6 - 2 + 2.5 =

I have never before appreciated the extreme sense of suspiciousness lent by carrying a small hard instrument case around town; even with the current police campaign to make all photographers feel guilty by default I still only feel wrong to be holding a camera when I have to try and sneak the Velcro fastenings of my bag open in a museum or library. Though both my guitars are in soft bags I have used solid-shelled guitar cases in the past and merely felt like a show-off. When carrying the cornet I played in school around in its hard case I merely felt like a nerk as I was usually wearing school uniform at the time and the case just looked like a fat briefcase. The shape of a ukulele case is rather similar to that of a violin case and so in carrying it one feels like a gun-concealing henchman from a bad gangster film set in prohibition-era Chicago and I couldn't have felt more guilty of something even if I'd acquired the instrument by bundling its owner into an alley and immobilising him by tying him and his bendy bicycle to a lamp-post with the bungee cord by which the ukulele was attached to the bicycle's parcel shelf instead of being permitted to borrow it for a couple of days. It's much easier experimentally plinking in the comfort of the home rather than under the music-forget-causing glare of a music-shopkeep.