Double take

So there I was, sitting on a Northern Rail bone-shaker from Harrogate, when I glanced up and spied a woman with two faces. I took a second look and realised that due to to some light thing or other, the girl a couple of metres to my right had been ‘mixed’ with the woman a couple of metres to my left. Not having a decent camera with me, I grabbed my ipod and took this picture.

My Walter Mitty imagination kicked in immediately and I pictured myself as an early twentieth-century French cinematographer taking ground-breaking shots.

Of course, I was actually just a lucky guy on a train with an ipod in his pocket.

Still, I can dream.

My electric daydream

Standing in a music shop browsing synths I glanced up to see a staggeringly attractive girl checking out some other keyboards just a couple of metres away. She had more than a look of Mira Aroyo about her, what with the impossibly pale, ridiculously smooth skin, the short, choppy raven hair, and the kind of “not too weird but certainly not everyday” dress-sense I always like. There is always the possibility she thinks she actually IS in Ladytron and just hangs around music stores in the same way ageing Rick Wakeman wannabes, boys who have learned half of a Newton Faulkner song and young students who regularly treat us to the first few bars of Für Elise at half speed often do, but I like to think she is actually a musician and the Ladytron connection really was just a delicious coincidence.

As we fiddled with faders and pushed pads, my (all to easy to activate) imagination suddenly kicked in, I realised I had found electronic love and we were no longer in the music store, we were in a studio rehearsing a duet on our new synths. After this we decided we were going to rent a pod somewhere off Sawtooth Avenue, drink from large test-tubes à la Logan’s Run, wear suits designed by a young Cardin, and settle into a life of electronic bliss. We would live our little Futurist dream and and it would only be a matter of time before we had a couple of  elektro-babies, possibly named Nina 1 and Summer 11.

I was awoken from my Walter Mitty meets Mr Benn reverie, when it occurred to me I was staring. An embarrassed throat-clearing and a pair of donned headphones later, I made for the exit. I glanced back and noticed her boyfriend had joined her, in his little trilby and skinnies, doubtless fresh from the guitar department.  Suddenly her tech credentials evaporated and I muttered silently words to the effect of never liking her anyway.

The vacancy is still open for the Mira Aroyo in my life. Ability to play keys a definite advantage.