Let me put a scenario in your head. Are you ready? Hotdogs, tarot cards, cardigans, wristbands, tents and ‘The Octopus Stage’. This may sound like Thursday afternoon at St Luke’s Retirement home but it’s not. It’s the LATITUDE FESTIVAL. Actually, it could be any festival really, but I’m going to talk about my experience at Latitude, which took place on Friday the 13th (cross a black cat with some garlic and pour hot wax on your stomach) of July to Sunday the 15th of July (you’re safe today). I’ve never really been a festival junkie, but there appears to be lots of junkies at festivals. I’m not sure why this is? I can only concur that they were already there, laying in the field when they built the festival around them. Most junkies are homeless and trees make ideal houses – tree houses almost.I’ve only attended three festivals in my life, but I think I’m getting into the swing of things, finally. My first experience at an outdoor concert was the Carling Festival in Leeds in 1995. I didn’t have to travel far, thus living in Pudsey, but I still had to get a funny bus that dropped me in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. What appeared to be nowhere was in fact Hyde Park and PULP were headlining. Unfortunately, I didn’t get chance to enjoy their set as I’d lost all my friends and felt incredibly alone and paranoid. I think I may have stopped in my tracks at one point and yelled ‘Common Beatles’, but then quickly got back to the fear. I can’t really remember much of that day because it was the Carling festival and that’s all they had to drink, until they ran out. I do remember, however, looking at Siouxsie from ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees’ and thinking that her leather trousers would suit me. (I went out and bought some skintight PVC pants, which I then kept on for three years – I was single for these three years)
My next festival was the granddaddy of them all – Glastonbury 2005. My memories of this weekend are slightly scattered due to a bad fall to the head, luckily I landed in a cesspit and the excrement broke my fall, so no permanent damage was done (although a fly did lay an egg in my left cheek which looked amazing at the screening of Bo Selecta in the bar under Planet Hollywood a week later. This lump was so big that people kept touching it.) I was talking to a lady in the press tent, a rather glamorous one that got me excited, and I had to go to the toilet (which was a circular outdoor space ship contraption that was made up of urinals). I asked her to wait for me and waded my way through the wee wee and poo poo to get to the loo. Unfortunately my foot slipped and I landed in it head first. When I returned to the lady I was black from head to toe in human waste. This is where I think the egg was implanted. The woman immediately left me and the next thing I knew the police were poking me with a torch. This wasn’t my first poo mishap. The night before I suddenly needed to ‘go’ and had an accident in my pants.When I pulled my underpants down (in the safety of a portaloo, oh if only it had been a bit nearer) the poo poo had vanished. A phantom poo? Hmmmm?Perhaps.
The whole feel and vibe of Glastonbury followed me home.I lost my house keys and had to sleep on my doorstep. Then, in the morning, I had to go and pay my rent but had no shoes and socks on and had to walk all the way up Haverstock Hill in my bare feet with a fly in my face. Oh, and did I mention the rain? Well, it rained that weekend. It rained so much that somebody died. The floor was constantly moving and at half four in the morning I forgot I was in a field and, for about five minutes, I actually believed that I was on a beach.
But the Latitude Festival was a very different experience. Me and my other half (well, she’s about a fifth of a quarter at the moment) got to the field just after ten at night and began putting our tent up with the aid of my flashing neon lighter that I purchased in Zakynthos for two euros. The tent was erect just after 11pm after our next door neighbour (I think it was Mika) was on hand to assist with our poles. The best thing about the Latitude Festival was the lighting arrangements. They had green spotlights on the trees and when it was dark it was very pretty and picturesque, giving the trees an overall green effect.I also noticed that if I flashed my neon flashing lighter at my feet when I walked it was as though my Converse were lighting up with each step. If you imagine Glastonbury to be a big dirty tractor, with blood on its tyres and a mad farmer at the helm, the Latitude Festival was a shopping centre escalator - very smooth and full of families. There were many children here, and men with moustaches. Luckily for us we pitched out tent right next to the disabled field and they had lovely special toilets with bars to help you sit down and get up. It was still a horrid sight to look down the bucket but at least I felt I could walk around in there in my bare feet. It was a strange line-up at the Latitude Festival, with the main stars being Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker. Crikey, knock up a tent and there’s Jarvis with his daddy long legs dangling all over the shop. Unfortunately, I missed Jarvis as he was on the main stage on Sunday night, and I was on a bus to Ipswich with a wasp. Over all I would definitely go again next year and recommend that you all come too. And here’s a top festival tip! When you’re stood at the main stage, don’t watch the band, turn your back to them and watch the audience – not two faces are the same! Don’t tell anyone but I might even sneak in a bottle of cider next year.
Who Am I?
