Thursday 28th June 07

inside this week;Dimitri SwankShakespeareGlasto Wicker Manwin your width in magazines!

Letter from the Editor.

I’m back in London. I left Marrekesh’s raging heat (40ºC) for the

how can I put this…grey, is that too obvious…wet…cold…drab…

er…did I say hailing London. I’ve been back three days and already

I want to go away again! It’s minus degrees and pissing it down. It

certainly doesn’t look like perking up any time soon. So what can

we do? Well; I have decided to embrace this so called summer with

open arms. Sitting outside a Kensington Creperie with a woolly hat

and hood up; imagining sunshine. Pah! More likely that someone

will start funding us and tube prices will fall below a pound. On the

embracement, I’m talking serious embracement, don’t worry that

it’s JUNE…pretend it’ mid November and have a dinner party, lots

of red wine and a big stew for a bunch of friends….sit on the couch

with a DVD and here is a promise, this is the best thing that I have

done in ages. Make your own POPCORN. It’s bloody exciting…

POP, POP, POP and tasty too. Try melting some butter and honey

in the pan first…Genius.

Really all I’m trying to say is take a week off desiring sunshine,

it will come in time. Whilst it’s not here enjoy the things that you

can do, we have the pick of the best indoor things to do this week

including what films we are loving at the moment and if the weather

is really getting on your nerves then get on your bike and move

to Salt Lake City or something. We all complain when it’s too hot

anyway!

ed. x

Contents

Tolpuddle

High Balls and Low Dicks!

The Lonely People

Bin Gone Too Long

7 Stops

Big Muthas House

Northern on the Northern Line

Paola

Put together bySam Lassman Watts and Peter Quinn

Handed out by Pretty Boys

Printed on recycled paper by recycled people. Please make sure you pass on or recycle, Yeah!

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editor@theothersidemag.co.uk

Using code a=1, A=2, b=3, B=4, etc., the letters of ‘PRESIDENT ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’ = 666

Bolstered by the quote: “Alcohol kills that which is living and preserves that which is dead” I was about to sally forth into yet another diatribe concerning the perils of addiction and the ad-world (that can only sell to us that which we do not already know we need) when, DOUBLE SHAZZAM! You were saved. Shazzam 1: the distractions of books and all that they offer. But mostly, truth be told by Shazzam 2: the knowledge that all my profound High Horse argumentation would not withstand the soon-to-be incontrovertible truth of my rather Low behaviour! I am about to step out into the Inaugural Other Side Bash where I am reliably informed the booze runs free and I know my will is not strong enough to rest at the juice bar. For me to rail against imbibication would be akin to the Buzzard tellin’ the Squirrel he’s a shifty bugger. So, to books. I am at present caught between the high and the low and know instinctively where my bread will be buttered. On the one hand I have become somewhat devoted to Mr JM Coetzee, and one of his creations in particular, Ms Elizabeth Costello. She’s a tough Old Bird and they’re

gripping, challenging, provocative and noble novels (not to mention Nobel). Coetzee contends with all our notions and patterns of living, thinking and reading with a desert dry-lack of sentimentality that is at once both invigorating and uplifting and also shamefully demanding of concentration and endurance. HOWEVER, there I was wandering the www, having completed a meddlesome task in half the time, when I came across this geezer who has written all kindsa post-post novels, including one called “This is not a Novel” (some might reckon it a list of lists), and then a coupla pulp novels that he chucked out to make the cash. So naturally I leapt onto ‘The River of Objects to Buy’ and hey presto I was delivered of a two-for-one offer of Pulp, overnight and bearing a “come-hither-look”. I plunged straight in. Hours later I came up for air, I’d been in NYC in 1956 chasing hoods and punks and girls that’ll break your heart as soon as look at ya! And I got to thinking “Where has all the romance gone? Where a man can get his heart broke and not care because the love was worth it?” “Why is it no longer cool to be tired of livin’, but always game for a risk?” But more importantly,

“Where have all the Private Investigators gone?”

