I can't sleep, so rather than read a book or pursue a less polite method of inducing sleep (hope I don't have to spell that out for you), I have decided to inflict bloggery upon you, my faithful, ever-watchful minions.
Let us speak of dreams. Rather, let me speak of dreams while you read attentively and loyally.
My dreams have of late revolved around two or three recurring themes. The first of these, or at least the first which springs to mind, is that of hope.
Don't worry, I'm not going to get too mushy.
If you've been keeping up with my recent return to the Book of Odsox (and if you haven't, don't worry, I forgive you - I am constantly aware of how tedious these rambling diatribes can be) then you should be aware that I have, against all odds, been chosen as the consort of a beautiful woman. This has resulted in my more, shall we say gentle?, emotions blearily opening their eyes and then suffering a stuttering form of cardiac arrest as they suddenly realise that not only was that old story about something called "hope" in fact true, it left out some vital information; it changes your entire existence at a fundamental level.
Anyway, this newfound hope has been encroaching on my slumbering mind in ways which are alternately shallow and heartwarming.
Over the past three months or so I have found money in my dreams. Never the overly dramatic "big score" kind, mark you, but amounts which cause a tremor in my dreamscape as the groggy logical side of my brain gets a jolt that pushes me closer to wakefulness. Things like finding a £20 note on the floor, or going to a cash machine (gosh, my dreams sound exciting, don't they?) and discovering that someone has left their money in the slot, almost £150, and there is no-one around to see me take it with a massive guilt-free grin. I'm not sure what this is a metaphor for - if it is a metaphor at all, of course. That is to say, I am already well aware that I need money. It's annoying how it keeps cropping up in my dreams though.
The other form this dream of hope tends to take is that of a specific woman - I'm not trying to be mushy here, I'm being honest. In the occasional bad dream there are these flashes of her, sort of like looking at the dream through a zoetrope, that instantly change what should be a saddening or horrible experience ino just another manageable fantasy tinged with foggy pink bliss. I catch sight of her in my peripheral vision, just the briefest glimpse, and it sends a pleasant sort of thrumming through whicever dreamscape I'm in at the time. Usually this also leads to my overcoming (however temporarily) any obstacles I might be facing.
Now, the second recurring theme is one I am happy to mention, simply because it strikes me as absurd and everyone should be able to find humour in absurdity.
In my flying dreams, which occured only rarely for a while but are now making a comeback, like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards or sushi, I do not simply soar aloft of my own volition of with wings of any kind; I have a jetpack. Not a swish Iron Man jetpack either, no, an old-school James Bond number with joystick controls and temperamental thrusters that need extremely cautious gunning lest my portly body be smashed into the ground and rendered into nothing more than a sort of chunky red paste full of gritty white bits and glimmering shards of my once-marvellous flying machine.
The jetpack is a wonderful toy and I constantly find my dream self hurtling through cityscapes and towering forests of lurching trees that shake their branches in frustration as I roar through their midst without a care beyond finding somewhere relatively clear for me to try some daring aerobatics - which, incidentally, I have never found the courage to attempt. The cityscapes are a far more forgiving environment, save for the occasional Thing that I suddenly realise has snuck up from nowhere and is now tearing a path through the urban jungles as it pursues my stuttering, jinking flight path in a series of disturbingly predatory leaps and dives. Just to reassure you, I have yet to be caught by one of the Things, though once I did gun the wrong thruster and end up flying straight back at one of the horrible shadowy bastards. I am genuinely ashamed to say that I have never actually seen one of the Things up close, always squeezing my eyes tight shut and miraculously avoiding doom somehow.
The jetpack is an incredibly good bit of fun on the occasions when I get to really muck about with it, sending me rocketing skyward for an unparallelled view of my dream cities and panoramic forests, and the lurch in my stomach when the speedy descent begins is something I've learned to savour.
Enough of that though.
The final theme which has been in my dreams for years uncounted is one that truly plagues my sleeping mind: Pure, merciless, physical pain.
Not so unusual, I think, even for someone in my position, whose track record for serious injury really isn't that remarkable. Sure I've suffered plenty of head injuries, broken a couple of bones, still have a piece of graphite in my foot and earned my share of cycling-related scars, but there are people out there missing limbs, for fuck's sake. My dreams should not involve these levels of bodily harm, surely? Unless it's the old Catholic guilt ramping up again.
There's this particular one which has happened several times, and it never ceases to send my dream-self into a spiral of pain-induced insanity. You may have heard it before, actually.
All I can see is my left hand. There are leather buckles strapping down my forearm, holding it rigidly in place, and several extremely tight circles of what look like fishing wire wrapped around the top segments of my fingers, which are protruding over the edge of some kind of metal table. I can't move my hand. When I try, all I get is a vague tremble in response. I can feel the dread rising when, out of nowhere, a sledgehammer slams down and snaps all four of my fingers at once, right where they join my palm, and the pain is almost indescribable. It's a lightning bolt of agony that flashes up my arm and into my suddenly shattered mind - I can feel the rest of my body writhing and roaring, I can feel my right fist repeatedly slamming into whatever surface I've been secured to, but nothing distracts from the burning, ruinous pain coming from my fingers.
That's nice, isn't it?
There are other pain-dreams that haunt me. The one where I feel a kind of pushing pain in my teeth, then go into the mirror, is a good one. On closer inspection I can see my teeth moving in my gums, and as I raise my hands to probe gingerly at them, there's a horrible crunching sensation and the two parts of my jaw suddenly snap against each other, tearing away from my skull in a spray of splintered bone and hot blood. I would note that rather than simply blacking out here, I reel away from the mirror clutching pathetically at my ruined face in terror and sheer agony, only to collapse onto a gritty, grey surface that scrapes at the remnants of my face and all over my skin while I give a kind of gurgling howl, unable in any way to stop the pain.
Anyway, I think I've written enough for now.
Thanks for stopping by.
Love, Odsox.
Showing posts with label odsox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label odsox. Show all posts
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
"Swing Life Away..."
I'm back! With a vengeance! And a sandwich!
So how're things on your side of the internet?
Uhuh?
Yeah?
Really?
Shut the fuck up for a minute, will you?
I've got a whole new bag of shit to complain about, as well as old favourite hates, but I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. See, since the whole social networking thing came around I've turned into a bit of a fiend. No, wait. Friend. That's the one. Well. I say friend. I mean acquaintance.
I'm still in the same old shitbox job and I still live in Colchester, but thanks to a whole bunch of people I've worked out that life isn't as gods-damned terrible as I may have thought in the past. There are actually humans out there that don't despise me on sight. I know, right? I mean, I still hate me on sight about 90% of the time, but I know me way better than they do, so I've got an excuse.
