Of Universities And Vindaloo

I've been busy with universities again. This time visiting Glasgow University, where they have two (TWO!) organs the size of houses. All the time they led me through the various chthonic depths of the music department where twittery students would flit from side to side in the darkness like excited shadows I would cry because there were so many keyboards, pianos, organs, and harpsichords and I wasn't going to get to play any of them! The windows had bars on them which makes me wonder just how stringent rehearsal schedules are. Hmm.

Anyway, today I'm goin' on a trip to Edinburgh to give an audition and explain just why the site of an actual grand piano makes my eyes glaze and dribble to slowly slide down my chin - and it's generally because of the crappitude (it's not a real word but I reckon it should be) of the one I own right now. It goes out of tune should you so much as breathe on it, some keys stop working if you press them twice, some don't work at all with the sustaining pedal depressed, the lower register is as clear as mud, and, to top it all off, it just sounds horrible. Absolutely dreadful.

I'm afraid I don't have any interesting NationStates news today, though I have worked out how to put a link to my e-mail address in the sidebar, so if you want any help writing an issue, or coming up with ideas, or to tell me an idea, or if you just have any questions you'd like to ask me, then drop me a line.

In compensation for my lack of exciting news, I'll tell you a moderately amusing story instead:

Last Friday I went to an Bangladeshi/Indian restaurant in St Andrews with my parents to celebrate my return from Aberdeen. I announced that I would take a brief sojourn to the commode and would return shortly. I said I'd like a vegetable madras. But, unbeknownst to me, my father had sneakily ordered me a vindaloo. And I got the surprise of my life when I discovered how hot it was (it wasn't so hot that it stopped me from eating - I've built up a large tolerance over the years). I enjoyed it a lot, and I would have had another one had the events of the following day not transpired.

The next morning I was at work running a bookshop (which is my part-time job), happily cleaning books, and shelving others, when suddenly I... FELT something odd in my belly. Now, things might have not gone so badly had the bookshop's toilet been any good, but it wasn't. That toilet is one of the most shoddily constructed loos I have ever seen, and damn near the dirtiest. So, at utmost speed, I ran out of the shop, locked it behind me, and legged it to the public toilets which were thankfully just across the road. I think I was in there for about ten minutes, but it seemed more like ten ice ages had passed when I felt I was ready to vacate the cubicle. The cubicles (which looked more like cells) had no locks, and the paper was so thin as to be non-existent. What's more, everytime there was a breeze outside the door would fling itself open leaving me desperately clawing the air to pull it back somehow (there were, of course, no handles).

I arrived back at the shop and for a while I thought I was fine but then I got that certain feeling again...

Being canny, I decided to invade the hairdresser's salon-type thing next door. I explained my situation and gratefully got led to the toilet - which was right next to the salon. I think the fates kind of conspired against me that day, because there can have been NO WAY that the attractive, and curvaceous hairdressers, not to mention their customers, could have not heard the loud and unnatural noises that emanated from the door behind which I was holding my head in my hands and wishing it would all just stop. Those noises definitely did not happen when I was enjoying the relative privacy of the almost-but-not-quite-abandoned public toilets.

What a day. I had to close the shop early and leg it homewards so I could be positive I wouldn't find myself stuck without a place to go (literally).

The moral? I think it's obvious. Only ever have a vindaloo when you are sure there will be plenty of lavatories in close proximity the next day.

Oh, and it may be hot going in, but it's even worse going out.