What Did I Tell You?

There has been so much going on recently I haven't had a chance to update this (I know, I know, I'm sorry!), so I really don't know where to start! Well, here is a brief summary of the things that have been going on in the last few weeks. Probably the biggest change is that I am now officially a student of Ravensbourne! I enrolled and I've even completed a "full" week there! More on that  later, or more likely in another post, who knows when I may get around to it. I started a part time job at a local tuition place, I went to Example's signing at the Oxford Street HMV, had a small cocktail party, have been very slowly making my silver, robot-waitress, MB-esque dress...ah I'll cut to the chase! Just over two weeks ago it was of course Reading Festival 2011, and with it of course the eagerly anticipated Origin of Symmetry set by Muse! 

Now regular readers should remember that I entered a Muse T shirt competition in the hope of winning VIP tickets to Reading (and of course for a further step in my journey to becoming a fashion designer and designing for Matt Bellamy!). Alas, I did not win. But if you remember I stayed positive and said that my time will come. One thing that I told my brother, who had helped me with the computer side of the designing and to whom I therefor promised the other VIP ticket to, stayed with me though. That was, whilst discussing the horrors that would be the campsite toilets, I said to my brother something along the lines of, it won't matter because we'll be in the VIP area! (cue a chorus of "hell yeah!" and "boo yah!"'s and so on, and so on) Little did I know what would be just around the corner...

Friendly Fires, of course!

I surfaced from the dingy depths of the garage at work on Monday lunchtime of the week of Reading, covered in dust and with a sore back from emptying the piles of boxes (68, I counted) and putting the contents into shredding sacks, a riveting job, and took refuge at my desk back inside. I hadn't even planned on going back to my desk, I had my lunch in a bag and told myself I'd be happy enough to eat sitting amongst the ceiling high piles of boxes, they was even an old spinny chair and that was enough for me! But my indulgence went beyond that; this particular lunchtime I decided to boot up the old pc and check my emails (something I never do at work)! As I scanned me inbox I noticed an email entitled "CONGRATULATIONS!" and instantly thought it must just have slipped through my junk filter. However, being the person I am I like to check my junk mail is actually junk before deleting it so, after reading a couple of emails I thought were more worthy first, I opened it. At first glance it did appear to be junk; it was written in that standard, plain font with no pictures or headers. But it was a short email so I read it.Low and behold, it was actually an email from NME telling me I'd won a pair of guest tickets to Reading Festival 2011. For a couple of seconds I stared, confused, at the screen. Then I remembered: I'd entered a draw for VIP tickets, these must be them! I was going to Reading as a VIP afterall! Surely this couldn't be real?! Well it was! Safe to say I went back to garage a very happy bunny and powered through the rest of the shredding whilst listening to a Reading playlist on my iPod, dancing around the garage and fantasising about the VIP area...   

Taking a break from the luxury of the guest area: our miraculous BBQ which took no less than 49 matches to light after being left out all night in the rain, I actually cooked a pretty nice sausage on it!

After the small issue of having to sell my pair of normal Reading tickets (which was actually the biggest stress ever but lets not dwell on that) Thursday arrived and we left for Reading, guest tickets in hand! I painted the Origin of Symmetry album artwork on my nails, got my mum to put semi-permanent purple hair dye in for me and had my camping gear, sirius muesli (get it?) and the essential Muse t-shirt packed. I won't bore you with details of the longest walk ever from the car to the entrance whilst lugging all my bags plus over 20 cans of beer with absolutely no help from the far stronger boys I was with. But at the end of that walk, after leaving our friends at the "commoners" entrance, we finally reached the guest only entrance. We blew all hopes of trying to blend in and looking cool by first of all the fact we (namely I) were red as tomatoes and dripping in sweat after the weather took a turn for the better and got a lot warmer than we had dressed for, not to mention the ton of bags. And secondly by queuing at the wrong window. You see, there were two windows open and one had a queue and the other didn't (already a sign we should have noticed), so we went to the second window. After failing miserably to catch the attention of the workers inside I looked up and realised why we weren't being served: we were in fact queuing at the window for the bands, which explained the list of bands on the desk that had some ticked off (I blame seeing Muse written down which distracted me). So we made the walk of shame to the back of the other queue, which had grown considerably by this time. 

