"Happy Hogswatch!"

'Ello there!

Don't be fooled by my seemingly-chipper introduction - I currently feel like an elephant took a shit in my brain and I want to die.

This is not a result of Saturday's Mash-Up, but rather the result of a cold evening walking around London, followed by sitting in a theatre bunched up with loads of humans who had coughs and/or colds, cycling in the cold without a scarf and smoking cigarettes when I should have been drinking Lemsip.

But fuck it, it's nearly Hogswatch and I get to leave Colch-Hell-ster behind for a few days while I go up to Loughton to see my dad and the family.

The Mash Up on Saturday, while not Epic, was definitely Awesome. Thanks to young Weanie, who sadly couldn't make it thanks to his asshat employers (who made him drive around London all Saturday with the meagre promise of back-pay - the bastards), we had the use of a projector and my chuffing brilliant surround sound system. Some reshuffling of furniture left us with a cheap home theatre and PLENTY of boozes. I'd like to express my thanks to those who managed to show, namely Adam, Fi, Gem, Justin and Sooz, because let's face it, it would have been a diabolical evening without you.

The evening went well, we got drunk, exchanged presents (which were all-around AWESOME - I shall list them momentarily) and watched Wall-E on the big screen while taking turns to look through the front door peephole at the Nutter across the hallway and his chavtastic acquaintances, who broke down his door, spat on him repeatedly and probably beat him up. I love living on Greenstead.

As for presents, I got an amazing selection, BEHOLD!

From Adam and Sooz - A Led Zeppelin T-Shirt, a MASSIVE tea mug with a heat-ativated stripping lady on, a naked lady lighter and a rather classy naked lady roach book!

From Gemma - A copy of MB Games' Operation! It's just a shame we didn't play it (Justin got Hungry Hippos - OM NOM NOM NOM HUNGRY HIPPOS!)

From Justin and Fi - A desk calendar entitled something like '365 Days and Ways to Get Your Revenge!' which is AWESOME, and, and this was very, VERY thoughtful on Fi's part, a copy of Elephant Cat, by Nicola Bayley! (I now have the complete set of Copycat books!) And before you get all 'Hur, looks a bit poofy to me', I'd like to point out that when I was a small child my mother used to read these books to me, and they have pride of place alongside a picture of me ol' mum in my bookcase, so fuck you. *smiles*

HEY, I forgot to mention why I was in London! For those of you who I haven't raved about this to already, settle down.

I was at work on Friday, and at about ten o'clock I get an email from a lady who works downstairs in reception. She tells me that she has two FREE tickets to see Eddie Izzard that night at the Lyric Theatre in London, and that if I want them, I should go ahead and say so. A couple of phone calls later, and I've agreed to meet Auntie Gill at London Liverpool Street station, and to go from there on to the theatre! I thought it made a nice early Christmas present.

Mr. Izzard was on fine form, especially considering he had a cough (the same as everyone else in the theatre, from the sound of things), and he did several really good skits. They recorded the whole show ("in a bootleg style!") for an audio CD as well. Auntie Gilll and I were impressed with his ability to essentially just talk to a room full of people for nearly three hours. That's a job I'd love. And while not a massive fan of Eddie Izzard originally, he did a bit about Noah's Ark and the lack of sharks onboard that completely won me over.

Right, I should go back to work before my head falls off because it's full of words and snot.

Od.

Oddy's Pre-Christmas Mash-Up!

IT’S YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM KIPPOOOOOOOOOORRRRR!!!!

Well, maybe not. But it’d be good fun if it was, eh?

I don’t know if any of you buggers have noticed, but there seems to be some sort of mass-commercialism going on at the moment. Every shop has decorated its window with some old fat guy in a red jumpsuit who looks like he stole every fucking pie in the factory.

I’m told this is part of a human festival called Christmas, which I’ve found myself referring to as The Great Winter Price-Hike, when the shops gain a fondness for red, green, silver, gold and white, start getting this fat guy to lumber through their shops either as a hobo who gives children presents and ‘sits the kiddies on his knee’ – riiiiiiight - or as a tinny, new-fangled clockwork automaton, and PLAY NOTHING BUT CHRISTMAS SONGS ALL DAY.

Fuck that noise.

A few of you might remember, many years ago, that some of us decided that spending Christmas with the family is all well and good, but seeing as you never get to see your mates over that little holiday, it might be an idea to arrange some sort of pre-Christmas do for just you and your bestests.

Well, after chatting to Mr. Weanie about the whole thing, I’m going to attempt to reinstate this, and everyone who reads this blog (and can make the journey, obviously) is invited. So, pack a few cheapo pressies in your bags, grab the booze, the smoke, DVDs and CDs, make your excuses and come on over!

It would be awesome to get the old crowd together, and of course those of you who are lucky enough to have gotten a bf/gf since the last bash can consider your new beau/heau welcome as well - the more the merrier!

DETAILS:

The Pre-Christmas Booze Bash will take place on Saturday the 20th of December at approximately 18:00, and the venue will be 80 Avon Way, Colchester.

The aim of the Pre-Christmas Booze Bash is simple - to gather all your friends, mates, pals, chums, put them in a small(ish) space, get them tanked up and hand over their Christmas presents!

Adam, Weanie, Justin, Gemma, Fi, Sooz, and.. er.. actually that's all the friends I have. Nearby at least.

Anyway, do as the Invite says! And for the love of cheese, get in touch if you can't make it! There's nothing worse than organising something like this and hacing it fall through at the last moment.

As a parting note, here's a cheerful, happy-go-lucky scamp to remind us that dressing up one's pets is neither big, nor clever.



In fact, it should be a hanging offence.

Od.

Work In Progress.

I can’t write until I have music. Clicking here should give you an idea of today’s blog matter, however.

Don’t get hit by a car until I’ve posted.

Od.

"Hooray! It's your Year-Closer-to-Death Day!"

Welcome along!

I'd like to thank Gem, Adam, Justin, Weanie and Fi for turning up for birthday drinks on Saturday. The rest of you are rubbish EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIVE NEAR COLCHESTER!

Auntie Gill and Uncle Martin also popped by on Sunday with a birthday picnic, which was nomtastic. It's always good to see my favourite Auntie and Uncle. And me Dad popped down with Lou and two of the Brood (read: my little brother and sister) to drop off my pressies and wish me a happy birthday last weekend, which was actually fun.

So all in all I had a great birthday and most importantly of all I was lavished with appropriate tribute,thusly:

From my Father and his Brood, most notably, a tea mug featuring a piece of Paul Kidby artwork, a t-shirt decorated with the Josh Kirby (R.I.P., legend) cover of Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, a new jigsaw puzzle depicting Josh Kirby's artwork for Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, and a string of plastic skulls with flashing, multi-coloured lights!

From Auntie Gill and Uncle Martin, a lavish birthday picnic, a generous monetary tribute and the pleasure of their company on Recovery Sunday.

From Gem, most notably, a copy of Disney's The Sword in The Stone on DVD, six glow-in-the-dark fingerbobs (one of which is the most enthusiastic-looking toy I've EVER seen) and a bag of birthday Twiglets OM NOM NOM NOM.

From Justin, a genuine Guitar Hero action figure blister featuring the legendary Lars Umlaut, probably my favourite and definitely the most metal of Guitar Hero's (human) characters!

From Fi, one of the most thoughtful presents I've gotten in a while, an origami P-Chan, complete with origami bandana! It sits upon my bookcase with an aura of stubborn pride and it is byootifull.

The regards and birthday wishes of all those not mentioned here were also a great gift, and I'm honestly feeling better in myself for the reminder that people know I'm alive. I'd like to give a specific shout to man Weanie for turning up to offer a quick Happy Birthday to me even though he was absolutely shattered from his gig. Try as I might I couldn't get a link to his band while at work, but they're awesome, a SERIOUS metal band named Sower.

Right then, what else is going on? Well, (switch off, non-nerds) the Warhammer Online update I've been waiting for since release is finally here, so tonight I finally get to play one of the bad guys and enjoy the hate-filled psychopath that is the Black Guard of Naggarond. I'm really looking forward to hacking people up with a spiky halberd. In other news, meddling with the components of my gaming rig has been an unusually fun experience, so much so that I've taken it into my head to come up with an ambitious project.

