Bestival '10

Hello blogees! Have you missed me? What did I lose out on while I was away? Anyone want to fill me in? Really? And that? Woah. No way? Cool. Ah that's nice. Great stuff. Oh that's a shame. Great, now we've caught up on everything, blogs can begin again. I am back from Bestival, clean, full of sleep and now with new added sore throat from yelling 'I've got the poison, I've got the remedy' slightly too loud. Once again my favourite festival proved its worth with several days of sheer enjoyment, face paint failure and being rude about Roxy Music. Essentially, as planned, we kicked the fuck out of Bestival. They may not be able to have another one as I doubt there is anything left after we annihilated the place with such extreme partying. Of course, I can't just summerise this all here in this mini-problog prologue, and not just because its now autumn and therefore things need to now be autumnised. No, I think what needs to entail is a Bestival blogstravaganza! Strap yourselves in people. It won't be a dangerous journey, but I am all about health and safety and its illegal not to have your seatbelt on. Saying that, its also illegal to read a blog whilst driving. GET OUT OF THE CAR! Oh wait, unstrap yourselves first, or you'll get all tangled. That's better. Now leave the car, sit down and tuck in. WAIT! Stop trying to eat the blog! Just read it you idiots. Bloody hell. Some people.


MAY BLOGSTRAVAGANZA BEGIN!

- Waterproof tent spray actually works. Shock to all involved but overall just joy that all my belongings weren't soaked through on Saturday. Till I spilt a bottle of water on some of my stuff inside the tent. Idiot.

- Best costume award goes to the men all dressed as the plastic soldiers from Toy Story. There were better costumes in terms of design but these guys won on account of never being out of character ever. I witness them surrounding and holding up several people and at one point one had a megaphone and was yelling into it ' I've got soul but I AM a soldier'. Class. Top marks also to the person dressed a mushroom with no apparent eye holes, the people dressed as the 'Yip Yip' aliens from Sesame Street and the man dressed in a red jump suit with the word 'C*nt' written on the back in felt tip. Brilliant.

- Jonsi is the best ever. Truly truly amazing set that left me and Ali unable to talk for several minutes after. Amazing how even when wearing the weirdest multi-coloured Native American headdress ever, you can still blow away several thousand people in a tent with the most awesome crescendo of a final track ever.

- Hill race results: PB 2 - T-Dog 0. Sigh.

- Vegetarian Haribo sweat. This is not right. Its sweets you idiots, sweets!

- I lost an hour and a half of my life queuing up to get my face painted, only to give up after it was taking so long, buying face paints myself to use on everyone and then not using them. Huge face paint fail.

- At one point on Friday, I was dancing to Dizzie Rascal whilst wearing a peaked army hat, and twirling two glow sticks with girls in wigs. I think this is the gayest I've ever been.

- Times I nearly slipped in mud and fell on my face: 3

- If I was in charge of all bands live performances they would be so much better. PB agrees. Small example: If I was in charge of the Prodijah's set, during 'Their Law' I'd have had all of the Isle of Wight police force race on stage and then have Quiche Flan attack them all with a big sword decapitating the last one and kicking their head into the crowd. After this they would have performed a cover of the Teddy Bears Picnic for the kids.

- Best suggestions of what to get painted on faces:

Appearance of jaundice
Your own face so you look defined
The end of the universe
A leopard compass
The back of your head so no one knows which way you're looking

- No one will ever dress as Where's Wally at Bestival again without fear of what Danny, Luke and Ali will do to them. What started as simply planning to follow them all round the festival saying 'found you' constantly, turned into something so much worse.

- Watching Vanilla Ice, it was proven that other than 'Ice Ice Baby' and the ability to make all the women get up on stage with him (and I mean 'all'), he really has nothing. As Danny put it 'He did some songs, we were bored. He did Ice Ice Baby, everyone went nuts, then left.' Somewhere deep down, he must feel a bit sad about all this.

- I managed to persuade someone to be my stalker but only do nice things like bring me cakes. We had a long discussion about what types of cakes I liked before I got a bit spooked out by how seriously she was taking it all and moved the conversation on.

- The Prodigy can now only be referred to as the 'Prodijah' said in the poshest voice possible. This makes talking about them a lot more fun than you'd think. Especially when you speak about their tracks in the same way. ie 'Smah mah bich up', 'Scharlea sars', 'Feir starteh'. It also means you can refer to Keith Flint as 'Quiche Flan'. Try it, you just might like it. I tried to persuade the Caberet tent during my set that when they went to see them, they do just this and at the very end we all just applaud like at the cricket. It would totally mess with Howlett's mind. No one did this. I am not a leader of people.

- According to someone called Rose, I have one of the top 6 best tshirts she's ever seen. Score.

- I have no idea what happened to me, or where I was between 2.30am and 4.00am on Friday night/Sat morning. One eyewitness (Amy) saw me at 2.30am and said I was surprisingly eloquent and supposedly on my way home. It then somehow took me an hour and a half to get back to my tent which was fifteen minutes away. If you have any idea where I was, please write to the below address and let me know. Ta.