After that brief hiccup though we received our exclusive "weekend guest" wristbands, so exclusive it only has 3 figures as opposed to the 6 figured "commoners" wristband, and proceeded on, past the tour buses and tv crews, to the guest camping area, located right next to the main stage (and also adjacent to the fair which we discovered that night). After another brief hiccup of accidentally unpacking our stuff in the disabled camping area instead, we finally chose our patch to pitch up in; a good 40 meters or so away from any other tent in all directions and with the grass still very green and unspoiled by mud and water logs (believe me, that is glamping compared to the other campsites as we soon discovered). Other luxuries of the guest camping area included portaloos that were 100 times cleaner than the "commoners" ones, shower cubicles (which still didn't get used, well we still wanted the full Reading experience!) and sockets to charge phones with, which really were a life saver after buying a dodgy "emergency charger".    

My Origin of Symmetry nails!

But the luxuries didn't stop there, oh no! There was also a guest area on the other side of the main stage that had, wait for it, REAL toilets! Not to mention two different guest bars which both had different DJ's playing some really great music all day and night (well, until 3am, we know because we stayed until the end, the hardmen we are), a guest BBQ, real fires at night to keep warm by and a range of actual seats including picnic tables, deck chairs and sofas!! (why do I always sound like I'm trying to sell something?)  But besides that the guest area also had the press area and and entrance to the actual main stage! Of course to get there you needed to be working as part of the crew or have access all areas, however, just being in the guest area means that you can see people going on and off from the main stage via this entrance and hanging around the press area. The very first time we entered the guest area within minutes my brother told me he saw a guitarist from Dry the River. He pointed him out to me but I don't know what he looks like anyway so it was lost on me. However, over the weekend we did definitely rub shoulders with Suggs from Madness, Stefan from The Midnight Beast (who I genuinely would have stopped if he wasn't rushing for the stage entrance) and I could have sworn I saw the front man of Two Door Cinema Club. 

Also, one of the first things we witnessed in the guest area was a band doing an acoustic set, well we just caught the end of the set. I don't even know who the band were but I recognised the song, something about a blackout, I must look it up. There was also someone who came off the main stage not long after My Chemical Romance finished playing who caused a bit of a fuss and was having his photos taken with various people, not sure who he was but he must have been someone famous! It really was a case of being there at the right time though, Matt Bellamy probably passed through at some point but we couldn't spend all our time there, not only would we have missed the music we would have angered our friends beyond what we already had done! 

Pulp (duh), so much better than The Strokes

God knows who else we were in the presence of that weekend, after all unless you win a ticket, guest passes are only given to friends and family of the band and people who work on the music industry. You can tell, and they can probably tell we were competition winners, as everyone is far to immaculately dressed for a festival and probably doesn't even venture out into the "commoners" area. (Yes, we spent the whole weekend referring to everything else as the "commoners...") That meant we felt very out of place striding in with our mud covered wellies and me with my bright orange "kag in a bag" on. Luckily, those pretenses, and our inhibitions, disappeared by night when, after all the acts had finished, we continued to party in the guest area, sipping rose amongst the other guests, some of who were understandably quite drunk and began dancing on mud covered tables (how this didn't end in disaster, I don't know). We even joined in on the dancing after a couple of drinks and on the last night even entered what appeared to be a very exclusive circle of people sitting around a fire. (one of those people looked a lot like Tim Minchin...) 

On the Saturday night, after our friends had "called it a night" we went back for more drinks and sat up one of the bar's balcony. From here we could see backstage and we witnessed about 5 trucks arriving and loading out equipment onto the stage. Being the night before Muse we were of course convinced that it was the mysterious Origin of Symmetry stage, it probably was you know. 

