I seem to have managed to not write on here in absolutely ages, had too much fun stuff to do. Crimes has been absolutely amazing the last couple of months, I can't thank everyone enough for making it so. I also apologise profusely to the bouncers who were getting somewhat fed up of me and a whole load of friends keeping on running in and out last month to see the lunar eclipse. That was pretty special too.
I can't believe how cold it is now. Last week I was set outside nearly every day eating my lunch, and now the winter is back. I was getting really excited about the upcoming festival season and all that, only to feel completely depressed today. I didn't quite get it when we went out to clean Beaker yesterday in the sunshine, and like 2 minutes later it hailed on us, then another 2 minutes later and the sky was completely blue again. What was that about? Not good. Still, it's like only just over a month to the first festival of the season. OK, it's ATP and that's cheating because like it doesn't involve camping, and like has real bathrooms and stuff, but you know, I haven't been to Butlins since I was like 10, so it's going to be pretty good fun. I can't wait to get in the water park bit. Though the rope course and go karts have to be done too!
I am also getting ridiculously uptight about Glastonbury, I can't wait until ticket day, but am absolutely convinced that something horrific is going to happen and that all of mine and my mates computers and phones will all simultaneously break, and so we won't have a hope in hell of getting those precious tickets. I so want to go though, it will be Beaker's first time if he gets to go, and I'm sure he's excited about it! I think I need to calm down about it all!
And I've only just recovered from Friday night. That was a big one, there were a load of people leaving at my work and we were having a big bash for them. I had the best evening tag teaming it with a few other DJ friends. Everyone went mental, everyone got trashed, and now my back kills. OK, it didn't commence killing until yesterday afternoon, but I think the pain has simply transferred up from my legs, which spent the entire of Saturday killing me. Standing up non stop from 6.30pm until 2am is not good. Take it from me. Even my shoulders hurt now. What is that about?
Maybe I shouldn't have gone out on Saturday as well, but I had to! It was our good friends Ricky and Annie's housewarming. We were welcoming them to the 'Stow by going down the dogs! So it was like a night out in London that I could walk to. Wow. That doesn't happen very often. We had an excellent time. Just don't ever ever ask me to pick the winner in a dog race for you. I was convinced that Melon Twister had to be the one. Oh, was I wrong? Oh yes! I suspect the Sun's top tips man knows slightly more about dog racing than I do!
So what else has happened? Well Simon got to be ancient, and we went to see the lovely Euros Childs to celebrate. What a lovely man he was. And how pleased he was with Kate's gift of a dead daffodil in advance of St David's day. Mmm, nice. He does write the catchiest songs though, and his support band Radio Luxembourg are ace. They're like early excitable Gorky's. With a natty line in in house designed t-shirts. Entrepreneurs as well. Fabulous.
Then it was my Mum's birthday, and she didn't know that we were going all the way up to Stockport for it. She seemed very pleased to see us. And we had a great weekend.
What else have we been up to? Ah, we went to the secret nuclear bunker. Boy, is it weird. We were kind of spooked, but it was cool. And we went to the chocolate box loveliest church in the whole world too. I liked that.
Oh, finally, before I shut up for now. Anyone like ever seriously had a Valentine's card from a real secret admirer? I had one this year, and Simon swears it wasn't him. I have absolutely no idea who else it could be from. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. What do you think?

And I quote, "this is the busiest night we've ever had!" said Mike the manager!

Thank you so much to everyone who made it in, it was one of the best nights ever, we had a fantastic time. Sorry to those of you who were turned away, if we could have magically made another room appear through the mirror so you could have gotten in, then we would have. Hopefully it wouldn't contain the scary theiving clones that Paul had a dream about though. Don't ask me what the heck that was about, let's just say that Paul's head must be a strange place!! The only thing I can say to those who we couldn't squeeze in is; come earlier next time!!

There were so many other good things to talk about too. My friend Sophie had her 30th birthday party with us, and that was ace. She seemed very pleased with her pink handbag- and I have absolutely no idea about handbags, so I think I did OK! We'd had dinner in Carluccio's earlier, which was great, even though I arrived in an enormous stress. Thank you a load of annoying people at work, and Transport for London! Then I got quite squiffy quite quickly. I feel the need to be congratulated however since the reason I got that was so fast was because I managed to complete my whole month of not drinking successfully. Who'd have thought it. Oh, and we had ace cake! More on cake later...

