My continuing love affair with Reading...
17th - 18th April 2003 - Spent the night at Reading train station after getting trains all the way from Amsterdam with no problems and getting back to Britain during a rail strike. I have never been more pissed off with the world than on the morning of the 18th of April. The night was spent in the cold and comfortless train station, avoiding drunks and homeless people who all wanted to kill Andrew and I (that's how we felt anyway). The highlight of the long night (and it was long) was the discovery of a soup machine that I believe saved my life by dispensing an admittedly overpriced but extremely well received cup of tomato soup. When the station began to come back to life at about six or seven in the morning we had to buy tickets back to Cardiff and although I can't remember the exact price of them I know it made me want to burn the place down using the power of my hatred and fury.
Strike one Reading.
22nd - 24th August 2003 - The 2003 Reading festival. My first music festival and what an eye opener (and nose closer). I'm not exactly an outdoor type person and camping over this weekend wasn't the most fun I've ever had but I did do it the next year as well so I can't have hated it that much. Being surrounded by a thousand drunken assholes isn't my idea of heaven though. The music was very good and it was the first time I'd seen Metallica so I was very very pleased with that. However, I managed to lose/have my phone stolen (I didn't see it being taken but the last place I had it was in my pocket, there is a chance it fell out though). I would still have that phone now If I hadn't lost it... It did everything I wanted it to do and everyone knows how durable and functional the Nokia 3310 is. It's even more annoying because I wanted to have an old phone and have people attempt to ridicule me for having it. This is when I could start ranting about 'consumer culture and mindless drones' etc... and I love a good rant.
Strike two Reading.
Besides that, I discovered how little I enjoyed the overall festival experience... the dirt, the smells of the toilets, the overpriced... everything, the queues for... everything, the drunken assholes, the sober assholes, tents, the outdoors, other people etc..
After the festival had finished and it was time to go home, we got in a taxi for the journey back to the train station. I had been wearing a money belt the whole weekend (being the security conscious type I can be sometimes) but was thoroughly sick of the thing because it wasn't exactly comfortable to wear under my clothing (if only I'd put my phone in it). It contained all my money and my train tickets and I left it in the taxi... Sure, that was my own stupid fault and all the more stupid considering the purpose of the thing. Whilst I accept that it was primarily my fault, I'm blaming Reading because by this time I had already begun to despise the place... and because I can blame it. I did manage to get it back though... I had to run/walk all the way to the festival in an attempt to find the taxi I'd just taken along that very route. Luck was in my court for at least part of that weekend I suppose but I'm not about to attribute that to Reading in the same way as I attribute bad luck to the place... cos I don't want to. The whole thing was annoying, tiring and time consuming and so I'm blaming Reading once more.
Strike three Reading.
19th June 2005. Buk and Skit festival. As a one day type event I thought that the lack of tents and camping would make the whole experience more palatable and it was. God knows I wasn't about to go to a a weekend festival this year,not after Reading 2003 (see above) and Download 2004 (which was musically fantastic but was slightly worse than Reading the previous year in terms of general campingness horribility). The weather was fucking beautiful and I've managed to get sunburnt but I'm not blaming Reading for that in a rare act of magnanimity that may shock and amaze you (don't let it, there's plenty more moaning to come). The music was mostly good - Reuben kicked ass as usual, Sikth were good (and I've never been a huge fan) and Biffy Clyro sounded characteristically good once they'd sorted out the levels for the bass guitar. Getting water was fun... they'd run out in all the stalls so we had to queue for half an hour plus in the bar (which was annoying but expected by now I suppose). The fun really began when we got back to Reading train station... that bloody place. I think they must have built it on the site of an ancient Indian train station or something.
We got there early anyway... very early. Our train was due at 22:35 and we got there at about nine ish. Good start... I wasn't worried though, waiting an hour and a half wasn't gonna be too bad. That is until we waited two and three quarters of an hour for a very much delayed train. This whilst being accosted by a rambling nutter and being very badly informed of the delay and reasons behind it. I hadn’t had a very good night’s sleep the night before this and was now very tired. No more magnanimity here, it was all Reading’s fault. By the time the day was over I was in a foul mood and it was due to Reading once more. Damn you Reading, you shan’t be seeing me again any time soon.
