Reepacheep's Ramblings V.10 – Breaking the shackles of blog repression |

Hells yeah.

Bloody fantastic time despite the slightly shitty weather.

Shall update with my week later.

I am so sick of moderating spam comment from here. Short of trying to implement captua you now have to register to comment. I don’t know how much of an effort that is (not that anyone seems to comment anymore apart from these sodding spam bots) but it’ll make my life easier. Sorry.

First of all, I would like to say that, every single time I listen to “I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” By Frank Turner, even if I don’t sing along to it (and if I do sing along, I usually belt out Frank Turner Songs pretty loudly) I feel out of breath. I don’t know way, it must be the timing, but it makes me feel all light headed and everything. I love it. Random fact of the day for y’all.

Going back a couple of weeks now, post Sonisphere, the next weekend was spent at Rugby (Tani Fuga Testimonal Match) on the Friday, then a Starseed gig on the Saturday. Saturday afternoon was spent in the pub with Rick, Amelia, Kat and Bjorn. We had some lumch, a little to drink and once everyone felt drowsy we parted ways briefly to ready ourselves to later that night. Kat had brought back some absinthe from her recent Spainish trip and had invited me to sample it. It was pretty rank to be honest. Literally tasting of BURNING. But we persevered, taking a small amount on the train Waterloo bound, and was thrust in Bjorns face once he had boarded the train. We make it to Camden and the Purple Turner, present Gerald with a gift of a Happy Meal toy (which is prompltly stamed on, burned and maimed to the full) and then carry on our merry drinking (snakebites om nom nom).
Starseed were ace as usual. Kat and I are targeted by some random man who was basically trying to hit on anyone possible (his chat up line was “I am going to start a band, but I can’t sing, or play an instrument, or have any band mates”) and we run away to dance to a mental version of Nellie the Elephant (which I have just found to be by the Toy Dolls) along with everyone else.
It gets to around 1am and most people have decided to disappear, and so Kat and I do the same. Upon leaving G and Andy drive past us without a hint of a lift home, bah! We catch a bus like the plebs we are, halfway home I get a text from G apologising from the lack of lift, and offering us a bottle of wine round his house once we got back to Sheen. Score. So the early hours of Sunday morning are spent drinking red wine, listening to music, and triyng on shoes (don’t ask).
So Sunday morning I get up late, and miss out on the chance of playing boardgames with Dave Gorman (so random, but bloody true).

Last weekend I went to the Pit. Absinthe was involved yet again.

I am so looking forward to next week. Bad Religion, Alkaline Trio, and Reading Festival are to feature. eEEEEEEEEeeeee.