Used to be that bookstores, cinemas and the TV were filled with Dicks, most of ‘em Yanks to be sure, but still; one man against the world, saving the hapless from injustice by sleuth, by brains or by luck, spitting in the face of adversity and authority through broken teeth and week old stubble. And the job always got done with style, wit and courage. Now whadda we got? Cops all over the place. The Ol’ Bill. And most of them’re Yanks too! CSNYPDMiami shoot ‘em up! The whole style now is graded plastic, the wit devoid of irony or meaning, the courage telegraphed and loudly applauded. Whatever happened to just knowing you’re right?

But really, I mean, Cops??? I know a few, good blokes one and all, but the stuff of fiction? I don’t think so. Always seemed to me that Morse was just a Dick without Balls. If he could do all that he promised and was really sooo irritated by authority he shoulda cut loose and ploughed his own furrow. But Nooooo, he probably needed the health plan and the pension. Couldn’t really walk without the

High Balls and Low Dicks!

BY CARDOROWSKI

www.theothersidemag.co.uk

Illustration by Jamie Jackson

Zimmer of the Constabulary! When did we suddenly get so Institutional? Did we cede all our power to the Squizzard in our sleep? Join the Empire and forsake the Force? When did we give up the Pub-band for Pop-Idol, the local disco for Strictly Come Twirling? The thought of it is enough to send me swooning into the arms of Costello/ Coetzee and the argument that likens meat eating to the holocaust. Except that “Epitaph for a Tramp” sits winking at me and hitching up it’s skirt.

And the sad truth my friend, is that Pulp Fiction is just one of many delicious steps between the profundity of Coetzee and the banality of our present Culture. A step, I hasten to add, I often take towards a culture that promises

much and delivers nothing! If you really want the good stuff it professes to offer so readily, you have to hunt like a starved Beagle, avoid taste-enhanced bones strewn in your path and hold your nerve when the grail you seek is ‘temporarily out of stock’. And what are ya besieged by on the way? Is there a modern mainstream DVD that bears any but the first viewing? Doubt it. Anything delivered by a Rapper that could touch the hem of Marley’s garment? Not even his bling thrown from 10 paces would have the temerity. Can you really enjoy football on Sky? No. Anything on ITV? I don’t think so. And I know that those few who’re still interested might deplore my choices but… My call is for DISCERNMENT, a hard

enough muscle to locate let alone exercise these days when we’re all rubber-necking so fast for the latest this’n’that, but the alternative is that we all bathe and drown in shite thinking that we’re munching caviar and peeled grapes. If we keep watching and buying only the bollox on offer then that is all we’re gonna be offered, over and over again. If we’re too tired to ever look behind the over-stretched skin that proffers the blandishments for sale then we will become under-nourished AND obese, easily-sated AND forever hungry. Those who fall for everything because we never stood for anything.

And yes, I know that my beloved PI’s and indeed most of them that adorned my wall were profound booze-hounds and

notorious addicts, but surely there’s a road we can travel that lies on a plane distinct from inebriation and mindless conformity. Where we travel giving and receiving encouragement from fellow travellers rather than sneering at contestants on BB and slavishly following the goings-on of Pete and Kate. There’re too many easy laughs today at the expense of those who tried and maybe failed and equally numerous sneering saddoes who’ve never had a go. And so I leave you with another quote, this from Springfield’s own Homer ; “Taking stupid risks is what makes life worth living.” And if that means a drink too much before walking home, waking up with yer hair in a pool of vomit and crashing thethe Bank Account then SO BE IT.

As I mindlessly queued in Mango on Oxford Street (waiting to return a dire mistake of a desperate ‘I have nothing to wear on Saturday night’ purchase) I was suddenly accosted by an unexpected, and totally unsolicited question from behind; “Where’s Primark on Oxford Street?” A simple enough question you might say, and indeed not totally irrelevant as I was holding a humungous bag from said store. However the delivery was like a sharp blow to the back of the head. Furthermore, to my horror it seemed that my precise and curtly delivered answer of “Marble arch” was not satisfactory! Five intensely delivered questions later I made my excuses and ran like hell!

