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Michael Walker

11

December 17:12

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Many people are derided for believing Rudolph to not be truely one of Santa's original reindeer. There is a school of thought saying that this is a common error made by cretins, morons and seven year olds. However the true error is made by those who deride the supposed cretins, morons and seven year olds.

Rudolph was a an umcommmon breed of red nosed reindeer. Witnesses have declared that he has a very shiny nose. Many that have seen him have even said that it glows. However this is erroneous – the glow is merely a reflection from the brash and tasteless Christmas decorations disgracing the towns and cities of Great Britain

In a documentary filmed for ITV73483, "I'm a celebrity Reindeer get me some carrots!", the only surviving original reindeer Dasher admits that he and all the other reindeer "used to laugh and call him [Rudolph] names", in the documentary it comes out that the reason that he does not appear among the original reindeer is because they wouldn't let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.

However one foggy Christmas Eve during the seventies Santa was in a pickle and is quoted as going to Rudolph and saying "Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" This is a lie. According to Dasher what Santa actually said was: "Get your fxxxing arse out here you lazy son of a doe, its freezing and we've got 730 million presents to deliver. Bloody useless Reindeer, I can't wait for everyone to start shopping on t'internet."

Then all the reindeer loved him (but not in a gay way) as they shouted out with glee, "Rudolph the red nosed Reindeer you'll go down in history!" Indeed they were correct as it later transpired that Rudolph got to the moon in 1967, two years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, invented the lightbulb and built St Paul's Cathedral.

The documentary airs on the 22nd of December and is a tribute to the deceased reindeer. The program conveniently glosses over their habit of cross dressing by putting on fake antlers when theirs had fallen off for the winter.

19

November 16:11

Knots

I can now say that I've seen two episodes of The X-Factor (soon to be three). This shameful admission needs to be seen in the context of being friendly towards my housemates.

The situation I find myself in is this:

Initially I was pretending to like the show but wasn't very good at it, giving the impression that I disliked it.

However such was my difficulty in prentending to like it that my housemates think I'm doing that thing of pretending to dislike something whilst secretly harbouring a love for whatever that thing may be.

Whereas in reality I do actually dislike the X-Factor but am pretending to to do that thing of pretending to dislike the X-Factor whilst secretly harbouring a love for the show in order to justify watching it.

Of course, you have no way of knowing whether I actually really do like the X-Factor but am pretending to dislike it and do that thing of pretending to dislike the X-Factor whilst secretly harbouring a love for the show in order to justify watching it.

14

November 19:11

A question for scientists

The sun is:

• roughly 15 million degrees celsius


• turns around 4 million tons of Hydrogen into energy evey second


• approximately 109 times wider than the Earth


• 2×10²⁷ tons heavy

My question is: if it's so great and so full of energy, why can't it be arsed to get up before half seven? Lazy fucker.

31

October 20:10

Social Viewing

All over the United Kingdom otherwise perfectly sane, rational people are watching The X-Factor in order to spend quality time with housemates, brethren and spice (the plural of spouse).

In the worst cases these people find themselves forming opinions about who should stay in and find themselves groaning when Kate Thornton says "we'll tell you after the break". Indeed these people now know that Kate Thornton presents the program and not Ant and Dec as previously assumed by people who avoid ITV like the metaphorical bird-flu it is.

The Government is concerned about this phenomenom as experiments have shown that watching such drivel can reduce a person's IQ by 10%. So a person who previously had an IQ of 110 would find themselves left with just 78 IQ points after watching an episode of the aforementioned X-Factor.

A common defence against the intellectual impact of the show is to watch it "ironically". This involves tutting alot, moaning about how the contestants don't have any talent and were picked for their looks/personalities, that you could do better on a karaoke machine after half a dozen pints and laughing malevolently at the snide remarks that Darth Mentor Simon Cowell says. Unfortunately, whilst this helps preserve intelligence it pushes people TQ (Twatness Quotient) up by an inordinent 25%.

The best defence is to throw your television set out of the window as though you were a crazed rock star who had just found out that they were being dropped by their label after not selling as many records as the latest TV created teeny-boppers.

Do it now.