I went to Sonisphere festival last weekend – I had really wanted to go last year but work got in the way – and by the sound of the enjoyment everyone had had in ‘09, I was determined to get myself in on the action. Scott and his sisters live relatively near to Knebworth, in St Albans, and so I made my way there, to meet them and get driven the rest of the way. I was given the tour of St Albans, home to musical greats such as Enter Shitkari, and a million pubs. We have our final decent meal of the weekend in Wagamamas, pack up the car, and head to the festival.
The gates were supposed to open at 3 (Thursday was their early bird camping day), though a massive crowd had formed and it took us no less than 2 hours to get through. Argh. The experience was slightly redeemed by the fact that I found £15 on the floor going through the ticket bit. We set up camp, in a decent place 2 minutes walk from arena entrance and a 1 minute meander to some toilets. Scott’s mates John, Marc and Rob join us and we proceed to sit and drink for many hours, wander to get food at some point during the night, and return to camp with flags – Scott bought a Pirate Princess one (it was pink and everything, we had neglected to see the “princess” bit when buying it!) and me a Jagermeister one which was fashioned into a cape, and worn the duration of the weekend. Gotta love festivals – you can wear anything and no one batters an eyelid.
Sonisphere keeps their arena open late into the night, which is such a good idea as it gives people something to do other than go mental in the camp site. There’s a fairground (though I wanted to avoid it after what happened to some kid last year) and things just seem to be open generally longer. The site also seems a LOT smaller than any other of the big festivals I go to – you can walk across the site in mere minutes and wherever you camp you aren’t very far from anything. It doesn’t seem overcrowded and it’s a generally nice atmosphere – by the looks of a lot of people’s wrists it seems it’s like a supplementary Download Festival. The two biggest stages are facing each other, and the schedule is set so that a band plays on each stage alternately so you basically have to just turn around and walk a little way to see the next band!
Band wise, saw a lot of decent music, which was surprising as I wasn’t too enthralled by the line up initially. The most stand out band of the weekend was Skindred – absolutely loved them. They got the crowd going so well, the lead singer benji was awesome and their music was really decent. Have since come home and tried to find their albums anywhere but alas they’re rather hard to come by. I also enjoyed Good Charlotte a lot, they played most of their material from the Young and the Hopeless and even threw in a Dammit cover! Had a lot of fun singing along to them. Karnivool were ace, as were Rammstein. Renegades (aka Feeder) were brilliant too, playing at some point close to midnight in a small tent – as well as playing their new (very good) album they also played a few real oldies (pre Just a Day and all that) nice. Oh! and 65daysofStatic. Fantastic. I met up with Jim for them and has a massive spazdance. Their new material is great live.
Also met up with James (another of the Hundred Reasons forum crew, in fact I danced with him in the Kill Your Own video) which was lovely as I haven’t seen him in years. Drew also appeared in various states of soberness throughout the weekend.
I managed to grab a host of free shit too which is always a bonus at a festival – my much prized Jagermeister bandana, a jager lanyard, a torch, a bottle opening and a lip salve on a lanyard, teehee.
We did our fair sharef good deeds across the weekend too – reuniting a lost iphone that scott found in the portaloos (on the floor, not IN the loo, thankfully!) with the owners friend, and I handed in a wallet that contained a debit card and an ID. I wasn’t called JagerGirl for nothing ;).
We left early on the Sunday night – I wanted to see 80s Matchbox whom finished earlier than the Main stage headliners Iron Maiden, and as we’ve seen Maiden before (and bored us to death) we decided to pack up and go back to Scott’s sister’s place and have a sleep in a proper bed. I was dropped off at St Albans station the next day, and trundled my weary way back home. All in all it was a brilliant festival, I would definitely be up for next year as long as there were a few choice bands on the bill that I like.

P.S. Blue Streak (ADSA’s Red Bull equivalent) really fucks you up. That is all.

EEEeeeek I haven’t posted for nearly a month. Terribly sorry.

I have had a moderately busy time, weeks have been spent working away – summer means holidays which means less staff which is a pain in the bum. For instance last week I worked from opening until closing nearly every day (I should have been on 8-4 shifts, but due to how busy we were and a lack of an extra nurse I was working 8-8 far too often). Sigh. I think I may have mentioned it before, but I don’t mind having to work longer hours, but when it eats into any social plans I have, it gets me down.

ENOUGH OF WORK MOANING!

Hmm, what else. I have been to the Pit a few times, that’s always going to be fun! I have been to a couple of BBQs – namely Drew and ITDans. Drews was pretty drunken, we somehow managed to “throw” Drew onto his garage roof, so Becca and I ended up cooking. The day after we dragged ourselves into Giraffe for brunch (yum) then wandered along the river to Dans for BBQ/dinner.

I have celebrated a number of birthdays. Steve’s earlier in the month – we went to the Borderline and danced the night away to Indie. Leanne held her annual Birthday picnic on Clapham Common, which is always amazing fun. I came first in a sack race and won a rosette and a plastic water gun for my troubles (quite funny, as I am the shortest person by far, yet manage to leap the fastest/furthest). I wandered up the road to Balhamish way to wish my neighbour Kaitlin a happy birthday in a really nice pub called The Avalon.

Some rugby has been watched too. The Stoop held part of the Premiership 7s tournament and so mum and I went along (as it is free with our season tickets). Quins came 2nd which isn’t too shabby, as they are through to the final.

No gigs since Glastonbury, which is slightly disturbing. Though, festival season is pretty hit and miss – bands either wait for their festival slots or put on last minute warm up shows. I have tickets to see Trio in August before Reading, much excitements!

WoW raiding has stepped up to heroic modes (basically its harder). We have also merged with another raiding group.

This week includes Sonisphere from Thursday, which I am very excited about. I haven’t tried a new festival in a while, so thought it was about time!

Holla

I made in back from Somerset, and here is a brief run down. It went by far too quickly.