Now, it won't come as a surprise to some of you that I've always had a soft spot for laptops. My first real gaming rig (more fool me) was a laptop, and I've had a hankering for a new one since mine was stolen. Obviously I've learned my lesson and don't want one for gaming anymore, nor do I want to spend more than £150 on the thing. No, I want what I will refer to as a shitbox laptop. Basically, all I'm going to use it for is writing, the occasional piece of artwork, listening to music and internet browsing. It needs at least two USB ports for a memory stick and printer coupling, and at the very most 80GB of space. I've been scouting NetBooks (these things are cool) and while I appreciate the fact that they are rather nifty, they're also a bit dinky for my sausage-like fingers and manhands. I might punch straight through the keyboard with these fat digits. The ultimate draw of a NetBook (for me at least) is the fact that they're so small. I've wanted a laptop as a replacement for pens and paper, pretty much because I find it nearly impossible to write with pens anymore. I never follow up what I write in my notebooks, they're more of a scrap/draft/scribble/idea pad than a real notebook.
The only thing is, I'm going to want to mess it up. I'm gonna paint it, engrave on it, stick things to it and generally make it ugly, unstealable and undeniably mine. So I don't want anything too fancy, you see.

I know, it's a dilemma.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with me and have a good day!

Od.

"ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!!"

"Too Young To Feel This Damn Old" - redux

So, as some of you may be aware, it's my year-closer-to-death day on Saturday the 29th (that's this Saturday)of November. This will be my twenty-fourth full year on this horrible little dirtball of a planet, and I intend to celebrate in as raucous and jovial a fashion as possible.

A basic rundown for you.

Friday 28/11/08 - 18:30 onwards:

GAMES! MUSIC! BOOZE! MOVIES! SMOKE! HAHAHAHAH!

Saturday 29/11/08 (DA OFFISHUL BERFDAY) - From whenever I wake up onwards:

More of the same, but culminating in a stumbling rush to colchester Town centreat about seven to start drinking at the Purple Dog, on to Greenlands for iced teas and ending up at the Castle where I can try to ply ugly girls with drinks and convince them that they should give me their numbers ''cause it's ma birthday, innit?'. If I don't even manage to get a kiss on the cheek from an ugly girl's ugly friend who feels sorry for me, then I shall be upset.

Sunday 30/11/08 - 09:30 onwards:

Wondering what the hell happened the night before, becoming heart-breakingly depressed because I've just realised that I'm nearly thirty, followed by a massive panic-induced cleanup as I realise AUNTIE GILL'S COMING OVER TODAY!! And nudging the casualties of the celebration awake while making them decide whether they want to stick around and meet the legendary Auntie Gill and Uncle Martin, or move on to somewhere where there are fewer family members.

Sunday night I expect I'll become incredibly maudlin and get all bitter and drunk before I have to return to my shitbox job on Monday morning.

If any of you buggers has a suggestion or request for the weekend, for God's sake let me know as soon as possible, because otherwise it'll all go to hell and I'll end up spending my birthday alone again, which fuckin' sucks.

Od.

"Vault Secure!"

So Fallout 3 then.

I've been playing this every now and then. I ain't impressed. It isn't nearly as much fun as a good game of WAR - there's no-one around to fight!



It's a fucking wasteland! There's nothing out there but ruined buildings, tumbleweeds, radiation and the occasional rabid dog or robot! Where's my damned horse?! WHY CAN'T I SPRINT!?

WHY IS STEALTH IMPOSSIBLE!?

Only joking. I got my copy for free, so I'm not really angry about anything.

But I would like a horse..

It's a pretty game, isn't it? But as usual, my first reaction to the well-detailed environments and rolling tumbleweeds, perfectly-drawn hairs on the character's face and expressive feautres, was, 'Shiny. Like a high-tech Oblivion.', and let's be honest, that's what it is. It FEELS like Oblivion. When you move, when you fight, when you talk to characters, when you ride your horse OH WAIT YOU CAN'T DO THAT I FORGOT.

Not that I'm bitter about it or anything.

The problem with such massive, immersive games like Fallout 3 (or as I've taken to calling it, the F3 Virus), is that there's so. Much. TALKING. And so many f-ers to talk to! Oh sure, 'not if you avoid the main quests', you might say. But that's why I'm here! I play games because they have STORIES behind them. I wanna know who's gonna blow up the world, who's gonna kill everything, who's gonna save them and above all, how many guns am I allowed? I don't WANT to spend twenty hours just wandering around and occasionally killing things because there's nothing else to do. I want interaction, drama, fast-paced action and a flowing storyline! Not Travel-Dungeon-Kill-Loot-Sell-Repeat! If I wanted THAT shit I could just go and play Warcraft.

Being an incredibly indecisive person given to sudden, irrational mood swings, I don't get on with it because I never fall into any of the accepted types. Fallout comes with a nice array of playstyles, just like Oblivion, but like every game I've ever played, what it comes down to is that if you don't have the opportunity to pick a dedicated class (ie rogue, fighter, wizard etc, blah blah blah yakkety shmakkety), it can be extremely difficult to try and stick with one.

For example, by nature I prefer to keep in the shadows, wait for my moment and stab people repeatedly in the neck. If I work out that I can't do this, like in Fallout 3 where EVERY LITTLE NOISE attracts the attention of every fucker from Thunderdome and beyond, or the fact that every single enemy has TELESCOPIC SUPER VISION like Superman and shit, thus rendering sniper rifles pointless, then my other playstyle is to play tactically. Adjust my approach to suit the situation.

But because one is forced to semi-specialise, this isn't a viable option. In an ideal world I would either take the stealthy approach, which consists of, as mentioned, repeated stabbing, and silenced pistols, sniper rifles and the occasional grenade ("Fraggle out!"), or the pyromaniac approach, which consists of burning everything to a cinder until there's nothing left but a pile of ashes and me with a happy smile and singed eyebrows. Fallout relies on your persistence, patience and ability to pick up useless crap everywhere you go.

That's right. Useless crap. The problem here is, what's useful and what isn't? I saw packs of cigarettes lying around and my first thought was 'Prisoners trade for cigarettes, why shouldn't post-nuke nutjobs?' so I grabbed a few packs. I grabbed cans of food, big knives, anything that could be used as a weapon, scavenged every single piece of armour I could find, and passed over the pressure cooker ("Wtf? What is this shit, 'Cooking Mama'? Where are the GUNS!") and railspikes, completely unaware that these very components can lead to some of the nicer weapons later on.



I SHOULD love this game. It's beautiful, graphics-wise. It's smooth, the gameplay can be immersive and gripping (except when you're zerged by six raiders because OOPS you trod on a tin can!), the voices are (mostly) well-done, the scripting is just fine and the dialogue is spot-on as far as I'm concerned. The VATS system is epic win.

But I just can't get into it. I've decided to give up on it for now. I much prefer the epic battles of WAR and the camaraderie of my allies. Plus, I'm MORE than happy to be labelled a squishy ranged DPS and not be able to stealth or anything else, because I have meatshie- allies to do that for me. I get to focus on mass destruction and saying cool stuff. AND I HAVE A FUCKING HORSE.

WAR CALLS!

Od.

"Shore up that left flank and keep firing!"

Wow, I've got a lot going on in November. I only realised how much stuff last night!

It was Halloween on Friday, I KNOW IT WAS OCTOBER LET ME FINISH, and a nice night of getting buzzy-drunk (which is the most fun stage) led me into the month of my birth. On Saturday November 1st I finally met Dan Abnett, legendary author, storyteller extraordinaire and all-round cool dude. If you haven't heard of the mighty Abnett, I highly suggest you check his stuff out. The man's worked on 2000AD (Do you have any idea how awesome Sinister Dexter is? No, I don't think you do. Go look.), shedloads of Warhammer 40,000 books including his own phenomenally successful Gaunt's Ghosts series, and a whole bunch of stuff I'm still too excited to think of. I should have bought a copy of the Malus Darkblade Chronicles for him to sign.. boo..

Tonight (the 5th) is fireworks night, which I'm not doing anything for, but I can watch the Essex Uni's fireworks quite easily from my front room window. I'll probably pull up a comfy chair by the window and read by a light while the explodey bits happen outside.

I should, God-Emperor willing, have my PC up and running on a fresh hard drive by next week (been meaning to buy a bigger one for ages), and on the 12th, as you already know, I'm off to see Less Than Jake at the Astoria.

