Neolithic News just in... The secret of the Stones

More Magnificent CartoonMeistering to celebrate another very special day out.

Just another Magnificent day for The Magnificent AK47

Nice one Bill.  

Will post actual photos as soon as we can.

Roll away the stones

Our Magnificent Cartoonist has struck again to anticipate our visit to the Inner Circle of all Inner Circles, at Stonehenge....!  

We are off to visit on Thursday 30th April - find out more about the place at the English Heritage website.

This time last week . . .

And to think, this time last week we were wondering how we could top being offered just a little too much beer at lunch time at the wonderful Waterfront at Polzeath, or were we just captured mid beard stroke in our rendition of Delilah as a thanks for that hospitality?

To think, this time last week . . .

. . . We had just been on "National" Radio whilst hurtling* down to Cornwall to start our very first Mini-Tour and conducting a very exciting interview with the very lovely Tiffany Truscott on her radio show.  We were on our way to a fabulous first night meal at the superlative St Mabyn Inn before tipping across the yard into St Mabyn Church for the first sell out of our shows over the weekend

You can hear Neil B being interviewed and a Mini-van load of serenaders in action from https://soundcloud.com/the-magnificent-ak47/cornwall-interview.  

The photos and videos from various recording devices are just starting to come in as the blokes recover from their week back in their humdrum existences  and reminisce on a memorable long weekend away.  

More to come and Stonehenge next week then London Roundhouse, then Stroud Subs Rooms then Swindon Art Centre - it's all go!  Time for a lie down to prepare ourselves.

* - "hurtling" might be over egging it a bit as we were in near stationary traffic a few hundred yards shy of Cornwall, but to us it was "life in the fast lane"!

Safely Gnome

Positively the last (for now) Gnome-sized pun after a weekend full of them and much, much more including:

Fabulous food

Great gigs

Beautiful ("free") beer

Tremendous company

Stupendous walks

Awesome clifftop views

Unbelievable weather

Incredible snoring

Hilarious judging

Immense bonhomie

Singing with Fishermen's Friends

Drinking a pub dry in 30 minutes

Fantastic last night pub session

Lovely Ladies

Top notch accommodation

National (Cornwall) Radio slot

Lorraine Chase loves us!

Adoration from the audiences

and much, much more.

Now back to reality, and our otherwise humdrum existences (filled with trips to Stonehenge, the Roundhouse and BlokeFest and much, much more).

Loads more on https://twitter.com/magnificentak47.

0 more sleeps - Magnificents are GO!

The CartoonMeister strikes again to celebrate us going off to Cornwall

1 more sleep to go - we're making a list...

And checking it twice, we're gonna find out whose naughty and nice...  And also who snores the best / worst!

Rest assured, we have isolated the worst / best offenders to ensure maximum beauty sleep for the other blokes but it could be messy at some point when one or two are deprived of their afternoon naps because we are still yomping around the Coastal paths of Cornwall.

Everyone is excited about running away to join the Magnificent Circus for four whole days but we are pretty sure that they will also be pleased to return home safe and sound.

In passing, sad news if you were planning to come to the St Columb Major gig, you've left it too late as it will no longer be going ahead.

However, we will still be eating in the Ring o' Bells in the town from about 17:30 and are trying to get access to at least go and sing in the Church or somewhere around the town after the more leisurely meal from around 19:30 onwards.

Apologies for the late notice and any inconvenience caused to any Friends and Relatives but please suggest they come and see us at one of the other gigs in St Mabyn on Friday or St Minver on Sunday or at the Waterfront Polzeath on Saturday lunch time, or Tintagel Castle Sunday morning or loads of other places - see the impressively full schedule. 

1 more sleep to go and we're in the paper

Leaf through http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?pbid=7ca6ba20-c487-4cda-aa1d-f05be19bf6ce page 41.

2 more sleeps to go - the "Gnome Guard" is unleashed

Meet Cyril (left) and Percy (right).  They are guardians of our "Magnificent Standard" (Mini-Tour banner), or at least one of them is at a time...  

Cyril and Percy are due to play an important part during our Mini-Tour to Cornwall as they will each be the mascot of one of the Mini-vans and one person in that gang travelling in said Mini-van will be nominated the "Gnome Guard".   (Somewhat bizarrely foreseen in a recent comment on our facebook page). 

The "Gnome Guard" will be tasked with the safe keeping of either Cyril or Percy until someone else in their gang makes some daft comment, forgets their own name/words/to get their round in or otherwise deemed worthy by their fellow Mini-van gang members of the honour of being the "Gnome Guard" .  