These friends of mine have buoyed me up time and again, even when they're taking the piss. And everyone takes the piss. It's a natural thing - you see someone who you know is in some way better than you are, you make yourself feel better by dissing them in any way imaginable. These friends of mine have been responsible for some incredible times and by the Ruinous Powers it's time I started to appreciate them more.
So mountainous thanks to these friends of mine and a cement-mixer full of gratitude for their tolerance, which is admittedly pushed to its limits a lot.
Now, I expect you're wondering what's prompted me to actually write something that isn't filler, aren't you? Well, keep wondering, that's for me to know and for you to find out, you cheeky interweb spongmonkeys, you.
But I have so much to write about! So very, very much! Let's start out with a bit of linksharing, shall we? Most of you will have already seen or heard this, but bear with the rookies and let them have a shot, yeah?
A favourite of mine, this fellow tears the hearts out of so many videogames it should be illegal, but if there's anyone who can spit bile, venom and raw bitterness like it's going out of fashion, it's Yahtzee:
If I could have a job reviewing games, I would not be able to do it in half as amusing a fashion as that guy.
Now, on to the subject of fitness.
I have never been and, even were my best intentions carried out, probably never will be fit and/or in shape. It is a fact brought on by many years of stewing in the conviction that I will never do many of the things that most of you might consider inconsequential. This includes going for long walks, not wasting five hours of my day playing videogames and critiquing pornography in my own sweaty, rancid fashion, having a girlfriend, having a career, cooking anything more complicated than a roast dinner, or turning down that third Jagerbomb despite the fact that I despise the wretched concoction.
Despite this, something about the gym and things like excercise does appeal to me. I like to think it has something to do with my very, very early years, which were invariably spent running around, bumping into things, falling off things and scraping my shins, knees, elbows, forearms, back, shoulders and more often than not, my face, on a very short brick wall or other slightly gravelly surface. So yes, the thought of spending an hour or two mucking about with machinery that somehow, and I still haven't quite worked this out yet, makes me better both physically and apparently as a person is very attractive .
But at the other end of the scale there is the constant paranoia and overwhelming fear of judgement that has haunted me since my youth and the hazily-remembered lessons about good old dependable Catholic guilt. I blame the other gym attendees. You know them. The keep-fit cunts. They're already in great shape but THAT'S NOT ENOUGH FOR THEM, oh no! All eating up the treadmill miles with their gleaming, toned bodies and form-fitting outfits that, if they could, would speak to me. They would say, in a disdainful, superior tone, "What are you, you strange, blubbery thing, to be tainting our presence with your odour of fear and your malformed excuse for a body?"
To which I would reply, in my meekest voice, while clutching forlornly at my ratty towel and not once looking up from the sparkling laminated wood flooring, "Nobody."
"Precisely!" they would roar in triumphant chorus, before dissolving into fits of hysterical laughter as I quiety take my leave.
What we need is a gym for fat people. Don't look at me all dead-eyed like that, I'm serious. When you join up, you have yourself weighed, BMI done, blood pressure, all the stuff that makes you feel bad when the little numbers finally roll to a halt, and get told the bad news. Then, a specially trained Chunky Chomper (no "wellness advisors" or "life trainers" in this gym, no sir!) will advise you of your ideal weight based on Science. This is what you aim for. You reach your ideal weight through a series of simple excercises, like Chase the Kit-Kat, or Where Did Those Knife-Wielding Chavs Come From?, and then, your membership is terminated, any remaining credit from your monthly payments will be refunded, and you get a great big cake, made almost entirely from bran and chocolate. Bran's healthy, isn't it?
No keep-fit cunts will be allowed at this gym. Only fellow fatties and those whose training is nearly complete. Thus, when training, you will have no disgustingly taut bums or soul-crushingly perky breasts to contend with, no, only one simple motivator: You don't want to be as fat as that guy whose gargantuan arse is devouring the seat from that Megavelobikeatron, do you? THEN GET RUNNING!
I suppose the only serious thing that would get me pursuing a more trim figure, which would still ultimately be barrel-chested with man-boobs and a Judge Dredd jawline, would be the attention of a lady*.
Alright, alright, stop laughing, entertain my fantasy for a moment here: One of the constant, constant, stereotyped abilities, nay, prerogatives, of a partner is changing things until they get what they want - DON'T TRY AND PLAY THE OFFENDED GENDER CARD HERE you'll notice I said "partner" not "woman" and besides there aren't any card inserts or expansions for the Book of Odsox - and they're good at it. I've discussed this with several friends, both male and female, and it's a fact. If a woman you like, or man you like, or animated canine-morph or WHATEVER, wants you to change, you fucking do it, or everything turns to shit in a far shorter time than it might have before.
So maybe that's the trick: buy an evil-minded Russian bride/groom/dog-in-a-suit and set him or her the unenviable task of sending you to the gym.
Either way, it's about time I shuffled off. I have another blog to plan and a half-arsed novel draft to dig out.
Thanks for stopping by!
Love,
Odsox
*Apparently gym buddies are good as well. Safety in numbers, that actually makes sense.
Monday, 20 April 2009
"Go On and Pull That Trigger!"
Just a little brain-zephyr's worth of writing for you while I think of a better update:
The bloody mess was spread over a space of at least ten feet, broken bones and flesh scattered like patches of macabre plant life amongst the dry scrub of the plain. What hadn’t been taken by scavengers was playing host to a massive swarm of damned flies, their tiny black bodies part of a hungering army which scurried eagerly amid the gore.
A cloud of them filled the air around what was left of the corpse. Their strange, shrill buzzing was intensely loud despite the open terrain. To anyone listening closely enough, the noise could be heard as hundreds of high, thin screams that could drive a man insane if he listened for too long.The hunter swept his gaze across the thickest patch of the stuff, where rib bones stuck out of caked blood and rotting meat. He’d seen three more killings like this one recently, but this, absurdly, was the tidiest of the bunch. He checked the grip of his pistols and looked at the surroundings.
Parched, gritty plains extended in every direction, dotted here and there with spindly, skeletal trees and unremarkable rocks of all shapes and sizes. The scrub was a no-man's land constantly baked by the glaring, oppressive suns, with little cover for a predator, let alone a man-eater, and the few creatures that called it home could provide no real sustenance. Aside from the damned flies, whose screaming would become maddeningly loud whenever they were attacked, a few small lizards and scorpions could be found scurrying about the baked ground. These might have kept a lone eagle or reaperwing from starving, but a man-eater would die after a day in this environment.
‘Miles from anywhere, no sign of tracks, nowhere near in range of any man-eaters and besides, they wouldn’t have left anything, let alone this much mess.’
‘What a bloody shambles.’
‘What do you reckon?’ asked the taller man, switching his gaze to his partner.
