end.
Anyone care to chip in with gear you wish you’d never parted with, or you’re trying to get back again? These stories are always interesting…..