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Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Well i'm back from a corking few days in lovely sunny Brighton, where a great time was had by all. Brighton, in case you've never been, is a strange mix of old-skool seaside tat and urban bohemian nu-sophistication. Much like Weston and Torquay are the favoured destinations for sea-and-sand seeking Brummies, Brighton draws in my soon to be adopted cokney cousins. This means of course that most things are too darned expensive, but on the plus side, there's plenty more interesting restaurants, bars, clubs and pubs than a seaside resort should have. Even the rock is vegetarian and organic. Probably. Add to this mix your traditional seafront fixtures of old people, a large gay community (thats the community thats large, not neccesarily the gays) and your traveller types who are more than likely members of the Levellers drinking cider in bus-shelters, and you've got yourself an interesting place to visit. Oh and apparently the Liberal Democrat conference was on as well while we were there, but apart from the drinking in the street thing and maybe a little excess gingerness, they didn't bother us too much.
So there you go, not much fun being back in good old brum (although while I was away i missed the earthquake and the Villa winning - there's a few things that don't happen everyday round here.) but i'll be packing my hankerchief on a stick soon to make the trip down to London Town. Anyone who's still around in Birmingham this weekend and not fled from the tremors is more than welcome to join in the celebrations on this friday & saturday, when I shall be painting the town a nice shade of red with bits that look like carrot in. Hope to see you all there. Friday, September 20, 2002
Cheer up they may say. Its only a game. Its not the end of the world......Anyway, not at all fresh from train hopping to London and back loads, and noncing around in Selfridges, I'm off to Brighton for a dirty weekend tomorrow, so if i'm not around, that's where i'll be.
Monday, September 16, 2002
SICKENING. I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN BARRYMORED . THATS IT, I'M LEAVING THIS SHITHOLE OF A CITY RIGHT NOW.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
Loki has been very busy giving a blog-ponce to Spazcat's sordid hole, so if you can stomach it why not give him a visit. Its sure to propel him to the top of Blog Hot or Not, as is Spychimp's new role as poster-boy pin-up pyromaniac to the firestarter generation with his blurred possible appearances in both the NME & Kerrang this week. And here's a crazy new search engine for you to look for your bizarre porn.
Also its been a busy few days here at the Paranoid Android Film headquarters. The wedding video is finally completed and Rise of the Robots just needs a few key scenes (ie.the ones that explain what the hell is going on.) to be committed to digital tape and that'll be in the can. Principal photography has begun on the Team Rocket video, and it looks like it could be a classic in the making. Though as yet no nude shots for all of you twisted toon-cocks who keep visiting here looking for your pokeporn. All this and the whole operations imminent branching out to the Capital City. Yes, as of next month this blog will be brought to you live and direct from laaaaandan mate. ParanoidAndroid vs Spazcat. There can only be one winner. Tuesday, September 03, 2002
Leeds Festival 2002 – “Call it a Riot?”