The next ace thing was Clare's new bespoke necklace. Check out her photo in our top friends. Most impressive. We still need to sort out getting our custom slipmats done, which we will, we will!!

And it was Paul's big birthday celebration too. I managed not to sort out getting him a present in time. Oops. It's because I need to get something really really good, and I just haven't had chance. Alright, so that's a pathetic lame excuse, but I'm sticking to it. Which brings me back to cake; well done Libby for baking the ace fairy cakes for Paul's birthday. They were great and had enough sugar to just about keep me going until the end of the night. I believe Paul had three. Well done him!

Ooh, and lots of dancing! If anyone else had feet that absolutely wrecked at the end of the night, we apologise for making you dance so much. Rest assured we did the same and were in equal amounts of pain.

Next well done to my friend Kate, who came despite having an early morning flight to Istanbul to get on Sunday, stayed well late! She said she was going to be sensible and get the last tube home, but then it was 12:30 and she had been persuaded that since she had already packed and booked a cab for the morning, as well as the fact that by that time she'd missed the last connection home anyway, that she'd dance for another hour or so. Excellent behaviour, that's what we like to see.

Well done too to Sophie and Biagio who have been off work more than they've been in work since September through having some enormously evil viral thing that will not go away for managing to stay out until two.

I've probably waffled enough for now. I have been up to some other stuff, like seeing Ben Folds play at 6 music, which was ace, and swimming lots. I have discovered some kids shampoo that stops the chlorine stinking and turning your hair into a bird's nest. It smells great! I love it. You probably don't care about that at all though. Oh well, told you anyway!

    I had such a great time on Saturday! It was great that so many people made it out to join us. We thought everyone would be at home either skint or doing some kind of mad New Year detox wotsit, but you weren't! For that we congratulate you wholeheartedly.

My favourite moment of the night has to have been when Ian played Pull Shapes and everyone did the claps along with it as well as pulling shapes. It was absolutely fantastic, just one of those instances where everything just happens perfectly and everyone gets what to do. Yay!!

What else can I say? Perhaps that I have never seen Paul quite so annoyed as he was at both the CD and vinyl of the Killers skipping on him. We've had loads of times where either due to our incompetence or failure of the DJ kit thast things have gone wrong. Never before have any of us been possessed to just close all the faders and swear at the equipment! Although he did possibly get even more annoyed that I managed to complete my set without incident. Oh, apart from the fact that he was then convinced that his copy of Hot Fuss was just scratched beyond redemption, so he thought he just reassure himself that this was the case by playing it at home, where of course it behaved impeccably. Oh dear. And the styli are fine, which we thought might have been knackered too. I believe his slightly belated New Year's resolution is to never play the Killers again!

Next month is Paul's birthday, so we're going to have to make it a super special one for him, let's hope everything works!

What else has happened recently? I guess there was Christmas and all that. I had a fine time pottering around and drinking far too much with Kate and Simon. I have rarely felt as ill as I did heading in to work on New Year's day. It was painful. I got loads of campervan related goodies as presents though, that was all very exciting. Can't wait for summer now, I'm hoping it will be a whole summer of lovely festival fun. Mind we're starting it all off at ATP, and that just isn't proper dirty festival going. Where's the mud and the pain in your back from sleeping on the ground? It's almost as civilised as having a camper!

The Pipettes Christmas party was lovely and stuff with it's fake snow and a cover of the only Mariah Carey record it's forgiveable to like, but what the heck was going on with the timings? Of course we didn't want to arrive too early so decided to have a pear cider in the Lock tavern first, then we thought we'd arrive in time to see Misty's Big Adventure supporting, but having arrived at 8.45ish, it was only a few minutes until the Pips themselves came on stage. It was all over by ten. What was going on there? Did they have a better party to go to later on? Or was it simply to encourage us to go back to the pub? We couldn't head home so early could we? Harumph! I was really looking forward to seeing Misty's again too. Bummer.

I managed to avoid all the crumby work parties too, I was enjoying myself too much up in Manchester to be bothered coming back to DJ at our big one. I was literally begged to do so, but it just wasn't happening. Maybe next year...

I went record shopping today and I got a build your own candy lion with my Gruff Rhys album. Yay!

