the same, but slightly closer

Considering how much he always used to apper to hate the early morning when I was a child Father had booked himself on a foolishly early flight for his return to Lincolnshire via East Midlands Airport with an 08:40 departure time. Back when I was small he'd barely stir before my sister and I left for school at 08:11 and fairly recently before he last changed jobs he had been known to return to bed after eating his breakfast in order to get a bit more sleep before driving in. Since there has been a reliable and frequent bus service for him to commute to Lincoln on (before he finally retired two months ago) he's been getting up remarkably early and leaving the house in time to get to the end of the road for the 07:00 bus, usually filled with the students commuting to college. It is unknown whether the reduced sleepng-hours required by those of increased age made him more amenable to anything more intrusive or loud than Radio Three in the early morning. Online check-in and the option to use logic and common sense rather than paranoia and fearing-the-worst pessimism (such as that which forced my mother to send him to the airport five hours ahead of his outward flight) allowed him to work back from the flight time (allowing a little leeway for problems with barcode on the printed-off online check-in slip) to a catching-the-airport-bus time of 06:45, requiring a flat exit of 06:30 and awakening at 05:00ish for breakfasting and washing. Nicky is similarly not good in the mornings so bade him goodbye the previous evening whereas I escorted him and his hand-luggage only to the airport bus, rang mother to inform her of the situation (seeing as father is out of credit on his mobile, doesn't have the wee card thing he uses to top up with him and hasn't yet started buying credit online despite this process being demonstrated when he was given the phone two years ago) then dumped some shirts in the office before heading for a wander which was slightly longer than I thought it might be as I attempted to find a coffee shop which opened at the proper time of seven rather than eight. Nothing decent appeared to be open yet so I had to settle for a rubbish place, though the lack of free internet at least meant that I could complete the editing and writing for one of my two backlogue-entries without being distracted by access to information. Unfortunately I also discovered that the coffee chain which introduced me to the chocolate muffin has now ceased to sell edible examples thereof; the recent change of recipe was one thing but the introduction of chocolate sauce-gloop to the interior means I shall never again buy a muffin from them.

Another short walk a bit later found another site with internet where the first backblip could be uploaded. Just as I left Nicky rang to advise that she was finally awake but not yet up so I wandered about a bit more, took some pictures, wandered about a bit further, grabbed another coffee in a shop which didn't have internet but which had a good enough 3G signal to be able to use my phone as a modem to upload the second backblip without having to transfer the picture and text to the phone then upload from the phone itself which works even when the computer says it's unable to connect. More wandering, a quick pop to a shop and a wander back got me home just as Nicky was ready so we popped to lunch (Double Dutch on Marshall Street - not quite as good as it was the first time we tried it (and it really ought to change its name to "all Greek to me" seeing as their menu is mostly Mediterranean) but tolerable) thence to the Cameo for Inglourious Basterds, somewhere between Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction in success-level and worth catching. I remembered to make sure I had my sunglasses when we left after losing my old pair in there the other week.

Anyone who's been to Richard Herring's Fringe show or listened to his podcast or read his blog will know that he has requested people to augment Fringe posters (especially those of Jimmy Carr) with either the small Velcro toothbrush moustache he distributes after his shows or a simple black felt-tip pen as part of his campaign to reclaim the decoration for comedy. At least one of the more suitable faces (and some of the unsuitable ones) have been amended (though some where a Velcro moustache was applied but has since been removed, leaving a small white patch. Eagle-memoried people might recall hearing of a more-stupid-than-normal-sounding game show Touch the Truck (hopefully no-one will remember having seen it seeing as it was on Channel 5); there are a few posters about for "Stand By Your Van" offering a similar prize featuring a woman touching a van with a mouth-wide-open shout-face expression which I thought might be good with an added moustache. On the way home from the cinema it only took a second to scribble one onto a suitable poster but that was enough time for a bloke to mutter "That's mature!" in a mature. disparaging voice as he walked past. He was gone too quickly for me to think up and shout back "It's part of a viral campaign and you must have noticed similar additions to the posters you must have walked past a couple of minutes ago seeing as you're heading west along Lauriston Place, including a poster for Richard Herring's show called Hitler Moustache" and in any case Nicky pointed out that he might have thought that I'd done all the other posters he'd just walked past despite the fact that we were walking east. Hopefully the bloke will learn of his mistake and apologise to me the next time he passes.

The evening was the first time I'd been to the Usher Hall since the near-completion of the poncing-about which disrupted it last year. There's now a new and very fresh-smelling spiral staircase on the north corner leading down to new toilets in the basement and up to whatever the shiny-fronted addendum will become when it's completed. The stairs would be just wide enough for two people to pass, though given the tendency fpr attendees to be weighted slightly more towards the elderly this only works if they're walking (slowly) in the opposite direction when there's a small chance that they might notice you. If you're stuck behind them you're stuck behind them until they get to wherever they're headed. Luckily by the time I escaped the shufflers and got to my seat the seats in front of my seat in the two rows in front were empty, allowing my to step over them to get to C26 (ace, if you ever get the chance to choose it) rather than having to ask the codgers either side to shift. Whilst the codger-lady to my left was amused by this action the one to my right seemed to object to my presence, my clothing, probably my age (though compared to the standard Festival-music audience there were lots of small childs and many more non-codgers present) and definitely didn't like the concept of a mobile phone. Even though it was clearly turned off during the performance the dirty sideways looks returned when I brought it out to start typing this up during the interval. I was using my fold-out Bluetooth keyboard for speed but had to sit the phone in my lap to conceal the screen from the rheumy, prying eyes.

The gig itself was very good - the European Union Baroque Orchestra appear to be one of these Historically Informed entities, using gut strings, very old-looking instruments and so on. Two harpsichords, two theorboes, an additional lutist playing something very guitar-like (though evidently to an old recipe) and something else with about twenty strings (half fretted, half suspended) as well as the usual selection of strings. Though the sound of lots of gut strings is much smoother than lots of steel strings the backing section was still loud enough to easily overwhelme the soloists and the lutes were completely obscured whenever the music required a background swell. I hadn't heard any of the stuff they played before but it was all quite acceptable. Historically Informed is definitely worth catching to compare the sound with a standard steel-strung orchestra but does mean that there's a short retuning-break between each piece, though (along with the general attitude and demeanour of the performers) the pauses gave everything a nice casual and relaxed feel spoilt only by the excessive head-wibbling and hair-tossing of the principal cellist. The stage microphones were in place so then event might crop up on Radio Three at some point, though I didn't check to see if their lorry was parked around the back where it usually sits when recording. Perhaps they've built on a recording suite so that they no longer need a separate lorry for taping things.