Whilst in this role they will be expected to get the best photos of Cyril or Percy doing "interesting" things.  At the end of the weekend, the Mini-van gang adjudged by an objective, impartial and in no way partisan or otherwise vested interest team of random members of the Inner Circle and the Cornwall C.A.M.E.L. will decide which is the best photo.  Their Mini-van gang will be awarded the title of "Mini-tour Titans" and will be rewarded still further by the other Mini-van gang buying a counter part a final parting pint, and possibly a packet of crisps.

Other "Tour Rules" will be made up on the spot announced in private to the blokes once they have taken the "Magnificent Mini-Tour Pledge of Allegiance" and it is too late for them to turn back.  

They have now be duly warned what may lie ahead...

2 more sleeps till we head to Kernow

As you may have spotted by now, we are about to embark on our first "proper" multi-date  Mini-tour when we jaunt down to Cornwall this weekend.

We are doing this with the support of many locals down Padstow & Port Isaac way including The Chris Treglown Foundation Fund set up in memory of a most talented Cornish singer born in St.Minver, North Cornwall in 1988 - click here for more info.

We will be mostly staying at a facility that is part of the St Endellion Music Festivals which takes place at Easter and in the Summer every year in the Collegiate Church of St Endelienta, bringing together a wide range of exciting musicians from all over the world. St Endellion is near Port Isaac and about a mile from the glorious North Cornwall Coast.   See their website http://www.endellionfestivals.org.uk/ for much more info.

And we will be singing something at some point at these locations and roughly (some very roughly) times.

Fri 17/April/2015

Taunton Deane Services 13:00

St Mabyn Church 19:30

St Mabyn Inn 22:00

Sat 18/April/2015

Trevathan Farm 08:30

Port Isaac 10:00

Cornwall Coastal Path 11:00

Polzeath Beach 12:00

The Waterfront, Polzeath 13:00

Indian Queens Preaching Pit 15:30

Ring o Bells St Columb Major 19:00 St Columb Major Church  20:00

Back at the Barn (later!)

Sun 19/April/2015

Trevathan Farm 09:30

Tintagel  11:00

Trebarwith Strand 12:00

Mill House Inn, Trebarwith 13:00

Pityme Inn, St Minver 18:00

St Minver Church  19:30

Four Ways Inn, St Minver 22:00

Mon 20/April/2015

Trevathan Farm 09:30

Padstow  10:00

Taunton Deane Services 13:00

Tickets are still available for some of the shows, see our Dates page for details.

3 more sleeps to go - Packing our Pirate Pants...

Yes, quite literally some of us are "packing our pants" about running away to join the Circus that is The Magnificent AK47 as we go on our Mini-Tour to Cornwall.

Imagine the excitement when one of our members found a pair of pants in the very reasonably priced collection he was looking to buy whilst in a gentlemen's outfitters had a Pirate pattern on them!  
Holding to the mantra of "a fresh pair, a fresh pair every day" is essential Mini-tour protocol, and by increasing the stock of pants available to them in readiness for the long weekend, this might now make it possible over the 4 days for many of the blokes....

Other Mini-tour essentials include a set of ear plugs (mid left) for dealing with "sonorial sonambulists" although we have attempted to isolate most of the known worst snorers in a separate building.  Having said that, are they the "worst snorers" or actually the "best snorers" because they are very good at it???  

Fine and reasoned philosophical debate on this and a range of other topics will no doubt be part of breakfasts polemic that we can look forward to over the weekend.

4 more sleeps till we can put on this Mini-Tour T-Shirt

The Mini-Tour T-Shirts have arrived .... Exciting - it even tells us where we need to be if we get mislaid!

Fuller details of the official gigs on our Blog Dates page.

5 More sleeps till we need to work out where Cornwall is...

We're not THAT daft! 

We know where Cornwall is and we have our very own map to prove it.

You can make your own with your favourite picture from our Blog.  

Visit the Ordnance Survey website site and explore more.

If you do, send us a decent quality electronic copy of it and we'll sort out a Magnificent prize.

Watch out Cornwall, here we come, wherever you are.

You can also track us on our Google map


And a reminder where you can see us in proper action at the following locations


St Mabyn Church
19:30 Fri 17 
Tickets from
Audrey Cooke
audreycooke@live.com
01208 841607 / 07902 946074 


St Columb Major Church
19:30 Sat 18
Tickets from 
Edyvean Printers, 24 Fore St,
St Columb 01637 880347
info@edyveanprinters.com
&
Canon Edward Pruen, The Rectory 01637 880252

St Minver Church
19:30 Sun 19 
Tickets from 
Newsline Rock
&
St Minver PO
&
Julia Treglown
juliatreglown@hotmail.com
01208 862802 / 07815 987172

Hope to see you there.