22

September 20:09

Turning Left – Human Indicators

We've all been there merrily walking down the street, we come up behind someone walking slower, we try to go past them, but lo! Suddenly they veer right into your path causing you to stop abruptly, bump into them or swerve out of the way into the path of a double decker bus, causing your own death (or at least severe injury) and delaying the traffic resulting in a backlog of congestion in our already overcrowded cities. Many people don't get to work on time having a disasterous effect on the economy, causing hyper inflation giving rise to a hotbed of political extremity and before you know it we have World War 3 on our hands. If only there were some way of avoiding all this unpleasantness.

Well now there is. Mad scientists have invented human indicators. They attach to the back of people through bionics and are wired up to the brain. They sense when a person is about to deviate from their current path and start flashing. The government is highly in favour of the scheme and have moved valuable resources away from pointless things like education and health to fund the project.

There were some initial teething problems. For instance, when male subjects were testing the device issues occured when they walked past lingerie stores. The indicators would start flashing insanely confusing the male's natural urges with a desire to go into the shop. This was very embarrassing so scientists had to fit a "bra-detector" (invented in 1978 in Luxembourg as a way of finding women after the entire female population pretended to be men for a bit of a laugh) to the indicators. If a man with the lights goes past an area densely packed with bras then the indicators will not flash.

Whilst many are delighted with the new invention some sections have raised concerns about mixing human beings with technology. The We're Really paranoid about Killer Robots and Stuff Society (Now with a club at Sheffield Hallam as well as Warwick) fear similar consequences to those produced by Otto Octavious' experiments in Spiderman. "People think that Spiderman 2 was just a film" begins Pru McTractor, president of WRPAKRASS's Hallam branch, "but it could happen. You start fitting indicators to people and who knows where it could end up? The indicators might take over their bodies and drive them to Conservative Party headquarters forcing them to join up. And can you imagine if this indicator rebellion spreads to cars? You'd have people going left at roundabouts but indicating right! Can you imagine?!"

However the financial carrot on offer for perfecting these devices in massive. And since physicists proved in 1836 that money makes the world go round, their presence is inevitable.

16

September 18:09

The History of the University of Warwick

Foundation

The University of Warwick was founded in 1965. A common misconception is that the university takes it name from the town of Warwick whose district council put forward funds for the institution at its birth. This a myth put about by those pompous people who like Warwick to sound grand and impressive.

In actual fact the university was founded by four militant candle makers from Coventry with the proximity to Warwick town being a mere coincidence. They invented a special candle wick which when lit reacted with the candle wax and exploded, these wicks were known as War-Wicks and became common place. It was on the back of this success that they founded the university, giving it the name of their invention. The hyphen was dropped and the second "w" made silent to confuse Americans.

Notable moments in Warwick History

When the university was first built it was upside down due to a clerical error. Someone mistakedly ticked the "build upside down" box on the plans. This issue was corrected by getting a few thousand people to stand at one of the far edges of the university and jump up and down, thus causing it to flip over. This caused a big mess at what became the top (previously the bottom) of the university. This mess was named Canley.

Officially no UFOs have ever crashed at the University, however unofficially the story goes like this:

In 1972 a spaceship crashed in the heart of the campus. Rather than attempting the cover up the crash, denying the the incident ever occured in the face of the crashed spaceship clearly being outside the Arts Centre, the powers that be in a rare move of genius unveiled the craft as a piece of modern art known as the Koan – more commonly known as the cone by clever scientists or that bloody weird thing with lights that makes a noise by foolish artists.

Hauntings

Supposedly the Cryfield residences are haunted by the ghosts of people hanged at Gibbet Hill, however more recently a much larger and more sinister spectre has appeared: the ridiculously pointedly mentioned ghost of the British Higher Education system. An entity brutally slaughtered using the money gained from tuition fees.

Also the Union is supposedly inhabited by ghosts. From time to time they possess students on nights out and make them behviour strangely, such as pulling odd people, dancing like a twat and in extreme cases losing the ability to walk.

14

September 12:09

Panic Buying Continues

This week has seen a surge in the use of petrol stations after the Supermarkets ran out of Milk Chocolate Hob-Nobs. This is because there are fears that the supply of Hob-Nobs may be cut off completely if plans for a bloackade of Hobs goes ahead. There are no fears of a shortage of Nobs, as anyone who goes in HMV will tell you there is an abundance of people buying James Blunt CDs. Indeed the amount of Nobs in this country alone would be enough to theoretically last until 2:34pm January 6th 3512 (approx.)