Does anyone else find the 'what you're listening to' search on here is complete rubbish. I want to put Gruff Rhys on here, but it's taking forever, so I'll write it here instead.

Phew-ee, that was a weekend of fun and many bands, like how many were on with CSS on Friday?
I think there were like 4 support bands. Mental. I was really lazy and old and went and sat upstairs for it, which was cool as it meant I could chill out watching the support bands. I think I likes the Shakes most, but I was under the influence of a lot of wine, so if I suddenly decide that they are shite, then that's OK too! I thought the 1990s were the most boring by far, very predictable indeed. But then CSS came on, and they were fantastic, I managed to persuade my legs that standing and dancing was in fact the way forward at this point, which it was as everyone up there did so. And being such a short arse going up there meant that I could actually see, which is a major bonus at gigs for me!! They were so cool, especially the whole 'I couldn't decide what to wear, so I just wore everything' and then taking a layer off at the end of each song thing. God knows how she didn't pass out wearing all that after the first song. And then Jarvis came on to sing Alcohol with them. Excellent. He doesn't have to do anything except walk on stage to have the most amazing presence. I love him!! It reminded me of going to see Oasis years ago when Verve were supposed to be supporting, but one of them broke a finger or something so they couldn't play. Now we knew that they wouldn't be on, but we didn't know who was replacing them until we heard the first strains of Babies start up. And since we'd squished ourselves right onto the front row it was f***ing fantastic. How I loved Pulp...
And then CSS finished by playing Pretend We're Dead, thus heralding:
Oh yes, you've guessed it... the grunge revival!!

Well, if that is true, then it can only bode well for Brother Francisco. They were ace at the Pleasure Unit on Saturday. Thanks to the lovely people of Conceited who let me DJ for a bit, playing far more rock stuff than I usually would at CAP, it was great!! So Simon played half a song in the wrong key, and the lead for his organ was buggered, but they had so much energy. I think Will was indeed inspired after Thursday night and the MC5!! And Simon stepping off stage to check what they looked like on the screen was well funny!

Simon is now convinced however that I am no longer a good luck charm where watching West Brom play football is concerned, as they didn't win on Sunday. I had been persuaded to the pub by the promise of lunch being bought for me to watch, otherwise I would have hidden in bed with a whole load of tissues and olbas oil. I think that going out 3 nights in a row and drinking far too much at all of them, then having to get up early for work has done me no good. Well, sod it, it was all great fun.

Woo hoio, I'm going to see CSS tonight. I can't wait!!

And I saw the MC5 last night, and they rocked, despite the smell of sweaty rocker men pervading the place, the band carried on regardless. Lisa Kekaula was amazing singing with them, she has such a great voice, and of course everyone went mental when they played Kick Out The Jams! My legs hurt a lot afterwards as they kept everyone waiting for absolutely ages to come on stage, but when they did, boy did Mr Will Francisco get excited!! He was very giddy, and eventually we lost him in the mosh. I do hope he got home OK.

Which reminds me, everyone should go see Brother Francisco tomorrow, as Will has been studying hard and no doubt will be practising a few choice rock moves tomorrow. So watch out for Elliot killing him when his drum kit gets wrecked. Yikes!

What else has happened? Well Crimes Against Pop was absolutely fantastic last weekend. Everyone had such a great time, and yet again you lot wouldn't go home, huzzah! I was absolutely knackered on Sunday though. Didn't stop me demolishing the most enormous burger ever though, hahaha! And we've found a place that makes custom slipmats online, so watch out for us turning up and using those. I think it was Ian's amazing revolving hat that inspired that one. I promise I will get the video of that up on here soon, in the the meantime it's on www.crimesagainstpop.com on our blog page. You can of course still see Paul's almost freakily accurate impression of Jay-Z on here though. You know you want to!

And before that I went to the Sunday Best instore wotsit at Fopp, that was great fun. The concept of record shops with bars in them is absolute genius, and Misty's Big Adventure were excellent. They're such good fun.

Oh, and I want to go on the slides at the Tate again, they are the best fun ever.