OK, bit late for a topical front-line report on the Leeds Festival “riots” but I’ve been busy. Going out and getting quite trolleyed obviously, but busy doing it nonetheless, and my blogger thing hasn't been working properly for a while. Firstly, a disclaimer, “I didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world was turning.” Myself and all my festival buddies, both new and old, including message board contributors Spychimp, (read his review here) Carlz and Bella, all had a cracking time. The music, as I’ve commented on below was good, and drinking beers round a camp fire, or even an overtly homosexual one is always fun. This was despite, rather than because of the often atrocious organisation. I’m talking ‘bout the horrendous queues every time you wanted to move anywhere, being herded like smelly pink haired sheep down tiny paths and having to do that horrible shuffling zombie walk. In places the site resembled some kind of concentration camp where the “alternative youth” of the day had been rounded up from the city streets by some kind of thought-police militia and stuck, under the watchful watch-tower eyes of a few pissed up scouser stewards. Add to that the lack of portaloos, hideously overpriced food and beer and you’ve not got an excuse for a riot but you’re someway on the way to explaining it. Actually, that above sentence is all a load of bollocks. The portaloos got torched when I was there in 2000, when conditions were much better. And last year, at Reading which is winning praise for being a bastion of respectability compared to Leeds, plenty of everyone’s favourite plastic poo-boxes were melted down too. The toilets were going to get burned down even if they still smelt of roses on the last day and there was a guy handing out hot towels on the door of each and every one. Call it tradition, call it anarchy, call it youthful excess, call it mindless vandalism – just don’t please call it a “riot.” Me and the Spychimp decided to go have a look at what was happening – yeah we maybe should be old enough to know better, but being at the fore-front of blog-journalism we couldn’t resist but get eye-witness reports on this major event. I mean I’m sure its not everyday in this country something gets vandalised or even burnt down, especially not something as vital and priceless as a plastic porta-potty. No wonder the police were out in force. And OK yeah, me and the Chimp had consumed a couple of cans of loud mouth soup and we were being nosy….. By the time we got there, a bizarre mexican stand-off had developed. One one side of a two-foot fence were the burning toilets and “the kids”, on the other were the riot police, and various onlookers including myself. A few of the junior firestarters were throwing bottles at the police, who were responding by every now and again rushing towards the fence, at which the kids would scatter, and then retreating back. This seemed to have been going on for some time, all the while the burning continued unabated. I’d just had time to assess the situation when some baton wielding goon rushed from his little gang and smacked me against the side of a wheelie bin, and twatted me on the leg – this didn’t hurt but unfortunately it did break my disposable camera so no pics I’m afraid. Seemingly unable to get over the other side of this quite small fence and sort out the actual troublemakers (and there are the usual conspiracy theories concerning many of the ringleaders being local Leeds boys just in for a bit of bother as opposed to genuine festival goers - Bowyer and Woodgate maybe?) the police instead resorted to random charges into the crowd of onlookers on their side of the divide. Some may say (and did say) that gawpers such as myself deserved what they got for somehow “encouraging” the violence, but whether you agree with that or not, there were plenty of innocent, frightened kids there, too scared to try and sleep because of the hooligans with gas canisters, but who instead found themselves in more danger from the hooligans in uniform. One fifty year old guy approached the police in an attempt to find his son, and received blows round the head from three of them instead of help. It was incidents like this that prompted the protesting shout of “Thatchers Army!” from an appalled Spychimp, although most of his attempts to involve the kids in the political aspects of his rant against the “police state” fell on confused young ears. Thatcher who? It was around this time that the portacabin started to go up – in an action movie style explosion. Clearly visible from fields away – although I was not a few fields away, probably not much more than twenty feet or so, and was tempted to throw myself to the ground a la Bruce Willis. Instead I think I just said something profound like “shit, did you see that!” With a dry cool wit like that I could be an action movie hero anyday. The police responded by beating some more kids who were nothing to do with the raging porta-ferno. If festival goers safety or the protection of property had been the agenda of the authorities, where were the fire-engines or the ambulances? Why were the police not guarding the arsonist’s targets in the first place or attempting to disperse them? My criticism here of the completely amateurish and thuggish police handling of the situation is in no way an endorsement of the potentially lethal burning of gas canisters ten foot away from fourteen year old kids hiding in tents. If the police had attempted in any way to stop these actions and some would-be pyros got beaten, then you pays your money you takes your chances, fair enough. But in response to the “official” police statement, there was no “riot” involving “500 people”. Instead I saw two small groups of “thugs” squaring off at each other, one armed with bottles, the other with batons and a bloody annoyingly noisy helicopter. As usual the only people who got hurt were bystanders caught in the crossfire, and the only winners are the people who oppose the very existence of the festival. The same thing would happen at Reading every year but strangely enough with no riot police in attendance there doesn’t seem to be any riots. Well I’ve been Kent Brockman and that was my two cents worth. Comments anybody? |
