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Glastonbury 2008

I have to admit, this year I didn't have the usual giddiness approaching Glastonbury - last year's weather and car park experience plus the lack of big names on the line-up meant I wasn't expecting much. However I'm glad to say that this year was a classic Glasto, helped by the weather and some great performances by the less well known bands, plus of course copious amounts of pear cider.

This is a list of all the things I saw this year:

Thursday

Mik Artistic (Cafe Avalon) - heard him ranting about Radio 1 as we walked past so stopped to listen to the rest of his set, some funny stuff.

Friday

Hobo Jones & the Junkyard Dogs (Avalon Stage) - a skiffle punk band, great start to the Friday, getting everyone to sing along to 'What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?' was brilliant!
Attila the Stockbroker (Cabaret) - saw him last year and thought he was pretty bad, however this year he was excellent, some great songs about the kind of people who read the Daily Mail/Express.
Alabama 3 (Jazzworld) - only saw a few songs as it was raining, but they were good.
Frank Turner (Avalon Stage) - Anna's new favourite, but I wasn't that impressed by the CD. He was very good live though.
The Gossip (Pyramid) - my only trip to the Pyramid on the Friday, and was pleasantly surprised, Beth Ditto seemed to be enjoying herself and she put on a good show, although the security bloke she proposed to probably didn't see it that way!
Fun Lovin' Criminals (Jazzworld) - not as good as I remember from Reading 2001 but still good fun.
Franz Ferdinand (The Park) - the 'Very Special Guests' promised in the line-up. Only played about 9 songs but were very good, 3 or 4 new ones that seemed better than the stuff on the 2nd album. There were lots of Dizzee Rascal fans waiting around (he'd been due to start around that time), I (very politely for me) told one behind me to go away and come back later if she didn't like it.
Jimmy Cliff (Jazzworld) - only saw a few songs as I was knackered, didn't hear any of the big ones unfortunately.

Saturday

Shakin' Stevens (Pyramid) - was good fun, he seemed to be enjoying himself and the crowd were too.
Martha Wainwright (Pyramid) - surprisingly good, her brother didn't turn up much to Anna's disgust!
Seasick Steve (Pyramid) - one of the highlights of last year, and was equally as brilliant this year, possibly better. Who'd have thought it was possible to sound so good with a three stringed guitar?
Crowded House (Pyramid) - we sat up on the hill for this one and chilled out, the sun came out for Weather With You. Some good banter from Neil Finn with the security guards, and he got the whole crowd to do a Mexican wave from the top of the hill down to the stage.
The Courteeners (John Peel Stage) - far and away the worst band I saw all weekend. Half the crowd seemed to be ecstatic about them and singing every song, but they seemed exceedingly dull to me. If this is the latest tripe the NME is masturbating over, no wonder the music industry is in such a bad state.
The Raconteurs (Pyramid) - a welcome relief after the last band, some quality guitar playing.
Manu Chao (Pyramid) - what I saw was great, his music really made me want to dance but I didn't have the energy! So I wandered off...
Ian Cognito (Cabaret) - an extremely offensive comedian - pretty funny though!
The Imagined Village (Jazzworld) - only saw the last few songs but what I saw was excellent.
Buddy Guy (Jazzworld) - the best guitarist I have ever seen, he was really enjoying himself and playing in the style of various other guitarists. Wish I could have seen all of his set, but I had to get to the Pyramid.
Jay-Z (Pyramid) - the intro video followed by Jay-Z leading the crowd singing Wonderwall is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. This was the highlight of my weekend, Jay-Z showing that he understood what it meant to headline Glastonbury by putting on a great show. I certainly enjoyed this a lot more than Oasis in 2005. Maybe Noel should learn to keep his mouth shut.

Sunday

Leftfield Rally with Tony Benn (Leftfield) - had a lazier Sunday, what with not having much energy left, especially after hauling most of my stuff back to the car in the morning. Billy Bragg and Tony Benn gave great speeches, but between them was Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union. He ranted and raved about the BNP in a way that if you replaced 'BNP' with 'black' would be considered racist. I hate the BNP as much as anyone, but this bloke was verging on fascist. He then urged all the unions to get together and strike on the same day to bring the country to its knees. What a complete and utter tosser he is.
Neil Diamond (Pyramid) - another one that we saw from on the hill. He seemed to enjoy himself and he knows how to work a crowd, but it wasn't really my kind of thing and I didn't know any of the songs. Still entertaining though.
Eddy Grant (Jazzworld) - sat at the back of the field and heard a few songs, none of which I recognised unfortunately.
Masters of the Kazooniverse - saw them while walking to the Pyramid. They 'played' Seven Nation Army on the kazoo, then gave some kazoos out for free!
Leonard Cohen (Pyramid) - had never heard anything sung by him before, but was quite impressed - will definitely have to listen to some of his stuff. Hallelujah was amazing.
The Verve (Pyramid) - I hadn't expected much from them, after all they've not done anything of note for 10 years, but they were very good, probably my second favourite act of the weekend after Jay-Z. I thought it was a mistake not to finish with Bittersweet Symphony but the new song that they did finish with sounded very promising...