The hunters were nearly identical in their clothing; broad, shady hats protected their eyes from the yellow and orange suns glaring down on the plain. They wore battered brown dusters over their clothes (unremarkable denim jeans and plain, simple shirts) and their hands covered by finely worked black leather gloves. The only real difference lay in their choice of armaments.
The shorter, slimmer man, with cold blue eyes and a scraggly black beard, wore a modified rifle which had a long body and a thick, oppressive muzzle. There were also two very serious-looking knives at his belt, which he toyed with idly.
Ka, the taller of the pair, was a heavyset man with two massive pistols holstered at his waist and a red bandanna tied around the bicep of his coat. A scratched, well-used axe peeked from the harness on his back. His brown eyes flicked nervously from the corpse to his partner.
‘Oll? I said, what do you reckon?’
His companion squatted down by the remains, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat from side to side in an effort to clear the damned flies from his sight. He reached out with a gloved hand and dipped a finger into the mess, stirring it around before gingerly pulling a broken rib from the muck. He inspected it thoughtfully, then tossed it over his shoulder, a handful of damned flies screaming helplessly after their meal.
‘Oll? You goin’ deaf, mate?’
The shorter man stood up, replacing his hat and placing his hands on his hips.
‘I reckon…’
‘Yeah?’
‘I reckon we need a fuckin’ drink.’
The bloody mess was spread over a space of at least ten feet, broken bones and flesh scattered like patches of macabre plant life amongst the dry scrub of the plain. What hadn’t been taken by scavengers was playing host to a massive swarm of damned flies, their tiny black bodies part of a hungering army which scurried eagerly amid the gore.
A cloud of them filled the air around what was left of the corpse. Their strange, shrill buzzing was intensely loud despite the open terrain. To anyone listening closely enough, the noise could be heard as hundreds of high, thin screams that could drive a man insane if he listened for too long.The hunter swept his gaze across the thickest patch of the stuff, where rib bones stuck out of caked blood and rotting meat. He’d seen three more killings like this one recently, but this, absurdly, was the tidiest of the bunch. He checked the grip of his pistols and looked at the surroundings.
Parched, gritty plains extended in every direction, dotted here and there with spindly, skeletal trees and unremarkable rocks of all shapes and sizes. The scrub was a no-man's land constantly baked by the glaring, oppressive suns, with little cover for a predator, let alone a man-eater, and the few creatures that called it home could provide no real sustenance. Aside from the damned flies, whose screaming would become maddeningly loud whenever they were attacked, a few small lizards and scorpions could be found scurrying about the baked ground. These might have kept a lone eagle or reaperwing from starving, but a man-eater would die after a day in this environment.
‘Miles from anywhere, no sign of tracks, nowhere near in range of any man-eaters and besides, they wouldn’t have left anything, let alone this much mess.’
‘What a bloody shambles.’
‘What do you reckon?’ asked the taller man, switching his gaze to his partner.
The hunters were nearly identical in their clothing; broad, shady hats protected their eyes from the yellow and orange suns glaring down on the plain. They wore battered brown dusters over their clothes (unremarkable denim jeans and plain, simple shirts) and their hands covered by finely worked black leather gloves. The only real difference lay in their choice of armaments.
The shorter, slimmer man, with cold blue eyes and a scraggly black beard, wore a modified rifle which had a long body and a thick, oppressive muzzle. There were also two very serious-looking knives at his belt, which he toyed with idly.
Ka, the taller of the pair, was a heavyset man with two massive pistols holstered at his waist and a red bandanna tied around the bicep of his coat. A scratched, well-used axe peeked from the harness on his back. His brown eyes flicked nervously from the corpse to his partner.
‘Oll? I said, what do you reckon?’
His companion squatted down by the remains, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat from side to side in an effort to clear the damned flies from his sight. He reached out with a gloved hand and dipped a finger into the mess, stirring it around before gingerly pulling a broken rib from the muck. He inspected it thoughtfully, then tossed it over his shoulder, a handful of damned flies screaming helplessly after their meal.
‘Oll? You goin’ deaf, mate?’
The shorter man stood up, replacing his hat and placing his hands on his hips.
‘I reckon…’
‘Yeah?’
‘I reckon we need a fuckin’ drink.’
Monday, 26 January 2009
Driven By Hate - A Druchii Blog
Ladies and gentlemen, druchii and goblins, ravens and orcs, you are cordially invited to peruse..
A collection of tales chronicling the exploits of Raucir Lustingclaw and the ill-favoured House Sathar.
So basically, I've been writing a lot lately, and what with the spotlight the other week and the positive and constructive feedback I've received for my posted Druchii Tales on The Grey Kabal's forum, I've decided to open up a seperate blog for the whole thing.
Obviously Raucir's tales are the focus of the collection (every aspiring writer should be considered an egomaniac), though I'll be posting the occasional Bonus Story when I have the spark to actually write something interesting. I'm also intending to Write On Demand at some later stage, once I'm more confident.
Thanks to all of House Sathar for their warm welcome, their ongoing perseverance in Warhammer Online and their help and advice on my writing.
As a final note, I'd like to point out that right now Driven By Hate is a work in progress which needs a lot of tweaking, and that I'm beginning by posting one (maybe two) excerpts a week so as to help my run up at giving this writing shit a serious shot.
Read on! \m/
Od.
A collection of tales chronicling the exploits of Raucir Lustingclaw and the ill-favoured House Sathar.
So basically, I've been writing a lot lately, and what with the spotlight the other week and the positive and constructive feedback I've received for my posted Druchii Tales on The Grey Kabal's forum, I've decided to open up a seperate blog for the whole thing.
Obviously Raucir's tales are the focus of the collection (every aspiring writer should be considered an egomaniac), though I'll be posting the occasional Bonus Story when I have the spark to actually write something interesting. I'm also intending to Write On Demand at some later stage, once I'm more confident.
Thanks to all of House Sathar for their warm welcome, their ongoing perseverance in Warhammer Online and their help and advice on my writing.
As a final note, I'd like to point out that right now Driven By Hate is a work in progress which needs a lot of tweaking, and that I'm beginning by posting one (maybe two) excerpts a week so as to help my run up at giving this writing shit a serious shot.
Read on! \m/
Od.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
"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.
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.
Monday, 17 November 2008
"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.
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.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
"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.
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.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
"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.
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.
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
"Ladies and gentlemen.. Fasten your seatbelts."
NURH-NURH-NUH-NURNURNUR-NURH-NURH-NURH-NURH! (Pendulum: Fasten Your Seatbelt)
Do you know what’s happening over the coming weekend? No?
Well you’re being deprived.
For the next five days, I am going to be in Reading (U.K.) for the [url=http://www.readingfestival.com]Carling Festival[/url].