 

 

Saturday was so much fun, I've even forgiven the unbelievably impatient London drivers who were very rude when they were stuck in traffic. Beaker does not deserve to be honked at. Particularly when it is freezing cold and he has not warmed up yet. So me and Paul made it to Sainsburys to buy the stuff for the party, and then I think we completely amused the check out woman as we had bought 40 quids worth of sweets and cake, 1 Twister game, and a bottle of mouthwash. I think she was concerned as to what we were going to get up to later!!

We loaded ourselves up with the most stuff ever to get to the Buffalo Bar, thankfully we'd only gone 2 stops on the tube before realising that we'd forgotten the banner. Aaaargh!  Thank you Simon for going back home to get in.

Next we amused the bouncers on the door of Wetherspoons as they insist on looking in all your bags. Given that we had about 5 each this was something of a palaver. And they ID'ed me, but said that Paul didn't need to bother. Paul was not impressed. So instead he amused everyone by proceeding to buy a bottle of Moet at the bar. The staff took forever to manage to locate some champagne glasses. Then Paul was called a ponce by a very scary man. We had fun anyway!

Then, shock and amazement, we actually managed to make it to the Buffalo Bar by 9 to set up, and give Mike the manager his birthday present. We thought he might kill us, but it turned out that he loves his Girls Aloud calendar! tee hee! It seemed to be nearly everyone's birthday over the weekend. Ours, Mike's, Nic's and Becks! I think that in the end there were indeed 4 birthday parties going on in one room!!

We take turns lying on the floor so that Simon can draw around us, I don't quite make it to the safety of the DJ area. We put up our crime scene tape, and blow up what seems to be the most balloons in the world ever. The place looks great. And then the people come. We do our quiz, and it feels really weird. Everyone concentrates so hard on it that all we can see is people scribbling away. No-one moves from their seat. The mix seems really long as a result! We are duly handed a whole sheaf of answer sheets and Simon hides away to go mark them. Well done Eliot who got 53/56!

We dance and DJ our socks off, and no-one seems to have a bed to go to. I give up at 3 leaving Simon and Paul to hold the fort. I could barely stand any longer. I'd never seen so many people still dancing at 3:15. Well done you lot! You made our birthday something very special indeed!

So, having worked far too bleeding much this month, I have one of my big treats. I went to see New Order, for what I worked out to be the 9th time last Friday. What a soulless hell hole Wembley Arena is. I arrived at 7:30, just in time to see Maximo Park. Not that I like Maximo Park. I am in fact highly indifferent to Maximo Park, but for those that like them, they were on astonishingly early I thought, and hardly anyone had arrived. I suspect that is because Wembley appears to be approximately half way to Birmingham and not in London at all, so it takes forever to get there. And since the place looks like an aircraft hangar with about 50 people huddling for warmth near the front, there is very little in the way of atmosphere. Nevertheless my friend Biagio has headed down there and gives a good go at giving the band a bit of love and support. They seem to throw themselves into it with gusto, but it must have been damned hard work for them. They play for an hour, which means again that those who wanted to see them weren't short changed on that front.

Anyway, enough of that. Someone proceeds to DJ playing a selection of acid classics, but infuriatingly keeps on mixing to something else just about as the chorus gets going.  Why?? Crimes Against Pop would have done better!!

So, just after 9 they come on and announce that for the moment they are in fact going to be Joy Division. I think that most of the crowd are pretty pleased! They are great, they don't arse about too much, Bernard doesn't whoop too much, nor does he Dad dance too much, due to a 'gammy leg' apparently. This is probably a good thing as it means a no nonsense set. They manage to play Atmosphere the best I've ever heard it. And the moment that everyone starts singing and jumping in unison is the moment that you forget that you are in the place with the least atmosphere known to man. After about 6 or 7 songs they decide to be New Order instead. Again everyone seems to be pretty happy about this idea. Technically they do a bit of a transition anyway by playing Ceremony. It's amazing, they are brilliant. They play for ages, they even do the really camp one from Waiting for the sirens call, guilt is a useless emotion. I reckon no-one but me likes this one, but I don't care. I shout myself hoarse, my legs feel like they are about to fall off from dancing, mainly as a result of them playing whole runs of amazing tracks like Temptation and The Perfect Kiss. What more could I have wanted? To get home easily? Well, that happened too, with a short diversion to the Buffalo Bar to catch up with Simon. I've missed Brother Francisco of course, but see Ambulance, who are very loud, but quite good, then Simon DJs for a bit before we run off home.

