Reading 2008

Just got back from Reading and my thoughts are as follows:

1) Friday and Sunday lineup was brilliant (who needs Slipknot or Avenged sevenfold?? When I saw them play at Twickenham I thought they were shit, they sound like Busted with bigger guitars). RATM and Metallica were obviously fantastic. Vampire Weekend, Biffy, Serj Tankian, Hadouken and Feeder all get honourable mentions too. Saturday's lineup was less inspiring, the Killers are fun to sing along to if you're pissed but not overwhelming. Bloc Party I thought were pretty average, but then no surprise. Best thing on saturday was probably We Are Scientists, who were great, especially the Ace of Base cover.

2) Food poisoning!! Lots of fun to be had on saturday night when J and I spent a good while throwing up in a ditch after eating a veggie curry. Just as well we hadn't stayed in the arena eh... complained the next day and got our money back :)

3) The comedy - really enjoyed seeing some really good comedians, and would definitely recommend the comedy tent to everyone (though as one of the guys said "put your hand up if you're an emo... no wait, this is the comedy tent").

4) Beer - carlsberg/tuborg (half the bar staff didn't know which was which), could have been a better option surely?

5) Camping chairs are a truly amazing invention.

6) If you have hiccups and you can't get rid of them after an hour and they're really starting to piss you off, go into the toilets at the campsite, guaranteed cure!

7) Tents are fun, but only people who know how to put them up should be allowed to use them. A self supporting dome tent doesn't need its ropes out, they're just annoying to people trying to get by without tripping over .

8) If your mum is coming to pick you up at 11am on monday morning, don't tell anyone as you will be laughed at.

9) Please don't call your boyfriend at 5am outside my tent and then start crying because he accuses you of sleeping with some little emo dickhead in the next tent - you're making a tit of yourself and inducing homicidal rage in others.

10) Sunday night in the campsites is meant to be dreadful, but I slept through all of it (except the people singing round robins in french, the girl on the phone to her boyfriend, and the absolute twat in the tent next to us, who really came very close to getting a tent peg through his eye socket), then again I could sleep through anything. However, walking through some of the other campsites there was quite a lot of black smoke (tents) and the toilets had been set on fire. TWATS.

11) While I'm on a roll with the complaining, all the indie girls pissed me off. They all looked the same, with fake scruffy hair, short shorts, colourful wellies and hoodies from their private school leavers parties. I bet they all watched Babyshambles and fantasised about the look on their mum's faces if they brought Pete Doherty home.

12) Oh yeah and the guy who tried to nick J's camping chair is a prick.

13) Finally for the whining: wellies. Why?? They're not comfortable, they make your feet really quite vile and sweaty, and they have rubbish grip if you're trying to walk anywhere. It's not the Somme! It's a very slightly muddy field, with maybe 3 puddles between your tent and the arena. At no point does the mud come higher than your little toe, you really do only need trainers. I took wellies and wore them once, when I'd just woken up and was going to the loo, and didn't want to put my flipflops on to navigate the cesspit (campsite toilets... don't look down). However, I wasn't wearing clothes as such (I wasn't naked, that would be too much for anyone that early), and didn't even like have my hair like straightened or anything, like oh my god...

14) Definitely going next year, and not eating any food from the arena. Far better and cheaper to eat kimchi noodles, ainsley harriot cous cous, and pop tarts. Next year I'm taking more poptarts.

15) I'd rather be at Reading than at work and not looking forward to tomorrow :(

16) I have a crush on Serj Tankian, like I'm 15 again :) Good times!

Firstly, I forgot how good the Gypsy Kings are. Brilliant.

Tonight I tidied my room and I kind of see what J was talking about when he said there were too many wine bottles in my room. I've filled a recycling bag full of empty bottles. I also filled a bag with old newspapers, which at least makes me an intellectual, environmentally-friendly drunk. Now my room is just as messy as before but with bin bags everywhere.


Look, here's me with a Renault F1 car:

Mayoral elections

I can't sleep. Please don't let Boris get in.

Please please please, the man is joke.

Nostalgia

Can you miss people you've never met?
Can you be nostalgic for times you've never had?

I certainly think you can.

I don't like finishing books as it means it's the end.
I listen to songs on repeat so I never have to leave the pointless lyrics.

I'm sure this isn't where I was meant to be but I'm somehow here and you have to make the most of it.

