Bestivities

Just returned home from a meeting in the bar at the top of Centrepoint. I like meetings that happen in places like that. I didn't really say much on account of me losing my voice once again, but I sat, listened, eat some chips that cost far more than they should and looked out the window at London. London looked alright today, if a tad grey. I don't blame London for that, although when it was designed, no one decided to paint any of the big buildings blue or puse, so generally things are grey, and when the clouds are also grey, it just all looks, well, very grey. I'm am generally a bit slow and braindead today, so staring at a grey London was quite enough mentally for one day and I have hurriedly rushed home to type this and then sit in my PJs for hours until Layla gets home and I have to try and say words again. I can't believe I am without vocals yet again. I lost it at least 3 times whilst at the Fringe and now thanks to Bestival I've well and truly lost my ability of speech once more. I say lost, but I know exactly where I left it. Its off its tits in a field on the Isle of Wight. That's where it is. I keep getting worried that if this is going to continue to happen I'll get those nodules or whatever they're called and then end up with a voice that sounds like I've got more tar in my lungs than there is on most motorway systems. I don't think that sort of husky voice would suit my act. I'm small and cheeky, I don't want to have amend all my material to suit some tiny, gravelly voiced shyster. However to stop this from happening I also need to have less fun in life and stop having weekends like the one I just did, and frankly, that would be rubbish. To say it was nothing at all like my pre-prepared autoblog from Saturday would be a lie. I did sunburn my face. Sadly that prophecy was fulfilled. I thought that after my week in Marbella sometime back in July, I would be immune to sun. I've dealt with it already this year, my body should know what the score is with sunshine and know what its doing. What appears to have happened between that time though is that going to Edinburgh has made my skin so grey that it just instantly bursts into flames when exposed to sunlight like a miserable Celtic vampire, and so this weekend's exposure has left me with a top of a spine more redneck than Billy Bob Thornton and Juliette Lewis lynching some black people. It is not nice and my t-shirts all seem to want to rub it up the wrong way. By that I mean they tell it its a shit neck and they've seen better ones on no-neck turtles. Luckily for me I'm heading back to Edinburgh tomorrow, which should instantly alleviate any sunburn pain once again.


As I said, it was one hell of a weekend and I am a bit of a broken human being today. I'm relishing having a loo that isn't already full of other people's doings and listening to music that isn't constantly crossed with music from four other tents behind me, but despite this, I'm a little anti-climatic from it all. Here, in handy bullet point format, are some of the weekends shenanigans:


- Lily Allen walked past me in the artist's area wearing only a towel.

- Pop up tents really need a pop down facility. Yes its all great and dandy that they are up and ready in 3 minutes, but this does not necessarily make up for the fact that I spent 30 minutes wrestling some canvas and pegs to try and fit it back into the bag while it kept popping back up into my face.

- I met a man dressed as an Ewok. I felt compelled to tell him it was the best costume I saw all weekend, as it was. He said 'thanks, but don't say I look like a fucking bear, cos I'm an ewok innit and they are little fucking bears, its obvious innit?' I told him I knew he was an ewok. I just didn't realise ewoks were quite so angry about their bear like status.

- Tiffany Stevenson is a trooper and did more spots in the comedy tent than anyone should. She stormed them all and was ace, but I couldn't work out how she had the energy or stamina to do so. Brett asked me if I would do an extra spot on the Sunday and I told him to 'fuck himself'. I worry that I am not as reliable or compliant as an act.

- If you are going to have a PA system for a main stage at a big festival, then you should probably spend enough money on it so that it doesn't cut out inappropriately or send all its sound over the heads of the crowd infront and instead right over to the comedy tent where it could be heard very clearly. Hence one of the many reasons why my sore throat exists. Trying to shout a set over MGMT to a room of very few is never going to be easy on the chords. It is also why halfway through Lily Allen's set all the sounds cut out and why the vocals of the Fleet Foxes couldn't be heard very well on the right side of the stage.

- Lily Allen walked past me in the artist's area wearing only a towel.

- The Correspondents are my new favourite group. Mixing swing jazz and drum and bass is a bloody clever idea. I still worry that it should be base and bass. I don't like drums in my shandy or fish.

- I have learnt never to ask Andrew Maxwell's son Flynn what it is he is holding thanks to his response being 'its a lightsaber stupid!', before flashing its lights in my eyes and hitting me square in the face with it.

- Matt Reed should get a job as a university letcherer. He is very professional at the job.

- Lily Allen performed a cover of 'Dub Be Good To Me' with a not great rapper called Professor Green. His not great rapping was worsened by the fact that he did not do the bit that goes 'Tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty' etc. The rest of Lily's set was ace. As was her tiny dress and the fact that hours before she had walked past me, Georgie and others in the artist's area, wearing only a towel.