I feel knackered today, maybe it was the drinking after work on Sunday, or the drinking on Monday, or maybe it the 5 days overtime I've managed to do in October. Rest assured I will get my energy back for Saturday night when it will be our birthday. Bring it on!!!

Well, I've not said anything for a couple of weeks, so I suppose I have to say what I've gotten up to really.

I think the last thing I mentioned was going to a wedding, I went, which is more than some people managed! Actually it was a blooming fine weekend. Amazingly the train got us up to Preston as promised, it was rammed, so we decided against trying to find the other couple of people we knew were on it until we got to Preston. When we arrived, we found that they had managed to get bumped into 1st class for free, by telling tales about their steam train driving. Don't ask. It's probably best not to! And they had ended up in the same carriage as Bill Oddie and that woman off Autumnwatch. What fun we had missed out on! So we make it to the hotel, which in a comedy fashion is adjacent to Camelot theme park. It has lovely 'chalet style' accomodation. I guess they are actually aiming at it looking like lovely sun drenched Mediterranean Villas, but since it is pissing down and they are next door to a crappy theme park in the vicinity of Preston, the impression they actually give is of Butlins making a crap attempt at being posh. So we make the most of it, I go for a lovely swim at the spa, then we all get a little bit too tipsy for our own good. A fine fine evening was had by all, and it wasn't even the day of the wedding! The wedding itself is lovely, in a really pretty church, with a mad ancient priest who frankly just makes us all piss ourselves laughing. Particularly with his final comment, "Right, that's it, they're married!". Then we all get to be naughty kids and ride back to the hotel at the back of the top deck of the double decker bus that's been hired for the occasion. There are rumours that a certain person mooned out the back window. It wasn't me is all I can say! Everyone proceeds to get very drunk again in the evening. Then I remember that my Dad is meeting me in the morning, so I really oughtn't to have a hangover, so I be good, and just laugh at other people making right fools of themselves. Hurrah. The Sunday was lovely, met my Dad and brother for a bit, had a good chat, then found a shop selling loads of flavours of Seabrooks crisps. They truly are the finest crisp ever, so we stock up on them to help us survive the train home.

The next weekend was Crimes Against Pop, and what a fantastic one it was too. I swear I didn't sit down for more than 5 minutes of the entire time between 10 and 3. I also spent most of that time skipping and dancing like a lunatic. Either that or in a downright disgusting fashion with everyone in the place. And boy was there a lot of you. OK, I did sort of stop to play some records, but I was only slightly less energetic whilst doing that! I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did, and maybe that your feet hurt a little less than mine did on Sunday morning. Youch, it was bad!

So, what else have I done? Well, I finally went to see Little Miss Sunshine. i had to go see it really didn't I? It's like VW porn! Well, not really, but it is very very funny, and quite sad in places. I throughly recommend it. I can't explain why I particularly found the horn the funniest bit of the whole film, well I could, but you'd probably think I was daft. So I won't. Har de har har!

Today I am both happy and sad. My lovely lovely camper was great getting us all the way to Bestival and back, except for when we'd just about made it back onto the North Circular and then the brake pedal suddenly felt weird, and it wouldn't stop anywhere near as fast as before. So we had to trundle the last 10 miles or so very slowly with huge gaps in front, just in case we couldn't stop. So I took Beaker to the garage, where it turned out there were all manner of bad things wrong with the brakes. So I am now very very skint, but Beaker can stop again. So, have pity on me, there'll be no more fun until payday for me, which is about 3 weeks away. Yikes. And I'm going to a wedding, which will no doubt cost me loads, even just for the hotel. Pants. I hope nothing else goes wrong in the near future. I realised that buying a vintage vehicle would be more expensive than a modern car, but please have mercy on my bank account for a while now. I'll look after you, honest.

Sorry, that was my tale of woe for the day.

Let's get onto the better stuff. So, who saw the Bestival documentary last weekend eh? We were very kindly informed shortly before it was transmitted by the very lovely Rob Da Bank, that our banner would make a prominent appearance. And it did! Huzzah, so even if we didn't appear on the TV, we were there in spirit! Yay! I may well have to play that track by the Aliens that was on during the programme at the next Crimes Against Pop, so I can fondly reminisce about the sight. It was made all the more funny by the fact that I didn't read the email about it being on until later, so was disturbed by Simon shouting and screaming to come look as it appeared!

