Flamenco
I started to play the guitar when I was about 14 at school. Until recently, I've never been taught, but just learned from picking along to records - the usual sort of schoolboy teen stuff, Eric Clapton, the Stones, but also Ry Cooder, original bluesmen, including the superlative Rev Gary Davies, Western Swing artists (OK, well perhaps only a bit, but it sounds cool, doesn't it!), flamenco and traditional Irish music.
My first guitar was a Yamaha FG-340, costing about £180 back in 1975. It was at the cheaper end of the market and was a very decent starter acoustic steel-string. My mother threw it out of the window one day in a fit of pique about something and it was, how shall I put it, "never quite the same again". In fact, it was a small miracle that it survived at all.
A few years back, I lashed out on a Martin 000-16R, a parlour sized or OM guitar which came top in a comparative review with about 10 other similar guitars in an Acoustic Guitar magazine survey. I bought it from Hanks in Denmark Street after a good long play in their booth at the back of the shop. It's a great guitar, small and easy to play, yet with a lot of sound for the size.
Much more recently, I bought an Epiphone something or other - basically their version of the Gibson ES355. Perfectly adequate for my needs and abilities and only about £350 rather than about £1,350 for the real thing. It's in sunburst and has a wonderfully slick and easy action. I put it through a tiny Marshall practice amp on maximum distortion and it sounds fantastic.
In October 2004 I bought a cheap Spanish/classical guitar (the Esteve 1.4STE) and started flamenco lessons with a guy from Barcelona called Javier Romani (hold the acute accent). This has been something of a revelation.