Recently I have met a number of women with a manner of social interaction akin to Paxman on a cocktail of prescription drugs and Bacardi Breezers! For these women a conversation is not a two way dialogue but a barrage of bizarre and often totally random questions that leave the subject (in these cases, me) feeling like they have just spent a week in Guantanamo bay!

There’s a girl at work, and I have to say at first I didn’t notice it. I was new and she was simply a friendly - if not slightly eager

– face. However, as time’s gone on I have begun to feel an ever increasing need to avoid her. Now I know this sounds cruel, and it probably is, but what is truly odd is that I am not the only one. This girl regularly (as in every day) eats lunch alone. Now, I have to admit that even my lukewarm heart twitches as this sight, however, like the 250 or so other people in the building, not quite enough to want to spend my precious lunch hour answering her banal questions in-between mouthfuls!

I met my final case at a party when the host, a friend (or at least he was!) introduced me to a girl he had just recently met (in the most peculiar of situations – trust me). Now, in retrospect the circumstances surrounding their first meeting should have been a warning, but being male he obviously didn’t see it! Anyway, said girl arrived at the party of a man she had only briefly met once, just days before, alone. Confident, independent lady I hear you cry; but then you haven’t met her! Like a leech on an open wound this girl attached herself to my carefully chosen clique and clung on draining every ounce of our patience, good spirit and generous natures for the following 3 hours! When I

say this girl was weird it doesn’t even begin to touch the surface. As the drinks flowed and the tunes pumped her irrelevant questions surfaced with an annoying regularity.

In this sprawling metropolis of ours it is sometimes hard to think that anyone is ever lonely, but after much consideration it seems to me that loneliness is both the cause and effect of these individuals unnerving style of communication. So what is the cure for these unfortunate fellows – cast onto the outskirts of society by those of use capable of forming sentences that don’t end in question marks? Well my suggestion would be to channel their talents for the good of the people. In an age where so many of us feel so politically impotent and excluded from the making of decisions that so directly affect our everyday lives it seems to me that these women, with their shotgun delivery are just what we need. First off I think we should set them on Ken Livingstone and finally get to the bottom of why we can’t have air conditioning on the underground!

THE LONELY PEOPLE ‘g

Where have all the bins gone?There isn’t a bin! I’m waiting for a friend at Cambridge Station and there isn’t a bloody bin to throw my plastic spoon in! Add this to the fact that I’m an hour early…yes one hour. There was a perfect weekend service on the Northern Line and my bus came immediately. Anyway it’s not just a bin that’s missing it’s also a café near the station. I have to settle for the extortionately priced AMT coffee for my double espresso. (May I take this opportunity to recommend Café Noir just outside Highgate Station 90p for a good quality espresso always served with a smile!)Anyway - the bins. I guess that back in the day there was a fear that someone might throw a stick of dynamite in a bin, but now surely the terrorists are a little more sophisticated. We’ve all seen Spooks, so firstly worry not about that giant bag as there is a handsome six-packed Adam running through the station to stop it going off using hypo-allergenic magnetism. Meanwhile whilst we are worrying about the bloody TNT there is a serious rubbish problem blowing all out of proportion from Cambridge to Charing Cross and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s a difficult decision to make bins or bombs…well not that difficult…however I did come to a conclusion. I guess

I have the same feeling about the bins as I do the London Lite and the London Paper. It’s Ken’s grand idea to create jobs. Imagine the amount of employment created by a daily paper. Writers, designers, printers, not to mention the cleaners and rubbish collectors. Get rid of the bins and you need them cleaners again and I’m guessing that there

are more people in London capable of cleaning a platform than there are those who can diffuse a bomb? So there’s my answer…in a round about, dishevelled kind of way. I still don’t like throwing rubbish on the floor. Perhaps if we are against bins we should have rubbish spaces so that at least I won’t feel bad when I leave my plastic spoon on a station bench.