FUCKING ROCK.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email reminder from Chris' mum that we're going to the Mercury Theatre on the 17th to catch a play called Alex, which is about a cartoon about the City of London, written by some nice chaps. And I haven't been to the theatre for YEARS.

And on the 29th it's my birthday! I believe this band 'Sower' are playing a show down at the Twist on that day, though I doubt I'll be attending myself. I like metal, but I like metal I can hear and join in with, not xtreem noyz mettul. Big man Weanie will be on bass, so that should prove impressive for those who go. Apparently Work is throwing a Pirate Party as well, which I've managed to get out of through the simple fact that IT'S MY BIRTHDAY DAMNIT and I hate spending time with Work people outside of Working hours. I go there to get paid and be miserable, not make middle-aged/young hipster/taken hot girls friends.

So what am I doing for my birthday? Well, luckily it falls on a Saturday, so it doesn't matter how mashed up I get because I'll have Sunday off, innit. I reckon I'll start my day with some purchasing in town, maybe catch a myoo-vay or two, then head out to the Purple Dog in town to start drinking. I'll do my favourite route, which is Purple Dog, Greenlands (iced tea with LOTSOFBOOZE!), VBar if I feel adventurous, then the Castle, which I like to think of as the Winding-Down Pub. Everyone ends up there at the end of a night out, because they close at 2AM.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas for something more interesting, for god's sake let me know. I don't want to spend my birthday alone. That's always crap.

Odsox.

"Beg the Omnissiah for forgiveness, sinner!"

Afternoon.

So my PC's borked.

Like, proper borked. It won't even turn on properly now. I've been in contact with my PC manufacturer to describe the problem, and they supplied me with a link to a webpage I can't access because it's for registered members only and because my dad registered and paid out for my PC only he can access it. So I've sent him an email asking for the password so I can access the link (which pertains to chipsets and will probably be useless anyway) and because I don't have any credit on my mobile I can't give him a bell and tell him to check his email.

I'm sure I've told you guys the problem in one way or another. Basically, the PC fires up, the lights go, the fans spin, and that's about as far as it gets. It just sits there, whirring away.

Oh, well, OCCASIONALLY it'll turn on, and then I have to race to hit DEL so I can change the Boot settings to Boot From Disk, THEN I have to reset the PC and hope it reboots (which can take up to twenty minutes to do successfully). It brings up the repair setup after a short amount of button pressing and disc scanning, and so far that's been running fine, all the way up to the stage where it tells me that "Setup must now restart. Press ENTER to restart your computer now." At this stage there's also a big red bar slowly filling up which reads "Your PC will reboot in.. (countdown)"

Now, I don't know, but is there difference between rebooting and restarting? Because I've been letting the bar fill up to reboot, which ends up with the PC going back to whirry-whirry-nothin'-doin' mode.

I don't know. Why isn't there a fucking PC shop around here? Somewhere I can walk in, collapse in tears and shove the PC at them, sobbing into my beer belly and telling them that 'It just doesn't work, I don't know what's wrong, please just fix it for me!'

I'm missing installation discs from my original supply, (something my manufacturer failed to address in their response email - I should get on that) WAR Online is having a special event over the weekend which I'm not going to be able to take part in *rages against the heavens*, so cheap SOOOOOCHEAP I really wanted that Bloodletter mask..

And to top off the shitness, work is ridiculous! We're snowed under with a four-day backlog at the moment. One of our workers was shunted over to another team with literally ZERO notice to us, which means we're working at half-strength AND because of the utter failure to launch the 'new system', we've got twice as much fucking work coming in. I can't even try and get a day off because it just wouldn't be cricket to leave all this work for the other clerk. Here's a brief summary for those without any real knowledge of office clerking for governmental services: On an average day, our collective inbox tops out at about.. 8 emails? We get a lot more than that, obviously, but we're usually so on top of things that that's as bad as it gets. This morning we had 50.

Fuck's sake..

Anyway, LESS THAN JAKE ON THE 12TH!!



Oh hells yes. I might be seriously pissed off with my lack of PC awesomeness right now, but I'm going to see the best live band in the world AGAIN! And we're gonna see 'em at the Astoria, London's grimiest rock club. xD You might not know the history of the Astoria (heck, I don't, I've only been there like twice), but basically it's an old-school rock joint and it's due for destruction soon.

Less Than Jake are so bloody good.. x)

Anyway, back to the grind.

Odsox.

"Go on then.."

Afternoon all!

Just a quick one to bigup a webcomic I've started reading! The following has happened to me, two, maybe three times in total, so it's nice to see I'm not the only one who suffers from it!



Also, if anyone fancies the movies or something interesting this weekend, give us a shout, you've got my number. =D

Odsox.

"Isn't She Lovely?"

Right, that's that gloomy, miserable post off the front page.

Now, where were we?

Ah yes. GIRLS.

They're brilliant, aren't they? I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we have a fair few hot girls in my workplace. Obviously due to the nature of the work itself (mmmmm, bureaucracy) our ranks mostly consist of middle-aged and upwards women, with one or two old dudes thrown in for their sins. But we do have a younger set within the group, consisting of a few young dudes and quite a few nice girls.

IS NICE!

Now I'll give you a couple of warnings before I continue:

One: As a dude, it's VERY VERY VERY difficult to do anything involving girls without one's brain resetting to type after about four seconds.

Two: It's also very difficult to say ANYTHING honest without sounding like a.. what's that word.. chauvinist? Possibly. Sounds a bit German to me though.

Three: While reading this, you should take my TGL factor into mind before reacting.

What's a TGL factor? Time/Gettin'Laid.

Basically, the more time a dude spends between intimate moments, the more difficult it is for said dude to concentrate on anything other than sex. This, my reasoning dictates, is why dudes who get laid on the regular are so rational, often listening to their girlfriends or wives or what have you. A dude with a TGL factor of, say, eight hours, will be more rational, competent and sensible than a dude with a TGL factor of 2 years, and as a consequence will more often than not turn down that last beer, shot or kebab in favour of getting a warm cab back home with the missus or, heck, tidying the house and feeding the cat.

And who can blame him? When you hold the positive attention of a woman, you feel like the most important person in the whole world. You can do anything, beat anyone, run a thousand miles or rescue a puppy from the jaws of a monstrous sea creature.

All right, maybe not that last one. Not in my case, anyway.

You'd jump off a slightly tall bridge, say 'Oh yeah?' to a mouthy git before backing down, buy baby wipes to put by the toilet, attempt (and likely fail) to cook a 'nice dinner', all this and more: Just to keep that gorgeous smile pointed at your face and those silky fingers on your skin; to hear that breathy voice in the night, to feel that shuddering, impassioned heat; to catch that sweet scent as she walks by and to feel the soft tickling of her hair on your face.

To know that whenever you need to rage or cry or scream, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that she's terrified of spiders and therefore not nearly as macho as you.

But you get my point.

In contrast to the dude with a low TGL, the dude on the other end of the scale can become more of a danger to himself as he goes on. His language and behaviour become more crude, more impulsive and ill-thought; his sense of hygiene goes through fits and starts, sometimes going three days without a proper shower. High-TGL dude gives into the urge to go out and get drunk more often; he stays 'til the last pint and wakes up in a cold bed feeling like someone shit in a bag and left it on his head all night. Sometimes that might actually happen, especially if our High-TGL dude has been partying with others of his kind.

While results are inconclusive regarding the longevity and life expectancy of High-TGL dudes (they usually fade away into the obscurity of a desk job or the incessant beeping idiocy of retail work), it is obvious to the scientific mind that this downward spiral can be halted with a generous application of T 'n' A.

So girls, keep all this in mind next time you see a braying, crude bastard at the bar leering at your cleavage or following you round the pub with his bloodshot eyes.

Maybe all he needs is a kick start shag to save his life.

Odsox.

P.S. NO, it hasn't been two years for me. That was an example.

P.P.S. It's been a year and two months. BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

"Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old"

I'm sorry to say that that time of the year has rolled around again, and if you can put up with my rambling for one more year, not only will I be impressed as all hell, I'll be sincerely grateful with it.

I'm going to begin by thanking my friends.

Certain of you were there for me four years ago, when it was so difficult I was on the verge of cracking up every single day, and for that I thank you. Others were kind enough to listen when I needed to talk, to offer what advice they could, and to help however they could. I thank you for that.

All of you have been good and patient and have managed to put up with a solid four years of my vigil and I have to say I never thought any of you would last that long. So for that, and for all the lesser, myriad annoyances and irritating features I've made you endure, I thank you.

