Cutlery regrets to announce the cancellation of The 50th Post Special. Instead, please enjoy this light-hearted tale of folly and redemption on the buses.
I know, we're disappointed too. I don't know how Joel managed to get so big in Slovenia with this attitude. I daresay Slovakia will be a lot less sympathetic to this shit.
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Monday morning is always band practice. Seven of us and our various instruments get together and make sweet sweet music for a couple of hours, before the midday cultures lecture come and dampens our spirits.
Yesterday, however, our noise-making was a little delayed. The beardy guy on reception refused to give me the room key without permission from our course leader, Ben Challis, and the ensuing wild goose chase (I never did track down Dr. Challis) meant that we wasted an hour or so talking amongst ourselves in the corridor. By the time one of the nice techies from the second floor helped us out, we were already halfway into our allotted time, and not looking too likely to accomplish much.
But this post isn't a tirade against the people on reception at the Atrium, nor is it a play-by-play of our abridged band rehearsal. This is a story about a boy (me) and his baritone (my baritone).
It's fair to say that I don't treat the old thing with a great amount of care. My bandmates are often left aghast at the way I toss it around, knock it over, and generally don't show it any respect.
Well yesterday it seems I was so excited to finally get into the practice room that I didn't even bother to bring my instrument in with me, leaving it still sat in the corridor. Our drummer, Luke, grabbed it for me and suggested - not for the first time - that I really ought to take better care of it. I agreed half-heartedly, and said that it was like a parent to me - I treat it horribly, but I'd be fairly sad if it were gone, perhaps because it's so important to getting me through uni. No more was said on the matter, and we used the hour as best we could. Songs were played, and I introduced my Spaghetti Western version of Holding Out For A Hero.
Now. There's an hour-long gap in my timetable between the band practice and the cultures lecture, and I usually spend this hour on the computers in the library, or I take the opportunity to go and get a bit of food (having to be in uni at 9am doesn't leave a lot of time for breakfast). Yesterday, however, I had a plan. I was supposed to be meeting Sarah straight after my cultures lecture and going to Swanbridge with her for an evening away from the city, with its noise and pollution and people who ask you for spare change and shout at you when you don't have any. I didn't want to have to drag my baritone, ungainly as it is, to the far side of Penarth, so I decided to get a bus home, drop off the horn, and speedily get a bus back into town in time for my lecture.
That was the plan, and it was going swimmingly until I got off the bus on Crwys Road and realised, at it sped off into the late morning sun, that I had left my baritone on the luggage rack.
Oh no! My dear sweet baritone horn! Would I never again sound its brassy tone? Would the makeshift handle never again slice into my weary fingers? Would my brave attempts at playing Klezmer Kollectiv tunes by ear never again make my housemates long for the wormy peace of the grave?
I wandered, shaken, back to the house, where I informed Cliffey of my plight:
"I've left my baritone on the bus."
"That's the saddest sentence I've ever heard."
I was in no mood to eat, but, knowing that I had to keep my strength up, I managed to choke down a bakewell tart. I prepared to head back to uni, taking a little consolation in the knowledge that Cardiff Bus does have a lost and found, and how money second-hand baritone horns does one bus company rake in over the course of a day?
I waited mournfully at the bus stop, not looking forward to the two hours of "the music industry wants to rape you" that lie in wait for me back at the Atrium. As the number 38 pulled up, I found the driver oddly familar. He didn't recognise me, of course, but that didn't matter because as I hopped onto the bus I saw, in the luggage rack, my baritone case. Somebody, apparently, likes me.
I was never worried, of course. I timed my journey perfectly so that I would catch the same bus on its return journey to central station. I hadn't even considered how useless I would be to my uni ensemble without my horn. And I knew that the driver wouldn't bat an eye at the fact that I got off the bus carrying a large brown case that had been there since before I got on.
So that's my good karma gone for the rest of the year, anyhow. I hurried back to the Atrium, baritone case swinging recklessly in my hand, and settled into my midday cultures lecture, where we were told, amongst other things, that session musicians no longer exist.
I was a bit alarmed; my cousin's a session musician. I should probably make sure he's okay.
Joel.
* * *
I know, that was rubbish. He didn't even mention the awesome Halloween parties, of which there were TWO. You'd think he'd remember at least one of them, right?
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