"Polaroid app on my iPhone..." me near the guest camping toilets, being all gaijin, photo taken by my brother who would like me to remind you that the link to his blog is on the right of this *rolls eyes*

Given the people we were probably rubbing shoulders with we overheard a few interesting conversations that weekend. I heard what I deduced to have been a photographer who has worked with Jared Leto talking abut how difficult he is to photograph, apparently he always pulls the same facial expression no matter what you ask him to do, who knew? There was also a group of what seemed to be reviewers, or generally people who work in the music media, slating The Strokes after they came offstage (late, might I add!), saying how boring they were, which I couldn't agree more with, I should definitely have seen The Midnight Beast instead. That's why it came as a surprise to me when publications such as NME and the likes didn't have a word to say against them the following week. I certainly didn't hear anyone in the guest area, or elsewhere, that had a good word to say about them. However, the following night more than made up for it! Muse! What can I say? Yet again, there are no words! (which I'm sure you're glad to hear, this blog's already gone on for too long!)

An idea of how epic Muse's Origin of Symmetry Stage, and set, was!

I'll leave you with my lyric of the day then. It's taken from the internet viral "Being a dickhead's cool", a song that we couldn't stop singing all weekend purely because there were so many real life references to it! "Hipsters, there's hipsters everywhere!" were my brothers words as we got out of the car. This particular lyric though reminds me especially of one night when we were entering the guest area after the acts had finished. I have never felt more exclusive in my life, it just beats being photographed by about 20 Japanese strangers in a train station as if I were a celebrity. As we strided into the guest area, being waved through by the security guards after flashing our guest wristbands, we passed a pair of clearly desperate girls begging to get in, even offering bribes of money, or more! I couldn't suppress a grin as the security guards just went "sorry, if your name's not on the list you're not getting in". 

Lyric of the Day: "exclusive list, look, there's my name! I got in! You couldn't get in!" - Being A Dickhead's Cool      

The Unsocial Network?

(I need to just say I was meant to finish this and post it ages ago but I've been so busy there's a bit of a backlog of blogs at the moment, updates coming soon!)

I don't know about you but I think the idea that social networking sites are actually, rather ironically "unsociable" is becoming a bit of a cliche. Whilst in Ireland last week I read an article in an Irish Newspaper (possibly the Times? it doesn't really matter, I'm not out to name and shame) of a similar title that was basically complaining about the annoyance and unsociable nature of social network sites, in particular Twitter. Now, I myself have been known to have mixed views on Facebook, it has it's pros and it's cons. On that topic I have now decided that the pros by far outweigh the cons and as long as you handle it in the right way there really isn't a problem with Facebook.

But back to this article; I found the writer of it infuriatingly ignorant. He made no apologies from the beginning of the article to being completely out of touch with the entire concept of social networking; having never used Facebook or Twitter and having no interest in starting. Yet he proceeded to condemn the sites themselves and their users. After admitting to signing up to Twitter (he was forced to by his son or something) he then recounts that his main problem with it is that most of its users uneducated, grammatically incorrect imbeciles (his words, pretty much, not mine) that share way to much information. Who wants to know if you've had toast for breakfast? he exclaims. Well there's a simple solution to that mate, don't follow these so called imbeciles who give share far too much information! Really the only imbecile here is you; you're clearly either too old or too out of touch with the modern world to fully understand how these social networks should be used, and the benefits that they can have. And you definitely haven't done your research for this article very well. Whilst some of the readers of The Times may still be firmly stuck on their anti-social network (The youth of today! *tuts*) "high ground", I can almost guarantee you that they will start to dwindle and authors like this need to realise this and adapt.        

Rant over. I think. 

Lyric of the Day: "Something is wrong, spit it out!" - Mothership, Enter Shikari

I need to blog this milestone in my internet presence, no matter how small: I have (partly unintentionally) made my way onto youtube, if only for 3, rather embarrassing seconds.

Those of you, however few, who read this blog regularly may remember me talking about how my brother and I entered a video for a fan intro of a fan-made "Muse: The Movie". About 2 weeks ago the final trailer for this movie was released on youtube and it included the fan intro: a selection of the best videos sent in of why people love Muse. Unbelievably, a clip of our video made the final cut; quite an achievement considering 40 videos didn't make it! Anyway, here it is. I won't say where we are, try and guess!