My name is Ross Lee. I’m a 33-year-old man trapped in the body of a child. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining, it’s just everyone else seems to be complaining. The funny thing is I was actually bigger when I was four then I am now. Many people think I have a problem. I can see it in their eyes, different scenarios floating through their brain as to how a 33 year-old man could have the arms of a 12-year-old schoolgirl. Drugs – Anorexia - even the bad one that goes for camp people. In fact, just two hours ago I was walking down Camden High Street where I spotted middle aged lady having a beer outside the ‘Man Under The Moon’ (you know the pub, football and throat slittings) and I could see her staring at my legs. Then she patted her husband on the shoulder and said, “Look at his legs! How thin?” I turned back and explained to her that everybody loves my legs.I didn’t want her thinking that she was in a minority. She looked at me like I’d just been sick.
I’ve always been a bit of a strange kid, and that’s the reason why I’m strange, I’m not actually a kid, I’m a 33 year-old man, like I was saying – trapped in the body of a kid, with a child’s imagination. I don’t know where I actually get my imagination from? I suppose I must have got it from my mum and dad, they made me. But they definitely don’t think the same way that I do. Just this morning I was ‘thinking’ how do baby birds manage to breathe when they’re inside an egg? I asked someone this and they said ‘the same way in which I used to breathe in my mum’s belly.’ But, the thing is, my mum had oxygen going through her, from her mouth. I wasn’t encased in shell? (Although I was a couple of months ago) They’ve made a lot of good things my mum and dad. Mum used to make amazing homemade ginger beer, and my dad once made me a candle in the shape of Frankenstein’s monster. Only problem was it was too good to burn.Then again, in my opinion, so was the real thing.
I’ve always known I was a bit different to everybody else. My first realisation of this was when I was four and I was crying because I wanted to wear my sisters pink ballet dress. Mum said I could wear it providing I didn’t go outside, so I danced around in front of the television and watched my reflection in the screen. I looked great on TV. To this day I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d gone outside? Would I be here now to tell the tale? I’ve since realised that there are clubs for people that still like wearing dresses. I tend not to wear one much anymore, I can’t find any in my size. It’s also not really my girlfriend’s scene, although she has lent me her knickers in the past.
So anyway, a 33-year-old man trapped in the body of a child. I suppose I could have maybe helped my body along by doing sport and exercise – but it’s never really been my cup of tea. My cup of tea is more, well, a pint of Snakebite, or a nice glass of red wine, or even a cup of tea, and sometimes I even like to leave my bag in. The only problem with leaving your tea bag in the tea is that if you forget it’s there, it can be very shocking when you look down to see how much tea you have left to enjoy and there’s a withered wrinkled bag staring up at you. My poor granddad had to put up with this all the time.
Even when I was a child my body was more childish than everyone else’s. I used to hate having school showers after pretending to play football. All the other boys were turning into gorillas and I was as bald as Duncan Goodhew. (For those of you that don’t know who Duncan Goodhew is, he’s a bald swimmer from the 80’s. In my opinion he always seemed like a thoroughly nice chap, but if he had been a girl he’d have been bloody ugly) I was bald in my lower regions for quite a while at school. In fact, I used to draw my pubic hairs on with a black biro and run through the showers so quickly so that all the other kids would see would be a quick flash of bush. I got away with my two-dimensional bush for about two weeks but then had to stop because my mum was complaining about the black ink in my pants. Goodness knows what that must have looked like to the other kids, one minute I’m hairy, the next minute I’m not. They must have thought I was the first pupil in school to get kinky. I’m delighted to say that the hairs did indeed begin to grow, when I was about 18, and I’ve had them ever since. Luckily not the same hairs, they seem to regenerate themselves, like a snake shedding it’s skin and growing a new one. But we won’t go into that, it’s too near my pubes.
Now look, I’ve babbled on far too much about my child body that I’ve run out of room to actually write what I was here to originally write about – a full review of ‘Along Came Polly’ – a film I saw on ITV 2 last night starring Jennifer Anniston and Ben Stiller. But you probably saw it on ITV 1 last week anyway, or at the cinema two years ago. I liked the bit in the street.
Let me put a scenario in your head. Are you ready? Hotdogs, tarot cards, cardigans, wristbands, tents and ‘The Octopus Stage’. This may sound like Thursday afternoon at St Luke’s Retirement home but it’s not. It’s the LATITUDE FESTIVAL. Actually, it could be any festival really, but I’m going to talk about my experience at Latitude, which took place on Friday the 13th (cross a black cat with some garlic and pour hot wax on your stomach) of July to Sunday the 15th of July (you’re safe today). I’ve never really been a festival junkie, but there appears to be lots of junkies at festivals. I’m not sure why this is? I can only concur that they were already there, laying in the field when they built the festival around them. Most junkies are homeless and trees make ideal houses – tree houses almost.