Biological Washing Powder and the Search for a Suitable Guitar Case.

This blog was supposed to be about my gigs but I waver and digress, because to me it's become more like a diary: a cross between an appointments diary and a journal.
Every so often, the biological washing powder thing pops into my head, so I will share it with you.
I was at a funeral a few years ago and I met a violinist whose dad had worked with McDad. Her dad had been a scientist and was employed at Port Sunlight by a big washing-powder manufacturer to reassure the public that there was nothing harmful about biological washing powder, and he ran a series of experiments to prove just that.
Unfortunately, he found that the tiny particles of powder that became airborne when the powder was put into the washing machine began to digest the lining of the lungs when they were inhaled; it was impossible to use the powder without particles entering the respiratory system, and probably, even when the clothes had been washed and dried, enzymes could find their way into the lungs of the wearer. He told the manufacturer that their powders were not safe and he was dismissed and his research shelved as it was too inconvenient financially for the company to withdraw its products.
McDad never wanted biological powder in the house and that must have been why.
Meanwhile, after diverting towards science, back to practicality. I have to find a fliight case to take the Green Goddess to France for a little festival of collaboration. I've been looking on the net and they all look gigantic and very ostentatious. It reminds me of going to Berlin in their year of culture with Paul sax player, and getting on a plane with Clock DVA and their computers. We shuffled up with our battered instrument cases and shabby clothes, and they strode up with aluminium computer cases and equipment boxes, dressed head to toe in black and wearing shades, even though it was night-time. They may have looked at us, but you couldn't tell; they certainly didn't smile or anything uncool like that.
At the gig, we played the Loft, the little upstairs venue, and they played the Big Downstairs (can't remember what it was called), with TV cameras on swooping cranes and mega-banks of lights. When we'd finished, we went downstairs to see the Big Goings On, and up trotted Clock DVA, all friendly and sweet. "Our equipment crashed as soon as we got on stage and we couldn't play', they told us.
I think they needed to talk to some prats to make themselves feel comfortable. So we were nice to them for the rest of the evening, and didn't even comment when one of them squeaked in fear when the plane landed at Gatwick with a mighty thump the next day.
What a pity! I have a video of that gig, and in every song we play, either me or Paul makes a cringeingly awful musical mistake. We actually went down quite well, but you wouldn't think so from the tape.