- Favourite audience members were two men in the front row when I MC'd the Friday afternoon. Their names apparently were 'Wooooooo' and 'Woo' and one had a very thin moustache painted on. I love festival weirdos.

- I did not make a space squirrel out of foil. I am saddened by this.

- I really couldn't do a festival the normal way after now being so used to going to artist's camping areas. There is nothing like waking up, strolling to get some free tea and then having a shower in a 'posh wash', then stealing bottles of vitamin water and sweets before commencing with festival activities. Oh and the loos flushed and had paintings on the walls. Class.

- 'Posh Wash' showers, despite the names, are not that posh. The one I used yesterday had mud all over the floor which meant I developed a very clever system of balancing on one leg in order to put my socks and shoes on. I am now very good at balancing on one leg.

- I paid £3.50 for 99 flake. This is all wrong and yet oddly I didn't contest it. I am a fool.

- Lily Allen walked past me in the artist's area wearing only a towel.

- iPhones suddenly become rubbish when at a festival. All that technology and yet they seem unable to just work and make a phone call when several thousand other people around you are trying to do the same thing. Sort it out Steve Jobs. However, during bouts of severe tiredness the 'Profanity' App did come in use.

- Me and Georgie laughed at the use of the word Uranus in the Times horoscopes for far far too long. Top winners were 'Uranus is up to high jinks' and 'rebellious Uranus'.

- Vietnamese Rum tastes of death. FACT.

- At some point at every festival, everyone gets some glitter on their face. No one really knows how it happens, but it does. Glitter is very powerful like that.

- I was in the festival program. Thanks to Brett, the final line of my biog read 'please do not mistake him for an ewok'. People didn't, but if they had done I would not have shouted at them for saying I looked like a bear.

- Craig Campbell knows a really good song about knowing a lot of places.

- Some people got food tickets to get free food. I asked if I could have one. They asked who I was, so I told them. They then said 'No. YOU can't have one.' I think someone had warned them that I would eat a lot.

- I saw a new act who was buzzing off his face do a set while wearing a space helmet and carrying a toy gun. I've never seen a group of monged people so quickly organise themselves into doing a slow hand clap. I thought it was hilarious.

- If you see Georgie, burst into a cockney jig. He won't be able to resist joining in. Despite his Welsh heritage I think he wishes he had been born in Stratford.

- I must remember that no matter how fucked I get, smoking is never ever a good idea. Ever.

- Very much enjoyed Matt Kirshen pointing out to the audience that despite the fire exit signs on the doors of the comedy tent, if the tent was to burn down, we would still just be standing in a field, so may as well stay where we are.

- There were lots of free packets of Roundtrees Randoms everywhere. Despite the name, they are not that random. I kept getting a lot of the same shapes of sweet. What I would like is a packet where when I open it I pull out a bit of glass, then a mint, then someone's finger, then an insect, then a copy of Country Life from the 80s. It wouldn't be nice, but it would be random.

- Brett's bowels do not like festivals. Fact.

- Lots of other people, while very happy to be at Bestival, were also sad they couldn't watch Derren Brown's show on Friday about how he is a witch and made the lottery do what he wanted.

- Lily Allen walked past me in the artist's area wearing only a towel. Admittedly I shouldn't have been wondering near her dressing room wearing only a towel. Security got upset, so did she and I had my wristbands confiscated.

- The above is not true. What is true is that Lily Allen walked past me in the artist's area wearing only a towel.

- I lost about an hour and fifteen minutes getting back to my tent on Saturday night. I don't know where this time went. I'm fairly sure all I did was walk back. I think I might be a time lord.

- They now have Jim Beam and Coke in a can! The world is better place because of this. And also a worse place the next day when you realise how much you drank.

- The Fleet Foxes are very very beardy men. More beardy than Beardyman. He needs to work on that.

- On the ferry home I wanted a scone. Paul had bought one for him and Tiffany and their was one left but the cafe lady put it aside for herself and wouldn't let me have it. She didn't even make a pun based gag about its fast disappearance. I was very saddened by this.


That is all. Well its not. There is a weekend of things that happened but I don't remember them all as I damaged my brain somewhat. I felt very sad I was unable to blog over the weekend but must thank Layla for her contribution yesterday and for posting my blog on Saturday. Does that still count as blogging everyday or have I broken the marathon of continuous blogging that I have self imposed? I do hope its not considered a gap or I'll have to start all over again, and I can barely remember what happened last December the 30th so it may take some time.