Kudos to the maker (takeabow19), if you're a Muse fan then you should check out his other videos and stay tuned for the completed movie, which will be available from Muse bootlegs (if I remember correctly!). 

In other news I have just gotten back from 10 days in Ireland; staying by the beach in the middle of no where practically cut off from society (really a very nice place to reflect on things). On return it has hit me that I only have 2 weeks left of my summer holidays and I haven't even begun the list of creative projects I meant to take on. However, being away has really made me want to start and since today I found out I am not needed in work for another week now is my chance! So today I started making the pattern for a dress I have been meaning to make for aaaaages and tomorrow I will buy the fabric and get started! Expect to hear more on that soon...

Lyric of the Day: "Looks like a new transition" - Witchcraft, Pendulum

Positive Thinking Wins Again!

First of all can I just say I've been wanting to write this blog for two weeks now and I've been so busy I haven't had the time! Oh and also I know, especially after my last blog, I must sound like one of those self-help "guru's" I so often mock, but this needs to be shared. Right, now that's off my chest...

It's Saturday night and I'm standing in the Roundhouse, Camden, waiting for The Wombats to come on stage. And I think to myself, this really is the epitome of positive thinking (my mum will be proud!). Less than 24 hours before I had made plans to get the train into London for early afternoon in order to queue for stand-by tickets for that night's iTunes Festival gig, The Wombats. However, my plans were crushed by torrential rain that morning and even before I woke up I could hear the rain lashing into my window and I had that sinking feeling as I knew there wasn't even a point in getting up. Maybe a bit of rain wouldn't have been such a large problem if I wasn't battling off, rather badly, a bad sore throat and cold (ironically caused by the previous gig I had been to which was also an iTunes Festival one, White Lies again as it so happens). So, after my fears were confirmed and my plans were well and truly cancelled, all I could do was mope around feeling sorry for myself. I really like The Wombats; I've seen them before and it was so much fun and being the greedy person I am I wanted to go again! 

The thing was, all day I couldn't shake the feeling that I was meant to be there, I should be there. Like when you know you've made the wrong decision and it's like you can feel what could have happened if you'd taken the other route. (or is that just me?) It was at the back of my mind all day and every time the clouds cleared even for just a second I got a shot of optimism, mixed with the anger and disappointment that it was to late now anyway. But since you already know I ended up going I'll cut to the chase; my brother and I got a train up to Camden and arrived there half an hour before the doors opened, waited for half an hour then were let straight in despite not having won tickets. We were even let in before the people with tickets! I can't describe how lucky this was or how happy it made me, within less than 2 hours I had gone from moping around at home to waiting for one of my favourite bands to come on stage. It must have literally been one of those things that were just meant to be. What I will say is that even though I didn't win tickets I had an insanely good feeling about it when I entered the draw!

This hasn't been the only occasion where "positive thinking" has proven itself. Even if I only take into consideration examples involving gigs there has been many. Possibly the most lucky thing that's happened involved a Muse gig I went to with my brother and best friend  (I say "a" Muse gig, it wasn't just "a" gig, it was the best dam gig I've ever been to in my life!). Originally I had seating tickets but all I could think about would be how good it would be to have standing. So About 2 months before the gig I advertised my tickets for a swap. This never happened but I did manage to buy someones standing tickets, after answering an add literally seconds after it was posted, and sell my own pair. That's pretty lucky considering how sought after those tickets were. However, what's even more lucky is that my friend didn't even have a ticket and just two weeks before the gig she managed to buy one despite it being sold out and then find someone (who I will be eternally grateful to) to swap it with so she could sit at the same gate as us. Just luck, or the result of months of imagining that gig from the viewpoint of standing on the pitch (it was Wembley Stadium), in the company of my best friends?

And do I really need to remind you of what happened earlier on this month? Oh I do? Oh well I can always post another photo in case you've forgotten (I'm going to milk this for a while!) 