Mass queues have formed outside petrol stations across the country with the media fueling the situation out of all proportion. Queues as long as ten miles, or 160,000 Hob-Nob tubes stacked in a line, have formed as people are worried that they might run out of Hob-Nobs before the end of the week.



The proposed blockade of Hobs is because of spiraling Hob-tax and a general rising trend in the price of Hobs. Over the summer the poor weather and enthralling Ashes Series have resulted in lots of people staying inside and drinking tea and eating Hob-Nobs, resulting in a Hob crisis as suppliers bumped up prices to match the demand. Tautologically students, slackers and fat people are furious that their number one pastime now costs so much and are wanting to "sit around and be lazy."

One worried customer had this to say: "I'm worried because next week it's my turn to host the Wooly Hat Wearing Club Afternoon Tea, without out a good supply of Hob-Nobs I'll be a laughing stock. I know that it's still a week away but you have to be sure." One Hob-Nob buyer claimed to have enough Hob-Nobs to last until the next time England win the Ashes Series.

Consumer groups are angry with the government, claiming the high tax on Hobs is an attempt to force people to be more healthy. The reasoning is that many people may have to resort to eating horrible fruit if they can no longer afford Hob-Nobs.

On a happier note the heroic England cricket team has deservedly been able to sort out a supply of Hob-Nobs for their celebrations over the coming weeks. This month was Kevin Pieterson's turn to get the shopping in and after struggling to find anywhere selling Hob-Nobs he made the most of other shoppers' inability to hold on to Hob-Nob tubes: "There's been a lot of pressure on me, I've copped a bit of stick this week. Fortunately a few catches went down and I took full advantage."

Other Hob-Nob lovers may not be so fortunate but are urged not to buy unecessary supplies as the government is certain a fuel scale crisis can be averted if everyone stays sensible.

13

September 16:09

Evil squirrels (part 2)

As previously reported in this blog, squirrels are evil. Here is a chart showing the top ten most evil entities ever:

1. Lord Sauron 100% Evil
2. Adolf Hitler 99% Evil
= The Emperor 99% Evil
4. Joseph Stalin 97% Evil
5. Lord Voldemort 96% Evil
6. Squirrels 94% Evil
7. Manchester United Fans 93% Evil
= Bambi 93% Evil
9. Broccoli 92% Evil
10. Stiffler from American Pie 91% Evil

In a previous blog entry I drew attention to squirrels pretending to be rabbits in order to get into people's homes. Now they've taken on grander designs. Here is a picture of the University of Warwick Students Union taken with a normal camera. Try to spot any disguised squirrels. I'll give you a clue, there are four of them.



Can you see them? Here's some help: this is the same shot, but taken with a special camera that conveniently put's circles around any disguised squirrels.



How many did you manage to get? Not many? Without the special camera it's very difficult indeed, but not impossible. I'll give you some tips.

1. Look at the fiesta, do you notice how it's parked next to another similar car? This a typical squirrel trick: imitation. If you see two things together that look the same, the chances are that one of them is a squirrel in disguise. The same rule applies to the light bollard.



2. Squirrels like to disguise as signs. Think about it for a minute. The best place to hide is the last place someone would think to look. People always look at signs in order to see where they are going. So only a fool would hide as a sign because so many people would see it, right? Wrong. Because of this signs are the best things to disguise as. No one expects it. It's a classic case of missing what's right under your nose. This is why in the picture the signs for the Union and Xananananananas are in fact squirrels.

If you bear these in mind then you'll have a much better chance of fighting the squirrels. It's gotten to the point where squirrels could be anywhere, before they only appeared in isolated areas. You have been warned.

1

September 14:09

Leeds Festival 2005

Sunday

At festivals you get plied with freebies – evidently they've done a bit of research into the sort of things students like: free things is of course the top answer. Amongst this is lots of condoms – what on earth am I going to use them for? I might be over crediting a condom's emotive capacity but they must despair once they get handed to me because the chances of them getting used plummets to somewhere between zero and nil. The extent to which this is true is easy to seen in the fact that I now have a sizeable collection of condoms in a draw that have been handed out at festivals and around university by well meaning types trying to protect the well being of festival goers and students, but unwittingly wasting the earth's rubber supplies.

