Better still, a modest outlay has delivered a little system that didn't cost the earth, recharges the iPod, plays its contents, sounds remarkably good and has some substantial improvements on the old click wheel provided you're willing to exercise a little patience. It's still a long way short of what I'd like, but as we get ourselves organised a little better...
So, from here on, it looks like we're right for music when we go travelling, and travelling is an increasingly viable option.
Until I finished work, of course, travelling was something I did, along with everyone else, during the school vacations, which are the times when things are least affordable.
It also meant that, should someone I was interested in seeing be touring Australia, they more than likely weren't going to be doing so during the hol idays, and were also, given the relative sizes of the Australian capitals, likely to be playing Brisbane mid-week rather than on a weekend.
Readers who've wondered why Hughesy's musical reminiscences contain few references to concerts might've assumed a lack of interest . Actually, for most of my life while I wanted to go there was some sort of scheduling or financial constraint in operation.
Discussions of concerts I've attended over the years will be found, predictably, in Concerts Over The (Townsville) Years and Concerts Over The (Bowen) Years.
A perfect example of what I've missed sprang to mind as I sit tapping away a couple of days out of an Elvis Costello concert. Costello has been to Australia on a reasonably regular basis over the years, usually away from school vacations, and a couple of times at the very end of January. I was all set to book seats to an Elvis concert with Steve Nieve when I took a look at the calendar.
As a teacher there are about ten days when you need to be on deck to avoid having the Human Resources people start asking questions that might bring a significant financial impost - the first and last days of each of the four terms and the first pupil-free day for the school year account for nine of them, and there's probably another one lurking somewhere in the calendar each year.