Newton Faulkner and Facebook in a public place

I went to see Newton Faulkner last night, and can I say that if you get a chance go and see him, he is a hugely talented songwriter who has a great rapport with the audience and carries his celebrity very lightly indeed. Not above taking the mickey out of himself and his songs (the speeded up version of UFO a personal favourite), it made for a great evening in the company of a man who is adept at making you feel like a friend rather than a punter.

Well I say a great evening, one thing spoiled it for me...


Facebook.


Not the website itself you understand, I'm a fan of that application and while away many hours playing games, taking random surveys to discover what kind of Muppet/Star Wars character/TV Show/Alcoholic beverage I am, as well as reading about the day-to-day happenings of people I haven't spoken to since I left school 20 years ago. Just to make it clear that I'm fine with that and the way it revels in extreme pointlessness.

No, my problem lies in the way people use it, or, to be more precise, the way one woman used it whilst sat right in front of me.
Having paid the best part of £20 to go and see the musical stylings of Mr Faulkner, she proceeded to spend the entire evening glued to her iPhone tapping away furiously as she responded to her virtual friends, presumably with posts that informed them how great he was, taking photos and posting them up in real-time. Not only did it strike me as highly rude that she obviously valued her status update over the performance, but it distracted me, and from what I could tell, those around me, as her phone shone out in the darkness drawing the eye from the far more interesting happenings on stage to her own personal dribblings on the internet.

So what did I do about this woman? Well I did what any self respecting Englishman would do - I said nothing and stared hard into the back of her head while I imagined the security guards hauling her out for disrespecting the performance. Then moaned about it in a blog!

I shall end today with a plea to any potential readers out there - please, please please, if you go out to show, sit back and enjoy it, but save the reviews until after the event and I'm out of the theatre.

Thankyou