Getting up at 5am was interesting – I had no idea it was bright daylight at that time in the morning at the moment (why should I, I am usually asleep!). I was picked up at 6.30 and we were well on our way to Glastonbury. Stopped a couple of times, got stuck in horrendous festival traffic, got on site about 1pm. We then proceed to where we wanted to camp – a field called Park Home Ground (Look to the South West, we’re usually to the left of Park). Unfortunately because EVERYONE and their hippy mother had also decided to get there early to ensure they could watch the football at 3, it was already packed. So after stressing a bit, we find a rather nice spot in South Park (more South West), although it’s a much further walk. Some of us catch the last 15 minutes of the football shown on the Pyramid stage screens.

The next few days are spent drinking, eating (so much food on offer it’s brilliant, everyone always looks forward to eating more than any other festival I’ve ever been to! I am particularly chuffed about trying a really delicious Goan fish curry), wandering and generally doing whatever. The weather is blazing hot – although this is amazing and rare (I’ve never been to a dry Glastonbury) it does get rather unbearable as there is very little shade and tents offer no solace from the heat. We end up rigging up a tarpaulin in between our tents in camp so we get some much needed shade for naps and generally sit about. The sun does mean that one can sit anywhere you want without having to worry about mud, and no wellies needed! Hooray!

Then there were a few bands. I hardly saw anyone play mostly because I couldn’t take sitting out in the sunshine for too long without feeling like I was about to die, but who I did see were ace. Frank Turner at the Queens Head was immense, I nearly destroyed my throat singing along so loudly. Also saw Snoop Dogg(! he was awesome), Tegan and Sara, a secret set by Thom Yorke (which everyone thought was OMGAMAZING however I am not a huge Radiohead fan so I thought it was okay, and for that called a massive traitorous wench – perhaps not those words but same diff ;)) and some of the Gorillaz – but they were sadly rather dull and as soon as they brought out some instrumental choir nose flute stuff we legged it over to Shangri’la/Trash City for a bit of a dance instead. Saturday Seasick Steve and a secret set by Biffy Clyro was seen before Muse rocked the shit out of everything. Ray Davies and bits of We Are Scientists/LCD Soundsystem were witnessed on Sunday – we also tried to watch the football in the appropriately named Football field, however we got there for 2pm, sat down and by 2.30 felt like we had heat stroke so desperately sought shade in the form of a pub in the Avalon field which also helpfully had a TV (though what a waste of time ;P). We scarpered before Keane destroyed our souls in the tent next door.

Me, Dan and Demian decided to end our Sunday night dancing with the crusties in the Glade with the Levellers. It was great fun though the amount of dust kicked up was the final straw for my lungs and I was left hacking my lungs out by the end. That was a slight down point to the nice weather too – the dust was crazy on the paths when walking about, and I think that’s why I feel grotty now, as well as being around 90% people who smoke. With the weather I took to washing my hair under the water tap for a few days – it felt sooo good.

A few of us decided to watch Four Lions at the Cinema tent on the Thursday night too- it’s a bloody good film. Shame I had something obscuring the subtitles at the bottom, but I would like to see it again.
Evenings were mostly spent drinking and either in a little place by the Glade, wandering around the many many many areas or dancing like a spaz somewhere.

Driving home was a lot more civil than getting a coach/train. I hope we do it again like that.

All in all, as usual Glastonbury was fucking fun, and sadly it is all over for another year.

Roll on Sonisphere!

I think of little things I can write about on a whim (musings and suchlike, other than about my life), then I remember that I haven’t updated this thing in ages and it puts me off. So now I have some spare time on my hands (i.e waiting for an ICC10 PuG to start), I shall update and hopefully get on top of it before I bugger off to Glastonbury for the week and once again have things I want to write about.

Rome was lovely, I had a fantastic time. We mainly went for my cousin’s wedding which in itself was really nice – the ceremony was held at campa d’olo (please excuse spellings as I know they are probably offensively wrong) and was very quick (and understandably all in italian!). We had a toast in the venue’s cafe before getting back to a hotel right next to and overlooking the Spanish Steps.
The food was amaaazing. As was the wine – I definitely built a better appreciation for good wine the short time we were over there.
The rest of the trip was spent wandering around, viewing the sights (i.e Vattican/Trevi fountain/etc) and eating. As the whole family were staying in close vicinity it was good to be able to meet up with them, have a meal together and just bump into them in the street – seeing as my grandparents live in the countryside usually it was quite bizarre to see them so often. In a nice way.
Our apartment was neat too – we had the run of a very tall building which had 5 bedrooms several bathrooms, kitchen, living room, balcony and a hell of a lot of steps between each one. It was a workout!
I would love to go back to Rome again some point soon, I really enjoyed myself.