I’ll be enjoying the weather, the atmosphere and an absolute [url=http://www.readingfestival.com/lineup/index.aspx]SHEDLOAD[/url] of live music. A few of my friends are going, and the rest of our Colchestrian Camp will be made up of people who can tolerate my presence, so I should be okay.
Our mission?
BOOZE. BANDS. FUN. SUN.
I thought it best to let you know now, just in case I don’t make it back. It’s going to get messy, and I fully expect to be Changed when (read: if) I return. I’ll be putting my Character/Personality Reboot into action while I’m there; attempting to reclaim the angry-looking-dude-who-doesn’t-talk-much persona that was mine so many years ago, before I became the chatty-bastard-who-just-complains. This could go horribly wrong, but Reading is the kind of place one likes to try weird things.
LOCK AND LOAD, PEOPLE! IT’S FESTIVAL TIME AGAIN!
Love,
Odsox.
Do you know what’s happening over the coming weekend? No?
Well you’re being deprived.
For the next five days, I am going to be in Reading (U.K.) for the [url=http://www.readingfestival.com]Carling Festival[/url].
I’ll be enjoying the weather, the atmosphere and an absolute [url=http://www.readingfestival.com/lineup/index.aspx]SHEDLOAD[/url] of live music. A few of my friends are going, and the rest of our Colchestrian Camp will be made up of people who can tolerate my presence, so I should be okay.
Our mission?
BOOZE. BANDS. FUN. SUN.
I thought it best to let you know now, just in case I don’t make it back. It’s going to get messy, and I fully expect to be Changed when (read: if) I return. I’ll be putting my Character/Personality Reboot into action while I’m there; attempting to reclaim the angry-looking-dude-who-doesn’t-talk-much persona that was mine so many years ago, before I became the chatty-bastard-who-just-complains. This could go horribly wrong, but Reading is the kind of place one likes to try weird things.
LOCK AND LOAD, PEOPLE! IT’S FESTIVAL TIME AGAIN!
Love,
Odsox.
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
"Why do we fall, Master Bruce?"
I have come to a painful conclusion.
Tonight I’m going to shave off my beard.
I know, I know, simmer down. It’s the source of my power, of this I am well aware. But I’m also aware of how the ladies, apart from Adam’s missus (lucky bastard), don’t like a beard on a man. I’ll probably go clean-shaven and let it grow in for Reading, so hopefully I’ll have some respectable stubble for the festival.
That is, assuming I can go. I can’t get an overdraft on my current bank account (YES I KNOW THEY’RE RUBBISH I’m looking into getting a Lloyds account..) and I’ve really been pushing the limits of borrowing money from my relatives. I’m just grateful they haven’t broken my legs yet. This leaves my friends, who are equally, if not more so, strapped for cash, though they have come through for me many times in the past, the way friends do.
So it’s looking pretty grim, isn’t it? I’ll be giving my bank a call today, though God-Emperor only knows why, their accents are all so thick you can virtually hear the sacred elephants lowing in the background (that’s a pop at banks for outsourcing btw, not a racist comment). With any luck they’ll jump at the chance to try and skin more money out of me. If not, I’ll just have to find another way to make some extremely fast cash.
Anyone need someone killed? I’m cheap! Just £250 per head! Extra £50 if you want it giftwrapped, mind you.
Classy like.
Love, Odsox.
NB: Just thought I’d tell you quickly about a dream I had the other night.
I was at the bar in Valentino’s with some of my mates - Justin, Adam, Gem, my usual crowd - chatting idly (mainly nonsense words on their part) while waiting for a round of double JD & Cokes. Suddenly I feel this wrenching pain in my teeth, all around my mouth and I can actually FEEL them breaking against each other, growing out and snapping off. It’s not the first time I’ve had this happen in a dream, so I thought with a few minutes I could deal with the pain. Suddenly I spit teeth across the bar (no blood mind you, which is a bit weird), cough, feel AWFUL, like the world’s about to end, and start vomiting teeth. Not in little retching bursts, the way I normally throw up, but huge gouts of teeth, jetting out of my mouth and erupting from my throat. I can feel my stomach convulsing and emptying, and every single sharp edge and surface scrapes the inside of my throat like thousands of tiny bone-knives. After collapsing into a shuddering heap, the pain vanishes, and I wake up.
Bit of a strange dream, that one.
Anyway, TTFN!
Tonight I’m going to shave off my beard.
I know, I know, simmer down. It’s the source of my power, of this I am well aware. But I’m also aware of how the ladies, apart from Adam’s missus (lucky bastard), don’t like a beard on a man. I’ll probably go clean-shaven and let it grow in for Reading, so hopefully I’ll have some respectable stubble for the festival.
That is, assuming I can go. I can’t get an overdraft on my current bank account (YES I KNOW THEY’RE RUBBISH I’m looking into getting a Lloyds account..) and I’ve really been pushing the limits of borrowing money from my relatives. I’m just grateful they haven’t broken my legs yet. This leaves my friends, who are equally, if not more so, strapped for cash, though they have come through for me many times in the past, the way friends do.
So it’s looking pretty grim, isn’t it? I’ll be giving my bank a call today, though God-Emperor only knows why, their accents are all so thick you can virtually hear the sacred elephants lowing in the background (that’s a pop at banks for outsourcing btw, not a racist comment). With any luck they’ll jump at the chance to try and skin more money out of me. If not, I’ll just have to find another way to make some extremely fast cash.
Anyone need someone killed? I’m cheap! Just £250 per head! Extra £50 if you want it giftwrapped, mind you.
Classy like.
Love, Odsox.
NB: Just thought I’d tell you quickly about a dream I had the other night.
I was at the bar in Valentino’s with some of my mates - Justin, Adam, Gem, my usual crowd - chatting idly (mainly nonsense words on their part) while waiting for a round of double JD & Cokes. Suddenly I feel this wrenching pain in my teeth, all around my mouth and I can actually FEEL them breaking against each other, growing out and snapping off. It’s not the first time I’ve had this happen in a dream, so I thought with a few minutes I could deal with the pain. Suddenly I spit teeth across the bar (no blood mind you, which is a bit weird), cough, feel AWFUL, like the world’s about to end, and start vomiting teeth. Not in little retching bursts, the way I normally throw up, but huge gouts of teeth, jetting out of my mouth and erupting from my throat. I can feel my stomach convulsing and emptying, and every single sharp edge and surface scrapes the inside of my throat like thousands of tiny bone-knives. After collapsing into a shuddering heap, the pain vanishes, and I wake up.
Bit of a strange dream, that one.
Anyway, TTFN!
Thursday, 7 August 2008
"Let me hold you, touch you, feel you, always."
I forgot how much I love Blink 182.
AFTERNOON, MORTALS! How’s life been treating you? Good? Good! I’m pleased for you. Really.