Then loads of photos appeared on the Bestival website, and I found one of me and Paul. We look so shifty in it, I have no recollection of seeing that photographer either. Freaky. Go check it out!

Oh, and I'm completely in love with the Pulp reissues too!

    Well, what a weekend that was! We battled the traffic on the Isle of Wight on Friday morning, wearing out the poor camper's brakes on those hills, but we made it! OK, so we managed to pick the most exposed bit of the artist camping area to set up in, hence the enormous awning attempting to take off with us all attached to it, but it wasn't our fault, who made the ground so damned hard? Big thanks to the guy with the really old style bell tent, your mallet was a lifesaver! Once we'd managed to sort out getting everyone their wristband, we settled down to having a weekend of top festival shenanigans.
First we take a look around the site, get to see the JD Rock'n'Roll tent for the first time. It's perfect, since we have decided to go along with the whole dressing up at the festival thing, obviously we have our fugitive outfits, which are black and white striped tops, so we match the tent! Huzzah!
Since there are quite a few bands on, we decide it's time to check out some music. So we go see James Yorkston be utterly bemused by the clearly getting a bit too giddy already gang who were getting everyone to do Mexican waves, then asking the security guy to film it! Top marks to him for doing just that! Then they got everyone up to dance like loonies. I suspect that Mr Yorkston had never seen anything like it before. Huzzah!
Things get even better later on when the Fall come on, they're amazing. I've no idea how Rob Da Bank got them to play, but it was inspired. Completely surreal seeing them in a field with the sun setting on a glorious day.
Things get a bit hazy later on, but definitely ended up at about 2 in the morning with hot chocolate watching some mad animation in the Groovy Movie solar cinema.
We wake up to the sounds of the scariest bloodcurdling kind, suspecting that a baby is being sacrified in some kind of awful ritual just outside, only to find that it's actually some kind of evil mutant alien bird that I can't find a picture of in my Nature Trail Omnibus book. It makes the most horrible noise whilst attempting to snap everyone's guyropes with its' beak. Freaky.
Saturday morning, and we decide to find out if being an artist confers anything special on you. The answer is no for the toilets. They're still minging and there aren't enough of them. We decide to queue with everyone else for the one real toilet nearby. Where showers are concerned, things are a lot better. OK, there's a queue, but they have big cubicles, with hooks for your clothes and towel. And, to top it all off, the water is lovely and hot. Fab. Wash away all the cobwebs, then go see Kitty, Daisy and Lewis being excellent. Then we go on the toboggans. I particularly like the sign saying that you are not allowed on if you are under the influence of drink or drugs. Hmmm, I suspect the ride would be an awful lot quieter if people were heeding this sign. We meet the Brownies, they are lovely people, we give them stickers, and they give us some of theirs too. Spend a large proportion of the afternoon going up to the 'Quinn's vaguely alcoholic, but all made out of fruit, free drink stall'. The idea is that they stamp your hand so you can only get one free drink. They seem to have forgotten that being a stamp, it's quite easy to wash off. So, as long as you didn't go get a drink from the same person every 2 minutes, you could get loads of them. I'm sure they must have given away more drinks than there were people on site, so how they didn't think that people would do this, I've no idea. We also decide to paint the huge Bestival letters. So look out for where we wrote a variety of pop and crime related slogans on them!
Kanda Bongo Man is fantastic. He's the coolest, funky dancing and everything.
We go to get dressed up as the pop fugitives. We've all got stripy tops and bandit masks, handcuffs and swag bags. We also have a sticker machine to make stickers to put on people. We go join the fancy dress parade having downed a huge pitcher of the ace Bollywood bar cocktails in about 5 minutes.
Everyone looks cool. There are loads of great outfits, including a few more criminals. Word must have gotten out!! We stick stickers on everyone else we see in stripes or who we particularly like. So if you were wanted, a criminal, or a crime scene, then we like you!
Kid Creole comes on, plays Stool Pigeon for about 15 minutes, then we realise that we can't remember any other song by him and wonder what else he can possibly do. I've no idea what it is though as I get distracted by those big purple letters, mmmmm, pie! Pie, mash and gravy it is then. Yum yum. So now it's almost time for the Pet Shop Boys. We wriggle our way right down near the front. They don't disappoint. They put on a fantastic show and play a whole stackload of classic tunes. Absolutely fabulous, we love them, because they're great! And we love the huge amount of bubble machines that people have, blowing them all over the crowd all the time.