Umm, other significant points recently… I went to Becca’s on the Friday night after returning from Italy for a girly evening along with Tash and Sophie. Good times.

Was sent to see Beatsteaks on the Saturday for Planet Loud. I really like the band yet don’t own any of their music (apart from the track Summer which I lovelovelove). They are masses amount of fun and I don’t think I’ve been at a gig where the ratio of German people to others has been so high (seeing as the band are from Berlin). I saw Flatliners, and Supergrass at some point too. Flatliners have picked up a few more fans since we last saw them, their last gig at the Underworld had about 30 audience members, this time around there were considerably more. Supergrass’ last UK show was a blinder – they had formatted the set so that they played in chronological order – from most recent album to their oldest. This meant that the beginning of the gig wasn’t great, but by the end it was amazing – it’s funny realising how many songs one recognises.

Sunday was Rage Against the Machine day! I met Scott and Rob at the station, stood about drinking cans of alcamahol until deciding to venture into Finsbury Park. Drank more, ignored support bands, then danced like a spaz to Rage. Hella good. The end of the evening was a bit rubbish, had to leg it to Holloway Road as they shut Finsbury Park station due to crowds and then just literally rammed onto the last tube of the evening. No matter, made it home.

The past few weeks aside from gigs have been pretty rubbish to be honest, I have been stuck working late shifts since my week off and that means that I haven’t been able to go out a great deal, as I usually get stuck working overtime. I’d come home eat dinenr then have a few moments to myself before going to bed. I even missed badminton because of it, which is ridiculous. It really annoyed me at one point, but I guess I’m over it. I got a pay rise (not much, but it’s a start) which is nice.

Last Saturday I saw Green Day at Wembley Stadium. Frank Turner supported and the gig was massive amounts of fun. Met Scott’s sisters for the first time (which is handy seeing as I’m sharing a tent with them at Sonisphere and possibly Reading).

I’ve been going ot the Pit with Kat a lot recently too on a Saturday night and slowly started to integrate myself into the regulars. I bought myself a proper corset on a visit to Camden, and although hilariously hard to wear the first time(bending down is pretty much impossible, sitting down is questionable lol) I have got used to it. Shame there aren’t really many apropriate situations to wear it in.

Hmm not much else to mention as far as I can think. I should be prepping for Glastonbury right now (we leave tomorrow at 6.30am!!). I am looking forward to this week sooo much :).

I’m on a bus so thought I’d kill time catching up with the ol’ blog. Hi!

Trio at New Slang was tremendous – we had a few pre-gig drinks in a Sam smith down by the river before I pushed everyone towards the club (is the Hippodrome, was the Works). Saw Dave House’s new punk band, Pacer, whom I found really enjoyable. Then acoustic Alkaline Trio! The set was random and very fun – the boys were enjoying themselves a lot and this showed. Playing a handful of trio songs, they also played anything requested of them, which included Ice Ice Baby (and more randoms I can’t remember off the top of my head). Having spoken to a number of people who were there, the general consensus is if you’re a big trio fan you loved the gig, if you’re not you feel a bit robbed. Having seen them umpteen times I thought it was brilliant and a bit special seeing them having a really good time away from the normal constraints of a touring gig.
The club night which followed was random, I had fun dancing about with Till and Drew to indie stuffs, even if it got a bit weird at the end. Still, all round good night!

Wow. This is the most time I have spent sat at my computer since last Tuesday (even then I’m not here for too long, got badminton in a while). It’s been a busy one.

Pub quiz on Wednesday was a fail. As in, no alcohol or money won. What a gyp. Thursday I made it to The Social to celebrate Emily’s birthday – they were holding a random music quiz when I arrived, hosted by a woman who looked like a (woman)transvestite. Make much sense? Well, think Beth Ditto (just as frigging scary).