To make matters worse Blogger decided to make me sign in again after typing all of this out and so I lost all of it… The curse of Reading again? But this time I was ready, I’m on to you Reading – I had copied most of it into a word file just in case something went wrong. Ha! You lose this round Reading!
Strike one Reading.
22nd - 24th August 2003 - The 2003 Reading festival. My first music festival and what an eye opener (and nose closer). I'm not exactly an outdoor type person and camping over this weekend wasn't the most fun I've ever had but I did do it the next year as well so I can't have hated it that much. Being surrounded by a thousand drunken assholes isn't my idea of heaven though. The music was very good and it was the first time I'd seen Metallica so I was very very pleased with that. However, I managed to lose/have my phone stolen (I didn't see it being taken but the last place I had it was in my pocket, there is a chance it fell out though). I would still have that phone now If I hadn't lost it... It did everything I wanted it to do and everyone knows how durable and functional the Nokia 3310 is. It's even more annoying because I wanted to have an old phone and have people attempt to ridicule me for having it. This is when I could start ranting about 'consumer culture and mindless drones' etc... and I love a good rant.
Strike two Reading.
Besides that, I discovered how little I enjoyed the overall festival experience... the dirt, the smells of the toilets, the overpriced... everything, the queues for... everything, the drunken assholes, the sober assholes, tents, the outdoors, other people etc..
After the festival had finished and it was time to go home, we got in a taxi for the journey back to the train station. I had been wearing a money belt the whole weekend (being the security conscious type I can be sometimes) but was thoroughly sick of the thing because it wasn't exactly comfortable to wear under my clothing (if only I'd put my phone in it). It contained all my money and my train tickets and I left it in the taxi... Sure, that was my own stupid fault and all the more stupid considering the purpose of the thing. Whilst I accept that it was primarily my fault, I'm blaming Reading because by this time I had already begun to despise the place... and because I can blame it. I did manage to get it back though... I had to run/walk all the way to the festival in an attempt to find the taxi I'd just taken along that very route. Luck was in my court for at least part of that weekend I suppose but I'm not about to attribute that to Reading in the same way as I attribute bad luck to the place... cos I don't want to. The whole thing was annoying, tiring and time consuming and so I'm blaming Reading once more.
Strike three Reading.
19th June 2005. Buk and Skit festival. As a one day type event I thought that the lack of tents and camping would make the whole experience more palatable and it was. God knows I wasn't about to go to a a weekend festival this year,not after Reading 2003 (see above) and Download 2004 (which was musically fantastic but was slightly worse than Reading the previous year in terms of general campingness horribility). The weather was fucking beautiful and I've managed to get sunburnt but I'm not blaming Reading for that in a rare act of magnanimity that may shock and amaze you (don't let it, there's plenty more moaning to come). The music was mostly good - Reuben kicked ass as usual, Sikth were good (and I've never been a huge fan) and Biffy Clyro sounded characteristically good once they'd sorted out the levels for the bass guitar. Getting water was fun... they'd run out in all the stalls so we had to queue for half an hour plus in the bar (which was annoying but expected by now I suppose). The fun really began when we got back to Reading train station... that bloody place. I think they must have built it on the site of an ancient Indian train station or something.
We got there early anyway... very early. Our train was due at 22:35 and we got there at about nine ish. Good start... I wasn't worried though, waiting an hour and a half wasn't gonna be too bad. That is until we waited two and three quarters of an hour for a very much delayed train. This whilst being accosted by a rambling nutter and being very badly informed of the delay and reasons behind it. I hadn’t had a very good night’s sleep the night before this and was now very tired. No more magnanimity here, it was all Reading’s fault. By the time the day was over I was in a foul mood and it was due to Reading once more. Damn you Reading, you shan’t be seeing me again any time soon.
To make matters worse Blogger decided to make me sign in again after typing all of this out and so I lost all of it… The curse of Reading again? But this time I was ready, I’m on to you Reading – I had copied most of it into a word file just in case something went wrong. Ha! You lose this round Reading!
posted by dafydd_brown @ 13:27
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