For over 40 years as a guitarist, I was blessed with fairly strong nails - a great benefit to fingerpicking. Over the last few years, with age I suppose, my nails have become a little more brittle and not quite so strong. I also have a pretty sloppy (but effective) plectrum technique which means that, when I'm playing electric guitar in the ceilidh band, I tend to wear down or split my nails.

Having experimented with various types of finger pick - none of which I can get on with - over the years, I finally decided to have a crack at some sort of nail reinforcement. I'm wary of artificial nails as well. Anyway, some weeks before Christmas, I was watching a very good local guitarist - Terry Lees -playing at a guitar demo at TAMCO (The Acoustic Music Company) in Brighton. I chatted with him during the evening, and he revealed that he used acrylic nail lacquer from Boots the Chemist to keep his nails in reasonably tough condition.

I've been using it for about a fortnight now and, so far, have been pleased with the result. I had a band gig last Saturday and the nails emerged unscathed!