Friday I arranged to meet G for a drink in Richmond, though the plans of a quiet night in the pub quickly changed as he discovered that he had forgotten to be a friend’s birthday in Putney. So we shifted venues to Wahoos in Putney (as I knew a number of people there too). It was a fun night, though was quite late a very drunken (the ended up Baaa-ing really loudly down Putney high street with a girlfriend of a friend sort of drunken). I kinda made my feelings known for G, although didn’t really pan out the way I would have liked, it was for the best as it was really eating me up (though wish I hadn’t had to have been so drunk :/). After a slightly more sober text in the morning, we’re still friends (I hope). Sigh. I really pick em.

Work was pretty tolerable despite having a high blood-alcohol ratio. I make myself semi-respectable and make my way to Tashington Manor for a BBQ in aid of Tash’s birthday. Good food, plenty of lols. Till manages to rip a MASSIVE hole in his shorts which we make worse, then top off with taking the shorts and burning them. We also play a game called Werewolf (aka Mafia), which I’m not very good as as it involves thinking aloud and being pretty vocal.

Sunday I meet Dan and his bro Matt in our usual Shepherd’s Bush pub (The Defectors Weld I think it’s called) for a couple of drinks prior to Pennywise at the empire. Good stuff – I had failed to remember the date of the gig so arrived completely unprepared – I enjoyed myself immensely and even recognised a good number of songs even without research. Like the Lawrence Arms, this is a band that I knew of, though really should know more about.

Monday I had planned on staying in, raiding on WoW (I’ve hardly logged in – only to do my daily random dungeon during lunch or to say hi to my guildmates), however I am given the option to buy a Flight of the Conchords ticket for that night by Alan, and so I thought why the heck not. I have had a number of people tell me I’d love them, and although it seems backwards way to do things (most people watch the TV show first I would imagine) this sort of opportunity probably would arise if and when I start getting into it. So joined ITDan, Tash and Alan at Hammersmith Apollo for the evening. FOTC was hilarious – it was them playing songs and chatting shite in between. My favourite songs were Too Many Dicks on the Dance floorrr, Foux du Fafa and the Epileptic Dog one – the audience were made to sing the latter and when I actually thought for a minute about what we were singing – something along the lines of “Think about the epileptic dog” – it made me laugh harder. NOW I have to watch the TV series!

The rest of the week pans out as such:

Tuesday – Badders
Wednesday – Nothing (wooohoo!) aside from raiding with my raid group
Thursday – Hospital appointment (I get the results of my CT scan) then ALKALINE TRIO AT NEW SLANG!!!!!111eleventyoneoneone
Friday – Day off – going to make pizza from scratch as although it’s a lot of effort it’s damn good aand then pub in the evening I imagine
Saturday – Pit in the evening.

Not too shabby. I could do with a rest at some point (tomorrow!)

Listening to the new 65Daysofstatic album. Frigging awesome. A little different to their previous offerings, but it’s still ace. Would love to see them live again soon (though just realised their London date was last night. bah), they were fantastic at Reading last year.

My sore throat hasn’t turned into anything sinister like pig aids or bird plague, I’ve just ended up a bit snotty. That’s good.

I have just realised that I see Alkaline Trio play at New Slang in a weeks time. SOVERYEXCITED. Sadly going to miss them play any tour date as I am going to be in Rome when they are properly playing (and I miss Slam Dunk which I’m slightly miffed about) but at least I see them in some capacity.

Well, Rome. Should I say I am supposed to be in Rome from the 29th for my cousin’s wedding. BA strikes have been called for the week we are in supposed to be there. So, we can fly out happy as larry, it’s just the Wednesday we are due back there is problem afoot. Mum has been pulling her hair out to find 1) Whether we have a flight home and/or 2) Whether we can get our money back. Helpfully (/sarcasm) they can’t tell us either until the 26th. Which is 3 days before we’re due to fly. With prices for other airlines going up £50 a day we can’t wait that long. I found out we don’t have insurance yet so we can’t cancel outright as we’ll lose the money if the strikes don’t go ahead. If we cancel going altogether we’ll lose the money we paid for the apartment aswell (the full amount, so a lot). It’s ridiculous. Mum made the decision to buy flights home from another airline anyway (at the moment the cheapest safest option) so any of the scenarios happen, we have travel, we aren’t stuck anywhere (paws crossed) albeit at more cost.

But with the ash cloud floating around who knows if we’ll make it there and back anyway >.<