With the onset of the last day comes a desperation to watch as many bands as possible in order to get your money's worth. This meant spending a little time watching the Unsigned Bands Stage. We saw The Last People On Earth, or at least they claimed to be. They're from Hull. Cue the inevitable jokes about how if the last people on earth are from Hull then we're all screwed. More to the point I wonder how we'd end up with such a scenario. My best guess would be that anyone hell bent on destroying the planet would take one look at the place and reckon somebody else had gotten there first.

We took a quick trip to the Carling Stage where we caught Youth Group, who apparently feature the bassist from the Vines. Any hopes that Youth Group might have more in common with them than a member were short lived as they very nearly put me to sleep.

Another stage and another band as we went to watch The Cribs in the NME tent. I'd seen them play last year and they were brilliantly energetic, so I had high hopes of a repeat performance. And again they managed to put on a good show. Next on the bill was Nine Black Alps – supposedly the new Nirvana. Seeing as how I can't stand Nirvana I'm not really sure that there was much point in me checking them out. The comparison was fairly accurate, which meant I didn't enjoy it all. However for fans of depressing, moaning music they're probably very good.



I chose the moments after Nine Black Alps had finished to demonstrate my incredible abilities of getting lost and separated from my friends. After a ping-pong match of text messages we were reunited and went to the Carling Stage to watch Mystery Jets, I can't say I was particularly bothered about seeing them play – the main reason for watching them was in order to get into the tent for the Arctic Monkeys who were on after.

The NME in their infinite wisdom had put them in their list of fifty-one reasons to go the Leeds/Reading weekend. Given that Leeds is just up the M1 from Sheffield the impending crush and lack of oxygen that came with the band's presence on stage hardly came as a shock. My friends moaned that most of the people there were just trying to be part of the scene and that the music isn't even that good. Which is all very well, except why were we there? It was the second time I'd seen the band play inside a month and I enjoyed it. At least I would have done if I hadn't had someone's elbows in my back. And ribs. And stomach. And my own elbows. And pretty much any part of the human anatomy you'd care to mention.

Our trip to the comedy tent for the day was to see Ed Byrne. He raised a few laughs but his whole act seemed to rely upon his: being Irish, being skinny, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. His best moment was:
Ed Byrne: "I was at the Reading Festival yesterday"
Crowd: "Boooo"
Ed Byrne: "You do realise it's the same festival just in a different place?"
Which is fundamentally true, but Leeds is much better.

It was a short hop from the comedy tent to the Carling Stage after Ed Byrne had finished to watch the end of Yeti's set. They're the band fronted by the Libertines bassist. I was told not to expect anything like the Libertines, but I'd dispute that. They did have a similar sound, except – and you'll find this a bizarre statement – with a bit of a country vibe in there. Whatever it was it worked okay.

I must take a few moments to pay tribute to the great freebie my friend Chris got from the V festival: an inflatable beer holder. You know how it is. You're drinking a can of (warm) beer and you want to pick something else up. You put the beer down on the ground but gravity's having none of it. Before you know it half your beer is on your jeans and everyone's pointing and laughing.



The evening run was kicked off by Arcade Fire in the NME tent. They were most notable for the fact that they seemed to have enough drummers for all the bands at the festival. I counted at least three. Perhaps Oasis ought to get in touch – they get through drummers at a similar rate to most people get through milk cartons. It was an interesting performance largely because it was so different from anything else I saw all weekend.

Due after Arcade Fire was Babyshambles, would they or wouldn't they turn up? Would they be any good? Does anyone really care anymore? As it happens they did manage to make it onto the stage, albeit ten minutes late. You could argue that they were fashionably late, but everyone else managed to get there on time. What's so special about a band who have only managed to release two singles? We didn't stick around for long as we wanted to get in position for the Foo Fighters in good time but what we saw wasn't exactly spectacular.

However the Foo Fighters more than made up for any inadequacies of the other bands. There's something extra special about the last night of a festival especially when it's to see a band as uttely brilliant as the Foo Fighters.

