Monday, November 25, 2002 1:51 pm 

Dr. Finbar Brings a Barnacle to Show and Tell 

Hello again, Day Trippers,

We're sure you absolutely can't wait to hear the latest, so we will get 
straight to it.

LAST WEEK

On Thursday we played our first open mike at the Tramway Hotel in North 
Fitzroy. This is a very relaxed and comforting venue, somewhat like a 
country pub in some ways. It provided a soothing change from the sense 
of vertigo occasionally induced by the surreal (and world famous) Yak 
Speakeasy. We were specially favoured because the guy who runs the 
evening brought in his drum kit specifically for us to use. The feel 
of the other acts was more or less bluesy (as you can see, our powers 
of description sometimes fail us). When the evening ended at 10pm, we 
heeded the plaintive call of the Yak and made our way over there where 
we stayed until the early hours of the morning. The Irish singer of 
cutting but hilarious songs was there again, and he drew the best 
response we have ever seen at an open mike night. Everyone in the 
place was listening attentively, and he received riotous applause when 
he finished his act. We even bought one of his CDs.

Although we didn't quite play as well as usual, we drew four 
unsolicited positive remarks from people over the course of the night, 
which was nice. Thanks also to Miranda for coming along.

THIS WEEK

This week we intend to play at the Tramway Hotel again (165 Rae St., 
North Fitzroy). However, there could be complications. The presence 
of the drum kit last week did not go down very well in some quarters. 
So we'll have to contact them to see if we can play there again. We'll 
drop you a little note later in the week letting you know.

THE DR. FINBAR COMPETITION Mk. II

The competition has now closed (provided that no entries arrive with 
this afternoon's post). We can report that we received a total of
x squared - 4x + 3 entries, where x=3.

Therefore, the mystery prize remains in our possession. Should we 
decide to run a further competition, we may add the mystery prize from 
this competition to the prize pool. We (may) also decide not to charge 
an entry fee.

That's all for today. Have an engaging week,

The Dr. Finbar Trio