According to Clint Eastwood's character in In the Line of Fire, it's ukulele and not ukelele. Have I been getting it wrong all these years...? Clint plays a craggy FBI chap with a lounge piano habit who would probably have known about this sort of thing: a quick googling of 'ukelele' leads with that slightly eyebrowraised question Did you mean: ukulele? but a trip to Wikipedia reveals ukelele to be a variant spelling common in the UK. Aha! Tapping into the race memory there. That's a relief. Mind you, the ambiguous schwa, as in /ˌjuːkəˈleɪli/, could go both ways... If all this seems somewhat retentive, let me put it down to The Method: I've been developing the character of Brendan Nelson, Leader of the Liberal Party in Australia (this evening at least), who's plinking a pink Flying V uke in the political cabaret Three Nights at The Bleeding Heart. There's a glowing review from Alice Allan in Australian Stage Online. And a real stinker from Aaron Ridgway in The Canberra Times, which I'll link to as soon as I can find where it lurks online. I think these reviewers attended the same performance, so you could take an average... Once again, the rafters of the Belconnen Labor Club rang to the strains of Sean O'Problem & The Alpha Rhythm Boys as this forward-thinking chamber ensemble premiered its Fantasia for Stylophone and Folk Combo last week and received much-merited plaudits plus the odd Guinness.