Well, got up in the wee hours this morning to watch the Lyrid meteor shower. Stood around in the cold for half an hour, saw one very brief, dim one, and it wasn't a Lyrid.
Conclusions: The Lyrid meteor shower is a Chinese hoax. And I should never take up astrophotography, because if I have this luck with naked eye astronomy, you can imagine what my astrophotos will look like.
I think I'll leave it to our resident master... :-)