editor@theothersidemag.co.uk

Sam Lassman Watts

EastFinchley

Highgate

Archway

Hampstead

Euston Angel

Kings Cross Old Street

BrentCross

GoldersGreen

BelsizePark

TufnellPark

ChalkFarm

KentishTown

CamdenTown

MorningtonCrescent

WarrenStreet

GoodgeStreet

Moorgate

Bank

TottenhamCourt Road

Leicester Square

Charing Cross

Embankment

Waterloo

London Bridge

Borough

Elephant Kennington

Oval

Stockwell

ClaphamNorth

ClaphamCommon

The best things going on in and around the Northern line both sides of the River

If you would like to advertise something in 7 stops then please contact us at editor@theothersidemag.co.uk

I guess that this’ll be quite an event. Get yourGeorge Michael tash out...that Lily Savagewig....how about dressing up as “the onlygay in the village”...who cares!! Go alongget a bit drunk, have a giggle and make sure you enjoy yourself!Starts at Baker Street at 1pm and makes it’sway through the west end.

SouthbankThe southbank is always great fun. There is always something happening. Friday is no exception. There is a captivating performancewith 100 people involved throughout the RoyalFestival Hall Foyer then the Jive Aces lay downinfectious rhythms and beats to make even the most inadequate person dance...and guess what it’s all free. From 5.30

BannersThis is my favourite place in Londonwhen I have a hangover. Big, bigJamaican infused fry ups, with plantain, ackee, saltfish, huge sausages and more.Awesome smoothies and cocktails.Lots of teas and coffees and hot chocand much, much more, go at nightand they give you popcorn!Crouch End Broadway...take the 91from Archway

Brer Rabbit Visits AfricaFor ages 4 and upwards. Gren Middleton’sexpressive puppets perform a story aboutthe ol rabbit returning to his native Africa.It’s on the Puppet Theatre Barge in LittleVenice so I suggest getting on the bargeat Camden. It takes about 45 minutes to get there and is an extremely pleasant trip.The barge leaves the Lock at regularintervals.Theatre £8.50

Gibson Guitar Town30 ten foot specially designed Gibson Guitars willbe on display at More London by City Hall kind of creating a Guitar Town. With designs by Paul WellerThe Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight et al this is gonna bea hell of a lot of fun!

Have a CrepeTreat yourself. Go to the Hampsteadcreperie...as if they need a plug! The smallhut on the High Street always has a gigantic queue. Anything with chocolateis good...especialy banana! Then carry onthe indulgence and watch a film at the everyman...If you are feeling a bit poorerthen wander down to the Screen on the Hill in Belsize Park.

Pride 2007

Friday 29th June

WimbledonAfter Tim’s epic battle against C Moyathe whole country is behind him now.Get out your flags, watermelons, hats, strawberries, cream, Pimms, juice,Diet Coke, BBQ’s, Umbrella’s etc and find yourself a space on Henman Hill forwhat may prove to be his last Wimbledon.Patriotism to the end!!Wimbledon or BBC TVabout £15 a head

Saturday 30th June

ends u e th so urryJ n 30 h

from June 28th

EastFinchley

Highgate

Archway

Hampstead

Euston Angel

Kings Cross Old Street

BrentCross

GoldersGreen

BelsizePark

TufnellPark

ChalkFarm

KentishTown

CamdenTown

MorningtonCrescent

WarrenStreet

GoodgeStreet

Moorgate

Bank

TottenhamCourt Road

Leicester Square

Charing Cross

Embankment

Waterloo

London Bridge

Borough

Elephant Kennington

Oval

Stockwell

ClaphamNorth

ClaphamCommon

The best things going on in and around the Northern line both sides of the River

If you would like to advertise something in 7 stops then please contact us at editor@theothersidemag.co.uk

I guess that this’ll be quite an event. Get yourGeorge Michael tash out...that Lily Savagewig....how about dressing up as “the onlygay in the village”...who cares!! Go alongget a bit drunk, have a giggle and make sure you enjoy yourself!Starts at Baker Street at 1pm and makes it’sway through the west end.

