Twit her

The Sixth Former invited me to a bluegrass gig at our Music Festival. When I turned up she wasn't there.

I've got a secret
I might tell it to you one day
You take my breath away

The atmosphere in the pub was becoming reverential, as the twentysomething girl buffed her doggerel with a "sensitive" guitar arrangement and my inner naughty boy wanted to let off a noisy trump during one of the quiet bits.

I'm not entirely sure what bluegrass is, but "this can't be bluegrass," I thought, and texted her for assistance. "You're in the wrong pub!" she replied, so I dashed over to the right one, and wriggled down into its crowded old wine cellars, dating from 1688, to find the Sixth Former and a singer from Houston--the little village in Texas, not the brewing city near Paisley.

The lyrics, especially a song he wrote about his Dad, were poetic and ambivalent; the music was more complex than I'd expected it to be, some metallic harmonies and unresolved cadences, rather than a hillbilly twang round I-IV-V. Afterwards I did my Drunken Overawed Teenager performance, burbling away to him appreciatively but inarticulately.

We are also in the midst of our Literature Festival, Lancaster's week-long conference for people who can't listen to poetry and prose without snorting ejaculations of "fff", "t'hhh" and "k'hhh", shoehorning writing into one-dimensional comedy. The organiser's request that all mobile phones be turned off, and not just to silent, was ignored by the American academic sitting next to me. She was updating her Twitter account, its blue and white dazzle blaring into the darkened room.

I hope she's not there again on Saturday, because I want every phoneme of Herbert's poetry in my mind and all over my skin. If she is, I'll be compelled to suggest that if paying attention to an hour or so of poetry is beyond her--something I naïvely think a University lecturer capable of doing--she might prefer to go screaming and gurning for Facebook with the bands of undergraduates outside, doing their moneyed performances of loutishness. She could even take some selfies and post them on Twitter!

The new lodger arrived from Hanoi on Monday. I was nervous before her arrival, worrying about the state of the house, the dodginess of the way in which we'd negotiated the tenancy by proxy from Vietnam, and Chef's unencouraging comments about cash deposits, which come from a landlord who has worked far harder seams than I've faced.

She arrived with one of those enormous suitcases used for emigration. My weedy arm was trembling as I lugged it up to her room. I shifted the rug, a little better to hide the iron-shaped scorch mark on the carpet. She didn't seem to want to talk much and so I couldn't give her her induction, about the wonky fridge door, the leaky cold water inlet to the washing machine, how to turn the heating on, and most of all, the fusspot bathroom taps. Ned asked me if I wanted to go down the pub to see England v Poland in our World Cup qualifier, so I knocked on her door, left her a note with my mobile number on, and escaped to the Golden Lion.

She unnerves me with her politeness and the way she tries to make herself small in the house. I taught her the washing machine this morning and she seems to be coping with the bathroom, in a way which films the floor with water. Over breakfast the other day, Ned offered to put a shower curtain round the bath and for a moment I looked down with shame. All this fucking education; can't even put up a shower rail.