Okay.

Now all of you know that if there's one thing I do way too much, it's talk. But I think you'll agree that, because of obvious, awkward reasons and personal ones, this is the one subject I just don't like to talk about it.

But if there was ever a day when I thought I could man up and actually discuss the subject, it's today.

Today would have been my Mum's 51st Birthday, and I'm sure somewhere she's cackling about the fact that she isn't going to get all wrinkly and slow after this point, bless her. Normally on Mum's birthday I try to drown my sorrows in alcohol or otherwise, and believe me, I'll definitely be intoxicating myself into a stupor after I finish writing, but this year I've decided that I should actually tell you what happened after Mum passed away.

..I really hope I just suck it up and set this blog to private at some point.

Anyway..

I haven't felt the same since Mum passed away. About anything.

After she was taken, I confess I let everything go slowly to hell. The cats, rest their souls, got older and more difficult, I fed them and cleaned them and changed their tray but, to me, they weren't.. they weren't really there anymore, d'you see? So eventually they all went to sleep, some in sadder ways than others, and I went on.

Alex, my then-girlfriend, was still there, but I just couldn't deal with her anymore. She could be lovely when she tried, but there was something in me that just snapped every time she spoke. At every look, every touch (extremely rare as they were), every breath, I felt something wrenching at me. We smoldered, faded and died as a couple. She moved on, but I had nowhere to move to.

That's how I've felt since it happened. I've got nothing to move on to.

Mum was my best friend, and fuck you if you're even thinking the word 'cliche', and she was, above all else, my Mum. She took care of me from day one, devoted in that way that only mothers can be.

The rest of my family just seemed to vanish from my viewpoint. They were around, of course. I really, really couldn't have gotten anywhere without my Auntie Gill, Dad, Lou, Uncle Jimmy, and Big Rich. But they.. I just forgot about them half the time. Still do, as a matter of fact. When Mum was here they were very much real and very much there, at the end of a phone or in person every other week or so. I used to love visiting them, even if my sour demeanour indicated otherwise.

I forgot birthdays, which in itself isn't much of a thing (those who have seen my Big Birthday List on my kitchen cupboard door will understand), but now they were just gone. Blips on the radar, barely. Everything was dead, the world had ended, what was beloved by me was just fucking TAKEN like what she wanted didn't even matter, precious fucking God didn't step in at any point to set things right. Even shouting at people wasn't working. Nothing worked, Mum wasn't here for me to complain to about it.. All I really feel is left for me is waiting to fall in front of a bus. Or getting mauled to death by a low-flying mortgage. Maybe both at once. I just feel so fucking old.

And who else is going to put up with me? I mean, I know people usually tolerate my presence, but since Mum passed away I feel like the only person who ever really liked me, not just tolerated me or put up with me, is gone. Anytime I speak to anyone now, ANYONE, I just get the impression that the only reason they haven't told me to fuck off is because they feel sorry for me or they feel some obligation, or they've got no-one else to talk to, you know?

Mum actually WANTED to speak to me, whether it be to find out what I was thinking, what I wanted for dinner, whether she should wear the good earrings or not, what was on telly, where did I put the bloody remote, or could I make her a cup of tea..

..shit..

Okay, look, I'm gonna get the fuck out of here while I can still see and start hitting the vodka and drugs. Don't worry, I'm well aware of my limits.

The point of this self-deprecating rant was actually something positive, though you might not be able to tell that by my sudden spiral into uselessness, which is:

You really, really, REALLY don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, and fuck those jaded bastards who take this sort of thing in their stride or wuss out because they think it's cliched.

Do me one small favour and I promise I'll leave you guys alone for ages. If you can, just give your Mum a bell and see how she's doing, yeah? If not, give your old man a shout. No need to say hi for me, say hi for yourself instead. Just make sure they're okay.

Odsox.

"WAAAAAGGHH!!"

WARNING! WARNING!

Shameless advertising and pandering ahead! Turn back now or be bombarded with bias!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WAR IS HERE!



Yes I did! Yes I bloody well did!

I finally gave into the urge and bought Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

And let me tell you, it's really fun!

Without going into the mechanics of the game, you begin by choosing a side: Order or Destruction.

Having been a fan of the Warhammer orcs for years (and owing to the fact that I can't play as my favourite race yet), I chose to play for the Forces of Destruction, more specifically the Greenskin army on the Karaz-a-Karak Core server.

My first character?

Snotface the Squig Herder!



(Pictured: Snotface admiring da spinny deff blades on da lumba mill.)

I've always had a soft spot for the gobbos and the idea of running around with a hopping ball of gnashing death that only follows orders if you feed it bits of people or stab it in JUST the right way was a real draw for me. It works out that you can unlock different kinds of squig pet as you play, although you can only have one active per time. But this is okay once you work out that if you get a high enough rank (er... 9 I think) you can learn a skill that makes your squig blow up in a poisonous cloud of splash damage, wreaking havoc among that horde of monsters that just tried to eat 'im! And I will admit that my first reaction on finding this out and testing it was, 'Some a' dese squigs explode! Dat's good, innit!?'.

And of course, finding out that you can summon a battle squig (which promptly eats you, as shown in the early stage of this video) that you can ride around in and get into melee with was a real treat. You can still have a squig pet as back-up!



(Pictured: Snotface in Squig Armour with Fartbag the Gas Squig.)

I haven't stuck with him too much because at the moment Squig Herders are a tad bit underpowered, but I'm sure that'll be fixed nice and soon.

I began play on the Order side of things a couple of nights ago (the Burlok Role Play server, actually, good fun!), creating a Bright Wizard by the name of Odwyn.



(Pictured: Odwyn casting one of his many nifty fire spells and looking a bit Native American.)

The Role Play servers have a couple of rules when it comes to naming one's characters, so there was a nice lack of people with stupid names on this server. I was growing tired of seeing people with names like 'OMG' and 'Quim' and all sorts of irritatingly rubbish names.

I only ran into two other people who seemed to be getting into the RP aspect of it, and got a couple of good bits of dialogue.

The best bit was when I joined a Warband (these are formed when standard Parties get too full, and a Warband can consist of up to 16 people - truly awesome Player vs Player potential, especially if you can get 'em worked up!) to do one of the Public Quests. Public Quests are a fantastic idea - basically, there will be an area indicated on your map by an open chest. Each of these is a rather nifty scripted piece of questing that is open to everyone nearby, which means that they're a fantastic source for experience, loot, murderins and forming groups! I myself have been heavily influenced by the 'You're gonna have to work together or get smashed to bits' ethic of Public Quests, and regularly join groups and warbands after a quick introduction. I KNOW, MR. ANTISOCIAL actually talking to people and helping out.

Anyway. We were on the final stage of a PQ. After having fought off waves and waves of Chaos barbarians, marauders, magi and raiders, we were gathered around waiting for the last part. Suddenly, off to one side, out of sight, we hear,

'Time for smashy! HUR HUR HUR HUR! RAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!'

It's a Giant. And these things are HUGE. Example?



(Picture: Destruction/Greenskins Public Quest: Ugrog's Rage.)

Stood next to my character is a Dwarven Engineer girl, wielding a rifle and giant spanner, who comments on the giant's tree-cracking (yep, trees get broken down, houses get blown up, cliffs collapse, boats are set alight - WAR Online's quests are amazing)appearance with a simple,

'Ooooh, bugger me..'

To which I respond by cackling maniacally and shouting 'Ah, he'll make a pretty pyre! BRING HIM DOWN!'

I was met with a volley of agreements and warcries, and we set to work.

The giant did make for a lovely bonfire at the end, and I got some rather nifty loot for my part. PQ Loot is rolled for according to contribution, so damage dealt, damage healed, buffs given, objectives completed, etc. and I snagged a Gold Medal for my contribution and 400 Experience (XP) toward my Renown bar, as well as a Lesser Loot Bag with some shiny new gloves in.

And speaking of Renown, one of the quickest ways to fill up your Renown experience is, funnily enough, one of the most fun methods.

KILL ENEMY PLAYERS!

