on wednesday evening of this week, i shall be sat behind a red yamaha drumset, doing my level best to emulate the percussive soundtrack to a selection of songs from abba's 'mamma mia'. you will, perhaps, accept my protestations that music such as that promulgated by bjorn and benny, agnetha and anni-frid, is not normally included on any of my ipod playlists, but i have made an exception in this case, purely for the sake of education.
during the school term, i spend a couple of hours a week teaching higher and advance-higher drumming at the local secondary school. this consists predominantly of ensuring that those studying drumset at this level, can confidently play prescribed parts as dictated by the education authority and the head of the music department. though my sight-reading is rudimentary at best, it's good enough to know whether the music is being played correctly, and i've been playing drums long enough to know how to correct any wrongs.
however, by way of extra-curricular musical activity, the school year often features concerts in which the music students are given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills to their peers and the public. this has led to my having to transcribe drum parts, not only for my own playing, but for other drum students; it's not a skill to which i take readily, being many a long year since i last had need of writing 'the dots'. so while the singers and pianist are provided with purhcased scores, the guitarists and drummers have had to figure it out for themselves.
and though i'd rather you kept it to yourselves, transcription was rather fun.
naturally enough, abba's are not the only tunes in town, but they are the ones that directly affect me, and it's hard to deny that the swedes wrote a considerable number of catchy pop tunes. the fifteen minute selection features 'i have a dream', 'sos' and 'dancing queen', amongst others, but a notable exception, in this day and age, is surely, 'money, money, money'; a song whose subject probably affects us all, no less the velocipedinally inclined.
the highest profile example of this directly related to the velo club, would be the weekly sunday ride. though we have stopped short of taking attendance before the grand départ at 10am, those who have made their cycling proclivities manifest over preceding weeks, are generally expected to put in an appearance, unless they have previously made their official excuses. it's one of the main benefits of a group ride; committing to cycle with others on a regular basis, is one of the best methods of staying away from any number of pathetic excuses frequently trotted out by the great unwashed. many have indeed stated that we should be committed, though i've a notion that their definition is a tad different than ours.
this committment extends towards the staff at debbie's. with almost ten cyclists riding on occasion, you can easily imagine the queue of scruffy riders at debbie's cash till, eager to pay for coffee and occasionally cake, when time comes for the journey home. thus, rather than pay individually, there is a loosely constituted, voluntary rota, to take care of business and, rather obviously, to do so necessitates the carrying of either cash or plastic.
i seriously doubt i have to tell you of the iniquities involved in carrying cash and/or plastic in a jersey rear pocket. few shop assistants or baristas will take kindly to being handed swot and hetty cash, particularly now that the most frequently used denominations are no longer made of paper. and placing a solitary debit or credit card in a jersey back pocket is scarcely the most pragmatic means of keeping your considerable spending power entirely safe. what is really required, is a wallet.
oddly enough, the wallet market, should such an entity be deemed to exist, seems recently to have expanded to incorporate the more active lifestyle. like cycling, for example. the lack of such an item seems to have been one that bothered dan bessant three years past, so much so, that he was moved to create the very, waterproof, slimline repository that has inhabited one of my jersey rear pockets of late. not unnaturally, more regular wallet purveyors are often less than conversant with the size restrictions imposed by the average cycle jersey.
many of you will possess wallets that would stretch a rear pocket well beyond its designed parameters, but the zilfer wallet is long and narrow, featuring four internal slots for credit/debit cards and two inside spaces in which to carry cash. for those in thrall to the mobile phone, even when out cycling, away from the trials and tribulations engendered by normal society, there is an angled, waterproof zip, offering access to the entire width of the wallet in which to place a mobile communications device.
however, in order to retain the folding ability of the zilfer wallet, that device would need to fit within half the width, otherwise it will no longer fit in a jersey rear pocket. though i still have no truck with mobile phones, i did find it a simple procedure to have my ipod touch ensconced within. in fact, the aforesaid ipod will also slide easily into one of the cash-carrying internal sleeves. filled with cards, cash and ipod, perhaps the sole downside i came across, is the wallet's propensity to remain open, rather than closed. this could have probably been remedied by either a circumferential zip, or some form of poppered clip to ensure it remains closed when necessary.
of course, keeping the wallet inside the waterproof, string-pull bag in which it arrives, provides a partial solution, but i can think of many, day-to-day situations where the bag will be seen as surplus to requirements, not least because it conceals the zilfer's strikingly simple, practical design from admiring onlookers. suffice it to say, even after an exhilarating bike ride around the rhinns of islay, cards, cash and ipod were not only safe and sound, but remained appropriately dessicated.
the zilfer cycling/activity wallet is available in neo black, or ash grey (as reviewed) at a retail cost of £52.
tuesday 18 june 2019
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................