We go to see the Pipettes. The tent is absolutely rammed, can't see a darned thing. I think that half the fun is being able to see them , so am slightly disappointed. Bummer.
Decide we ought to call it a night slightly early, since we've been told that we have to be in the artist liaison wotsit at 10am, and then we've got to play intermittently until 2am. Yikes. Go to bed. Spend the entire night awake getting far too excited. Oops.
Go to the artist liaison wotsit for 10am. Hang around for about an hour while precisely zero happens to aid us getting a ton of records down to the JD tent. In the end Simon persuades an exceedingly lovely bloke to give us a lift. It's not his job to do so, and he has to use his live-in van, but he does it. And for that we salute him!
We take the opportunity of being in the arena area before anyone is allowed in to take loads of photos. There's an enormous banner outside the tent proclaiming that we are the DJs of the day, which is very very exciting. There's also a huge crowd gathered at the entrance. I'm sure that they're all waiting for us, honest! We go try out the decks. I panic as they have far too many fancy buttons that I have no idea what they do, and fear that I will press them all and cause everything to go horribly wrong, conversely Paul decides to press them all to find out what ridiculous things they make happen. So we get Sheriff John Bunnell slowed down, sped up, going backwards, being scratched and being looped. Great. We decide to stop pressing those buttons once people are actually listening!!
We also manage to get permission to hang our banner over the DJ area so everyone can see who we are. It looks great, it really fits in with the tent decor too! Luckily a security man finally agrees to bring over our Police Line Do Not Cross tape that Kate has with her and is stuck waiting outside with. So we sling a bit of that up there too to add to the effect.
Finally, we are given the go ahead to start as a million people all rush into the arena, all vaguely in our direction, but actually all heading to the cash machines which are right next door. They are lucky enough to hear us start the day to the immortal sounds of Sheriff John introducing us (technically he may actually have been introducing an episode of World's Wildest Police Videos, but we'll forget about that bit!). The afternoon progresses reasonably sedately, we get a few people dancing immediately, but to be honest the weather is glorious outside, so why would you hang around inside the tent. It was difficult to see, but there were people outside giving it some in the sunshine too. It all gets a bit hairy at points where some bands aren't ready to go and we have to do an extra 15 minutes, and some bands finish early and we have to jump up on stage panther-like unnoticed from the side of the stage! It's all great fun, and we take it in turns to play through the afternoon, gaining confidence in using the gear and getting people going. I sneak off at one point to see Hot Chip. They are great in the sun, and I did think that the Scrabble letters on poles were a genius idea as they wandered around making a variety of somewhat rude words!
The evening ends up being fantastic. We get everyone going with our matching outfits and ridiculous dancing. Everyone sings along, they all demand that the music be turned up as it's just not loud enough. But the sound man won't do it. Boo hiss!! We try to do it ourselves turning up everything on the mixer, but we get told off! Oh dear.
So what was the best? Maybe it was the people shouting 'Crimes Against Pop' during one of the bands sets. Maybe it was the people who booed at the band who were setting up and you could hear them tuning up over us. And maybe, just maybe, it was the person that said to our friend Kate when we climaxed our set with 'Always on my mind' by the Pet Shop Boys, "they probably weren't even born when this came out!" Whoever you were, we love you!!
We get very upset that we are told that we can't play after the last band as the whole arena is going to be closed. We were planning an absolute party set getting all our friends up on the stage. We heard that a lot of people out in the crowd were really disappointed about this too as we were listed in the programme as being on afterwards. However, we were happy that our reputation of making people drink like fishes came out intact as the bar literally ran out of alcohol by 11pm, when the tent was open until after 1am!! Huzzah!!
At the end of it all, we were absolutely exhausted. Thanks to the Welsh lads who said I must be really fit to dance like that. At the very moment they said it, I suspected that my legs were about to drop off! How we ever got back up the huge hill I'll never know, or how I managed to drive back yesterday. I'm still knackered now! I hope to see you there next year is all I can say.