The Life and Times of a Nobody

Top 5 Films of the 80s

I was going to do this, i started compiling a list and then realised it would take a lot of time to narrow it down. My list currently stands at 15 and it’s still growing!

I’ll get to it at some point.

All The Best Made Plans…

11:17 15.09.11

It’s been bloody ages since i blogged. I had a plan to write up and blog my travel journal but as i’m useless it stops the night we went to see the baseball, which was 2 days into my month journey.

What an amazing summer I had, the best one for a long long time. We had Glastonbury, Godiva and then my mammoth American Adventure. If you look back on my blog you’ll see i tried to write up Glastonbury, without looking i’m sure i got to the second day and then gave up. I really am useless at these things. My friend Ben Inter-railed around Europe a few years ago and his travel journal is amazing, interesting and funny. But i’m too useless to do things like that. Forward planning was never my strong point.

So i’m back at work. It’s been… interesting. Nothing more or less. Although hopefully it’ll get better, i’m not holding out much hope. We shall see.

It’s all kicking off with the Union, ballot papers are going out and i’m seriously hoping for some Strike action to be going on. It should get interesting because i’m sure that the people above me at work have no idea to handle the union and just dont know what to expect from them at all.

byeeeee

Glastonbury 2011 Part Two

After the Great Journey

It’s at this point the whole thing gets a bit hazy, i know we were there. I know i drank lots of cider, and i know i was having fun. But apart from that…

We went to the Cosy Camper and i bought a pillow, roll mat and a pretty impressive blanket that was very warm. We picked up some fire wood from the huuuge pile at the bottom of the mead by Lulu’s Café and headed to start an awesome fire. So we sat around and drank, told jokes, played deaf jukebox and sang songs in the style of rock’s token idiot Chad Kroeger. Which essentially involved putting a ‘w’ infront of every word that begins with a vowel and ending every sentence with a growly ‘aaa’; “Wwaaaaaan i knoooooooowwwwwwaaaaa”. That’s Fergal Sharkey’s Good Heartincase you were wondering.

I’m pretty sure Thursday morning i was woken up by rain, although that could have been another morning. For the sake of argument we’ll go with Thursday; it was raining. When it stopped we got up and made breakfast, then it rained again so Hadley the Engineer constructed a rain shield out of a piece of tarp and some branches that would have been firewood but were now just damp bits of tree. After we all got up and sorted Mark and Lisa arrived at Base Camp, the group was building! We went for an explore… by this point it was actually quite sunny. I took a few too many beers with me for the journey as by the time we got round to midafternoon, i was pretty drunk.

When we go to Glastonbury people seemed to look to me for guidance in terms of where to go and general directions, i may have been 6 times now but that doesnt mean i know where i’m going! Or that i know all the amazing things that are going on. But on our Thursday adventure we didnt do too badly at all highlights include;

• Singing Elton John songs in the style of… Elton John with Chris
• The amazing viewing scope thing that i cant remember the name of!
• Making clay sculptures and singing Unchained Melody ala Ghost, that was a real Glastonbury moment and one that will stay with me forever!
• Watching a guy make a wooden bowl on a huge wooden contraption, it was mesmerising to watch.
• Sitting up at the stone circle, it was the first time i’ve been up there for quite a few years.

After all that we went back to base camp and awaited the arrival of Ben and Vicky.

Again after this it gets a little hazy, i think we made a fire and sat around and talked/laughed/arsed about until the early hours. I could be wrong though!

Glastonbury 2011 Part One

What can you say about the best festival in the world* that hasnt already been said?

Firstly, to all those people who’ve never been before; yes it rained and yes it was muddy. I dont care if you ‘couldnt do it’ or ‘dont see the appeal’. I do, that’s why i go, that’s why i can never see myself not going. I was thinking about this while i was there, sat with my favorite view in the world before me. It’s a spawling throng of every music you could imagine, the hum of the exciting things to be found below echoing around the valley. A wonderful and magical place the size of a town that springs up for one weekend every year. I sound like a poncey twat but it’s true, sat up on that hill surrounded by friends i feel content and at home. How could i possibly sit in my room and know that this was going on without me? I seriously dont think i could. I dont really ‘do’ excited, if you ask my friends they’ll tell you much the same. But something about this place makes me happy, even dragging an unbeleivabley heavy sack truck with what felt like an even heavier backpack on through mud for what felt like a million miles was worth it. When you get to that view, that sense of wanting it to kick off so you can get involved but also wanting it not to be over, that’s what it’s all about.

The decision to drive down on the Tuesday night was a good one, as we set off we had 3 hours of driving ahead of us. Hadley had bought walkie-talkies so each car could communicate with the other. A genius idea! The gold Mondeo was christened ‘Goldfinger’ which contained me driving, Lucy in the front and Aimee in the back. ‘Oddjob’, inspired by Danny’s hat was the other car; Danny driving, Hadley in the front and the Double C Chris Crawford in the back. ‘New business’ gags flew between the two and on a few occasions some Fruit Pastilles. Although the Fruit Pastille passing was less successful. As the sun went down we cruised down the M5, off at Junction 23 and headed for the signs that read ‘Glastonbury’. As we got closer we could see spotlights in the sky and the anticipation grew, we knew we were getting closer! Rolling into the carpark without even the faintest whiff of a queue we had arrived; the first part was over.

The second part of the trip to basecamp was a little bit more harrowing than the frankly far too easy first part. We slept in the car, well i did. Apparently i snore which kept the others awake. Gutted. Is all i can say. We got up stupidly early and already the queue was way way too long. I find the concept of queueing for something that seems too far away very bizzare, it just doesnt seem like the thing you’re waiting for is real enough to bother queueing. I’m not very good at doing things i dont see the point in, like in my head the concept of ‘this coursework goes towards 40% of your over all grade’ doesnt translate as ‘so if i get a good mark i’d only have to get half marks in an exam!’ it translates into ‘balderdash! I wont do it! I’ll get 100% in the exam and then i’ve just about passed, that’ll show ‘em!’. I realise to any sane person this makes completely no sense at all. But there you go, it’s the strange way my mind works. But we queued, and we queued, and we queued. Then the heavens opens and the mild but over cast day turned into a down pour. Suddenly the green green grass of Somerset turned into a sticky, muddy mess with thousands of people trying to get through a gate the size of a barn door. Aimee’s trolley broke into a thousand peices, we all got soaked and everyone felt a bit like ‘was it all worth it?’. Although one person was refusing to show any sign of defeat, that person was Danny. What a hero; keeping spirits up, cracking jokes, making everyone smile. I know inside he was hating every minute of it as much as everyone else but on the surface he was a light in a dark and rainy place for us all. I salute you sir!

I realise i’ve written three paragraphs and we havnt even set the tents up yet but eventually we got there, the rain stopped for long enough to put the tents up and we were there. Base Camp was set up, not in the usual Michael’s Mead but in the higher Hitchin Hill Ground. It was a trek and a half but we were on higher ground and after all that rain and the rest that was predicted it was a very good idea indeed.

So we were there, it was Wednesday afternoon and we were there. A day and a half before the whole event kicked off for real. The weather may have dampened our spirits but we were not broken!

* I havnt been to every festival in the world so cannot possibly comment but it’s certainly the best i’ve ever been too