You see, I finally got around to checking my old Yahoo! inbox yesterday, simply because I needed to use a Yank client for Dungeons and Dragons Online in order to play with my buddy Chris (who moved to sunny Walla Walla earlier this year) and I found a message sent during July by an old friend of mine. I thought she'd moved on to greener, college-shaped pastures with a distinct lack of local Odsox (that's the plural of Odsox, by the way. Why yes, I am lazy, aren't I?).
So that's buoyed my spirits a fair bit, and I'll give you lot a little rundown of how life has been lately, mostly for her benefit.
I’ve been having a fairly good time , truth be told. Tonight I’ll be making some more adjustments to Chris’ old bike in the hope of being able to use it myself and increasing my daily exercise from Virtually None to Some, which will be awesome. The diet of cornflakes/toast and a cup of tea for breakfast followed by a sandwich and apple for lunch with a dinner of chicken noodles is working out to be incredibly cheap and easily maintained. I actually had to stop eating my sausage roll for lunch yesterday because I felt full! =D It’s pleasing to know that my self-discipline is increasing in regard to some things, even if it’s failing miserably in others (curse you, ExTeel!).
Got my hair cut recently, and that always makes me feel a bit better about myself. I suppose it’s helped by the fact that the only person who ever really cut my hair was Mum, so I get that vague pulse of nostalgia when I get it done. It compliments the beard and swish sideburns quite nicely, if I do say so myself, though I’ve been giving second thoughts to either trimming the beard down or getting rid of it entirely. It means I lose my power for a while but hey, when it returns it comes back stronger!
Speaking of getting stronger, I’m continuing my self-torture (read: amateur writing attempt) on deviantArt, so if you feel like taking some time to read a bit of fantasy fiction (and if you don’t like fantasy fiction there must be something wrong with you) set in the Forgotten Realms universe, check out the shiny new link section ovah thur --> entitled "Love and Revenge". I realise the title is lame but that's never been my strong suit.
Well, what else is there to tell you.. Hm..
Oh! I’ve been reading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher and it’s REALLY good! I won’t get into discussing it (that’s what Wikipedia is for, don’tcherknow), but I highly recommend it for anyone who has a gap in their reading schedule!
I’VE JUST REMEMBERED!
IT’S THE CARLING FESTIVAL AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh man, I have to get my finances sorted!
TTFN!
Love, Odsox.
AFTERNOON, MORTALS! How’s life been treating you? Good? Good! I’m pleased for you. Really.
You see, I finally got around to checking my old Yahoo! inbox yesterday, simply because I needed to use a Yank client for Dungeons and Dragons Online in order to play with my buddy Chris (who moved to sunny Walla Walla earlier this year) and I found a message sent during July by an old friend of mine. I thought she'd moved on to greener, college-shaped pastures with a distinct lack of local Odsox (that's the plural of Odsox, by the way. Why yes, I am lazy, aren't I?).
So that's buoyed my spirits a fair bit, and I'll give you lot a little rundown of how life has been lately, mostly for her benefit.
I’ve been having a fairly good time , truth be told. Tonight I’ll be making some more adjustments to Chris’ old bike in the hope of being able to use it myself and increasing my daily exercise from Virtually None to Some, which will be awesome. The diet of cornflakes/toast and a cup of tea for breakfast followed by a sandwich and apple for lunch with a dinner of chicken noodles is working out to be incredibly cheap and easily maintained. I actually had to stop eating my sausage roll for lunch yesterday because I felt full! =D It’s pleasing to know that my self-discipline is increasing in regard to some things, even if it’s failing miserably in others (curse you, ExTeel!).
Got my hair cut recently, and that always makes me feel a bit better about myself. I suppose it’s helped by the fact that the only person who ever really cut my hair was Mum, so I get that vague pulse of nostalgia when I get it done. It compliments the beard and swish sideburns quite nicely, if I do say so myself, though I’ve been giving second thoughts to either trimming the beard down or getting rid of it entirely. It means I lose my power for a while but hey, when it returns it comes back stronger!
Speaking of getting stronger, I’m continuing my self-torture (read: amateur writing attempt) on deviantArt, so if you feel like taking some time to read a bit of fantasy fiction (and if you don’t like fantasy fiction there must be something wrong with you) set in the Forgotten Realms universe, check out the shiny new link section ovah thur --> entitled "Love and Revenge". I realise the title is lame but that's never been my strong suit.
Well, what else is there to tell you.. Hm..
Oh! I’ve been reading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher and it’s REALLY good! I won’t get into discussing it (that’s what Wikipedia is for, don’tcherknow), but I highly recommend it for anyone who has a gap in their reading schedule!
I’VE JUST REMEMBERED!
IT’S THE CARLING FESTIVAL AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh man, I have to get my finances sorted!
TTFN!
Love, Odsox.
Friday, 1 August 2008
"Are you doing something wicked?"
It is to sigh.
I told myself I wouldn't do this, for so many reasons, but here's the second chunk of Odwyn's story.
I can't believe I gave in to writing this bloody thing..
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Water pattered down onto the broad brim of Odwyn's hat.
He stood beneath a massive tree atop a mud-slicked hill, leaning on his staff and glaring out at the bad weather.
'You used to love the rain,' said his companion, sat against the tree trunk and wrapping a longbow in a well-used oilskin. His blonde hair and forest colours contrasted with the sorcerer's dark robes. Odwyn sighed, turning his one good eye on the ranger.
'It felt cleansing, years ago. Now it just makes me miserable.'
He huffed impatiently, striding over to the ranger and looking about.
'Where has she gotten to now?' he asked aloud, peering into the trees. His companion looked up from his task, and tilted his head to one side. The sorcerer held a hand over his eye and smiled.
~Ah, there you are. Come on back now, dear.~ he sent. A buzzing noise came into hearing from the woods behind the massive tree, and a large beetle swooped from the shadows. It flew across to the sorcerer, landing cautiously on the tip of his staff and buzzing its wings once or twice.
'Poor thing,' Odwyn said with a smile, 'you're soaked. Allow me.'
He focused his mind on the staff, causing several of the runes to glow faintly. The drops of moisture on his familiar's back turned slowly to steam, and it gave a contented buzz before hopping to his shoulder. The blonde ranger stood up, watching Odwyn carefully. Sean Greensun hadn't seen his friend for nearly four years, and had already noted the disturbing changes in his appearance and manner. For one, there was the eye. In their adventuring days Odwyn had possessed two sharp, darting black eyes that took in everything with an air of cold calculation. One remained, but as a dull, black orb that swung lazily onto whatever the sorcerer looked at. Sean had still to find out what happened to the other, which was covered by a ragged scrap of cloth completely out of keeping with Odwyn's meticulous dress sense.
