I have to admit, it was a good day.  It went quickly, and I didn’t lose my temper once.

No, I lost it many, many times.

Ha, no, I’m just jesting (such a kidder, tsk) – I was very optimistic and friendly and positive today.

It must be because I had my breasts out.

Well, not really.  But I had a top on that suggested there were breasts there.

When I say suggested, it was quite obvious that the breasts were there.  Indeed, the breasts are quite obviously there in other tops too, but this top in particular seemed to say ‘Hey – look at these puppies!’ in an elegant and tasteful manner.

Because I work in a library, not a strip club, so I would probably not get away with wearing a top that actually said ‘Hey – look at these puppies!’.

Anyway, I like my top.  It is one that the personal shopper lady suggested, and I would never have chosen for myself because it looks a little bit like a dress my Nan used to have that I played dress-up in when I wanted to pretend I was off of the Sixties.

I was 23 at the time.

Anyway, it’s one of those ‘Hey, I’m pregnant!…not really! – I just have big boobs and would like to hide my tummy beneath them to distract you from my tummy because it’s bigger than I would like it to be…’ kind of tops.  The ones that are all the rage in these clinically obese times.

So anyway, my top made me have a good day.

And even the guy who came in and asked each member of staff individually if they could translate his French letter (snigger) for him, didn’t irritate me.

No, sir.  This is a library.  Not your personal translation service.  We have books and CDs that will help you learn French.

And even the woman who brought her pushchair-bound sprog up to the quiet area so that she could use the computer didn’t annoy me.  Not even when she ineffectually shushed him and kept telling him, for an entire 30 minutes, that they would be leaving soon and come back later. No.  Leave now.  Because he is clearly bored out of his mind while you do your internetting.  No.  Shoving a dummy into his mouth is not going to work.

Nope.  None of this annoyed me today.  Because I was wearing a funky top off of my Nan.

Kind of.

I’m back.

It’s been ages, I know.  It’s just that everytime I think ‘Hmm, today, I shall write some witty prose and make my public guffaw’ I instantly get distracted by something.  Usually Spider Solitaire or Tetris. Or cleaning.

So, we went to a festival this weekend, as you may have heard (I’m sure there must have been headlines in all major newspapers detailing the hilarious goings-on of the Bren-phie duo over the weekend, such is our celebrity), and much fun was had.

The Cornbury Festival has been going six years, apparently, so is in the foetal stages of festivality, compared to the Glastos of this world.  It is also aimed at families, but this did not put us off.  It’s local, and not too big, and some excellent bands were billed, so we said ‘What the hey, let’s have us some of that’ and spent a small fortune on camping equipment and trotted the 15 minutes down the road.

Like the fools that we are.

And it was great fun.  Yes, it rained.  Yes, relations were slightly strained right at the start, but our excellent teamwork shone through as we set up camp and meandered around the site taking photos and interviewing people.

I took photos.  Most of them rubbish, but some are alright, usually when I got brave enough to join the big lens brigade at the front of the stage.  My favourite will soon become my profile picture on Twitter and Facebook.

Bren did the interviewing – I was very good at pointing people out from bands that we’d seen, and sending him over to talk to them.  I’ll let him tell you all about that.

And we saw some excellent bands.  Most of whom I’d not heard of before.  I’m so glad I did the anal MySpace research before we went, and typed up a list of who I most wanted to see, and things that clashed, because that made it easier to navigate, and not miss the bands that sounded more my cup of tea than, say, Imelda May.

Talking of tea, there was a lovely little charabanc type stall that quaintly called itself ‘Tea and Sympathy’.  I love it!  After setting up our tent and sorting our stuff out, we went and had tea and Marmite on toast served by a lovely Aussie girl from this lovely little set-up.

In fact, all the food stalls looked amazing, both at the campsite, and the main arena, so our shiny new kettle and campstove are still shiny new.  As are the bowls and cups and cuppa soups and Pot Noodles.  Although I’m sure the latter will be disposed of soon, when we decide to have a student meal in an effort to relive our younger years.  Or just due to a lack of effort.

Anyway, the arena didn’t open until Saturday morning, so the first night was spent pottering around the campsite, marvelling at the facilities.  Hot showers! I mean, I’ve not been to a festival since 1999, but seriously – hot showers?! Is this a norm among the festivals of the Noughties?

I suspect not.  I reckon since this is a family-oriented festival, they were considering the needs of those stinky, evil adorable hippy children.