Dave Grohl really knows how to play to the crowd, unfortunately when I've seen them play in the past there's been a little too much chat, when all you want them to do is get on with rocking. On this occasion though he managed to keep the talking to a minimum and stuck to blasting out great song after great song. Up in Arms and The One were particular highlights.

The one criticism would be the sucking up to the crowd. "I gotta tell you guys something," someone stod behind us figured out what was coming and pre-emptively shouted out "bullshit!" Dave Grohl then proceeded to tell us that he loves Reading (crowd boos) but people in the north are more "f*ked up" and that he likes f*ked up. I think it was a compliment though I'm not entirely sure.

For the encore we were treated to Grohl taking up the sticks behind the drums and Taylor Hawkins singing on one the tracks from the acoustic album – I'll be damned if I know which one.



Back at the tents and the campsite nazis, or security as they call themselves, were out in force stamping out fires. We saw one instance of a festival goer being brutally thrown to the floor and handcuffed, all because of a fire. Cue us stamping frantically upon our own, though thankfully much smaller fire. I got the impression that the person in question had given the security guards a bit of lip but the response was slightly over the top.

The only trouble with festivals – except for the massive crowds trying to get everywhere at once, the over priced food, the idiots parping klaxons at 4am, the litter created by over a hundred thousand people, all the bands you don't want to see hogging the bill, occasionally poor sound quality on the main stage, mud, getting there, not showering, getting back and, of course, the terrible smell from the toilets – is the people running them.

Traditionally you're allowed to take in empty bottles as you can fill them up at taps inside. On the first day I was stopped trying to take an such a bottle in to the arena. The pea brain at the gates stops me and tells me that:
"You can't take in opened drinks."
"What?" I failed to see the point he was trying to make.
"You can't take in opened drinks."
"It's empty" (At this point I took the top off and turned the bottle upside down – just to display the moron what empty meant)
"Is it open?" (How else would it be empty?)
"Well technically, yes."
"You. Can't. Take. In. Opened. Drinks."
I really had no idea if he was saying this for information or whether he wanted me to bin the bottle. Okay, okay, you can't take in opened drinks, but I didn't have an open drink. I had an opened bottle, it ceased to become a drink when the last remaining drops of liquid were poured out.
"So you want me to bin it?"
"YES!"
There's very little you can do to argue in these kinds of situations so resignedly I chucked the "opened drink" into the bins. I wonder which asylum they get their staff from.

Monday

We left early in the morning, around half seven, in order to beat the traffic queues on the way out. It worked and we were soon blasting down the M1. The first thing I did upon getting home was to take a shower, if only you could accumulate cleanliness from consecutive showers. I'd take five or six before for good measure. After that there's only one thing you want to do. Sleep.

31

August 14:08

Leeds for your needs: Leeds Festival 2005

Saturday

This was the best day for the main stage with Queens of the Stone Age and the Killers on in the evening. However there was plenty of time to kill until then. Half an hour of this was dealt with by having to queue to get into the main arena at the start of the day. Or rather having to shuffle along at approximately zero miles per hour. It would be quite impossible to go so slowly if there wasn't a wall of people also going at approximately zero miles an hour directly in front of you. Naturally there are always a few bright sparks who have figured out what would help, yelling "Get a f**king move on!" expecting it to improve their position by a few metres just because they've got a big gob. Genius. I don't know why more people haven't got that one sussed; I thought we were all stood around just to piss everyone off.

The upshot of this merriment meant we missed about ninety percent of Goldie Lookin' Chain. As it happens we'd seen them when they played last year so it wasn't such a big disappointment as it would have been. We did manage to catch a new song with the lyrics "If you leave me now can I f**k your sister?" As ever GLC hit the nail on its lyrical head, pity we didn't see more of the set.



Next was another trip to the comedy tent to see Hugh Lennon and Hypno-dog. Before anyone gets carried away I'll bring down your expectations of Hypno-dog. I was really excited about the prospect of a hypnotic dog but all that happened was the hypnotist, that is the man hypnotist not the canine one, hypnotised the people on stage to sleep when they looked in the dog's eyes – I did warn you that you shouldn't get carried away. The show was mildly interesting featuring some excellent ballet dancing and people thinking they were the Spice Girls, but I find hypnosis seriously creepy – I'd never want for someone to be able control me to their will. Now if you'll excuse me I'll have to read the NME to remind me of which bands I enjoyed at the festival.

