Love Box

Yesterday, I spent my day at the Love Box Music Festival in Victoria Park, London. This was a first for me, having never been to a music festival, I was not so sure as what to expect. I have in the past flicked through a couple of channels showing music festivals or live gigs and shows, just recently Glastonbury was broadcast to the licence fee paying public. However I feel that you do not really get to understand the atmosphere until you are there and the even encapsulates you. Thus I have limited prior experience, limited to the May Day village fate.

May Day was the one day of the year where people would come out of their homes and visit the local play park and interact with others in the village that they would otherwise cross to the other side of the street to avoid. The mood is faked, with strained smiles, window washing waves, and short but loud laughs. The large tent, crammed full of stalls, the elderly flogging their harvest box gifts as raffle prizes, the local charity shop flogging their least fragmented wears, a depressed mother selling face painting consisting of sad lions and Jolly Green Giant incredible Hulk faces. The main event as rated by popularity is forever a toss up between the auction of a rejected lamb and the ribbon plaiting event. The parade it mostly overlooked for it represents far too much the story of the pied piper leading the children away, the disabled kid struggling to keep up. The Lions prize the largest let down of all for the non alcoholic beverage is hardly worth the trauma of turning out for.

Music festivals, they are much bigger. For me, the main difference was the distance. The distance people were willing to travel to get there. From all over the country people would make the effort to get there, despite the closest tube station being closed, people were prepared to get on the bus or walk. There was a small amount of failed Eastenders extras going against the traffic buyin' or sellin' tickets. One man pulling out all the stops (literally) selling poppers. Arriving at victoria Park was not the end of the migration, for over well trodden grass people would move towards the centre where the event was enclosed. The types of people the event attracted were those of homosexual orientation, men with a tendency of levering their feet into heels with a shoe horn, and people who choose to wear the 'alternative' dress code, thus the bars made it a fitting enclosure for a safari, where these people could live out their lives in relative safety from the poaches from the greater outside world. A large map depicted the stages on a map which could only be described as looking like a chode, a fact which looking at the content menu beside it, would suggest it was an image of intention.

What I saw, I loved. Then behind an australian man I saw the Gaymers cider area, where trees were reconstructed with packing crates, and large foam apples and pears (the non cockney sort) hung swinging in the wind. An artificial tree house was part of the main attraction, giving a great vantage point over the tall shirtless men of the Gaymers stage.

A long food hall containing food from around the world and coconut water was enough to stabilise and absorb the huge amount of alcohol on sale. Not of course that they made it easy for you to drink, with £6 per beverage, your wallet was likely to empty before your gullet, however luckily, if you wish to get sloshed, then cash point vans are readily available.

The music, that is what I assume people came here for was really good. I find that when you watch these things as I mentioned earlier on the television, you see a crowd of people, unable to move about much, apart from maybe jumping up and down. However, when I was there in the crowd I noticed that there was a lot of space. For me, maybe the great thing was that I could sit down, for I was warned that there would be a lot of standing up. The music was well organised, and performances were staggered, so, whilst one stage was set up, another would start playing after a ten minute lull to allow people to trek from one stage to another.

As a first experience, I would say that it was rather good. My concern now however, is that they May Day fate just wont manage to meet my heightened expectations.

Sun Seal and Sand

The general thought of my past week has been 'it's hot'. Not that that is all bad, 95% of the year my skin prickles on my arms and I establish that from that, it is cold. Heat is all together a good thing. People turn their heating off, saves the planet and then people will carry on using just as much water as they always have, until a hose pipe ban encourages them to take a sudden interest in washing their own cars on a regular basis. Heat brings people added sensations, closer to things, like chairs and sofas, there is nothing quite like the sensation of peeling your back of the faux leather sofa, like a waxing strip on your grandma's leg, each bring you the same feeling of revulsion. The NHS love the hot weather, it seems to kull the ageing population. This I have concluded is something to do with their strange attachment to layers of clothing, going out in 30' heat in jumpers, reversible fleeces and waterproof coats, complete with hidden hoods. Needless to say, they slow cook and flesh slides off the bone like a well cooked chicken.

I always think heat is one of those strange concepts. One which seems to flout the nature vs. nurture debate. Nurture would teach us that touching something hot is bad. Yet, when the sun comes out, people go out in hordes to greet it. Unfortunately, if television statistics are anything to go by, which as a media student, i'm tempted to doubt, we have become Stout Britain, a country full of chubby people, so when the summer past time of going down to the sea side, the image in our minds has been distorted through the hall of mirrors and now the beaches resemble a blubber beach of basking seals, large pink sweaty bodies, moving over each other, like pouring out a tin of plum tomatoes onto a chopping board. There they cook, and burn and surround themselves with bendy wind breaks, to provide privacy while they oil up with sandy extra virgin before concluding the last task to complete will be to dig a hole, before packing up and leaving.

The free tan is always attempted by some people. But if it is free, then there will be a determined Brit trying to access it. An expensive collection of green, twice used garden furniture is pulled out of the shed, a series of floral waterproofed cushions are produced harbouring mothballs and spiders, however a quick dusting with a squeamish hand produces results which thus make it acceptable. The sunniest part of the garden is chosen and the chair is set up and is quickly inhabited. The sun shines strong and hard, but after twenty minutes, no results have been found however they have discovered how boring it is to lie still, thus they jump into action and go inside collecting jugs of drink in special garden plastic vessels, a small table, a collection of magazines, purchased only for the free gift and a yellowing novel set aside for just an occasion. Back outside, with all the entertainment needed to sunbathe, they will lie back and start to read. Within moments, they realise the sun has moved so they get up and shuffle everything around further up the garden so as to be in the sun again. They set themselves up to read but then discover the paper blocks the sun. This results in moving over the chair as if it was a yoga mat, where best to read the book but still get sun. This proves difficult and the book ends up on the floor. The Brit will then sit back and decided just to sun bathe. Moments pass and they decide it is getting hot, so they flip over and sun on their backs. They doze and imagine hours have gone by. They are bored and warm and want a shower, so they move everything back inside. After the shower, they compare the underside of their forearm to the top side and conclude. Still pale.

The British summer. It's strangely hot this year. We have had it for about a week. Possibly a record. If it lasts much longer I expect we will be forced to complain about it and wish for milder times. While it lasts however, I would say 'its hot'.