We left in the early hours of Sunday morning and were able to get straight out of the car parks, a welcome relief after last year!

There's some pictures on Facebook, I'll upload them to Picasa at some point as well.

Nice, Monaco, Erding (again), Band Session

Time for another catch-up! Since the last entry:

- Went to the annual Amadeus inter-departmental football tournament in Nice (well, in Biot really). Hopes were high after last year's 6th place, but this year was a new low, we somehow managed to get 31st place (out of 39), even managing to lose to the 2nd London team along the way (they came 30th). However, I managed to avoid injury which is always a good thing!
- The next day we went to Monaco for the F1. We had unreserved standing tickets for Secteur Rocher, even though we got there for 9am the area was still packed. We found ourselves a vantage point on a hill, and I spent the next seven hours with one foot higher than the other, causing me much more pain than the football did the day before! The race was really good, apart from Hamilton winning. The Hondas were really crap, both of them would backfire at exactly the same point on each lap!
- I went to Erding for the 3rd time this year at the start of June. Thankfully this was only for one day, but I had to give two presentations to the operations teams. When I first joined the company the first training need I had identified was to go on a presentations skills course. It's now almost five years later, do you think I ever received said training?! Thankfully the presentations didn't go too badly.
- Glastonbury - the next entry is going to be about this.
- Had a long overdue band session this weekend. We'd booked a rehearsal studio for it, but unfortunately it was sweltering in there and we had to stop every few minutes to get some fresh air, so it wasn't the best session. The visit to the Brush was great though, there were quite a few people who I used to go to school with in there.

Bad mood

I am in a spectacularly bad mood this morning after the football last night. My mood is worsened by the fact that now I have to hope Man Utd win the final as I couldn't stand it if Chelsea and all their post-Abramovich fans won it. I guess it's too much to hope for to have the whole stadium blow up during the game...

I'm also fed up of hearing how brave poor Lampard was for taking a penalty last night. Yes, we all know his mum died, but he earns 5 million quid a year for kicking a ball around (or not, if he's in an England shirt) - it doesn't take bravery to do your bloody job.

Other than being in a bad mood, not much else is new - I now have Wii Fit and have apparently lost 2lbs in the last 5 days. Still waiting for GTA4 to arrive though...

Erding, Glastonbury, Muse

At the start of April I had to go back to Erding for a three day workshop. It was my least hellish trip there, partly because it was a short trip but mostly because my most of my team also went, so the evenings weren't so lonely! Did a fair amount of 'team-building' in the pubs, and I also caught up with a few people from Miami who were also over.

The weekend after coming back from Germany was Glastonbury ticket day. Unsurprisingly seetickets once again completely cocked everything up, and we were left waiting for hours to find out whether or not we had tickets. Of course, with hindsight we didn't need to panic so much (as they're still on sale now), but this makes me wonder why seetickets still couldn't cope even though there was less demand!

We went to see Muse on Saturday, who were playing the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust gigs. The venue itself is pretty good, the sound quality is excellent and even from the back seats we had a good view. The support were the Futureheads, who were just incredibly average, even the awful Hounds of Love cover didn't get the crowd interested. Muse however were fantastic, it was the best I've seen them since Glasto 2004. The best bit was the first song of the encore, Megalomania, where Matt Bellamy played the Albert Hall's organ.

I've just got Mario Kart for the Wii, so have been playing with a small plastic wheel which is a lot more fun than it looks!

Sam Smith's Challenge - completed!

On 8th March we finally got around to drinking in the remaining 3 pubs in central London, and in doing so completing the Sam Smith's Challenge! We've now had a drink in all 32 Sam Smith's pubs in the central London area, and are considering our next challenge - anyone know how many Wetherspoons there are in central London?

To celebrate that evening we went to see some comedy at Soho-Ho. I had heard Henning Wehn and Ian Stone on Fighting Talk so was looking forward to it, and wasn't disappointed, Henning Wehn was easily the highlight. There was also an impressionist who had been on Spitting Image who gave me the hideous mental image of Patricia Routledge being spit roasted :-(

Night shift

I'm doing my first night shift for nearly nine months tonight, and there's nothing for me to do so thought I should really write an update, it's only been about three months!

I've not written anything partly due to laziness, partly due to not having much of note to write. Actually it's probably mostly due to laziness!

In January I had to spend two weeks in Erding again for some training. It was probably the least painful trip I've had out there, mainly because Anna joined me for the middle weekend, which we spent mostly drinking beer in Hofbrauhaus in Munich, although we did visit Dachau as well. I have to go back for another few days at the start of April, but most of my team will also be going so it shouldn't be too bad.