Running through my head running through my head

The other day someone was telling me about how they'd called the police cos there was a dog on the motorway, and I thought that was quite a cool thing to call the police about. I said, "I've only ever called the police twice, once when I was broken into and once.... never mind". I forget sometimes that it was a whole different life ago that my ex smashed my door down and punched me in the face, and then punched me again when I called the police. Not really something for sharing in polite company. I'm not sure I would be understood properly. Though exactly what is there to understand? I just pretend none of it ever happened.

Actually I have just remembered another police incident, when I wound up in Bethnal Green police station with a random Swedish guy, shortly before we tried to break into his house. I have only hazy memories of this night as I'd been out at a friend brother's band's gig, but it involves a lost rucksack, inappropriateness, and me leaving him on a flat roof.

If I ransack my memory I can think of all sorts of trinkets and tales but most of the time I have absolutely no inclination as most of it makes me very sad. I'm the kind of girl who picks at a scab repeatedly but sometimes there are things I should just leave alone.

Orchestra

I really love orchestra.

T (to me) - I can never remember your name but you always look lovely.
R (to him) - Her name's Harriet and she looks like a scruff. Worse, a deliberate scruff.

I don't believe T though as earlier he'd told everyone he thought I looked like a noonday witch. The man is 71. Good stuff.

Less clutter, more productive?

I am trying to de-clutter my life (of physical objects at least). Today I made a start on the 2 crates I have of shoes. I'm not really a girly girl, I don't do shoes in the way that lots of other girls do. But it does amaze me that I have so many pairs of shoes when all I seem to wear are converse, completely destroyed cowboy boots or lambswool slippers. I have managed to jettison only 3 pairs of shoes, all plimsolls, bringing my plimsoll collection down to a measly three pairs.

Equally, I cannot get rid of clothes. I found a really old men's green velvet jacket, and the logical person would get rid of it, but you never know, it could become a wardrobe staple. Let's forget the fact that I have only worn it once, when I had really bad sunburn and could only wear sack like dresses and no underwear, and this was the only thing big enough to fit over that most attractive of ensembles.

Now I can't stop sneezing because of all the dust from the damn jacket. Next time you see me I'll be sartorially fantastic. Or a pile of dust. One or the other.

Nothing is ever lost or can be lost my science friend

Sometimes I think I know what is going on, I feel comfortably on top of things. Not in a knowing way, just in a "yes, this is how it is and I know how it is" kind of way. It's simple, it's straightforward, there's no drama. But then things happen that confuse me - or rather, then people happen who do things that confuse me, whether deliberately or not (this is irrelevant as the end result is the same) - and I wonder whether I really knew anything at all.

I guess it's not even that big a deal to me, even though it means I was wrong about everything. It's not my deal to be made big, it's not my decision to make. But still, if it was my decision then I would make it very differently.

I'm so overcome with something at the moment that I don't want to go out. Today I wore summer shoes and stepped in a puddle and got mud all over my feet. My french looking toes got smeared with slime.

It's my birthday at the weekend and I must say that I'm apathetic to say the least.

Shredded Wheat

Just to clarify, I am not in the new Shredded Wheat advert. Everyone keeps asking me, and I haven't even seen it. I am worried in case the person who apparently looks like me actually looks like the honey monster.

Dig!!!

Today I put on a dress and some heels and a necklace and prepared to be on my best behaviour as I was off to the scene of some past violence... but it was all cancelled, so my dress and heels were for nothing. It's okay because it's just postponed.

So I left work and walked through Soho, walking in the roads and never the pavements, and wound up in Covent Garden, where I decided to get my hair cut. And here it was amazing. My hairdresser spoke minimal english - he asked my name, I asked his name, he started cutting - and looked like everyone I knew at Full Tilt (back when I thought it was fun to go to goth electro nights and get off my face to the point I thought a man turned into a tortoise), the whole thing took 20 minutes - BUT MY GOD!!! MY HAIR!! The man is a genius! He's cut it so my cows lick actually works, made the ends not like straw, and shaved the back... and danced while he did it. I gave him a 50% tip and vowed to myself to get my hair cut every month...
... But then he smiled at me, and he had pierced teeth.

How do you pierce teeth??

So now I don't mind that my life is a shambles, that I sleep in a sleeping bag and have a crush on a one-legged pirate from a book. I'm at home, nothing ever happens but relentless low level drama and nuisance. But it's okay, I am drinking a beer and listening to Nick Cave.

Wise words

A wise person recently said:

"Every time he taps you on the shoulder, you punch him in the face. You are a bitch."

However, another wise person once said:

"It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes."