I haven't had quite as much fun in an MMO as I did that night, accompanying a gang of Order players in a Realm vs. Realm quest against the Forces of Destruction. It could have been far more interesting if there were more players of course, but we worked with what we had. We were running around the coastal township of Ermskrank and Feldenplatz, hunting Destruction players who just didn't have enough numbers to put up a good fight, and none of us were a high enough level to rush the NPCs at their base. Still, I killed 10 or so players and sometimes, that's all that matters.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I've gotten distracted by something WAR Online related, so to summarise, I ain't dead, I'm enjoying my new game, my bills are (mostly) sorted and all I really need now is a hot blind girl with no nerve endings to fall in love with.

Speak to you soon!

Love, Odsox.

"Actually, I don't think I am alright."

Forgive me if this seems a bit melodramatic, but I'm honestly not sure as to what just happened.

I was sat at work, idly grimacing at the slight pains along my stomach from, I assume, the escercises I've been doing recently along with the cycling and whatnot, when I think, Hmm, this hurts a bit. I wonder what causes a hernia?

As always, whenever I'm faced with a difficult question, I Googled it.

Here's what I started reading. I got about.. oh halfway down the page and began to get worried. I rested a hand on my gut, probing for lumps and thinking ha, how's a fat dude like me supposed to check for lumps through this? and grimaced again at a sudden spike of pain. I was probably pressing too hard.

Or was I?

Suddenly it all seemed a bit too similar to what I was reading, and the pain increased. Then my vision began to.. I don't know what to call it, it wasn't blurry, it was just.. intense. My face started to feel red, incredibly sensitive, and I sped-read the rest of the page. Terrified, I locked my computer and went to the toilet, getting 999 ready on my phone (because certain kinds of hernia can be lethal if not treated quickly enough) and fiddling with my belt buckle.

My vision suddenly went nuts, everything seeming incredibly bright and unfocused, while I genuinely lost control of my legs for a moment.

I'd managed to reach the toilets, and locked the door behind me, looking into the mirror. When had I started to sweat? A sheen of perspiration covered my face and arms, and I wiped it from my head, clutching at my stomach and sitting on the toilet with little ceremony. I sat my phone to one side, the little blue numbers still ready to go on the black screen. I stared at my hands. I felt so hot, so bloody hot! Was this a panic attack? A diabetic thing? Mum was diabetic and I know that one's weight can seriously affect diabetes. But I hadn't eaten loads of sweets or anything today, had I? And the pain in my stomach had died down to a mere twinge if I pressed it hard, rather than the sharp stabbing pain I would have thought indicated something as serious as a hernia. I suddenly had a terrible urge to defecate, and just as I thought about it I stopped. Surely attempting that sort of thing with a hernia would just exacerbate the situation? Now I was really scared. I stared at the door for a while, trying to think about anything other than being found dead in the toilets by my co-workers.

My vision stopped freaking out, and I felt the strange sensitivity around my face ease off as well. I stood up, fully expecting to fall over or stumble.

Nothing. I took another look in the mirror. The front of my shirt showed a few damp patches from where I'd been sweating so heavily, and I could feel as well as see the drips rolling down my forehead. I grabbed a handful of towels and soaked the worst of it up. I took a moment to gather myself before heading back out to work. Bless them, they hadn't even noticed my rush off. I sat back down at my desk, one hand still on my stomach.

The tiniest twinges of pain are still there now, and if this doesn't ease off by the time I get home (I'll be cycling again, probably not wise should this turn out to be as bad as I think it is) I'll have to call the ambulance out.

Anyway. I just felt this incredible urge to write this down. Probably a bit fatalistic on my part, but hey, you'd have known before anyone else, right?

Love, Odsox

"You are talking ABSOLUTE PEARS! ~~!"

Back again, back from the glorious golden days of the Reading Festival 2008.

Back at work.. back at home.. alone..

Alright, so I couldn't bring myself to write an Epic Festival Blog. Boo hoo, big fail. There are plenty of reasons, mind you.

A) I spent most of the festival in various degrees of intoxication.

B) Taking notes while there would have REALLY REALLY subtracted from the overall fun of the thing.

C) I don't have access to The Quote Book, which has the most amusing quotes from each Reading Festival in.

D) I spent most of the festival in various degrees of intoxication.

E) It's not like more than three people would read it anyway.

F) I SPENT MOST OF READING IN VARIOUS DEGREES OF INTOXICATION.

So instead I've decided to do what I do best: ramble!

Let’s start with some basics, shall we? I’m afraid the only examples of this year’s line-up poster I’ve been able to find have had that bloody ‘BUY NEXT YEAR’S TICKETS FOR THIS YEAR’S PRICES, FAGNUB LOL!!!!11’ thing taped over the front, so I’ve brought my line-up flyer into work. Here you go:



If you didn’t know, the big hype about this year was Friday’s headliners, Rage Against the Machine. They haven’t been seen as a band for something like eight years, so this was one seriously huge selling point for Festival Republic (the sponsors who took over from Carling and fucking BOTCHED it, I’ll rant more later), along with Sunday night’s headliners, the ever-awesome Metallica! Of course, ever the difficult one, I only really wanted to see Less Than Jake (greatest party band EVAR). Everything musical was downhill from there for me.

But we don’t do serious music reviews or news here at the Book of Odsox; just weird stuff and inane observations. And bitter ranting, of course. ;D

Now I hate going anywhere populated by myself. I don't know why, I just prefer to have an extra body there with me (probably to shove in front of oncoming crazed traffic) so how about a roll-call? In alphabetical order, too. These are the magnificent bastards who attended the festival and put up with me for five whole days:



Adam – Dumb, funny, guitarist, technically a G-list celebrity. Recently grew a Stellios-the-Paedophile beard.



Andy – Metal muso, likes to drink. Has ‘Andy Parties’ if you don’t keep an eye on him. This involves his disappearing for up to two hours then returning UNBELIEVABLY drunk.



Becky – A Lady, other half of Steve and acquaintance of James.



Bex – Spent a worrying amount of time in her tent every morning and didn’t get ruined enough! Quotes Black Books like a champion though.



Gem – The Duchess of the Festival, surrounded herself with more narcotics than Tony fucking Montana and sold balloons to kids.



Holly – Supermuso, had a bit of a freak out and threatened to rape one of the weird-looking boy stewards. (also did all the drugs)



Jam – Prince of jibbing, drummer. Drunk a lot of the boozes and wore the biggest pair of sunglasses ever. Also has a nifty MP3CD player.


James – A Gentleman who I have met previously (apparently)



Justin – Little J or Dustbin! My festival wingman and he who doth roll awesome herbal cigarettes. A fellow survivor of The Queue.



Matt – The Gay. Bless him, Matt represents Essex’ finest contribution to the Wrong’un list. (shamelesspromotion) Also opening up a new shop in Ipswich named Maraschino’s.



Mo – Man of the Match. This king of dudes got more messed up than anyone and even managed to terrify the Skins rejects who had camped a bit too close for our liking. Brilliant.



Sam – Another drummer who had a disgusting amount of effort and cheerfulness in him. Proper funny, though, and takes a seriously amusing picture.



Steve – A Gentleman, other half of Becky and acquaintance of James.



Richard - Dat’s me!

Before we go any further, I must express that at any point this blog could simply break down and stop. I’m writing about an entire five-day mash-up here, so it could go horribly wrong.

WEDNESDAY – “Sex Crime Wednesday!”

We began our journey (that’s Little J or Justin or Dustbin, depending on who’s talking to him, and I) at Colchester North Station at about 06:30 Wednesday morning, hopping on the train for the ridiculous sum of £32. Yes, Wednesday. If you get to the festival on Wednesday you can get in early for an extra tenner, plus we wanted to get a good spot.

Little did we know what was waiting for us.

The actual journey to Reading was uneventful and easy; we arrived a little after nine o’clock and started doing The Trudge from Reading station to the festival site on the Rivermead Leisure Area, lugging our bags and tent along with us. We spied the end of the queue fairly quickly as we rounded the corner by The Gorges gastropub and crossed the road by the petrol station. It was the work of a moment to dive on the end, enquire as to whether it was the right queue, then to start waiting.

Now a lot of things happened after we joined that queue. As we reached the end of the long line stretching down the road and headed into the main queueing area, we were treated to a delightful image and the first indication that Festival Republic was intent on fucking it all up for us. I’ll be honest with you, it’s difficult for me to talk about The Queue without descending into extreme profanity, shouting and flailing my arms violently. It was a bit like ‘nam. If you weren’t there, you’ll never really understand.