SouthbankThe southbank is always great fun. There is always something happening. Friday is no exception. There is a captivating performancewith 100 people involved throughout the RoyalFestival Hall Foyer then the Jive Aces lay downinfectious rhythms and beats to make even the most inadequate person dance...and guess what it’s all free. From 5.30

BannersThis is my favourite place in Londonwhen I have a hangover. Big, bigJamaican infused fry ups, with plantain, ackee, saltfish, huge sausages and more.Awesome smoothies and cocktails.Lots of teas and coffees and hot chocand much, much more, go at nightand they give you popcorn!Crouch End Broadway...take the 91from Archway

Brer Rabbit Visits AfricaFor ages 4 and upwards. Gren Middleton’sexpressive puppets perform a story aboutthe ol rabbit returning to his native Africa.It’s on the Puppet Theatre Barge in LittleVenice so I suggest getting on the bargeat Camden. It takes about 45 minutes to get there and is an extremely pleasant trip.The barge leaves the Lock at regularintervals.Theatre £8.50

Gibson Guitar Town30 ten foot specially designed Gibson Guitars willbe on display at More London by City Hall kind of creating a Guitar Town. With designs by Paul WellerThe Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight et al this is gonna bea hell of a lot of fun!

Have a CrepeTreat yourself. Go to the Hampsteadcreperie...as if they need a plug! The smallhut on the High Street always has a gigantic queue. Anything with chocolateis good...especialy banana! Then carry onthe indulgence and watch a film at the everyman...If you are feeling a bit poorerthen wander down to the Screen on the Hill in Belsize Park.

Pride 2007

Friday 29th June

WimbledonAfter Tim’s epic battle against C Moyathe whole country is behind him now.Get out your flags, watermelons, hats, strawberries, cream, Pimms, juice,Diet Coke, BBQ’s, Umbrella’s etc and find yourself a space on Henman Hill forwhat may prove to be his last Wimbledon.Patriotism to the end!!Wimbledon or BBC TVabout £15 a head

Saturday 30th June

ends u e th so urryJ n 30 h

from June 28th

www.theothersidemag.co.uk

7 Stops

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Save our Tele!

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Davina, You have been evicted. If the rumours are true this will be the last ever watchable Big Brother. Endemol are working day and night to come up with new ideas to infiltrate our minds and scald any type of brain power we have left after 36 summers spent listening and watching people like Jade Goody run around naked screaming. So here at The Other Side we have racked what is left of our brains and come up with the ingenius bling that is Big Mutha. Sit back and let the mind wander as Jonboy Junior takes us through the show

byJONBOYJUNIOR

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editor@theothersidemag.co.uk

12 MC’s spend 10 weeks in a remote house with a pair of technic 12 10’s to decide who is the most gangster rapper in this ‘keeping it reality’ tv show.

As there will obviously be some bad boys the 12 rappers will have electronic tags which will give out severe electric shocks to any ‘mutha’ who steps out of line.

Housemates will perform tasks to compete for bitches, cash money, fake Rolexes and vinyl but most of all respect.

Tasks will involve..Bare knuckle boxing........prank phone calls......dissing one another......getting ‘some’......cow tipping......scheming.......pushing........repairing minor flesh wounds.......tattooing themselves....installing gold teeth.......blagging......keeping it real....50 Cent karaoke

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Every night at tea time the rappers will have beefcakes. Each Wednesday the rappers will vote for who they would most like to “take out of the game”. The two least pimpin rappers will then have two days to prepare for the live eviction MC battle hosted by Lady Sovereign on Friday night which will last for a lengthly 90 mins thus clinically exposing anyone with a poor flow. Anyone cussing another rappers mother will be immediately disqualified as everybody knows that the biggest ‘muthas’ love their mothers, very dearly. Viewers at home will be allowed to vote for which tunes they would most like to see the MCs rap along to.....e.g. ‘insane in the membrane’ or perhaps the opening song from the musical annie - you decide.

