All Trucked out

Truck finally happened! After a two-month delay and the worst summer I can remember weather-wise, I was expecting good things, and I wasn't disappointed. Okay, so it wasn't the best line-up ever, and there were some bad bits - such as Simon managing to catch some sort of stomach bug that knocked him out for most of Saturday, but Truck still managed to be one of the highlights of my year so far.

Low points: Simon being ill; some odd timetabling decisions (Blood Red Shoes and Foals in the Trailer Park tent?) that led to Foals being pulled early Saturday evening; the irritating man who was shouting loudly while I was trying to sleep; having to get out of bed at 6am on Monday to peg the tent down again after the wind threatened to blow us away.

High points: Fonda 500 generally being ace and even managing to bring out the sun; opera in the pub on Sunday night; Foals being rescheduled and the audience getting a wee bit excited; the irritating man shouting "I am a stereotypical festival cunt!" loudly and thus redeeming himself partially; not having to sleep in the stewards' marquee after our tent stayed put.

More of the same again next year, please. Just without the illness.

I would also like to mention, mainly as a way of reminding myself in about six months' time, that I have my first hangover since about March after drinking more wine than I meant to yesterday. This is exactly why I stopped drinking much in the first place... lemonade for me tonight, then.

Tomorrow I will be mostly packing for a week in Spain. Spain! Where the sun is shining! Full report to follow.

Floods, and refugee-Truck

Half of Oxfordshire is under water, along with several other bits of England. This makes it difficult to be quite so unreasonably annoyed about Truck being cancelled - other people have far worse problems to deal with at the moment, and besides, I really wouldn't want to try camping in a field swamped by more than a foot of water mixed with cow shit. And as another plus point, an alternative 'Truck' happened anyway, as a last-minute gig at Oxford Brookes student union.

So Simon and I decided to drive down to Oxford with some friends, cram into a Travelodge and watch some bands while eating Rotary Club bacon rolls. Truck staff were there in wellies and waterproof capes, and the barman with the fez and the golden wings served people perry. Frank Turner and Youthmovies were fab. The Brian Jonestown Massacre were okay-ish, but completely unworthy of the genius tag they have somehow ended up with. (Message for BJM: a decent riff played over and over again quickly goes from being pretty enjoyable to being pretty dull.) However. Much fun was had, and my weekend wasn't wasted - although with hindsight, we were lucky not to get caught in any flooding on the roads. I have also decided to head out to the rescheduled festival in September, so all in all I'm feeling much more upbeat. Plus: I still have the week off work. And we're not flooded.

Lazy and forgetful

Those are my two excuses for not having posted in a year. A year! In that time I have moved cities (back to my home town of Cambridge), passed my MA, started a new job, bought a 16-year-old car that has miraculously survived my driving (so far), and generally done all sorts of new and interesting things. None of which I can remember now, obviously.

Finding this blog again is a bit like turning up some old diary that I started when I was 12 years old and lost interest in two weeks later. Except this time I am going to try and start again... promise.

So: this week I have mostly been working lots, getting very excited about heading off to Truck festival in a little over a week, and trying to figure out whether I can persuade anyone with the knowledge to fit a second-hand car radio into my car, thus saving us having to drive to said festival in silence. I'm not sure I fancy my chances.