We went to Tavira in Portugal for a long weekend a couple of weeks ago, with my mum and brother. Unfortunately the first few days were very wet, and it wasn't until the Sunday that the sun threatened to come out. Still, I wasn't at work so I didn't really care, and go-karting on a wet track was lots of fun!

Not much more to write about. We're going to finish the Sam Smith's challenge this Saturday - after some checking it seems there really are only 32 Sam Smith's pubs in Greater London, so we only have 3 more to do (see here for details).

Gogol Bordello and Manic Street Preachers

I've had a bit of a cold recently, and am still coughing two weeks after first becoming ill :-( Hopefully it will clear up before Christmas... Surprisingly, work have decided to let us have Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve off for free, so now I have just about enough leave left to take the whole period off, woo-hoo!

Went to see Gogol Bordello in Hammersmith on Saturday night. It's probably the first time I've enjoyed the support act more than the main act, La Phaze are supposedly a mixture of drum'n'bass and punk, but it sounded good. I was a bit disappointed by Gogol Bordello, they were brilliant at Glastonbury but that might have been down to the pear cider, plus the fact I'd never heard of them before, I think this time I knew some of the songs and was disappointed when they didn't play them.

Last night we went to see the Manics play Brixton Academy. The support act were Cherry Ghost, who were decidedly average, although I was more interested in checking the football scores on my phone to be fair. For the Manics, it felt more like we were seeing them out of duty, and expectations were quite low, but they were very good, and they did Slash 'n' Burn which is another one I can now tick off... There did seem to be a few 'casuals' there, who seemed to object to us making our way to the front during the first song. Normally I'd agree with them, but as they didn't even seem to recognise the song (which was Motorcycle Emptiness, hardly an obscure song if you're at a Manics gig!) then I was quite happy to push past them. We ended up about four rows off the front... Very knackered today though!

Going to the Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium on Sunday which should be good...

Victory!

It's all finished! I thought I'd just scraped 50,000 words, but the online checker thinks it's 50,272 so I won't complain! I got a certificate to print out, as well as this icon to put here:



I've lost so much time to this book, don't know if I'll do it next year or not. I'll put the book online at some point when I've edited it - think it'll take a while!

We went to see Bill Bailey last night at Wembley Arena. The first half was amusing in places, the second half was pretty funny, but unfortunately our night was ruined by an extremely annoying woman sat next to us who laughed loudly and at length every time Bill Bailey opened his mouth, whether he was saying something funny or not, and she had the most annoying laugh ever, it would last for about five seconds after everyone else had finished laughing, then she'd sigh, then maybe laugh again or repeat what had just been said. Grrr! Still, it did provide extra material and an extra victim for my book, and we did get to see a Bollywood version of Creep!

More neglect

Yet again a lack of updates, but this is mostly due to my participation in NaNoWriMo. I'm now up to 40,040 words, which is just below target, yesterday I was supposed to be on 41,666, but I think I can catch up before Friday's deadline. The book is fairly gruesome, but I did spare the life of one person on my 'most-irritating' list. No, it's not Nick Knowles, I just haven't got around to him yet...

A couple of weeks ago Anna and I went to see the Sex Pistols at Brixton. The first support act were the Cribs, who were fairly average, but the second support act made them sound amazing by comparison. Second support was Goldie, who was hidden behind one of the speaker stacks - apparently on the first night he had been centre stage, but was bottled off, and on subsequent nights had moved out of harm's way. He played the same drum beat throughout his whole set, and seemed completely oblivious to the chorus of boos whenever the music got a bit quiet. Thankfully though the Sex Pistols made the wait worth it, Johnny Rotten was on top form. Unfortunately my ears were ringing for days after, to the extent that I'm considering getting ear plugs for future gigs - I'm getting old :-(

Last Wednesday I had the misfortune to be at Wembley Stadium for England vs Croatia. A miserable night began with us being drenched on the way in, then having our fears confirmed that they were not allowed to sell alcohol in the stadium. Then we had to actually watch the game. I've never sworn so much in my life, I wish the players could actually have heard me! Lampard was somehow named man of the match for his one touch of the ball to score the penalty. At least McClaren is no longer in charge...

Neglect

I haven't written in here for over a month, mostly due to extreme laziness. As previously noted we got to Barcelona without any problems, and had a fun time doing it - we'll definitely be entering next year! There's not much I can add that Hayley hasn't written already, so go there and read her entry!

Things new in Keane land:

- Yesterday was my first wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem like a year, it's gone pretty quickly! I bought Anna tickets for the Sex Pistols next month as an anniversary gift (they're made of paper, see?) and we went out for a meal last night, as well as having a few people over on Saturday.
- I now have an infestation of rats in my house. Unfortunately I can't call Rentokil as Anna bought them as pets! Despite my protestations to the contrary, I guess they're alright really, as long as I don't have to feed them or anything...
- I've signed up for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The idea of this is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It starts on 1st November, and requires an average of 1,667 words to be written daily. I've got the basics of my plot sorted, just need to think up a few more characters... my profile page is here.