Diary of an up and coming sociopath

So, I’m acutely aware that there’s a lot to sort though.

On Friday, Nikki and I went back home, in preparation for the drive to Stafford. After having dinner at Mum’s and watching some of the X-Factor (best moment - some teenager with a voice like a strangled cat blubbering that rejection from this leaves her dreams in tatters and makes it seem like her whole life has been wasted. Yes. Yes it has you moron. My god there’s a rant here but I’m going to hold off on it just for now…)

After this, I went up to Josh’s and played Dead Rising and Saint’s Row, then watched some late-night Sky Digital, as you’ll invariably end up doing in that situation. This time we ended up watching Miami Ink, a drama-style documentary about a tattoo parlor. The most amusing part of this was when some plastified generic slut came into the shop and starting banging on about how she wanted a tattoo to remind her of inner peace whenever she looked at it, and almost before we’d predicted it (almost…) she was choosing to have the Kanji for “Inner Peace” on her lower back, where obviously she’ll be looking at it all the time. First they corrected her outdated kanji that she got off the internet, then got to work. She cried like a 6 year old for the duration of the inking, which was so ridiculously tiny compared to what other people had that it’s a wonder she felt it at all. It was utterly hilarious. In fact the whole episode is given a synopsis here.

The next morning, I picked Nikki up and we drove down to Stafford without any traffic problems whatsoever, and ended up in the queue even before the doors opened. It turned out to be a pretty good year. Not the best or anything (well, Radiohead were) but for a change we got to see a pretty decent amount of bands and rarely were we left bored and stuck for something to do. We started with the Dead 60s, who were alright but didn’t make much of an impression. Then we moved on to Biffy Clyro (on the second stage) who I’m not overly obsessed with but who put on a great performance whenever I see them. They also have an astonishing amount of hair.

After that we made ourselves very fucking scarce to avoid catching any of Kula Shaker, and headed straight for The Divine Comedy on the main stage. I’m surprised by how many Divine Comedy songs I know but I guess they’ve been around quite a while now, not that you’d believe that from how Neil Hannon managed to forget a verse in one of the songs. He did bravely fight his own coughing and spluttering to sing to the end of Something for the Weekend after accidently choking himself, though, and while it wasn’t perfect I know I appreciated the attempt. The Magic Numbers played afterwards, and as the first band I was really looking forward to seeing, they didn’t disappoint. The sun even came out a little, which was promising, since for most of the morning it hadn’t been raining, but it had been pretty grey.

Following their set, we legged it up to the V***n M*bile (sponsorship removed) Union tent to cement our Indie cred and see the Young Knives, though the place was utterly rammed to the point where after queueing to get in, we changed our minds once inside and sat nearby and listened that way instead. Wasn’t that keen, to be honest, though we hung around for Captain who were the following act and I was incredibly impressed by how tight they are as a band, given that they haven’t had any especially huge hits. Probably my favourite set of the day, besides Radiohead. After Captain we took some time out to go hunting for some clothes for me, because I needed some new fleece jackets, and I managed to find two appropriately-priced ones to replace my two tatty and faded ones that I’ve had for like 10 years. We also found the Spider-Man finger puppet that goes with the Hulk one we bought at the Wireless festival a few weeks ago!

Having successfully avoided Bloc Party, we were then “treated” to Keane’s horrible whinging for a good hour or so. Christ. Thanks to Gavin at work I did know the songs though, and somehow that makes them seem quicker, so at least it didn’t drag on too much. I also amused myself by remembering how Nikki and I decided the line “Crystal Ball, save us all” in their single sounds more like “Chris De Burgh, save us all.” Even if he could, he wouldn’t. Bastard.

Once Keane were over we faced the first real choice of the evening - whether to go see Editors or hang around for all of Beck. I’ve seen Beck several times and he’s usually crap, but he started first so we stayed for the first half hour or so. Luckily, not only was he great, with some really excellent puppets of him and his band on stage, he also played basically all the songs I could’ve wanted to see (except Where It’s At, which I assume we just missed) - he finally played Loser, which I’ve not seen before, and he played Devil’s Haircut AND Hell Yes AND Girl, all of which I enjoyed very much. Nonetheless, we decided to leave before things got too dodgy and went to see Editors. They weren’t actually that good. I really like their album, but when they’re playing live you might as well just have the CD in. There wasn’t really any variation or character added to the songs. There is such a thing as being too faithful, apparantly. During their set we went and bought Tea from the Shaken Udder (which I may have mentioned before…) because they gave you a huge cup of it (like, McDonalds Large sized cup, filled with tea for the same price they’ll flog you those crappy tiny things anywhere else) and they used real milk.

While I’m quite interested in seeing Kasabian live, they couldn’t compare to Radiohead, who let’s face it, were 100% of the reason we bought tickets in the first place. They played all sorts of stuff that was brilliant, including Airbag, My Iron Lung, Nude, Idioteque…actually, here’s the setlist:

Airbag / 2+2=5 / The National Anthem / My Iron Lung / Morning Bell / Fake Plastic Trees / The Bends / Videotape / Nude / The Gloaming / Paranoid Android / All I Need / Pyramid Song / Lucky / Just / Idioteque / Street Spirit /// You And Whose Army? / Karma Police /// Everything In Its Right Place / Creep 

Following the ‘head’s set, we left and attempted to find the car, which, due to some sloppy work on our part, took a bit longer than it should’ve, though we eventually used a systematic approach and discovered about 30 minutes later than we should’ve that we just hadn’t walked far enough up the field. Then I managed to squeeze us into a queue that was actually moving, to prevent a repeat of the last time we were at V where we were stranded immobile for like 3 hours…

Made it back in pleasingly adequate time, hit the sack, then drove back to Ealing the next morning and looked at some houses, one of which we put an offer in for which was today accepted, so if nothing else thank god that whole looking for a house horror-show is over. It’s just north of Ealing Broadway, which should mercifully cut my commute down by about 10-15 minutes or so. In the evening we took the tube up to Shepherds Bush to go see A Scanner Darkly at the VUE. The cinema there is oddly unstaffed - we bought our tickets from automated machines, though they were checked on the way in. The film is excellent, a definite candidate for DVD purchase, and a remarkably faithful adaptation of the book. Freck’s suicide attempt was brilliantly done in the film which was most pleasing, because it’s a hilarious chapter of the book. It’s got to be said that ASD is a very challenging film because it doesn’t have a Minority Report style plot-exposition phonecall at the end, though anyone with half a brain should figure it out (Oops. Unintentionally relevant turn of phrase.) Keanu Reeves ever acted out some *emotion* during the film. It was remarkable.

I was all ready to go back to work on Tuesday, but I awoke early in the morning delirious and vomitting, so I decided to take the day off. Looking back, I remember at about 6am being convinced that I had to get up else I’d miss my flight to work, which should’ve been a clear indication to me that something was amiss, however it took me actually chucking up to decide to leave it a day. In the afternoon when I was feeling better, Sam, Josh, Lorna and I went to the Burger King in Ealing Broadway to try one of their new Coke Ice thingies, the exact name for which I forget. It was pretty disappointing, to be honest. I can freeze ice at home.