Each week the winning rapper will be given a philly blunt, a bottle of bollinger champagne and the ultimate prize for any mc, having their mic. Volume turned up twice as loud as all the other rappers for the following days rapping. The loosing rapper will be sent to a young offenders institute.

Even though the internet is free Viewers will be given the chance to express their opinions through extortionately priced text messages and phone calls on ‘Big Mutha’s Big Balls’ with Vanessa Feltch and ‘Big Mutha’s a Big Bastard’ with Bernard Manning, every single bloody day.

After 10 weeks of competition the winning MC will be handed the opportunity to feature on the upcoming album of one of the nations best loved music artists who in a final and cruel twist will be revealed as pops chubby ‘little brother’ Rick Waller.

All the proceeds will be used to feed fat cats at endemol!

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An advert on Gumtree on Friday caught my eye ‘Glastonbury workers needed’. Loads of forms, lots of uncertainty, and much disorganisation later, it’s Tuesday and my pirate wellies are packed. The deal is we get to choose to work 4-12 hours a day on an ice creams stall!

Much time later we’re on site, trudging around looking for our staff camping. Its 10pm, dark and our boss seems to know nothing about the site or said camping. Before the clouds above us did what they have a tendency to over Glastonbury, I spend a good 20 minutes cursing my Tesco value tent for not having any pegs before realising I had pitched it on top of the peg bag.

Our first shift started at 6pm the next day – baked potatoes, not the promised ice-cream. After only a 20 minute break to eat our meat soaked ‘vegetarian’

meal we finished at 5am and promised the next few days would be at least 12 hours of the same every day. The next morning, Glen the head of information told us that our best option was to just bunk off as Michael Eavis wouldn’t condone this sort of work at his festival. So we said goodbye to evil work, hello awesome festival, amazing music and excellent company!

The hilarious gypsy punks, Gorgol Bordello, provided some much needed mood boosting for the drenched crowd. Bright Eyes, although enchanting a lot of devoted fans, wasn’t keeping everyone’s attention - I was too busy munching down Gin.SFA were as brilliant as ever, engaging the crowd and getting us all chanting out our favs. We used all our bouncing powers to join in the unashamed fun of The Fratellis, singing along as if we thought we new the words.

Oh how excited I was, Björk - proper headliner with proper music - late on but making up for it by being Björk. For someone so small her stage presence is incredible.

Next day was a blur. After planning to see The Pipettes, Guillemots, Dirty Pretty Things, Lily Allen, CSS I ended up in the G Stage for a night of pleasing breakcore, electronica and hardcore from Scotch Egg, Radioactiveman, Freq Nasty and Bong Ra - all very satisfying for my tastes.Iggy and The Stooges on the Pyramid Stage - definitely worth watching for comedy value. A guy in a clown suit was being wrested by bouncers and Iggy pipes up, ‘That’s a clown man, don’t hurt the clown!’

Aqualung was a beautiful, hypnotic experience, quite sweet when he got his three year old-ish son up

to play tambourine.With my cherryade and vodka I bounced excitedly off to the Manics, who played in a more upbeat rock and roll way to when I saw them at Glasters last. The Kaiser Chiefs was a very energetic and excited performance, and after a cider break, it was time for The Who’s performance - an excellent end to all the music. The final journey of the night was for Bill Bailey. This was the perfect finishing touch to the whole festival, a good chuckle about hamsters, Bush, falafels and songs that had the crowd joining in. As we all concluded that waterproof coats are never waterproof enough we took our tired smiles off home.Now sat at home nursing a bad case of festival tummy, trying to adjust to the real world again I am wondering; was that really my last Glastonbury?

Holly Clarke

Cultural Comment

Do you come here often?