6 More sleeps till The Turnips take on Cornwall

Our Magnificent CartoonMeister strikes again.  Click to enlarge.

9 more sleeps till we're off to St Columb Major

Well, if you thought we were just going to do a straightforward Thunderbirds style "10, 9, 8" countdown, you obviously don't know the beast that is The Magnificent AK47.  As mentioned in a previous post, we don't do things by halves, we do them by pints, and we don't do things in straight lines, we do them in slightly wiggly routes, one step forward, one step back, one step to the side, one step forward... Or is that how you dance the Salsa??

Anyway, we are due to be performing in St Columb Major (seen here) which is a fine old building.  And indeed the Church are participating in helping organize our planned gig.

St Columb Major Church Tickets from 
Edyvean Printers, 24 Fore St, St Columb 01637 880347
info@edyveanprinters.com &
Canon Edward Pruen, The Rectory 01637 880252

Twice a year the town plays host to "hurling", a medieval game once common throughout Cornwall but now only played in St Columb and St Ives. It is played on Shrove Tuesday and then again on the Saturday eleven days later. The game involves two teams of several hundred people (the 'townsmen' and the 'countrymen') who endeavour to carry a silver ball made of apple wood to goals set two miles (3 km) apart, making the parish, around 25 square miles in area, the de facto largest sports ground in the world

The town crest consists of a hand holding a silver hurling ball with the motto "Town and Country do your best". The design originally appeared on medals awarded to winners of the hurling game and were first awarded in the 1930s. Later the design was adopted by the town council as a symbol of civic pride. The emblem appears on the mayoral chains and it is used on the uniform of St Columb School. Roadsigns at each end of the town also bear the design.

(Thanks Wikipedia again).

9 more sleeps till we're off to St Mabyn Cornwall

Our first "proper" show down in Cornwall is in a village called St Mabyn which is situated three miles east of Wadebridge and a little bit south of where we will be staying (more later).

The parish is named after Saint Mabyn or Mabena, traditionally said to have been one of the 24 children of Brychan, a Welsh saint and King of Brycheiniog in the 5th century (thanks Wikipedia).

The village is centred on the Grade I listed 15th century St Mabyn Parish Church and this is where we will be performing thanks mainly to Dave Hudson and Audrey Cooke who are our primary supporters for this show.  It is a lovely building and 

We plan to wander the few paces across to the St Mabyn Inn where we are planning to eat before the show and perhaps nip back to for a quick and quiet sing before an early night to ensure we get enough beauty sleep for the rigors ahead.   Hope to see you there!

Tickets from
Audrey Cooke
audreycooke@live.com
01208 841607 / 07902 946074

Officially 10 sleeps till Cornwall

Yes, it is officially only 10 sleeps till we are off on our Magnificent Cornwall 2015 Mini-Tour although it is highly likely that it will only be 9 "proper" sleeps as everyone will be far too excited to sleep on the Thursday night before we depart!

Being the The Magnificent AK47, we have never done anything by "halves" and we have always tended to "do things by the pint" (or possibly two if we can get away with it) and so it is with our tour.  We are planning squeeze into four days what many might take a week to do with approaching 20 stops along way for a bit of sing in some very unusual places - more over the next coming days as we countdown to Cornwall.

If you are down that way join us wherever you can and come and say hello, despite the fierce faces on the poster we are really everyso friendly.

Full listing on our re-vamped website at http://themagnificentak47.com/gigs.html and more tomorrow.

Magnificent Re-vamped website hits the browsers of the Interweb

For quite some time a crack team of websters have been beavering away in the background preparing some changes to our humble little corner of the Interweb.

Our talented ArtMeister Bill H & dedicated Webmeister Neil B have been labouring long into the afternoon and night respectively to get things created, set up and shuffled around (to use their techspeak!) and have done a great job.  The blokes have been ably assisted by one John W and cajoled and nagged by Big Chief Darren & nudged by Mr Chris Samuel, plus one or two others offering encouragement but not really knowing what all the techspeak meant.

You will now find the majority of informational materials relating to The Magnificent AK47 over on the revamped site at http://themagnificentak47.com/ but, for now at least, we are keeping the ancient and much admired Blog going on this site you are currently viewing.  Here we will continue to mutter about our adventures and still have our rehearsal dates.

So, if you want more Magnificent stuff then swing by our revamped website at http://themagnificentak47.com for more pictures, photos and other goodies.

This just in

Thanks to our vigilant village correspondent for this clipping.