in the air heading for Newark
The flight from Glasgow to Newark's become a bit familiar to me recently. As ways of getting to the eastern side of North America go, it works quite well for this particular amateur musician. On a good day the airport is 15 minutes' taxi ride from our house, so I have to leave at about 10.15am (time for civilised breakfast with family and last minute packing tweak), and the return flight gets in at 8am, leaving enough time for a full if slightly bleary day. And as airport terminals go, Newark C is a very civilised place to be. 

But I still can't relax enough to sleep properly on the outward leg. So it's a chance to prove my theory that other people's newspapers are always more interesting to read than your own, even when it's the same paper, and that sampling a selection of feature films silently and simultaneously is usually far preferable to putting the airline headphones on and subjecting yourself wholeheartedly to whatever pap is on offer, divested of its bass frequencies. On offer around me at the moment is a variety of glossy pain-free and consequence-free violence (bad guys in bad haircuts getting hit with big things a lot), softened only by the few screens showing The Cat in the Hat. Give me the 5000 Fingers of Dr T anytime - I missed my golden chance to take my kids to see that one at our local cinema a couple of weeks ago, as we were on holiday at the time.

So the nearest I've got to sleeping is to have a moderate amount of alcohol (including some of the 1990 Ardbeg I brought with me for the purpose) and listen to Muse's 'Absolution' album which is very effective at obliterating all other sonic intrusions, i.e. it's very loud. It's also quite brilliant. Most guitar bands bore me rigid but these guys work hard. And yes I know they're not technically a guitar band as the guitarist in question also plays a neat Liberace piano ... but it's refreshing to hear unashamed use of classical 19th century harmony played at ear-bleeding volume.

later
Ah, it was all going too well. The weather closed in at Newark and after circling in the holding pattern for a while we headed for Newburgh, NY to refuel. The most frustrating aspect of this was that as we sat there on the tarmac I could get a phone signal, but only for 30 seconds at a time every 10 minutes or so. So I spent about 45 minutes staring at my phone waiting for it to spring to life, and then would frantically try to ring DG or text home to say where I was, before the signal fell off again. We eventually got in to Newark over two and a half hours late, tired and hungry. After waiting in several lines, and a wild goose chase or two around the airport, someone helpful from Continental noticed that the Halifax flight was late too and pointed me in the right direction to run. Very fast. I made it with 5 minutes to spare. Just enough time to buy a bottle of water and a bag of dried mango slices. They tasted good.

I was rewarded for my sprint with an early evening view of Central Park and the Met Museum as we flew out.