Guitars are fun. They go twang.

I decided to start learning guitar when I was about fifteen, having just acquired a little acoustic thing from Argos. The reasons why I bought it in the first place aren't clear; I'd never shown any signs of wanting a guitar - I just ended up with one. Knowing a few chords from "The Complete Guitar Player Book 1" apparently wasn't enough. So I decided to learn guitar properly. I bought a cheap red Encore electric guitar and the book for Joe Satriani's "Surfing With The Alien".

Help. It had more notes per bar than "The Good Pub Guide" - semiquavers were a pleasant break. And the rest, as they say, is a funny squiggly symbol.

In 1994, I upgraded to a nicer guitar. The old electric had been a cheap Encore effort (which had gained a bizarre Batman sticker to cover some scratches), but this was a shiny black Aria Pro II, which is still my favourite for general playing. For the next few years, I would often idly dream about owning a really gorgeous Ibanez. Until one day in late 1999, I saw an advert, in a local Free-Ad paper, for an Ibanez Universe. How thoroughly silly.

Seven shiny strings of loveliness. Yum. This was good. Now I could at least pose like Steve Vai. All I had to do was grow a few more fingers...

Since then, my only acquisition has been a rather compact Hohner Headless guitar. It's very small and light, making it ideal for transporting, playing whilst sat on a packed sofa, and confusing people who can't figure out how it works.

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That was as of 2000.

In 2005, I found a steel-string guitar in a skip down the road, unfortunately in a few pieces. The front of the body had come away, and the head was broken in two. Some glue and screws got the head back together again, but the crack went right through where two of the pegs lived. Fortunately, the pegs on either side are reflections, so I swapped over those for the D and high E. They rotate in the opposite direction now, of course, but it's perfectly playable. And it sounds good and hasn't lost tune yet.