cha0tic stuff

Off to The Download Festival for a week or so. Not punting, but working. We're on the Gibson Stage, so I've not heard of half the bands. After the festival. Well it doesn't just clear itself away, that's why I'll be finishing Wednesday, Thursday at the latest next week.

Now I know people think that a Festival is about the music. I'm afraid you're wrong. If Ambrose Bierce had been writing his Devil's Dictionary today he might have written thus:

Music Festival: An event where music lovers pay through the nose in order to be allowed into a field. So they can pay through the nose some more. There is also some music on.

Let's just hope the weather's fine.

Yesterday I popped over to Brum to meet up with a friend as she was passing through the city on her way home. We spent the afternoon chatting, eating Chinese and drinking Champagne. Ahh, what a decadent life I lead. It was good to see her though, as we've not seen each other in an age. All too soon it was time for her to continue her journey and I was waving bye bye at the station.

I was wondering when it would happen. I checked my F*c*b**k this morning and there was an announcement that a friend I know from when she used to work in my uptown local had commented on one of her friends pictures. I popped along to have a look at this strangers picture and find that we have two mutual friends. One is obviously the ex-barmaid. The other surprise surprise is an old 20six pal.

I think it's one of those degrees of Kevin Bacon type things. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.

...means that I've had a sort of a 'proper job' for the last two weeks. Set times, home before dark, packed lunches, tea breaks etc. I've been working in the warehouse of a big promotion company, sorting out all the crap they use on their festivals.

    The Vinyl signage, you know all those handy 'Toilets', 'First Aid' 'Guest Entrance', 'Emergency exit (with running man)'  signs that you see plastered all over festival sites. The Scaff' pipes that support all the signage, bins, fence panels, that are used round VIP and guest areas. Well they're stored somewhere during the winter. We've been to that place to sort them out and then load them on trucks.

    Not a bad couple of weeks work, but. Yes there's a but. There were only two of us working on the job most of the time (we had a couple of extra blokes in last Monday to help us sort the scaff' out.) The bloke I was stuck with for the last two weeks is a nice enough chap, but talked nonsense constantly. It's as if he feared his brain would seize up if he wasn't talking. Maybe he can't live inside his own head like I can (I suspect there's a hollow echoing space inside his head). Maybe it's me being used to being solitary and self contained.
    By the Thursday of the second week though I was starting to go spare. This was a dangerous thing, I could see the people from the office popping into the warehouse to find me caving his head in with a four foot length of scaff' yelling "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! with every blow of the pipe.

    At lunch time I rang four different pals up to try and get some sensible conversation. All of them went straight to answer phone. During a tea break mid afternoon I sat drinking tea and wishing for half a pint of rum and a line of cocaine as fat as my finger to hoover up. Anything to lift my spirits. Then joy oh joy. One of my pals rang back. A quick five minute phone call, talking nonsense. My sort of nonsense, not my  colleagues nonsense. To a pal who is a genius wibble master helped me get through to the end of the day.

Friday we had another bloke in to help us. Phew.