What was gathered in front of the Entrance sign wasn’t really a queue so much as a mob. Hundreds and hundreds of people gathered in front of this metal gate, being watched by daylgo-jacketed Scottish security guards (unsure as to why Reading’s security is usually made up of angry scots - and that’s not a generalisation; the fellows and ladies who guard Reading are usually angry people who happen to be Scottish!) and herded together like beautiful, tattooed, gum-chewing cattle.

I have reduced the 13-hour (YES 13 HOURS DON'T GET ME STARTED) saga of The Queue to a few highlights and low points, so as to spare my aching soul:

Boston.

Boston was an American fellow who thought he was a stand-up comedian, and while he held his own against the occasional ‘Shut up, yank!’ heckler, he wasn’t very good. And he never gave us any of his beer, the bastard. Yum-Yum got a beer, and he was only offering sexual favours. We had witty commentary and sweary ranting!

Legendary Graham.

About fifteen metres away from the Entrance, we noticed a sudden increase in people chanting, ‘Push him! Push him!’ and rubbernecked around to investigate. On a small hill to one side of the entrance, some poor schmuck had passed out drunk on his bag and was lying at the top of the hill with one very cheeky-looking security guard standing behind him, one foot held above Graham’s back. A quick nudge sent poor Graham tumbling down a few feet before he gained his bearings. The crowd suddenly went mad for entertainment (anything to relieve the soul-crushing boredom of The Queue) and proceeded to chant Graham into doing several very silly things such as stripping, dancing and downing booze, though he seemed quite pleased with all the attention.

‘Let’s Go Murphys!’

Every half an hour or so we heard someone doing the Dropkick Murphys chant. It always got a response, either slack or enthusiastic, but it always got a response.

Angry Mob.

After queuing for approximately ten hours we saw the little box where THREE (count ‘em) people were trying to serve the now THOUSANDS of people queuing. After the crowd began to rally a bit, a chant of ‘LET US IN! LET US IN!’ was taken up, followed by railing at the security guards, flinging fences over, throwing apples at the Box Offices and generally being seriously pissed off. The excitement died down a bit though, what with everyone realising the futility of it all and succumbing to the miasma of despair.

‘Would you guys like some Haribo?’

My personal favourite, this. We’d been in The Queue for approximately twelve hours by this point. We’d been crushed, pushed, sworn at, gotten spattered with beer and water, been driven nearly insane by the rate of movement (one metre every forty-five minutes with sporadic variation) and gotten a glimpse of horror when the crowd squashed itself against the metal fencing to beg for water from the guards, so we weren’t in a spectacularly brilliant mood. There wasn’t enough room to skin up, we’d taken the easy route and decided not to bring any alcohol with us, and even if I’d brought it with me I don’t think I would have risked my Nintendo DS in that crowd.

So when the pretty young lady in the green hoodie turned around with a smile and asked if we’d like some Haribo, the break from the depression of the Queue was like a happy beam of light in a cloud of despair. That was the best damn jelly heart I’ve ever eaten. She introduced herself as Heidi, and from that point things got a bit better.

It was starting to get dark, and after sending Little J out to do a quick reccy, we discovered that there was another, MUCH FASTER line that had opened up just twenty metres behind us. Needless to say, we joined it pretty sharpish. This was an amazing relief from the misery of The Queue. There was room to swing a cat (and more importantly, skin up!) and we soon got down to friendly, chatty, smoky banter with the few people around us, including young Heidi, who exceeded all expectations by revealing a pack of shortbread biscuits OM NOM NOM NOM and being a cheerful smoker herself!

And eventually, we arrived at the Wristband Exchange. I cannot express the joy that flooded through me when the lady behind the stall clamped the metal lock down onto the ‘READING WEEKEND 08’ fabric wristband around my left arm. After that it was a case of finding the campsite, setting up and getting wasted, which we did with abandon.

THURSDAY – “RAPE YOU!”

Beer for breakfast OHYEH, that and a herbal cigarette. And pleading with the others not to do any more classy stuff before noon. Don’t know why I bother, they’re shameless and disgraceful creatures. I hope they never change. :D

About an hour after I’d joined the campsite for the morning, Holly emerged from her tent. Now Holly isn’t exactly what you’d call a morning person, much less a people person (by the standard definition, anyway), so when her arrival coincided with the appearance of two festival Greenies (which is how I shall refer to ‘them buggers that give you bags and tell you to pick up your rubbish so you can get a beer’, it was fairly obvious that she was going to Happen to them.

But not before Mo beat her to it! After explaining the idea to young Mo, the idea being that you fill up a bag with cans, take it to the stewards and get a beer OR fill up a bag with squashed cans and get three beers, Mo had them explain it again.

And again.

And again.

All the while, the male Greenie, who was a lanky, blonde, effeminate type, was trying weakly to explain the concept to Holly, who is above all else a festival veteran and definitely knew more than he did about the entire shebang. Holly’s responses were growing more and more vitriolic, culminating in a yelled response to an innocent question.

The blonde Greenie (whose companion was STILL attempting to slake Mo’s thirst for knowledge on the intricacies of beer-can collecting) asked, ‘Do you know how you can get more money?’, to which Holly’s response was swift and loud.

‘RAPE YOU!’

Holly assures me that she’d meant to shout ‘mug you’, but what with having only just woken up, she wasn’t fully in gear.

Needless to say the Greenies cleared off shortly after that.

I was also forced on an Epic Journey to Tescos this day, accompanied by a stoic (and classy) Gem and Mo, because I'd brought everything with me except booze, bog roll and t-shirts.

WE WENT ON A BOAT. IT WAS AWESOME.

The double-decker boat the festival organisers had commissioned to shuttle festival-goers between campsites and town was a raggedy old thing which had all of its furniture and accessories shuffled away and replaced by a top-deck DJ, shedloads of speakers and a dancefloor on the lower deck! It was too early to be dancing, however, so we stood at the fore watching the army of swans along the Thames and shouting at people on the riverbank. My companions weren't really in any state to be in civilised company, as I found out when I left them on guard by my shopping trolley while I nipped back and got some extra crap, only to find them wailing 'There you are! Never leave us again! It went wrong without you!' on my return.

We splurged on a taxi back to the festival, which was a fantastic idea, even if I do say so myself.

As I recall, the rest of Thursday consisted of the simple joys that come with Festivals, ie getting completely wasted before noon (oh yes, we were) and messing about at the campsite before all them other buggers turned up. It was great. And there were many.. many.. balloons.

For the unenlightened among you, balloons are what I like to think of as fun drugs. Now don’t take that the wrong way, I’m as against the use of heavy narcotics or excessive use of any narcotic like any sane person.

But balloons are fun, AS LONG AS THEY’RE TAKEN PROPERLY.

Thursday was also the day Adam and Andy arrived to fulfil our Essex quota and set up their pop-up tent, the cheeky sods. Their arrival was somewhat epic, seeing as they got drunk over the course of five hours while searching for the correct campsite.

I think six or so of us were seated around the campsite, just chilling. All of a sudden, from off in the distance, we heard a noise..

“Ooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!”

Being Essex-in-the-vein, both myself and Gemma instantly responded.

“OOOOOOOOIIIIIIIII!!!”

We were rewarded with another questing call.

“Oooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiii!!!”

This time the whole camp joined in.

“OOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!”

And then Adam strolled around a tent, lugging his packed up tent and an open can of Carlsberg to raucous applause and many sweary greetings. That Essex Introduction was probably one of my favourite festival moments ever (though as I found out recently, it turns out the ORIGINAL OI wasn't actually Adam. ..nevermind, he stole it pretty well!)

As I recall, the rest of that Thursday ended up devolving into another giant mash-up, although many of us got to bed early for bands the next day! EEEEE!

PART THREE: FRIDAY – “Rage who?”

Okay, now what you'll need to understand here is that a LOT of the actual festival day time (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) was devoted to watching and listening to bands, and because I don't trust myself to do music reviews properly (I just LOVE music, I don't LIVE it) the following entries might be a bit garbled or short.

Everyone was up bright and early on Friday, well, either that or they just hadn't slept, and most of the campsite was raring to go. I started my day as I usually do when at festivals, with a beer and a herbal cigarette, and was very pleased to see most of the others doing something similar.