Me with Harry McVeigh, again, just from a slightly different angle!

Weeks before the White Lies gig in Coventry I booked a room at the travelodge so we could stay for longer after the gig, and so I didn't have to drive. I'm sure there's some philosophy my mum would tell me about making preparations for what you want to happen before it happens but I can't remember the exact words of it, but you get the gist. Then, whilst we waited in the Kasbah for White Lies to come on all of my friends were talking about how they wanted to catch a guitar pick or get a setlist and I just kept saying, all I want is to meet them and get a photo and perhaps an autograph! That's all want! (I wasn't saying this out of the blue by the way, we met a very nice lady before the show who said she'd show us how we could do it, and boy did she!) That's another one of my mum's philosophies right there: know clearly what you want and you will get it! And we have proof! 

So is it positive thinking, fate or just luck? Or God? Who knows? Personally, I think it has more to do with something meaning to be, because I also now that positive thinking doesn't always work (or true "positive thinking" is very difficult, to difficult for us pessimistic humans!). After going back to work where I mainly take staples out of files (oh the joys!) my free time has been partly occupied with something creative for the first time in over a month: I entered a Muse competition to design a t shirt for Reading and Leeds. The winner would not only get a pair of VIP tickets to Reading but their design would be printed and sold as well as receiving one copy signed by the band. Unfortunately, despite having a good feeling, I did not get picked for the shortlist. On reflection I could have put more effort into the creative side of things but due to my lack of time once I had the idea I just stuck with it. I ended up sending in 5 designs in total, 4 being just slight variations of the design below and the final one being hand drawn because I can't use GIMP. Here's one for now, I trust you won't steal them since the competition's closed now anyway!

the front of the t shirt, it says "Symmetry" at the bottom, it's a bit too small to read on here

the back of the t shirt, I couldn't find a back template so the neck is the same as the front!

But as I said, I believe that what's meant to happen will happen and I'm not too sad because my time will come! And Matt Bellamy will still one day wear one of my suits! Thank you again for reading my pointless rambles, until next time! (which could be a while as I'm going on holiday :D)

Lyric of the Day: "Do the macarena in the devil's lair" - Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair, Arctic Monkeys

Citizen Erased

"Wash me away, clean your body of me,
Erase all the memories, they'll only bring us pain,
And I've seen all I'll ever need"

I've always loved these lyrics; they are so beautifully sad but true, in my opinion. Today being the 10th anniversary of the release of one of the best Muse's best albums, Origin of Symmetry, seems like an appropriate time to bring this up. Well actually, I had written this blog about 3 months ago. The reason I didn't post it was because it was too bitter so I thought I'd wait for a more appropriate time when I would have a different perspective and re-word it, which is exactly what I have done. So anyway, this is going to get deep so turn away now if you can't handle it!

The reason I love these lyrics so much is I can really connect with them. If there is ever an event or person that causes me pain in my life then I would much rather forget all of the memories, good or bad, because remembering only causes me more hurt. If the memory was bad then it's obvious why it hurts, but if the memory was a good one then it hurts even more because life isn't like that anymore. This is contradictory to what certain "self-help guru's" preach. 

A common method of "letting go" taught by many of these self-help types is to imagine a bubble or a pen (in terms of animals, you know?) and put all of the good memories inside this and mentally blow them away (or blow them up if you chose the pen option, I'm guessing?). I find this a bit hard to imagine for several reasons. Firstly, can you really just "blow" away all those memories that easily? I highly doubt it. Secondly, why would you want to get rid of just all the good memories? Wouldn't that leave you with only bad memories and make you feel even more bitter thus making it harder to let go? Now I know this contradicts what I said earlier about good memories being more painful, but even I hold on to good memories (whether I want to or not). At least if you can only remember the good memories then you are slightly brainwashed into believing nothing was ever wrong because, until someone brings it up again, you've forgotten the bad things that happened. 