Had there not been showers, I would not have missed them.  As it was, there were.  On Saturday morning, we woke up stupidly early.  Strange surroundings, too much light etc etc.  So the queue for the shower was minimal.  Maybe 10 minutes at most.

Sunday morning was a different matter.

But it was such fun.  How good are the British at making queuing fun?

I must have been there for about an hour before I got to my luxurious, steaming shower.

In which time, I cracked many a joke at what fools we all are, and how there isn’t even a fast ride at the end of this, and hoping that the person in the end cubicle hadn’t passed out because they had been in there a bloody long time.

One woman came to a girl standing a couple of people behind me (her daughter) and tried to convince her not to waste her time, and while she was doing so the man behind me said, ‘Now don’t think your tactics of persuasion have worked, I am simply leaving the queue because I can’t be bothered, it is nothing to do with anything you have said.  Plus, I need the toilet.’

Seriously, you wouldn’t get this sort of frank, polite, gentle comedy anywhere else.

And the woman behind me was getting so excited every time someone came out of a cubicle and we got a bit closer.  She got a cubicle at the same time as me.

So, I finally got to the shower and stripped off and switched on the water.   Shutting and locking the door first, obviously.

And nothing happened.

And then I heard the girl who’d been waiting behind me scream ‘You’re joking!’ and various expletives.

But I thought, ah well, try the taps on the sink, and they worked, so I started to get dressed, and then heard the generator go on again, so tried the shower again.  Hooray – it works.  Got undressed again.

It stopped again.

This happened a couple of times, so I finally gave up and, half-dressed, cleaned my teeth.

And then, oh deep joy, it came on and stayed on.

So I had a super-quick shower and hopped back into my clothes and sandals and muddied my feet all the way back to the tent.

Such a big waste of time, since I could have driven home, showered, changed and probably listened to The Archers omnibus in the same amount of time.

But I’m glad I didn’t – it’s all part of the fun, innit?  It was like being on a family holiday off of the Eighties.

Anyway, I suppose I should mention the bands, since they were the whole reason we went.

We were impressed with Relay, the local band who had won a competition to open the Festival.  They’re only 17 and they were really good – a good mix of covers and their own material.  And their keyboardist looked about 10, but held his own in a cover of The Killers’ ‘All These Things’. I think he was actually 13.  I also think I’d like to see his birth certificate, because he looked really young.

Erm, who else did we see?  Oh yes, we headed over to Warning! Heat Ray! afterwards, who were on the Riverside Stage, and were brilliant.  In all my MySpace/online researching they were the main band I didn’t want to miss, and I’m glad we saw the whole set.  Really relaxed and really accomplished.

I saw the last few songs from Boy Least Likely To, and loved them.  The lead singer was really funny and they all seemed to be having a brilliant time, almost as though they couldn’t quite believe they were there.  And Bren and I were totally agreed that he is the dead spit of James Dean Bradfield.  Their ‘Faith’ cover was brilliant.

In fact, we heard a little bit of most of the bands, because the beauty of Cornbury is the proximity of everything.  It’s so small.  It’s probably a pain in the arse for the bands, when they’re trying to compete with the fairground or the nearby main stage, but as a punter it was ace, because you could wander to and fro and catch a little bit of everything.

We did go and have a little lie down on Saturday afternoon, and emerged just as it started to rain, to catch Sharleen Spiteri and The Damned, and of course, Scouting for Girls.

We stood out to watch some of Sharleen, but relocated to the funky Malinkeys restaurant for some delicious goulash, and continued to watch her from the top of a converted lorry. Bizarrely.

Not long after her set finished, still atop the colourful lorry, we heard The Damned start up on the second stage next to us.  I shamefully have to admit to knowing nothing about The Damned, but we polished off our meal and went and joined the cagouled/binbagged crowd for a bit of pogoing.  In our matching pac-a-macs. They were brilliant. Bren tried to convince me that Captain Sensible is 83.  I spent a couple of minutes astounded at his youthfulness.  Until he put me out of my misery and told me that, yes, he is getting on a bit, but seriously – 83?

So, I’m naive.  It’s not necessarily a bad trait to have.  Usually.

And we finished off Saturday night surrounded by annoying teenagers/preteens and their annoyed parent/s watching Scouting For Girls.  And slowly drowning in a combination of torrential rain and fucking gigantic bubbles.  I was so sick of those massive bubbles by the end of the weekend.

And it so wasn’t worth the wait.  I like Scouting for Girls.  I like their rubbish lyrics and handful of chords.  Because they are repetitive and I can sing along to them.

However, they are not someone I will be paying to see live again.