One of the greatest things about Reading is the way everyone gathers together in the camp and just talks for ages. We'd gotten a couple of programmes and timetables between us, as well as downloaded Clash Finders from the online festival forums, so the air was full of profanity, smoke and IWANNASEE sentences. No-one seemed too bothered about Anti-Flag's first showing (they played twice on Friday!) or any bands until The Loved Ones on the Radio 1 Lock-Up Stage. Best stage EVAR by the way, the Lock-Up is the usual haunt of the punk and serious rock bands, with some metal or just weirdness mixed in for variation. TLO played amazingly well and brought a real burst of energy on stage with them, especially the lead singer. We were standing off to the side of the tent with a good view of the stage, and set up a minicamp where Gem held court, even going so far as to begin her odd habit of 'nesting'.

I trundled off to do a food (which I believe I eventually gave up on) and came back for the last part of Dizzee Rascal's set. Man but that dude knows how to work a crowd! Normally one would think that a 'ip-'op artist like Dizzee would be bottled or booed, but he got an awesome response from the main stage and got the crowd jumping. Most of us reconvened at the Main Stage to watch Serj Tankian, and he started out okay, but seeing as my memory gets a bit.. I'll be honest, completely fucking blank at that stage, I'll assume he turned out to be a bit shit and we ended up getting wasted instead.

There was a lot of mucking about in the line-up over the weekend, and I'd been told earlier that Less Than Jake (Friday's Lock-Up Stage headliners) had been dropped to second place so Pennywise were going to be on last. It was a bit of a kick in the nuts, but hey, it meant I got to see LTJ earlier, right?

Anyway, Goldfinger were the next band I saw, and they were great. Trumpets and guitars, if you've never heard any Goldfinger, I highly recommend you downlo- I mean legitimately acquire their back catalogue. They were good fun, and here's a little hint of the sense of community and eclectic taste you'll find at Reading: During their set, Goldfinger played one of their most well-recognised songs, Superman. I was stood near the back with a good view, behind a little skinhead chavvy fellow in a Nike hoodie and tracksuit bottoms (who we will call Terry) and a lanky goth fellow stood next to him looking miserable (and we'll call him Dave). About halfway through Superman, I noticed Terry bobbing his head and singing all the words with a big grin. Dave looked a bit worried, and he caught Terry's eye. Oho, I thought, this should be good. Then, with an even bigger grin, Terry says to Dave (or at least mouthed the words, it was VERY loud in that tent), 'You don't know this one? Oh mate! It's brilliant!'.

You know, that cheered me up immensely. I was already quite cheery, but that little snippet really made my day. Goldfinger closed with the all-German version of Nena's 99 Red Ballooons, which was spectacular even though I was half-mumbling along and embarassing myself.

Next up.. Pennywise!? What the..

Yes, it turned out that the rumour about LTJ dropping a place was just that. I was surprised but also very very pleased, so much so that I enjoyed all of the politico-punk band's set, even shouting out for a few requested tracks before the end (listen to Greed, it's excellent). The band themselves seemed a tad bit lacklustre, a bit too serious, although that may have been just my opinion. Anyway, they played really well and closed efficiently.

ON TO THE JAKE.

People began pouring out of the tent, off to the Main Stage to see Rage Against the Machine. More fool them (incidentally, RATM refused to allow any of their gig to be televised. That’ll show Thatcher, right kids?!). Gem, Adam and I (I can't remember who else stayed because we were all classy at the time - what a good idea!) marched forward into the scrum, ending up about five people away from the barriers. So good SOOOOO GOOD. Adam, who like myself recently purchased LTJ's new album, LTJ GNV FLA, which is an abbreviation of the band's hometown of Gainesville Florida, was as excited as Gem and I, and we were chatting and discussing what songs we thought they'd play from the new set and which old numbers they'd go for. I was desperate to hear Does the Lion City Still Roar?, Handshake Meet Pokerface and Golden Age of My Negativity from the new album, and to be honest anything they played would have been amazing.

A sudden blare of trumpets and the opening to Lion City.. heralded the band’s arrival and they leaped onto the stage, resplendent in the spotlights. Gem handed us glowsticks and we set about skanking as hard as possible.

As per usual, LTJ played a blinding set, interspersing their unbelievably catchy sound with stupid jokes and ridiculous dress-up games. I managed to make eye contact once or twice, which I’ll admit made my inner fanboy happy in the scrotal region. The Jake were on top form, their crowd of rabid fans laughing and happy in the intimacy of the Lock-Up Stage. They stormed through a couple of new numbers, and certainly surprised me by playing old tunes Dopeman and How’s My Driving, Doug Hastings?. Only semi-mainstream hit All My Best Friends Are Metalheads was devoted to Rage Against The Machine, whose crowd had stretched all the way to the back of the Lock-Up Stage! LTJ encourage crowd participation at their gigs, one of the many reasons they’re just so much fun to watch, and hauled a couple of awkward-looking teens on stage to dance.

To be honest, the gig was too good to describe without using wild gesticulation and raised voices, but the band brought their set to a thunderous close with the song that brought them millions of fans in the mid-noughties, rock-club hit Gainesville, Rock City, again named after their hometown.

After the band closed up and filtered off stage, we lingered for a while, still classy and fiddling with glowsticks, chanting along with a small crowd for an encore.

Sadly there was no encore, but that performance was the best I saw all weekend, and (musically at least) it was all downhill for me afterwards.

SATURDAY: “I can’t even take it back ‘cause it’s full of bloody spoons!”

Bloody hell but it was hot Saturday morning. I emerged from my ten at about tennish, to find Adam passed out in one of the campsite chairs wearing about four layers of clothing and a blanket. Evidently he’d gotten even classier after I went to bed Friday night. The majority of Saturday morning, long associated with the phrase, ‘Shit Indie Day’, was spent lazing around the campsite because there are never any decent bands on before about five o’clock. However, several members of the group left to go and see new fish Random Hand open up the Lock-Up Stage, as well as Hi-Fi Hand Grenades who, I’m assured, are rather good.

I for one didn’t give a toss for any of the bands on before Flogging Molly, an awesome Irish punk band who I must have seen going on eight times now. I seem to recall slumping in my chair with a can of beer and a herbal cigarette again, when young Jam emerged with his MP3 player and proceeded to alter my views on bands I’ve never listened to.

Ever heard of Frank Turner? He used to be the frontman for a band called Million Dead (cheery title, isn’t it?) but became a solo artist a little while ago. It turns out that he’s one of the best singer-songwriters EVER. Jam, Mo, Dustbin, Gem (I think), the still comatose Adam and I did some serious chillaxing that morning. Eventually the time for bands rolled around, and after a delightfully short trip to the arena (probably the best recurring thing about the entire festival… although the beer was good, TUBORG FTW) we, that is to say Gem, Dustbin and I, got to the Lock-Up Stage just in time. We set up another of our impressive minicamps and got down to listening to some Oirish Punk Rawk. Thanks to the heat, mind you, I ended up blanking out for most of the afternoon, and honestly can’t remember anything after about halfway through the Flogging Molly gig.

Which implies that it was a brilliant night, surely.

Alright, alright, I vaguely recall heading over to White Campsite at some point, which involved a lot of walking and.. oh yes! That’s what was wrong! I was having a bit of a weird night myself, I remember everyone else being classy or drunk, but there was something strange about that one for me. I wasn’t having enough fun. We picked up some of Gem’s balloons and we WENT ON A BOAT AGAIN! Man did I love going on the boat.

SUNDAY – “METALLICA SUNDAY!”

This was it. Sunday. The final day of the festival. Fuck but the time flies past at Reading. This was New Year’s Eve for a few of us, me included, so tonight was going to have to be messy as anything.

But first - !

Sunday morning started out as being a fairly dour affair, what with everyone realising that it was the final day, but the atmosphere soon picked up as most of us remembered that the selling point of Sunday was the fact that everyone gets beyond ruined after all the bands finish. We got off to a good start after that, getting through several beers and other, more dubious drinks (props to Gem’s dad for gifting us with two bottles of his homemade wine – lovely stuff if you don’t mind stripping all the enamel off of your teeth) along with several balloons. If I recall, most of the camp was pretty classy before noon. We’d decided to head in to the arena early and set up camp at the main stage, in our time-honoured Sunday tradition. We made a rather impressive set this year, with something like ten festival chairs, a couple of blankets doing the rounds, plenty of booze, herbal cigarettes and classy people.

First up on our personal bill was the Plain White T’s, who only needed to play Delilah so that Gem could have a stoner-moment, apparently. I vaguely recall them being somewhat interesting to listen to, albeit a bit boring. Still, the sound wasn’t too good and I was very distracted by my sketchbook.

