For those who've always wanted to own a very special instrument, a new Charitybuzz auction gives you the opportunity (assuming your bank balance allows, that is!).

They are currently offering, amongst other things, a Roger Waters Fender Precision Bass guitar that has been signed and donated by Roger himself. It features a custom scratch plate with a brick design. The instrument has been donated to raise money and awareness of the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. This provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. In other words, Healing Musicians in Need. We all have received so much out of music, it's time to give a little back! You can learn more at www.sweetrelief.org.

Bidding closes on Tuesday, February 18th 2014 at 3:12pm EST, and at time of writing this, is already up to $2,550. The standard Roger Waters edition of the Fender Precision Bass retails at $1,200 to give some context to the amount bid thus far, with the addition of the custom Wall scratchplate as well as Roger's autograph on it. Visit CharityBuzz.com for more details and to bid.

Golos-Ameriki.ru reports that this week, Roger Waters met up with Russian punk band Pussy Riot at a private party in New York.

On the Upper East Side of the city, in a private apartment on 87th Street, David and Lara Ross hosted a party for human rights organization Amnesty International in honour of the recently freed members of the band. In 2012, they were convicted of hooliganism after an impromptu performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, "Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" The women said their protest was directed at the Orthodox Church leader's support for Putin during his election campaign.

Roger, at the party with other notables including Yoko Ono, said: "I'm here because friends need support. The most important thing to me is that Pussy Riot resist Putin and his regime". Our thanks to Dasha Dykhanovska for her help with this story.

Saxophonist Ian Ritchie, best known to Floyd fans for performing The Dark Side Of The Moon (amongst other things) with Roger Waters in over 50 countries on that extensive tour, from playing on Harry Waters' album, and for joining Roger again for his appearance in the 12-12-12 concert at the tail end of 2012, is touring again in May this year.

Ian will be playing his own tunes on this jazz tour (mainly songs from his albums SOHO Project and South of Houston) and will be accompanied by Czech and Slovak musicians. The band will play seven gigs in seven days - four in the Czech Republic, three in Slovakia. The tour poster shown here to the left gives details of the dates and venues, and for more information (in Czech) visit danyhella.cz.

In just over two week's time, our friends at St Paul's Gallery in Birmingham, who are selling a special original unreleased Pink Floyd Venice 1989 concert poster signed by Robbie Williams, the Floyd's Production Manager, in a worldwide limited edition of just 60, are holding what sounds an unmissable event.

On February 22nd, between 10am - 6pm, "The Exhibition of a Decade - Hipgnosis, Masters of Album Cover Artwork" is launched. The launch day event celebrates the works of two great artists, the late Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey "Po" Powell, who founded the infamous photo-design studio, Hipgnosis.

There will be amazing works on display by Hipgnosis, including some classics, The Dark Side of the Moon of course, Led Zeppelin pieces etc., along with unseen works and some recently published covers for 10cc.

Between 2pm - 3pm, there will be a talk by Po along with Graham Gouldman of 10cc. Po will be telling those gathered some amusing stories as to how some of the album covers were achieved and how his amazing career began. Graham will be discussing how 10cc formed their relationship with Hipgnosis and what made it so successful.

As an additional feature they will be working with Domeclub. This is a 360 degree half sphere streaming visual images alongside music from Pink Floyd playing all around you.

The day will also be a commemoration of Storm as it would have been his 70th birthday on February 28th. There will be a prize draw with the proceeds going to Storm's charity. There will also be signing opportunities on request for a small fee being donated to Storm's charity.

This is a free event but please let us know you are attending and how many guests you will be bringing. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to let her know how many of you will be there.

UPDATE: With much thanks to Andy Neale, we have a full photo gallery taken at the exhibition launch, showing Po and Graham doing their stuff, along with various views of the exhibition and detail of some of the pictures themselves. You can VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY AT THE BRAIN DAMAGE FACEBOOK PAGE!