We left before they’d finished and went back to the tent to dry off.  I would say we went back to the tent to sleep, but even though Bren can sleep through anything, I spent most of the night watching the tent leak, or listening to the pub singers at the campsite bar. Or our neighbours breaking other people’s guitars.

I did sleep, though, and I know this because I woke up with some excellent bedhead going on.  Hence the necessity to spend hours queuing for a shower.

Anyway, this is going on and on. So I’ll bring it to a close.

In conclusion (she said in an essay-like way), we had an excellent weekend, discovered many new bands, spoke to lovely people, and marvelled at the spatial genius of Mike and Charlie from inLight as we helped them get a large amount of equipment into a rather small car.

And, on a personal note, I discovered my tolerance to being thrown around with loud music in the background seems to have vanished.  And that Alton Towers is tame compared to the ‘Extreme’ ride at Cornbury. Especially when Extreme went on for days hours minutes compared to the paltry 45 seconds of say, Oblivion or Rita.

Anyway, work tomorrow.  It’s been weeks since I’ve done anything other than clean the house or watch telly, so that should be interesting!

In next to not much time we’d unpacked the car (stowing all of the camping things in the downstairs loo for now), had a shower, eaten and had a mug of tea.

And now it’s bed time.

There’s much to blog about, but it’ll have to wait until I’m awake. I have a lot of sleep to catch up on and I think my brain started shutting down a couple of minutes ago.

Soph and I are ankle-deep in sleeping bags, rucksacks, quick-drying towels, cutlery and the usual bits and bobs that accompany a weekend camping in the Great British Outdoors.

This weekend is the Cornbury Festival and from tomorrow onwards we’ll be there.

But we’re not only going as ‘us’, we’re also going as the roving, microphone-toting correspondents of This Reality Podcast.

The festival is giving us music from forty-three bands which will also include such brilliant local talent as inLight, The Witches, Contraband and Stornoway.

And these are just the locals!

As well as trying to divide our time between listening to 43 bands, doing much eating, chatting, gawping, interviewing and perhaps doing a little sleeping, we’ll also be trying to get around the very many attractions that the Cornbury Festival has laid on.

We shall also be tweeting in the form of @thisrealitypod (so get on and follow us!).

And some time this evening, before we fall in to bed in an excited pile of limbs, we have to record this weekend’s podcast.

And eat pizza.

But all of this fun and games (or is it ‘this fun and these games’?) means that we’re v.unlikely to be doing any blogging on this website until Monday.

Or maybe Tuesday.

How is it that Michael Jackson (d’cd), a black man who may have had a skin disorder which is, according to medical experts, neither contagious nor genetic (i.e. heriditary), has fathered not one, not two but three white children?

I get on the coach, I go to the nearest table and it – and the four seats (two forward-facing, two rearwards-facing) are occupied.

Occupied by two people.

The two selfish fuckers have spread themselves and their bags out over the space allocated for four people.

This kind of (seemingly) innately selfish behaviour irritates me. No, it annoys the sheer fucking hell out of me.

Why do people think this kind of behaviour is socially acceptable?

Have they paid for all four seats?

Well of course they haven’t.

And these two selfish cunts are travelling together, so it’s a conspiracy between them to try and deter anyone else from *daring* to sit near them.

Bastards.

And this is a photograph of the person who is quite possibly the most selfish person on the planet:

If he leaned any harder on my laptop lid he’d have had his eye out.

This story about a returning-from-holiday aviation mechanic who, when he heard the aircraft that was due to fly everyone back to the UK had developed a fault, stepped up, volunteered his services and repaired the airplane, made me sit back and think.

What, I wondered, would be my skills that could be called upon in an emergency?

‘Is there a technical project manager in the house?’ That’s an emergency call that isn’t very likely to happen, is it?

But ‘Is there a battlefield-trained medic here?’ Yeah, that’s got some value. If the victim is suffering from a major shrapnel wound or is oozing his (or her, these injuries aren’t that choosy) intestines through a hip-to-shoulder abdominal slash, then I’m your man.

How about ‘Is there a former electronic intelligence officer with a security clearance greater than the Prime Minister here?’ Nah, that’s not terribly useful, is it?

How about ‘A Class One Marksman able to take out a moving target with a headshot? At night? From 250m?’ Well, I’ll concede it’s a skill unlikely to be called on in the departure lounge of Menorca airport, but hey, it’s an attribute that’s cheered me up in my most people-hating moments.

‘Let me through I’m an aircraft engineer and I’m rated on this aircraft type’ wins, in this instance.

