I've heard several reports on the Xmas economy. Started good, but petered out - they say. Another news report claims that it's a class war... that luxury goods are selling out and cheap goods languishing. I disagree. As usual, I'm using the cheap guitar (those that sell for under a hundred dollars) index. And things look pretty good. Last two years I bought a dozen and sold a couple. This year I've had to re-stock. Now I'm getting empty again, but I can't get any more. Cheap guitars vanished from the warehouses a few weeks ago. Not just one warehouse, not just one supplier - across the board. One supplier after another. The entire cheap guitar output of China; and these are very large numbers... Sold out until some unspecified date in January or February.

Read an interview with Angus Young, guitarist of AC-DC. In it he claims a disdain for 'formulas' - he just likes to play loud rock-n-roll. Gimme' a break. He's pushing fifty now. Half his hair is gone and what's left is turning a shade of grey. Still playing the same three-chord rock laced with sexual and rock-n-roll innuendos. Still plays a red SG through his bank of Marshalls. Still parades around stage in his little schoolboy outfit, which he tosses in a stripper act in the middle of the set and moons the audience. No formulas indeed.