Plastic Ponchos, Por taloos, Potatoes, Pissing Rain…,

‘That’s a clown man, don’t hurt the clown!’

www.theothersidemag.co.uk

[best read aloud]Everyone has read Shakespeare at some stage in their lives and had a teacher explain the subtext and underlying meanings of the subtext besieged against the rampant love stories intertwining with the comedy, the twists and the deaths. What? Yeah…sorry, my point is that if you read Shakespeare you may learn a thing or two from the characters. I know it’s a script, but perhaps it’s the fact that people were able to say

things in that manner way back when. At the beginning of A Midsummer Nights Dream we are treated to Theseus talking to Hippolyta; “I woo’d thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries;But I will wed thee in another key,With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.”It got me thinking. Imagine a white van driver pulling up alongside a lady at some traficlights and exclaiming “Oh speak

again, bright angel, for though art as glorious to this night as a winged messenger of heaven.” It won’t happen, ever I mean unless the white van drivers evolve or something…anyway off the point again. I’ve had to read a heck of a lot of Shakespeare this week to find these petit quotes and I found my favourite in ACT II SCENE II of Romeo and Juliet as Romeo cries “O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”Juliet replies something along the lines of “What satisfaction canst

thou have tonight? And just when you think he’s gonna say “a quickie” he gives it the “The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.” What a bloody smooth operator, she’s gonna melt, she’ll be like butter in his hands for the rest of time…or at least until she foolishly kills herself. So my little point is that being romantic and smooth will get you anywhere just look at Romeo, Lionel Richie or Chef!

[exeunt.]

Do you come here often?

WE LIkE mESSING AROuND. If yOu LIkE mESSING AROuND GET INvOLvED AND SEND uS SOmETHING fuNNy.

WINGED mESSENGER OF HEAVEN LTD

my home made GlastonburyDid you go to Glastonbury? I didn’t get a ticket. I didn’t try. I had a plan. I had it all worked out. You don’t need to go to Glastonbury to experience Glastonbury. Here is my weekend diary.

Thursday

11:00pm Came home late, after a few hours round trip on the tubes, tired and hungry. Set up my tent in the garden, on a mound of earth, previously prepared by a JCB digger. Threw a few tent poles away, so forced to improvise with twigs and beer cans from the crate I’d taken on the tube. Forced to drink 8 cans just to pitch tent. Help a few neighbours over the fence.

3:00am Finished pitching tent as a group of friends and people I’d never seen before arrived. We sat and talked nonsense. Drank a crate each, and a few bottles of cheap box wine - made a fire with the rubbish. Found

a hose pipe in the shed and drenched everyone before bedtime. Vomited on sleeping bag. Put some pounding techno on my cd player. Found a rock for a pillow. Passed out.

Friday

5:00am Woke in tent, which had fallen down, stifled by heat and lack of oxygen. Crawled out, like a dying worm in my sodden sleeping bag. Finished a can of cider, full of cigarette butts – breakfast.

7:00am Drunk and sitting in an inflatable rubber ring. Pass out in the sun.

8:00am Woke up, sunburnt. Smeared my face and limbs in mud to combat the pain. Ate a curry out of a polystyrene box I found. Went for a wander.

11:30am Admitted to myself I was lost, wandering in the neighbour’s gardens. Found some mushrooms.

Ate said mushrooms.

12:00pm Playing frisbee with a fairy, a dinosaur and Ted Danson, while simultaneously watching the clouds make themselves into shapes, and debating whether ‘simultaneously’ is a real word, and what bands it’s currently watching.

12:45pm Had a bit of sick and a white substance I found on the floor; maybe cocaine, maybe weed killer.

3:40pm Woke up covered in leaves, back in my garden. Flatmates listening to a Bright Eyes CD. He brings me curry. We share a box wine. He’s got more weed killer AND slug pellets. We sprinkle our curries and scoff.