There was a bit of gap until the Subways were on in the NME tent so I (my friends weren't interested in the Subways) wandered to the main stage and saw a very small portion of Graham Coxon: his left arm. No I jest! I mean I only caught a few songs. As an Oasis fan I'm not allowed to say anything nice about Blur or anyone who's been in Blur so he was really terrible.

The people we were camped with decided to nickname me Coxon on account of "looking like him", rather more accurately it was because I wear glasses and have dark hair. I've had this all my life, being compared to David Baddiel and even Adrian Mole – a character from a non-picture book.

The Subways were worth watching, not least because the bassist is really fit. Musically they're fairly competent and blasted through their big songs Oh Yeah and Rock n Roll Queen. The singer even showed off his climbing skills by clambering to the top of the speakers and playing a guitar solo. I thought all that movement was a little over the top for a mid-afternoon slot. Now if they'd put a pole on stage for bassist Charlotte to dance around, that I could have understood.



The typical festivalgoer, students, was reflected in the number of university hoodies on show. Every other person seemed to be wearing one emblazoned with "Sheffield Hallam". I may have noticed them more because that's where I'll be next year doing a PGCE but I'm convinced there were more there than you would have expected, or maybe I kept seeing the same person over and over.

After a quick trip back to the campsite for a beer or two it was back out to watch the Coral. I'm not a huge fan even if this was the third time I'd seen them play, indeed it was the second time in less than two months. I find them the sort of band that's kind of just there – they won't blow your socks off but they're not so offensive as to have you running away from the stage screaming "I can't take it anymore!"

Next was Queens of the Stone Age, or rather Josh Homme and some nobodies. We went reasonably far forward, though kept a sensible distance to the inevitable carnage at the front. Even if technically they're not the same band as they were it was still a good show. Josh Homme is a great front man but not the sort of person you'd want to spill beer over, though I guess that's what makes him such a great front man.



The Killers followed to complete a main stage three-in-a-row. This was one of the main reasons for buying my ticket yet I couldn't get all that excited about it now they were here. I'd convinced myself that they were going to let me down so didn't want to get my hopes up. I needn't have worried as they put on a good performance, unfortunately we'd moved a long way back after Queens of the Stone Age so the sound wasn't as good as it might have been.

There was no way on earth I was going to stick around and watch the Pixies, even if the NME were making out their slot to be the best reason for going to the festival. The irony is that in avoiding them we went to watch Kasabian in the NME tent. As we expected they were bloody fantastic. We were only at the back but the crowd was crazy for it. They sounded incredible in the tent, added to that there was the sense of sticking two fingers up at the (trying to be) in-crowd watching the Pixies by snubbing the main stage. It was the highlight of the weekend so far.

30

August 14:08

Fest is Best: Leeds 2005

Thursday

Last year we made the grave error of setting off for the Festival after lunch. This resulted in waiting for four hours in traffic queues usually reserved for smartly dressed business people commuting in busy city centres, not scruffy students/miscellaneous misfits sauntering along in what would be quiet city suburbs. Not to be caught out again we were off by 9am. On the approach to the junction off the M1 were braced ourselves for the sight of a long line of traffic, but to our immense relief found none. We continued on the same roads that a year ago had been so full with ease. It was a huge shock to the system and a hushed awe set upon us out of fear of jinxing it. This worked and we were in the car park before midday.

We set off to find base-camp: my friend Chris ringing up our camp-mates to try and find it with no success. However as is often the case in such scenarios we bumped into them purely by chance – it's amazing how this happens at festivals. It's as though there's some sort of psychic connection brought about by the music.

No sooner had we put up the tent than Leeds treated us to extreme weather conditions, Glastonbury may have been all but washed out, but did they have hail? It may have been a festival – such events aren't subject to the normal weather climate, almost anything goes – but ice falling from the sky during August came as a surprise.

