Last night I attended a concert in Blackburn. My slightly lapsed veggie concert going pal and I occasionally make a foray there instead of our normal venue at the Bridgewater Hall Manchester. The Halle Orchestra was in residence and they like a good Halle at Blackburn. I have noticed at concerts there that other very good orchestras playing a good programme of classical music are not quite so well endowed in the audience department. Blackburn folk also like their seats, not the anatomical bit that sits on a seat but the seat itself - and not just any old seat. My pal, who works in Blackburn went to book the tickets and was told that he could not have two particular seats because two little old ladies had booked those seats for every orchestral concert for the last 30 years.
Size matters in music and not just the size of the audience. We were treated to a Mozart Clarinet concerto played with an extended clarinet. The instrument was almost as large as the lady who played it. Apparently Mozart's favourite clarinetist developed the basset clarinet as it is known to enable it to play notes a full octave lower than the norm, extending the range of the instrument. You learn something different every day at Blackburn. A technically difficult piece but played very proficiently. The audince liked it so much that they gave her the Blackburn Clap. This is not some nasty social disease but a method of appreciation which I have never heard before at a classical concert. It is the sound of feet drumming on the floor. The last time I heard that I was 8 years old at the ABC Minors Saturday matinee - it was our response to a particularly boring film.
Blackburn is an easier journey for me since I do not have to experience 20 minutes hanging around Preston station to catch the evil Transpennine Express train that passes through my station but now refuses to stop there. The ease of the journey is somewhat undermined by Northern Rails' insistence on using their very oldest trains on the Blackburn route. On my journey there I scarcely noticed any difference in the temperature between a cold platform and the interior of the train. Now I had wrapped up warm because the biting cold I experienced the day before on the Lytham mud flats was still very much in evidence and I know platform 4 at Blackburn of old. Fate's fickle train finger has ordained that whatever train I catch, it will always come in on the outermost and most exposed station platform. We did manage a pint of excellent Ruddles Best Bitter after the concert and I timed my departure from the pub to minimise the waiting time at the station. When the rattley old train wheeezed in I was pleasantly surprised to find that the driver had managed to find the on/off switch for the train heating. My euphoria was extinguished as the train picked up what passes for speed and it became evident that the draught proofing was nonexistant. I am sure that Global Warming could be averted if Northern Rail made judicious use of a roll of foam-backed insulating tape. I was the sole occupant of the carriage apart from half a dozen youngsters who seemed impervious to the arctic conditions and audibly had achieved Grade 1 GCSEs in four letter words. As I paid for my ticket I flashed my Senior Railcard to the conductress. She leaned over and said in a conspirital tone "You're lucky tonight, this is a quiet train. On Thursdays it's full of students" At first I failed to register the true import of this whispered aside. I thought that such a reassurance should have been saved for elderly, vulnerable travellers who might have felt insecure in such young, loud company. The awful realisation hit me like a tsunami - I was the elderly vulnerable traveller! Feeling about 100 years old I made my way home to a pot of tea and some elderly slippers.
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