My trip to London is growing to a close (returning Monday morning) and
I thought you might be interested in a couple of interesting events in
the last couple of days.

Special thanks to Dan Wilson for initial information and then Julian
Dyer for his help in linking me up with not only himself, but also Jeffrey
Borinsky, Rex Lawson, Dennis Hall, Norman Evans, Paddy Handscombe, Malcolm
Cole, the British Piano Museum, and today Mike Boyd at the Grand Opening
of his Rye Treasury of Mechanical Music, along with numerous members of
the Player Piano Group.

Rex Lawson and Dennis Hall have appeared several times at AMICA
Conventions providing outstanding Pianolist Concerts, using their
twin 88n piano players. I was first exposed to their very special
talent at the Boston Convention in 1989, and if anything, they are
better than ever.

Prior to Boston, I would never have believed it possible to hear
outstanding music from a humble 88n music roll.  Their concert was
a real eye and ear opener for me.  And it happened all over again
here in Dennis' home and Rex's home.  My emotional reaction to
their individual performances never ceases to amaze me.

Here, their performances were individual, played on pedal grands for
the most part.  It seems that pedal player grands are quite
plentiful here in the UK; much more so than in North America.  Most
everybody I meet has a pedal grand in their living room.  Some
years back, I found a pedal grand in Winnipeg and is currently under
restoration.  After what I saw and heard this week, motivation to
finish it got recharged.

This morning, Paddy drove Malcolm and I down to Rye on the south coast
of England where Mike Boyd has his shop and Museum.  Today was real
special for him as it was Grand Opening of his Rye Treasury of Mechanical
Music.  Rye is a very old community, dating back to medieval times;
wonderful place to walk around and thoroughly enjoy many rare and
unusual sights.

He has gathered together in his museum some very fine pieces such as his
showpiece Mortier Dance Organ, numerous reproducing pianos of most all
systems, a Violano, 2 player reed organs, a number of disk music boxes,
small and large, and surprise!, surprise, a nicely restored, fully
functional ferris wheel juke box donated by Earl and Alice Scheelar of
California.  Nice surprise admired by many.

Mike gave me a quick tour of his restoration and roll cutting operation
where he has one of the two surviving Aeolian (UK) perforators in
operation making rolls under the Perforetur label.  Rex Lawson has
done many arrangements on his own Apple computer and Mike's perforator
is driven by an identical Apple computer.  Not sure if I've seen Mike's
roll service listed, here's his and Rex's contact info.

    Mike Boyd      (for music rolls)
    Universal Music-Roll Co.
    18 Cinque Ports Street
    Rye, Sussex,
    England   TN31 7AD
    Ph.   01797 223688

    Rex Lawson       (for music roll arranging under contract)
    Pianola Studios
    64a Honor Oak Park
    London, SE23 1DY
    England

General feeling expressed by everyone I spoke to is that Mike has made a
great opportunity for himself which should be quite successful.  His
choice of location is great, with lots of traffic from all over England
passing through.  Most everybody commented there are a large number
of player pianos and player grands all over England just waiting to be
restored and perhaps change hands.

Prior to leaving Winnipeg, about 3 weeks ago, I posted on MMD an appeal
for guidance on what I should expect relative to the use of my computer
here to keep up with my email.  Many thanks to Spencer Chase and Dan
Wilson for their words of wisdom to get me headed in the right direction.
What I ended up doing was a little different from initial perceptions.

My notebook computer is a little 486 Compaq Contura Aero 4/25.  I did
not need a supplementary transformer to convert British 220v to 110v.
My computer's power supply allows variable input, so all I needed was a
simple converter plug - North American to UK wall plug.  I found one
in a book store in Winnipeg just before I left for a few dollars.

Not quite so simple for the phone system which uses a wall jack quite
different from North America.  However, just before I left I found a
converter plug - North American to UK - at my friendly neighborhood
Radio Shack, again for just a couple bucks.

My modem was a real problem.  It is a Fujitsu PCMCIA alleged to be
compatible with the UK phone system.  However, it flatly refused
to connect.  Tried every possible setting, but nothing worked.
My corporate contact here then tried another external modem at random
and it worked immediately.  So he searched around and found me a
USRobotics PCMCIA modem which worked just fine.  I'll return it to
him Monday morning.

My hotel room is not equipped with a phone containing a computer jack.
But the phone itself was plugged into a wall jack nearby.  I simply
had to briefly substitute the two jacks while placing the call.  Cost
per call - 42p plus 20p per unit.  Haven't seen my bill yet, so have
no idea of how this works out.  My modem's init string needed a "9"
in front of the number to trigger an outside line.

Regards from London, England where, except for last Monday, weather
has been superb.  Trees are just starting to turn for Autumn, so
most all are still in full leaf.  Beautiful country, plan to come
back again.

Terry

Terry Smythe               smythe@mts.net
55 Rowand Avenue           (204) 832-3982
Winnipeg, MB   Canada  R3J 2N6
http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~smythe