'You're staring,' said the sorcerer, frowning.
'Sorry,' Sean replied with an embarassed smile, 'I can't help it. We haven't heard from you in so long. Now you're back, it's..' he trailed off.
'Different,' said the sorcerer, returning his friend's smile. 'I know,' he said, walking over to the trunk of the giant tree and leaning his staff against it. He dropped to his haunches and the blue beetle buzzed upward to rest on a branch hanging over the two travellers. The tree dominated the hill, great branches extending a good fifteen feet outward and providing thick cover from the rain. It stood at the edge of the forgotten forest that Sean called home.
The dark, verdant environment was well known throughout the region, both for its beauty and for the tales of its terrible guardians; a monstrous dragon from ancient times, who sent his ruthless agent of death out amongst the eaves and shadows to murder honest hunters while they gathered food for their families. The stories said that the last thing many travellers heard was the whoosh of an arrow and the mocking laughter of the golden-haired killer that stalked the woods.
Odwyn knew better. He had met Sean for the first time while travelling through the forest on his way to Icewind Dale, when the ranger had dropped from shadows at the edge of his campfire and offered to share a brace of rabbits he had caught. After talking for an age, it turned out that Sean merely kept away the worst of the poachers, and took for himself only what he needed. As to the tales of a dragon residing somewhere within the dark confines of the forest, Greensun had never been able to elaborate.
Odwyn sighed, leaning back against the tree beside the ranger.
'It is complicated, Sean. Once I get to Neverwinter, you will understand.'
'Neverwinter,' said the ranger with a frown, 'is a stinking, despicable hive of thugs.'
His companion blinked with his one eye, before cracking a smile reminiscent of the old Odwyn.
'Your love of cities hasn't grown any, then,' he said with a short laugh. 'Have you even set foot out of your forest since last I saw you?'
'Only when absolutely necessary.'
'You've become a hermit, Sean, skulking in your forest and grumbling over outsiders!'
'I might say the same of you,' Sean replied, unable to stop himself grinning at his friend, 'we haven't heard from you in what, four years?'
'Five,' Odwyn said, raising a hand to confirm it with his fingers.
'Unbelievable. Odwyn Stadt, the recluse. Odwyn "The Sorcerer That Never Shuts Up" Stadt, Daniel used to say.'
'Daniel? Hah, I haven't even thought of him in years,' said the sorcerer, rubbing at his chin with one gloved hand. 'Where is he now?'
'Oh, knifing people in the dark alleys of Waterdeep, no doubt. He always did love picking on spellcasters.'
'I remember,' said Odwyn, recalling some of the practical jokes the rogue had played on him in the past. He removed his hat, placing it on the ground to reveal his closely-shaved black hair. He sat back, drawing his knees up and folding his arms atop them. The rain continued around them, and Sean took the opportunity to set out a few small water skins with funnels set in their necks. The sorcerer watched Sean work, and reflected on what he instinctively thought of as 'the old days'.
Years ago, before he'd consulted the devil Khadys; before he'd lost his eye; before he'd had his heart broken; before he'd fallen in love, he had been a wandering sorcerer. Meeting up with the band of adventurers had been a huge event in his life. Sean, Nila the half-elven paladin, who Odwyn had despised on sight, Daniel Walker and.. her..
The sorcerer curled his lip in a sudden sneer and reached out for his staff, which thrummed gently in response. He shifted into a cross-legged position and laid the staff out across his lap.
'More meditation?' asked the ranger.
'Clairvoyance,' said Odwyn sharply, closing his eye and playing his hands over the runes of his staff like he was playing a musical instrument.
'I tire of this rain, so I'm searching for a quicker route to Neverwinter.'
'This is the fastest route,' said Sean with a frown, 'believe me, I know.'
'Yes, yes,' snapped the sorcerer, his bitter personality rising after the thoughts of his old flame, 'but your method is slow. Now let me concentrate.'
'Alright,' said Sean reproachfully, and moved off to stopper the waterskins.
Odwyn drew himself up, hands flitting across the staff's surface. His vision, dark within his closed eye, slowly began to change. A gentle light moved in on his peripheral vision, white turning grey, and the constant patter of the rain became visual: the grey light shifted, thinner streaks appearing in it. A darkened patch appeared at the height of his vision, rounding out and splitting until it became the leaves of the tree above him. The centre of his vision pulled away sharply, stretching along and down, taking on the verdant shade of the long grass that covered the hill and curving into smaller hillocks and mounds, with a sharp spattering of colour to represent the few flowers that grew nearby. Taking a long, deep breath, Odwyn slowly turned his head. The vision followed after a split-second delay. A frown crossed the sorcerer's features and he tightened his mental grip on the spell. He felt his hands come to a halt over two particular runes, and the vision's focus suddenly sharpened, bringing detail to the picture. He could see the tiny movements of raindrops hitting blades of grass, the dark speck in the sky that indicated the only bird foolish enough to brave the weather, and even the insects crawling over the leaves of the tree atop the hill a league from where he sat. He allowed himself a satisfied smile, and moved on to his task. The vision swept forward suddenly, hugging the tips of grass blades and skimming through the air like a low-flying falcon. He followed the dirt path that led away from the bottom of the hill, looping around and into a shallow valley. It passed tall trees, foraging creatures and travellers moving so slow as to be standing still. The dirt path solidified, became a paved road, marked by milestones and signs pointing to roads that branched away. There in the distance was the dark shadow of Neverwinter, and a bitter smile hovered on the sorcerer's face. He had located the destination at least. Now to find a faster mode of travel.The vision spun violently, snapping onto the road again with a focus and speed that would have sickened the hardiest of travellers. It sped along, back past the paved road, past the motionless pilgrims and roaming merchants, past the tall trees, and finally past the hill where Odwyn sat. He noted his own presence at the edge of the vision, an almost pitch-black space beneath the massive tree. He took no notice of the strange representation, instead speeding onward. The dirt path continued along a track lined with wildflowers, with the trees of the forest thinning out and becoming sparse. Rocks and boulders began to appear at the sides of the path, and Odwyn noted the looming presence of cliffs in the distance. The rain had stopped.
A great caravan train appeared, and the sorcerer called the vision to a sudden halt, swinging upward to focus on the lead wagon. A woman sat at the reins, dark blonde hair shot with streaks more gold than grey. Her well-worn travelling leathers and focused expression told the sorcerer all he needed to know. She was experienced, and most definitely in charge here. He swept his vision across the rest of the caravan as an afterthought. Children scampered between the wagons, frozen compared to the speed granted by Odwyn's Clairvoyance. A train of beasts followed on, between two heavier-looking, armoured wagons. A real caravan community, thought the sorcerer, sweeping his sight back to the lead wagon. He watched the caravan's leader as she rode, slowing his vision down to a more familiar pace. She watched the road, gaze dancing back and forth as they passed larger rocks and mounds, on the lookout for any possibility of ambush. He moved his vision closer still, until it hovered scant inches away from her face. She was not old, though her face bore a few laughter lines and possessed a thin, severe mouth. She had a proud bearing, intense blue eyes and, Odwyn noted, a vicious dagger strapped to her thigh. No stranger to violence, and utterly confident in her management of the convoy. Yes, this would make for fine transport.