We went for a wander around the festival site to check out the lay of the land. Naturally it looked the same as it had done the previous year. On this wander came an example of utter stupidity: people asking me for directions. I don't understand why but you could put a hundred people with maps stood next to an information desk and a lost person would still ask me, possibly staring at my feet wondering why one hundred people with maps need to be stood by an information desk, for directions. I must look like the sort of person who knows where they're going. Members of the University of Warwick Orienteering Club will tell you that this is emphatically not the case. In this case the directions I needed to give were simply "keep going and you'll find it", which I always find by far the easiest to give. I do wish people wouldn't ask me as I always worry I've sent them to some frightening place like Baghdad, Mordor, or in this case: the centre of Leeds. I do like to help though – I don't smoke but I'm sorely tempted to start carrying round a lighter just so when someone goes "Got a light mate?" I can go "Yes!" and make myself useful.

Friday

I woke up typically early and seeing as lie-ins in tents aren't half as much fun as their bed equivalent I got up and went for a walk around the site. As always with festivals there were lots of people about – though it was impossible to tell whether they were up late or up early. I walked past the Samaritans tent and was asked how I was. This is all well and good, you'd hope the samaritans wouldn't tell people passing by the go fuck themselves, but it made me a little paranoid that anyone might think that I'd have a less than acceptable well being. As an aside when I first went to Leeds in 2000 I got dumped during the festival so if anyone had asked me how I was I'd probably have broken down in tears.

Friday was the "rock" day on the main stage, ergo an opportunity to spend some time in the NME and comedy tents. The first bands we saw were The Rakes and Sons and Daughters. Unfortunately both were very poor so halfway through Sons and Daughters we went and plonked ourselves down in the comedy tent. As luck would have it we managed to catch the exceptionally funny Reginald D. Hunter.

Then it was back to the NME tent to watch Maximo Park - a band I'd heard very little of but was impressed by. Well, thank goodness for that. I like comedy (why wouldn't I?) but I didn't want to have to keep plodding into the comedy tent every five minutes because the bands were so bad. Apply Some Pressure naturally was a real highlight, possible because it was one of the few songs I'd heard but was performed nicely.

A quick trip back to the tent to cook some, soon to be rather black, sausages on a disposable barbecue was followed by a deliberate and unusually planned outing back to the comedy tent to see Toby Foster – Les from Les Alanos on Phoenix Nights – ripping into the police, southerners and had the audience been different I presume students would have been next on the list. It was fantastic! It's horrible but there's nothing funnier than hearing a good slagging off, especially with such well chosen subjects.

We wandered across to the main stage and caught the end of Marilyn Manson. Unfortunately it was only the end of the set and not of the band itself – it brought back memories of 50 cent from last year, a combination of bemusement and general what-the-hell?

The headliners were Iron Maiden which meant my appeals to watch the Futureheads fell on death ears. Unpertubred I went to see them on my own. It was a great show, much better than Maiden of course. During Hounds of Love they split the crowd down the middle for the "oh, oh-oh" and "oh! oh! oh!" bits at the start. Unfortunately I couldn't actually see the band so had no idea which side I was on, neither it appeared did anyone around me.



After the Futureheads I found myself at something of a loose end. Next up on the NME tent was Bloc Party – a band that I find incredibly dull. On the other hand we were camped near the fairground so perhaps something so completely mind numbing might help compensate for the terrible wailing of mixed up crazy frog gibberish being blasted out and help me get some sleep. On the Carling Stage was Echo and the Bunnymen, of whom my knowledge is limited to knowing that they once did a song with Liam Gallagher on the backing vocals. Though his contribution was only singing "Yeah, yeah, yeah" a few times.

In the end I opted to watch the rest of Iron Maiden on the main stage. Well, it would be foolish to not at least check them out. I proved my rock and roll credentials by standing at the back with a nice warm cup of tea trying my best not to shiver in the kind of cold that can only be found out of the crowd at open air concerts. The band didn't particularly amaze me though I could appreciate that they were probably quite good if you like that sort of thing. I don't much go in for gigs with giant devil/monster puppets. As it happens I was once accused of looking like I was an Iron Maiden fan. I can only presume the accuser was blind seeing as a typical Iron Maiden fan is fat with long greasy hair and a menacing miserable expression on their face, compared with my scrawny frame, short well kept hair and permanent slightly nervous grin. I left before the end in order to avoid the dull trudge out of the arena in the huge crowd.

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