Monday, November 11, 2002 2:42 pm Dr. Finbar Questions a Crawling Kingsnake Hello again, This week's missive will perhaps be a bit longer than usual, as it's been a busy week on the Finbar front. As always, this week we tell you about last week, and this week, but not next week. We also unveil the second Dr. Finbar competition. THIS WEEK This week we play Thursday night at the Yak Speakeasy, 160 Hoddle St., Abbotsford. Acts start around 8.15. LAST WEEK Last Thursday we played at what is becoming our regular haunt, the Yak Speakeasy. We played our set and seemed to get through it OK. More interesting than us that evening, however, was this expatriate Irish guy who played some very sharp, dark and cutting, but nevertheless, hilarious, songs. Later he told us that when in Ireland he had a gig on St. Patrick's Day in an Irish pub. The patrons were expecting traditional Irish fare, but they got him instead. Apparently, in order to ensure his safety he had to be escorted out of the place by security at the end of the night. Thanks to those of you who came to see us play. That's three times in a row that we have had an audience! Wembley Stadium can't be too far off now. On Friday night Sam and Neil wanderered off to Eltham to see our friend Su's big band play at the Eltham Community Centre. We bumbled our way into the building, having wrongly assumed that there would only be one function at the Eltham Community Centre that night, we stumbled into a meeting of the Eltham Woodworkers Group. They said they'd be delighted to have us stay, but we had to take our leave of them. Once we actually made it to the right place, the music was very good. The Glenn Miller tribute bracket was particularly appreciated. There was also some pretty smart dancing going on. One couple in particular were absolutely incendiary. It made one of us think that he ought to go along to some dance classes before he becomes too old and infirm to do the moves. Speaking of infirmity, Sam and Neil received some disturbing information from one of our friends that evening. He said that the Dr. Finbar Trio doesn't have what it takes to become rock gods and attract a throng of groupies. He claimed that we are neither edgy nor rebellious enough, and that, quite frankly, we're a bit "past it". He said that of the three of us, Pete had the best chance, but that this was more or less like saying that a 59kg weakling has a better chance of beating up Mike Tyson than a 55kg one does. Naturally, we were quite disturbed to hear these things. Since then, Neil has been stepping on an extra two ants per day and has resolved not to write any more lame vaudeville-inspired material. Sam has been walking on all the cracks in the pavement. We didn't tell Pete about this, because as the man most likely, who knows what outrageous things he would have done. Our friends Jo and Shane had a housewarming party on Saturday and they were kind enough to play a selection of Dr. Finbar material to the assemblage. We won't tell you what we had to do to get them to play our stuff, but we're happy to report that Jo's markers have agreed to pass her PhD. thesis. THE DR. FINBAR COMPETITION Mk. II Ladies and gentlemen, put down your pencils. And before you do anything else, visit this URL: www.geocities.com/trolleylauncher/competition.jpg Now scroll down this email and all will be revealed... * * * * * * * * * * * * * (Keep scrolling) * * * * * * * * You will have observed by now that the URL contains a photo of a shelf and some sugar packets. What you have to do is guess how many sugar packets are on the shelf (of course, this includes the sugar packets stuffed into the jar). We don't know the answer yet ourselves, since we haven't counted them, but there are quite a few. The person who guesses closest to the correct number wins a mystery prize. Now, since the prize on offer is rather more substantial (under some resolutions of the word "substantial") than the prize we offered in the first competition, we're not just going to give it away for nothing. There is a small entry fee. You need to send one sugar packet and one wooden coffee stirring stick to the following address: Neil McKinnon, Department of Philosophy, Monash University, Clayton 3800. Enter as many times as you like, but each entry must be enclosed in a separate envelope. If you also enclose one of those little plastic milk containers that they give you with your coffee on trains and the like, you get two bonus guesses. A brief note for people at Monash. Don't think you can get away with dumping a handful of sugar packets and stirring sticks on my desk and claiming your ten guesses. Like everyone else, you need to observe the previous instructions. The competition closes two weeks from today. Best of luck! That's it for this week. We won't be so verbose ever again. We promise (kind of). The Dr. Finbar Trio.