'Odwyn? Odwyn, are you alright?' asked Sean, resting a gloved hand on the sorcerer's shoulder. Odwyn's one eye snapped open, and for a moment Sean didn't recognise what he saw there. Then a lazy smile crossed his friend's face, and the sorcerer nodded.
'Better than alright, Sean. A caravan train approaches.'
Sean stared for a second before turning to look out at the rain.
'I see nothing.'
'No, no. It won't be here for a few hours, but it will definitely enable us to reach Neverwinter sooner.'
The ranger frowned thoughtfully, and turned to indicate the light under the tree. He'd somehow found enough dry wood to start a fire. The scent of cooking meat reached the sorcerer's nose and his stomach rumbled with hunger. Odwyn hauled himself to his feet, moving over to the fire. Keke buzzed down to land on his back before scurrying up to his shoulder and clicking her mandibles as he reseated himself.
'Oh good, we were just getting hungry,' he said, eyeing the sizzling rabbit flesh with a smirk, 'it's just a shame that you still can't cook to save your life.'
Sean frowned, jabbing at the flames with a long stick.
'You should be thankful. If I wasn't here, what would you be eating tonight? Dirt, that's what,' he replied. Odwyn picked up a strip of the rabbit, tearing it in half and passing the larger piece to his familiar. The blue beetle buzzed up into the tree with her dinner.
'What an odd little beast,' said Sean. He sliced another strip of flesh from the fire and leaned back onto his haunches.
'You know, in all the years we travelled together, I never asked of her origins. Some day you'll have to tell me about it.'
The sorcerer finished his first piece and swallowed, resting his staff on his lap. He helped himself to another slice of rabbit.
'Well, we've got a few hours,' he said, 'what would you like to know?'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hope that wasn't too hard on the eyes! Right, I could blog about a whole bunch of stuff now, but I feel strangely dull, so I'm just going to carry on looking at lolcats and sketching.
TTFN!
Love, Odsox
I told myself I wouldn't do this, for so many reasons, but here's the second chunk of Odwyn's story.
I can't believe I gave in to writing this bloody thing..
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Water pattered down onto the broad brim of Odwyn's hat.
He stood beneath a massive tree atop a mud-slicked hill, leaning on his staff and glaring out at the bad weather.
'You used to love the rain,' said his companion, sat against the tree trunk and wrapping a longbow in a well-used oilskin. His blonde hair and forest colours contrasted with the sorcerer's dark robes. Odwyn sighed, turning his one good eye on the ranger.
'It felt cleansing, years ago. Now it just makes me miserable.'
He huffed impatiently, striding over to the ranger and looking about.
'Where has she gotten to now?' he asked aloud, peering into the trees. His companion looked up from his task, and tilted his head to one side. The sorcerer held a hand over his eye and smiled.
~Ah, there you are. Come on back now, dear.~ he sent. A buzzing noise came into hearing from the woods behind the massive tree, and a large beetle swooped from the shadows. It flew across to the sorcerer, landing cautiously on the tip of his staff and buzzing its wings once or twice.
'Poor thing,' Odwyn said with a smile, 'you're soaked. Allow me.'
He focused his mind on the staff, causing several of the runes to glow faintly. The drops of moisture on his familiar's back turned slowly to steam, and it gave a contented buzz before hopping to his shoulder. The blonde ranger stood up, watching Odwyn carefully. Sean Greensun hadn't seen his friend for nearly four years, and had already noted the disturbing changes in his appearance and manner. For one, there was the eye. In their adventuring days Odwyn had possessed two sharp, darting black eyes that took in everything with an air of cold calculation. One remained, but as a dull, black orb that swung lazily onto whatever the sorcerer looked at. Sean had still to find out what happened to the other, which was covered by a ragged scrap of cloth completely out of keeping with Odwyn's meticulous dress sense.
'You're staring,' said the sorcerer, frowning.
'Sorry,' Sean replied with an embarassed smile, 'I can't help it. We haven't heard from you in so long. Now you're back, it's..' he trailed off.
'Different,' said the sorcerer, returning his friend's smile. 'I know,' he said, walking over to the trunk of the giant tree and leaning his staff against it. He dropped to his haunches and the blue beetle buzzed upward to rest on a branch hanging over the two travellers. The tree dominated the hill, great branches extending a good fifteen feet outward and providing thick cover from the rain. It stood at the edge of the forgotten forest that Sean called home.
The dark, verdant environment was well known throughout the region, both for its beauty and for the tales of its terrible guardians; a monstrous dragon from ancient times, who sent his ruthless agent of death out amongst the eaves and shadows to murder honest hunters while they gathered food for their families. The stories said that the last thing many travellers heard was the whoosh of an arrow and the mocking laughter of the golden-haired killer that stalked the woods.
Odwyn knew better. He had met Sean for the first time while travelling through the forest on his way to Icewind Dale, when the ranger had dropped from shadows at the edge of his campfire and offered to share a brace of rabbits he had caught. After talking for an age, it turned out that Sean merely kept away the worst of the poachers, and took for himself only what he needed. As to the tales of a dragon residing somewhere within the dark confines of the forest, Greensun had never been able to elaborate.
Odwyn sighed, leaning back against the tree beside the ranger.
'It is complicated, Sean. Once I get to Neverwinter, you will understand.'
'Neverwinter,' said the ranger with a frown, 'is a stinking, despicable hive of thugs.'
His companion blinked with his one eye, before cracking a smile reminiscent of the old Odwyn.
'Your love of cities hasn't grown any, then,' he said with a short laugh. 'Have you even set foot out of your forest since last I saw you?'
'Only when absolutely necessary.'
'You've become a hermit, Sean, skulking in your forest and grumbling over outsiders!'
'I might say the same of you,' Sean replied, unable to stop himself grinning at his friend, 'we haven't heard from you in what, four years?'
'Five,' Odwyn said, raising a hand to confirm it with his fingers.
'Unbelievable. Odwyn Stadt, the recluse. Odwyn "The Sorcerer That Never Shuts Up" Stadt, Daniel used to say.'
'Daniel? Hah, I haven't even thought of him in years,' said the sorcerer, rubbing at his chin with one gloved hand. 'Where is he now?'
