Impulsively, impressively, my fearless progenitor began to do an extravagant, eyes closed pirouette that threatened to have him concussing himself on Miff Mumberson's shuddering cymbals. At that grotesque sight, Fanny Golightly stared as if struck by a powerful barb of lightning. I meanwhile stared tensely into space and wondered why the hell I'd entered this madhouse in the first place. As the circus performance continued, Fanny relented and decided to listen with a calm, dispassionate tolerance. Wistfully fantasising I was in the front row at a Mahavishnu Orchestra concert in somewhere nice and unCumbrian like Hemel Hempstead or Croydon, I fidgeted miserably in my chair. My father was engaged in one of his very favourite activities;making a musical buffoon of himself in a provincial working men's club.