internal matters of great import

Many years ago Edgar's maternal grandparents proudly plonked upon a windowsill (or possibly atop the telly) a photograph of their (at the time) single grandchild, Edgar's cousin Cameron. Whenever the wingpiglet involuntarily adopts a vaguely serious-looking face due to whatever internal rumblings currently direct his expressions it reminds me of the picture, featuring Cameron at an age where he hadn't long been able to stand up properly but was nevertheless standing up and wearing some sort of pseudo-adult clothings like a shirt and tank top and office-style trousers and quite a strange expression, somewhere between infant-blankface, not knowing what to look like (as he'd obviously just been dressed fancily, plonked down then told to stand nicely to have his photo taken) and looking like he was about to start crying. The effect of the clothes and the strangely over-upright stance lent the photo a vaguely pompous air and it struck me that the photo would be much benefited from the addition of a Photoshopped-on moustache, preferably a RAF-style handlebar but really anything which would have simultaneously exacerbated and mocked the inappropriate seriousness.

At some point we ended up popping through to Ayr for the weekend when Nicky's parents were absent, probably up in Inverness visiting the grandchild in question. Nicky's father's computer equipment was primitive but had sufficient image editing software and internet access to permit the selection and download of a suitable moustache, its addition to a scan of the original image and the production of a modified reprint at a suitable size to be able to be placed over the top of the original in the frame with almost no differences except the subsequent reduction in quality and the addition of the moustache, which was a lot harder to notice than it would otherwise have been due to the natural fit of a moustache with a blue shirt, blue tank top, upright arms-by-the-side attention-stance and a serious expression.

At about a quarter to five on the following Monday morning Nicky's dad rang up to say that they'd noticed the amended picture and were considerably upset by it, presumably because they thought I'd drawn over the top of the picture or somehow printed a moustache on top of the existing print or done something similarly non-removable. The fact that it was at a quarter to five was only because that was generally the time they got up rather than a reflection of the seriousness. I apologised, explained that I'd thought it would be amusing and had done it because the clothing, stance and expression rather warranted it and that it was only a copy of the image and that the undamaged original was still in the frame, safe behind the amended edition.

Whenever Edgar adopts this sort of expression I'm always tempted to repeat the adding-a-moustache procedure, slipping the resultant picture in with a bunch of regular Edgar-pictures regularly forwarded to the grandparents in question and seeing how long it takes them to notice and if they remember the original event.