'Oh, knifing people in the dark alleys of Waterdeep, no doubt. He always did love picking on spellcasters.'
'I remember,' said Odwyn, recalling some of the practical jokes the rogue had played on him in the past. He removed his hat, placing it on the ground to reveal his closely-shaved black hair. He sat back, drawing his knees up and folding his arms atop them. The rain continued around them, and Sean took the opportunity to set out a few small water skins with funnels set in their necks. The sorcerer watched Sean work, and reflected on what he instinctively thought of as 'the old days'.
Years ago, before he'd consulted the devil Khadys; before he'd lost his eye; before he'd had his heart broken; before he'd fallen in love, he had been a wandering sorcerer. Meeting up with the band of adventurers had been a huge event in his life. Sean, Nila the half-elven paladin, who Odwyn had despised on sight, Daniel Walker and.. her..
The sorcerer curled his lip in a sudden sneer and reached out for his staff, which thrummed gently in response. He shifted into a cross-legged position and laid the staff out across his lap.
'More meditation?' asked the ranger.
'Clairvoyance,' said Odwyn sharply, closing his eye and playing his hands over the runes of his staff like he was playing a musical instrument.
'I tire of this rain, so I'm searching for a quicker route to Neverwinter.'
'This is the fastest route,' said Sean with a frown, 'believe me, I know.'
'Yes, yes,' snapped the sorcerer, his bitter personality rising after the thoughts of his old flame, 'but your method is slow. Now let me concentrate.'
'Alright,' said Sean reproachfully, and moved off to stopper the waterskins.
Odwyn drew himself up, hands flitting across the staff's surface. His vision, dark within his closed eye, slowly began to change. A gentle light moved in on his peripheral vision, white turning grey, and the constant patter of the rain became visual: the grey light shifted, thinner streaks appearing in it. A darkened patch appeared at the height of his vision, rounding out and splitting until it became the leaves of the tree above him. The centre of his vision pulled away sharply, stretching along and down, taking on the verdant shade of the long grass that covered the hill and curving into smaller hillocks and mounds, with a sharp spattering of colour to represent the few flowers that grew nearby. Taking a long, deep breath, Odwyn slowly turned his head. The vision followed after a split-second delay. A frown crossed the sorcerer's features and he tightened his mental grip on the spell. He felt his hands come to a halt over two particular runes, and the vision's focus suddenly sharpened, bringing detail to the picture. He could see the tiny movements of raindrops hitting blades of grass, the dark speck in the sky that indicated the only bird foolish enough to brave the weather, and even the insects crawling over the leaves of the tree atop the hill a league from where he sat. He allowed himself a satisfied smile, and moved on to his task. The vision swept forward suddenly, hugging the tips of grass blades and skimming through the air like a low-flying falcon. He followed the dirt path that led away from the bottom of the hill, looping around and into a shallow valley. It passed tall trees, foraging creatures and travellers moving so slow as to be standing still. The dirt path solidified, became a paved road, marked by milestones and signs pointing to roads that branched away. There in the distance was the dark shadow of Neverwinter, and a bitter smile hovered on the sorcerer's face. He had located the destination at least. Now to find a faster mode of travel.The vision spun violently, snapping onto the road again with a focus and speed that would have sickened the hardiest of travellers. It sped along, back past the paved road, past the motionless pilgrims and roaming merchants, past the tall trees, and finally past the hill where Odwyn sat. He noted his own presence at the edge of the vision, an almost pitch-black space beneath the massive tree. He took no notice of the strange representation, instead speeding onward. The dirt path continued along a track lined with wildflowers, with the trees of the forest thinning out and becoming sparse. Rocks and boulders began to appear at the sides of the path, and Odwyn noted the looming presence of cliffs in the distance. The rain had stopped.
A great caravan train appeared, and the sorcerer called the vision to a sudden halt, swinging upward to focus on the lead wagon. A woman sat at the reins, dark blonde hair shot with streaks more gold than grey. Her well-worn travelling leathers and focused expression told the sorcerer all he needed to know. She was experienced, and most definitely in charge here. He swept his vision across the rest of the caravan as an afterthought. Children scampered between the wagons, frozen compared to the speed granted by Odwyn's Clairvoyance. A train of beasts followed on, between two heavier-looking, armoured wagons. A real caravan community, thought the sorcerer, sweeping his sight back to the lead wagon. He watched the caravan's leader as she rode, slowing his vision down to a more familiar pace. She watched the road, gaze dancing back and forth as they passed larger rocks and mounds, on the lookout for any possibility of ambush. He moved his vision closer still, until it hovered scant inches away from her face. She was not old, though her face bore a few laughter lines and possessed a thin, severe mouth. She had a proud bearing, intense blue eyes and, Odwyn noted, a vicious dagger strapped to her thigh. No stranger to violence, and utterly confident in her management of the convoy. Yes, this would make for fine transport.
'Odwyn? Odwyn, are you alright?' asked Sean, resting a gloved hand on the sorcerer's shoulder. Odwyn's one eye snapped open, and for a moment Sean didn't recognise what he saw there. Then a lazy smile crossed his friend's face, and the sorcerer nodded.
'Better than alright, Sean. A caravan train approaches.'
Sean stared for a second before turning to look out at the rain.
'I see nothing.'
'No, no. It won't be here for a few hours, but it will definitely enable us to reach Neverwinter sooner.'
The ranger frowned thoughtfully, and turned to indicate the light under the tree. He'd somehow found enough dry wood to start a fire. The scent of cooking meat reached the sorcerer's nose and his stomach rumbled with hunger. Odwyn hauled himself to his feet, moving over to the fire. Keke buzzed down to land on his back before scurrying up to his shoulder and clicking her mandibles as he reseated himself.
'Oh good, we were just getting hungry,' he said, eyeing the sizzling rabbit flesh with a smirk, 'it's just a shame that you still can't cook to save your life.'
Sean frowned, jabbing at the flames with a long stick.
'You should be thankful. If I wasn't here, what would you be eating tonight? Dirt, that's what,' he replied. Odwyn picked up a strip of the rabbit, tearing it in half and passing the larger piece to his familiar. The blue beetle buzzed up into the tree with her dinner.
'What an odd little beast,' said Sean. He sliced another strip of flesh from the fire and leaned back onto his haunches.
'You know, in all the years we travelled together, I never asked of her origins. Some day you'll have to tell me about it.'
The sorcerer finished his first piece and swallowed, resting his staff on his lap. He helped himself to another slice of rabbit.
'Well, we've got a few hours,' he said, 'what would you like to know?'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hope that wasn't too hard on the eyes! Right, I could blog about a whole bunch of stuff now, but I feel strangely dull, so I'm just going to carry on looking at lolcats and sketching.
TTFN!
Love, Odsox
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