“If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.”

“If you find a pair of shoes that fits, buy it in every colour.”

“One biscuit is never enough.”

All three of those phrases is in some way related to the way I spent yesterday evening.  You see, a couple of years or so ago I was mulling over which electric guitar to buy, and when my wife eventually stepped in and told me which one I’d chosen (she knows my mind better than I do most of the time) I ordered a shiny new Line 6 Variax 300.  What’s special about that guitar (and all the others that Line 6 do, in fairness) is electronically model a whole load of real guitars and pack them all into one all-singing-all-dancing guitar, with each guitar selectable from a handy volume-type knob.  The result is that I effectively have 25 guitars instead of just one.

Thankfully, restringing only needs doing once, and it takes regular strings too despite its complicated wizardry.  I did a little research and found which strings the guitar had from the factory, and ordered a set on the internet a couple of days ago.  Now, this is where I hang my head in shame and hope there are no ‘proper’ guitarists reading – this is the first time I’ve replaced the strings since I bought the guitar, almost two years ago.  Ouch.  Sure, I’ve not been playing it every day since then, but even so the strings were sure to be corroded and mucky and dead-sounding by now.  And they were.

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