‘Let me through I’m a doctor’ would probably come a close second.

But I do wonder where, in the World Rankings of Usefulness the phrase ‘Let me through I’m an MP’ would score?

What would be your call to step in to the breach?

The tweet was:

“Really really f*ck*ng grumpy. Totally f*ck*ng got the grumps. B*st*rds. C*nts. F*ck*ng tw*ts. Don’t laugh at me. I’m grumpy.”

Now, people who know me are, right now, leaping to their feet to defend me. Or defend my character, would be more correct.

You are not, they’re shouting with one voice, a grump.

Listen hard enough and you can hear them.

Hark!

Hear them?

Me too.

But for some fucking reason this evening I am really really fucking grumpy.

Not even the sight of the sainted Sadra Bullock on television is lifting me mood.

Sandra Bullock, that is. Not Sadra. Her lesser-well-known cousin.

But the point of this ramble is to underline that ‘grump’ is neither my default mode nor my most common mode.

I’ve been reviewing unpublished blog posts. Does anyone else do that? Keep unpublished articles until the time is right to release them upon the world?

They underline my point again.

There’s the very humorous: Bang Bang You’re Dead.

The side-splittingly funny: Ten Tell-Tale Signs That You’re Loved One Is A Mentalist

The slightly maniacally hilarious: Tomorrow We’re Taking A Train

A Trip In The Life Of An Oxford Tube Veteran is so funny that it’s been nominated for an award. By me.

Horses, Courses And Other Obstacles In Life made me laugh so much a little bit of wee came out. And I wrote it!

And the yet-to-be-published Extreme Black Cabbing is so funny that Word chuckles to itself everytime I load it.

That’s my point.

I’m a funny guy.

Funny guy is my default mode.

It really is!

Just not now.

Not tonight.

Except listening to Jonathon Woss pronounce ‘Wufuss Wainwight’ did lift my mood a little.

But for the most part tonight, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I am a fucking grump.

You have been warned.

Why is there never a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on the door when you want one?

I want a really good fight.

Yes I know it’s 1am, that’s not my fault.

I’m grumpy.

Maybe I’m wrong when I think that we’re becoming a more self-centred, less caring society.

I mean, I dislike intolerance as much as the next person, but we have to balance things out, right?

We should always consider our environment – and by that I don’t *just* mean that we should think about the land and the sky and the birdies and the fishes – I mean we should always think about the area around us.

And the people who live in it.

So why is it at [checks watch] 22.32 on a Saturday in July that I amsitting next to the open patio doors listening to the sound of…

Fireworks.

And dogs barking.

So fucking what if it is the 4th of July?

Who cares that it’s the Independence Day of one of our former colonies?

Here’s my point: In November the animal-owning members of British Society acknowledge that they have to keep Tiddles The Cat, Geoffrey The Dog and Colin The Gerbil in at night – because in November Britain celebrates the Gunpowder Plot with Bonfire Night.

But what the fuck with all the fireworks going off now?

I am sitting here listening to dogs barking all over the parish because some inconsiderate bastard is trying to recreate the climax of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

In rural fucking Oxfordshire.

What the fuck?

I’ve got a horse out there, in his paddock, I don’t want the poor equine to be startled out of his little orange skin because of some selfish bastard who thinks s/he is still living in Hicksville USA.

Yes I am being parochial.

But let’s look at the facts here.

I am not alone in having an animal out at night.

It’s fucking hot.

There are many dogs out in their owners gardens.

Why should we be held hostage to a selfish fucking minority?

I really don’t get it.

If you want to celebrate American Independence day can you just fuck off to America?

I’ve nothing against the USA in general or Americans in particular, but let’s keep a sense of perspective here please.

Or is it just me who would consider my immediate environment before letting off a couple of hundred quid’s worth of fireworks?

[canned audience applause]

Before the break we were speaking to John and Donny about their gay love for each other and how their fervent desire for increasingly dangerous sex led them to a Swiss ski-lift in the early hours of the morning armed with a tube of KY Jelly, a mountaineering crampon, a collapsible walking stick and a length of climbing rope.

Now it’s time to meet with Soph and Bren who have just finished a tour of the more mountainous bits of the Welsh mountains.

[canned laughter]

Yes, sorry. We’ve been away. But now we’re back and with many photographs in our possession.

Look, it’s my name! (nearly):

And we went to that place with that name:

And then we went up one of these:

And saw views like this:

And tomorrow it’s back to work for me, but not for her (lucky thing!).

Many things to catch up on, but they’ll have to keep for another time.