Waiting

Airport lounges are wonderful inventions which fit in nicely with most hotels propensity to kick you out hours before any flights are scheduled.

Only being on a domestic journey this time, it was even more amusing to have a view straight down into the international departures area where passengers nerves were already being frayed before they could even so much as step onto the plane.

There was the man and his wife who were paged by the boarding gate. I couldn't quite make out why. He arrived slightly disheveled and looking and acting very much like Woody Allen. Pre-scandal.

He busily explained with copious hand movements exactly why the check-in procedures didn't apply to him and his very much younger wife. The airline representative then explained exactly why they did and exactly how they would be penalised for thinking they did not.

This went a couple of rounds - gradually the passengers' faces grew disillusioned, and then resigned. They sat down. There was a brief flurry of activity when the man reignited things at the desk after remembering the key piece of information that was going to change everything, but this ended with slumped shoulders and him sinking back into his seat.

It was at this point that the guy with the violin started up.

Tweet: I'm not sure why anyone'd think an airport departure lounge was an appropriate place to practice a musical instrument, but practice he did.

It would have made some sort of sense if he'd opened the case in front of him to accept donations, but there was none of that. Instead the passengers with the misfortune to be sitting closest to him plugged their ears with an assortment of devices, while the man opposite gave up and went to sleep.

After a half hour of torture practice, the man packed away his violin and there was a relieved wave of activity as earphones were removed and people went back to what they'd been doing previously.

The violin is part of his hand luggage of course, which is why he has it at the departure gate. Those passengers could be in for a long flight.