11:40pm Björk has come round. She tramples on our tents and falls into the fire. I think it’s Björk anyway. Maybe Police.

3:00pm Get tattoo of a frog and the word ‘Pringle’ on my elbow - can’t say why, too personal.

Saturday

3:00pm Woke up cuddling a shoe – not mine. Throw away half my CDs – the bands I’ve missed. Hose down tent, clothes, and entire garden including some weird people counting blades of grass. Then it rains, and I curse the sky. Then I hear my flatmate playing guitar, and I sit for a sing-song, never knowing the words, never being prouder to sing.

8:45pm find the stone circle. Buy some mushrooms and hash cakes from my neighbour. He hugs me, and we talk about the good ol’ days, before either of us were born. He starts to explain Maximo Park’s importance - I vomit, tell him I’ll defo meet him later, by the thing, near the puddle, and I crawl on.

Northern not at Glastonbury

my home made Glastonbury

editor@theothersidemag.co.ukNorthern not at Glastonbury

11:00pm Buy a curry from a squirrel - he says it’s made from his cousin who ran off with his wife. Squirrel curry is good. Drink lots of watered down beer and throw £30 down a drain. Find a poncho, wear a poncho. Eat some wild berries which do strange things to me. I remove all clothing except my wellies, which I fill with mud. I stomp about. My skin looks strange, and I’m mesmerised by it. I feel like Iggy Pop.

Sunday

4:00am Techno fancy dress party at our camp site. Everyone’s there! No sleep. No feeling in my middle toe - possibly trenchfoot setting in.

7:36am Suddenly have to find a toilet. I find my flatmates record box, and fill it with my back catalogue. He tells me ‘That’s beautiful’, then we smoke some more home made crack - tastes like fermented Fairy liquid.

1:00pm Now back from travelling to the 6th dimension to visit the aardvark factory for a blueberry muffin. I smoke some weeds, drink some curry, and eat a few cans of beer.

1:07pm Toilet duties again, then to the medical tent. Thunder and lightening ensue, and I run around in circles and kiss a few people I deem must be beautiful, since I can’t focus on them.

2:45pm I decide to send a postcard to my family. I forget their names, and most of their address. This isn’t a problem however, as I also forget how to write, and what I’m doing. I find a bottle of Meths, making the mistake of announcing it to the crowd – the herb garden was trampled as everyone chased me for the fluid.

6:30pm I find the Hare Krishna tent. Eat the nicest food ever, before running to the toilet, where I stay

for a great deal of time. Pass out.

9:45pm My toilet, with me in it, is tipped over. I wake up, and swim away from the wreckage.

10:05pm my flatmate tells me his favourite band are on TV. ‘Who?’ I croak. ‘Yep’ he says, and runs off into the darkness.

Monday

12:15am Through my kitchen window I see ‘Walk the Line’ being projected inside. I wander about telling everyone it’s my favourite film, after Weekend at Bernie’s.

2:00am I find a fire, possibly a burnt out car in our driveway. I sit by it and cuddle a few people. A guy comes and tells some bad jokes, and we build a sculpture out of cider cans, and love. We burn our alcoholic Wicker Man creation, with our wallets inside.

6:24am Wake up in a tree. Fall down. Crawl under my sleeping bag. Crawl out, turn on hose, crawl back and pass out cradling a bottle of cider to the Mexican wave sound of ‘Bollocks’ from my neighbours getting in the spirit.

7:12am Wake up on the burning embers of the campfire, content never to move again unless it’s to watch Neighbours. Possibly Doctors. Which I probably need.

8:00am Flatmate pokes me with a stick and says he’s leaving for work, and would I like a lift. I say I’ll be in later

8:04am Hitch a lift on some girl’s skateboard, possibly Björk.

9:01am Get to work. finish off my mushrooms, cider, boxed wine, weed killer, weeds, slug pellets and curry. Pass out.

9:07am Fired from work.

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what's nico been thinking?

WHAT'S NICO BEEN THINKING

THIS WEEK?