So there you go.

What I want to see at Reading

So, the Reading line-up has been announced (or at least, they have started to announce it, there's about a million more bands to be added). Here are the bands that I want to see:

Rage Against The Machine
Biffy Clyro (again! But why not?)
Vampire Weekend
MGMT
We Are Scientists
Metallica

That's about it. Last years line up was better I think. Then again, I think it is realistic that I will only see 6 bands over the weekend seeing how fond I am of sleeping. Yeah I know I'll be sleeping in a tent but seriously I can sleep anywhere and anytime except sunday nights when I have work the next day.

Anyway, I'm seeing Girls Aloud in May so that makes up for there not being much on the Reading line up that tickles my fancy. Go Cheryl!

Distractions

If I'm not waking up with you,
why bother waking up at all?

Banned in Syria

So apparently this blog is banned in Syria?!?
I wonder whether this will help:

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fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

Hot damn I'm mature.

Things that have happened in the last week

In no particular order:

- I was told that I have to have another operation on my hip, this time open surgery, what fun!
- I later realised that this was to be performed by the doctor I have previously written about, the one who called me "lovely", "attractive" etc in my medical notes. OH DEAR!
- I have been getting increasingly excited about the start of the F1 season
- I have fallen in love with a blond labrador from Battersea dogs home
- I have felt sick a lot
- I have been asked by my mum if I am pregnant (no)
- I have become an unlikely hero for some members of my orchestra, which is quite flattering really
- Lots of violin practice and lots of youtube videos of Heifetz!
- I had a massive argument :(
- I ended up in bed with my housemate :)
- Possibly too much time spent in the Commercial...
- Trying to read more books and be more cultured, innit (failing)
- J has been very lovely even when we had a ninja fight in the kitchen and I was armed with a knife
- In the last 24 hours, I have slept 18 hours and I am still tired

I'm sure loads more has happened but I am tired and must sleep.

Behold

Inside Out

Earlier I was ruminating about how I'm so good at keeping things in, and how even thougth some things are eating me alive, I keep oh so quiet and you cou couldn't tempt stuff out of me for shit. In some kind of cosmic retribution, I have somehow damaged my rib cage which means I can't stand up properly without being in huge amounts of pain. What's inside is trying to get out but it's not happening.

I think it is an established fact that my body is falling apart. A few years ago, say 2003 (just to pick a particularly dreadful vintage), I was on the less sane side of sanity, but despite the odds, I was remarkably healthy (apart from throwing up all the time and the fact I used to faint up to 20 times a day). Nowadays I am not sure whether I am really that sane after all as surely normal girls don't cry in shops, and I am turning to dust beneath my very own eyes. Which I suppose is similar to how I am feeling inside. I am not sure why anyone is brought up to have dreams and ambitions because it just leads to disappointment. This wasn't exactly my childhood dream, if I ever really had one. My regrets far outweigh any positive thoughts I have about things I have done.

I am really lonely as everyone is either the other side of the world or even further away.

I am drinking for purely medicinal purposes. I'm still not talking about it though.

The boy's a godamn genius!!

Some of the funniest things I've heard in a while:

"If you buy me a double espresso I'll suck your cock"

"Didn't your ex boyfriend try to fuck you up the nose?"

Both these things were uttered by the same person within the space of about five minutes.

I would normally put this on my facebook to shame him but my mum is my facebook friend now, which makes things a little complicated.

Lots of interesting things have happened recently but I am a) far too lazy and b) far too important (don't you reckon Syma??) to write about them.

Hopalong and fuck off.

Since I had my hip operation over three months ago, my hip has hurt every single day. The outside of my leg feels bruised, though it clearly isn't. The inside feels like it is pulling apart and I have to watch when I walk that I don't make any sudden movements and feel that tearing pain. Lying down is painful. Sleeping, even for me who loves sleeping more than anything, is sometimes not all that easy, and I could probably sleep through hiroshima. I wish I had never had the operation, I can't tell if it's made things better or worse, though I suppose in the long term my arthritis would be a lot worse if I hadn't had it done. Right? Or have I just done nothing with my life and fucked up my leg.

I don't ever want to talk about this, please don't ask me about this. I want to cry, but crying over my crippled leg is probably too self-absorbed, even for me. Hell, some people don't have legs. Etc.

Come on. Let's go drink till we can't feel feelings any more.

If I'm a child, that means you're a paedophile, and I'll be damned if I'm going to stand here and take this from a pervert.