To be honest, the whole thing's a paradox, and over the recent weeks I have realised that you don't need to listen to any of these so called self-help experts to find the secrets of letting go. Nor can you try, using whatever method, to let go of anything. You can't really let go of anything until there is something worthwhile in your life that is big enough to fill the gap after you let go of whatever it is. Se when the time is right, you will be able to let go. You may even be able to hold on to the good memories without it hurting. 

So I leave you with my lyric of the day which is a rather different, more hopeful, way of looking at letting go (well in my interpretation, which, considering the artist, is often proven wrong) than those of Muse's Citizen Erased.

Lyric of the Day: "I gave you back your power, I gave you back your glory, when really I hadn't noticed, until I had the power to give it all back, until I felt the glory when the buildings collapsed" - The Power and the Glory, White Lies

Rock The Kasbah!

I know after my last blog post it must seem as though I've lost the function to communicate in any form of coherency, but I really can't convey this in words, definitely not written words anyway. So yet again, despite jeopardizing my anonymity on blogger, I will just have to post a photo. If you've read any of my previous blogs you'll understand why this is just... :Dx100000000000

me with Harry McVeigh, as if it needed an explanation!

Literally my dreams have come true. Standing there just didn't feel real, to be honest I still have to pinch myself! It was soooo amaaaazing, and thanks to my brother's inability to use a camera I was stood there for just a bit longer than necessary. Needless to say, it was well worth the trip to Coventry and a bit of my heart broke as I had to wash that section of my shoulder in the shower this morning.  

Lyric of the Day: "Maybe some day I could move like you" - Holy Ghost, White Lies

It feels like ages since I've written a blog post! I kept meaning to do one as so much has being going on! But that's exactly why I haven't done one. To think I thought I'd have to stop during study leave, yet whilst I was doing my exams I managed to post quite often, since the summer holidays have began I just haven't had the time! As I have said, so much has happened and I really can't be arsed to go into it all. In short, I finished my exams (including the tragic textiles exam), have left school for EVER, had my ball/prom thing and various other events have gone on. 

In all the commotion it appears to have slipped my my mind that I have finished art! It's a miracle! Well, until I start my year long art course in September (which will be a lot better than A Level art so I'm not really counting it as the same thing). I don't think I can explain what a relief this is, so I'll just post a photo from the exhibition:

Anyway, later that day something even better happened: I went and saw The Killers!! I actually can't put into words how good this was. Despite loving them since Hot Fuss I really didn't think it would be as amazing as it was, mainly because I though they'd play some new stuff and a lot of songs off Day and Age, which is my least favourite album. But they didn't! It was a proper comeback gig, in my opinion: they played mainly songs off Hot Fuss and Sam's Town, my two favourite albums! It's just so great that they are "finally" back together and Brandon Flowers has realised that he is nothing on his own. One of my life ambitions to see them live was crushed when they went on hiatus, luckily it turned out to be the most pathetic hiatus in history. Oh it literally was one of the best nights, despite the rain; I'm telling you, it's up there with Muse, and that says a lot! It was made even better by the atmosphere and the crowd. After briefly encountering some idiots during Kaiser Chiefs (who were also amazing!) which caused us to move to a much more central position, in front of the stage, we found ourselves in the company of some seriously awesome Killers fans (who also happened to be Muse fans :D) who seemed to be as crazy about them as we did. This just made it so much more enjoyable as we were all belting our hearts out all night! It sucks when you end up next to people who seem like half-arsed fans. I haven't been able to listen to The Killers in the same way since, and it's slightly, no very, torturous listening to the songs that did get played (which included Bling!! I practically died! :D). It may sound pathetic, but the emotions come flooding back to me so much when listening to some songs that I could almost cry. I literally can't put it into words, so again I'll leave you with a photo:

possibly the only disappointment was that Brandon Flowers wasn't wearing his trademark feather coat, on the plus side he didn't have a mustache!

In short, I have to see them again, ASAP! But in the mean time, I'm off to see White Lies!

Lyric of the Day: "saw Cinderella in a party dress, but she was looking for a nightgown" - A Dustland Fairytale, The Killers