The Dropkick Murphys were up next and they came out the way they always do, opening their set with Sinead O’Connor and the Chieftains’ version of Foggy Dew, which is one of my favourite songs at the moment. What with the state of affairs being incredibly classy amongst our little circle, all I can really remember about most of the gig was that it was really good and everyone was enjoying themselves.

Around about here we had something of a schism in the group, which had split up earlier. Young Jam, along with Mo, Holly, Matt and several of the others, had gorn orf to the right hand side of the stage and set up their minicamp between the big view screen toward the back of the crowd (provided for people who for various reasons can’t get to the front) and the far side of the crowd. After some debate, which mainly consisted of ‘I don’t wanna move, I’m too wasted’ and then broke down into ‘Okay, okay, but you first’, our little group sidled over to join the others.

This turned out to be a brilliant idea.

As the group gelled together again, the next few hours became a cheerful, overly happy blur. We met up with our festival companion from the past few years, a mysterious fellow only ever known as Hash Fudge Man. And that’s true, by the way. Because we set up our minicamp in virtually the same place every year for the past five years, HFM naturally gravitates toward our position because he knows what good customers we are. We’ve honestly never found out his name. This year he provided us with plentiful bounty and stayed for a quick chat before bidding us another very fond farewell and promising to meet up with us again next year. Hash Fudge Man is one of the constantly brilliant moments of the festival.

We’d formed a great, two-row semicircle by this point and as Feeder took to the stage there were plenty of herbal cigarettes making the rounds.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Feeder, or even seen them live. They’re a firm festival favourite though, seeing as they play just about every festival EVERY BLOODY YEAR.

This shouldn’t be held against them, however, rather it should be praised as one of their virtues.

Thanks to being passed a particularly herbal cigarette during the idle of the set, young Mo left the rest of the festival behind for a while as he had a Moment. Festival Moments are a very special thing, and should be savoured by anyone who manages to have one. Mo looked like he was having a fantastic time, chewing his face and spacing out, singing along.

Now, according to the line up oop thur ^^^ Slipknot were on after Feeder, which would have been pretty bad for me, following up mellowish indie rock with shouty hardcore death metal and a bunch of twats in masks, but instead we were treated to a band who’d originally been billed as first up; Mindless Self Indulgence. Fronted by a fellow who refers to himself as Jimmy Urine, I can only sum up their live performance one way.

It was complete bollocks. They were noisy rather than musical, looked as though they were trying far too hard with their make up and fancy outfits and elaborate hair, and Mr. Urine was a prize prick for the entire set. I’ve never seen such a total wanker fronting a band before and I’ve seen 50 Cent.

So that was an hour or so of getting REALLY classy because the music was too awful to stand.

(as a side note, I would like to point out that MSI’s recorded albums are really quite good; it’s just their live stuff that appears to be shite)

About midway through their set, however, I was treated to a very nice egotistic moment when my sketchbook was borrowed by two completely wasted young ladies, probably jailbait, and stared at. I was doodling in Gem’s notebook at this point (she’d been writing something in mine, see what we did there?), so I listened to the girls making oohs and ahs, interspersing their mumbling with the occasional ‘WHOAH THAT’S NUTS’ or ‘Eeeeuuuurrrgh, what’s THAT?’ and was very, very pleased when they returned the book, telling me what an amazing collection it was. I can’t say I valued their opinion too much, what with them being fucked on goodness knows what at the time, but it’s always nice to receive a compliment, innit?

After the debacle of Mindless Self Indulgence, the entire crowd had suddenly gotten an awful lot bigger, and as the banner was drawn up at the back of the Main Stage, I realised why.

Have you ever heard of Tenacious D?

That’s right, Tenacious D. And their set was a STORMER. I really can’t describe how brilliant it was, but I will give you a couple of buzzword highlights.

“God damn it, Kyle, I told you we were dressing as WIZARDS!!” – Jack Black in a cloak, on guitarist Kyle Gass’ cartoon lizard costume.

THE METAL!!!

A brilliant reprise of the Rock Off versus the Devil from the climax of the band’s infamous comedy musical, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, complete with snappily-dressed Satan.

“Man, that’s a slow-ass train. Let’s rock that train, speed the fucker up. Ready?” – Jack Black, shortly before leading the band in an amazing impromptu rock song aimed AT the train which passed by the festival very, very slowly.

Eventually The D closed their set with arguably their most well-recognised song, Tribute, which of course EVERYONE sang along with. The lights stopped whirling and the between-set videos fired up on the gigantic screens flanking the stage. As the crowd somehow became even more tightly-packed and agitated,the subject of discussion moved on: Metallica were on next.

I’ve seen Metallica before. I saw them a couple of years ago, headlining on Sunday, just like this year. They were awesome then, and it was highly likely they were going to be awesome this evening.

But I wouldn’t really know because I buggered off about three songs in!

AHAHAHAHAHA! XD

That’s right! My feet were KILLING me from all the walking of the weekend so I decided I’d rather go back to the campsite and get really REALLY ruined for the final night’s festivities rather than hang around, watch a band who I admittedly like but don’t by any means love and then get caught in the utter crush that accompanies Sunday night’s arena evacuation.

Back at the campsite we made FIRE! Well, Justin made fire and I admired the flames and kept ‘em fuelled while toying with the edges of the firepit using my shoe.

And then we got really classy.

At about 2AM, Gem, Mo and I decided that we should go on a final wander in order to flog as many of Gem’s remaining balloons as possible. While we suffered an EPIC FAIL in that department, we did nonetheless have an awesome wander. Mo and I Happened to several unfortunates, and I had the forethought to take my “I HATE IT HERE.” Satchel with me, loaded down with spare beers.

Awesome.

We saw many amusing sights on that wander. We ran into and chatted to groups of people far, FAR more wasted than us, made snide remarks about security (because let’s face it: they might do a good job but they’ve come to expect it) and got completely terrified by some of the other campers.

Hm? Terrified, yes! Honestly got a bit sketchy at one point during the wander, as we arrived in Green Camp only to discover that the fuckers had gone tribal!

We rounded the corner into Green, having heard the massive clamour set up by a ton of people bashing metal onto metal indiscriminately, and were met by the utterly devastated Green Toilets, which sat forlornly in a cesspool of mud and less savoury substances, it’s doors and frame wrecked and warped by fire and destruction. A nearby campfire lit the scene as sixty or so people swung bits of toilet at a pile of refuse, making what had sounded like tribal drumming when a mile or so away but up close resembled nothing less than full-on noise. These people were mud-stained, wearing scraps of festival clothing, some of them wore dayglo paint or stupid hats, but all of them were hooting and shouting while slamming metal onto metal.

We made our way past fairly quickly and trotted back to the relative safety of Yellow Camp and our campsite, where Mo proceeded to Happen to just about everyone, including the camp of twelve-year old Skins rejects that, according to some of our lot, had access to far classier bitz than what would have been considered the norm for a gang of adolescent indie kids. The drinking went on until the wee hours, or so I’m told. At one stage we were treated to a satosfying BOOM in the distance, and everyone shot out of their chairs like meerkats to inspect the orange glow off to the South. The toilets were on fire. And quite impressive they were too.

I threw in my towel at the reasonable time of 4AM, with the aim of being up and packed by maybe eight the next day.

BOOO BOOOO WRONG BOOOO

The next morning was spent tidying up the tent, getting as classy as possible before having to go home (well, those of us who didn’t need to drive, anyway) and trying not to break down in tears because we were forced to go home.

So after wishing everyone a Happy New Year, I followed young Dustbin and our impromptu chauffeur, Adam, back to the White Camp car park, in order to begin the long, lazy journey home.

It was a good one, and by far the longest amount of time I’ve spent chatting to Adam for about three months, which was good fun. We listened to a shedload of music while young Justin lazed on the backseat, and only interrupted our homeward trek for the traditional stop at South Mimms services, and Burger King OM NOM NOM NOM!

And here I am.


Obviously I’ve missed out an absolute shedload of information and it’s highly likely that some of my info is messed up as it is. I’ll excuse myself from too much responsibility by mentioning once again that I was VERY VERY RUINED for most of the weekend.

Right, now I’m completely bloody knackered, so I’m going to finish my coffee and get back to work, if you’d be so kind as to let me rest my aching fingers.






























Well go on, bugger off!

Love, Odsox.