- Bongo's drank: 2

- Milkshakes with crumbled cookies in, drank: 1

- Benson accidentally made a new drink by combining all other possible drinks into a vitamin water bottle. It shouldn't of worked. It did. I name this drink the Bestifucker.

- My set was done slightly dead behind the eyes. This was due to a lack of sleep and an over consumption of too much sugar free Red Bull before I walked on. I could barely hear the words I was saying due to my heart pumping to a drum n bass tempo. Not good.

- Apparently I have met 'the most terrifying woman you will ever meet'. She appeared to be able to break things on her six pack. I didn't stick around very long.

- Someone at Eri's school claimed to have fallen out of a rollercoaster while it was upside down, but luckily it came back round and they landed back in it just in time. Best lie ever.

- Need a festival flag? A meeting point that everyone can find? Try getting a Luke Benson. With his giant like height, when he holds his hands in the air, planes have to take care. Benson - portable festival flag.


- The posh wash showers at Bestival are better than my shower at home. They are instantly perfect temperature as soon as you turn them on. I have never known a shower to do this and I demand the posh wash people hand over their futuristic showernology to the masses to save everyone else from hot and cold bath dancing times.

- The XX are too popular for me to be able to see them. Stupid not big enough tent. Bah.

- Craig Campbell doesn't mess around when it comes to ferry chat.

- Unexpected musical treats that were stumbled upon #1: Glen Matlock (bass guitarist for the Sex Pistols) on the bandstand stage Saturday night, doing an acoustic set. Total highlight was 'God Save the Queen' acoustically done. Just amazing. This was all made better by being there with Scott who knew all the words to all songs and jumped around single handedly giving Glen a proper audience whilst the Flaming Lips stole everyone for the main stage.

- New phrase: 'Accidental Donnelly'. This started because apparently I said something the way Carl Donnelly would say it. This was then classed as an 'Accidental Donnelly'. This term was then decided that it now means some sort of terrible illness or injury you might get ie 'I'm suffering from an Accidental Donnelly'.

- Banoffee pie gives me super powers. However if I have too much I get 'banoffucked'. FACT.

- Top quotes of the fest. As a group of four big men sat down in a booth at Club Dada where a comatose girl painted gold was sleeping, one lifted her head and placed it on his lap. Her friend raced over concerned and they all said, almost in unison 'we're all big gays. She'll be fine.'

- Gil Scott Heron has still totally got all the soul. I'm not sure where he keeps it all but I suspect in his flat cap.

- Janelle Monae is proper weeny. Like really teeny weeny. I walked right past her and its possible you could pick her up and pop her in a coat pocket. When she sings 'Tightrope', the meaning behind the song is somewhat skewed by the fact that a tightrope for her, would clearly be a very balancable (its a word. Deal with it) platform as her feet are so diddy. She rocked the hell out of the Big Top, despite the sound being shit and her show being so funky even her hair couldn't take it. I wanted to say hello after but she dived into the back of a big 4x4 and ate chicken. True story.

- People will queue for anything. That includes me. If Danny hadn't shown initiative, we would still be queuing.

- I mustn't give away my moustaches to people just because they ask me to. I will only regret it.

- The Prodijah's bus driver likes Ed Byrne. True story.

- I would like to inflict a law at festivals where people are only allowed to move through crowds inbetween songs.

- Unexpected musical treats that were stumbled upon #2: Lazy Habits. A hip hop group with live band and brass section in the Club Dada tent on Sat night. They had replaced another band that couldn't be there and subsequently tore the place up. Not literally. That would have been tough and the audience would have been sad.

- Martyne is very good at singing along to songs she doesn't know. She is better at not finishing sentences.

- Danny does not like it when people tell him to jump.

- I had lunch next to Mr Motivator. I'm not sure what to do with that information but felt it needed to be shared.

- If you were born in Australia and then moved to Newcastle, it turns out you will have the oddest accent I've ever heard.

- Tent pegs, much like biros and singular socks, sometimes just disappear into the ether.

- There was a spiegaltent and therefore that means the tiny lady who says there wasn't owes me strudel. I didn't find her again and so the strudel is now outstanding.

- The crowd were all very young this year. Very young. Nothing signified this more than watching the Prodijah and seeing everyone go nuts to all the 'Invaders Must Die' tracks and yet not care all that much for earlier classics. At the end mostly older people were left and we all went nuts to 'Out of Space' while the kids got confused.

- Other excellent bands seen: Mumford and Sons, Fat Freddy's Drop, Rodney P and Skitz, The Correspondants, some dude with a banjo, Beardyman, The Cuban Brothers, Chase and Status, Rolf Harris.

- Chewing gum packets lost: 4

- Chewing gum packets found again when I got home: 4


There is more. A lot more. But I will probably only remember it once this blog has been posted and I've gone out of the house. Till then, let me just assure you that Bestival was properly dealt with in everyway and that if you ever need a team to help you really kick the shit out of a festival then you can't go wrong with me, Luke, Danny, Eri, Ali, PB, Marti and all our other comrades who joined in temporarily for various moments of mayhem. I am now going to search for my voice. I worry its still in a field in the Isle of Wight.....