bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel

For me, the transition between summer and autumn marks a sartorial shift between my summer outfits – which, if shorts are involved, make me look like a scoutmaster you wouldn’t trust – and my winter clothing, which makes me look like an unsuccessful pirate. This year, however, it also marks our only outing into the festival season, with an appearance at the Thames Festival, this coming weekend, with our lavish aprons and kitchenware selection.

Trading at festivals is awesome. The last full season I did was in 2005, and consisted of eleven festivals in fourteen weeks, starting at WOMAD. Here, I got politely asked to leave a rendition of Korean folk songs for shouting ‘Play something we know’ after every twenty minute number, all of which sounded like the noise a cat would make if you used one to beat out a mattress fire. I also annoyed some Nice Earnest People in the Free Tibet tent by pointing out that I’d thought that Tibet was one of the Wombles until China invaded it. The people of Tibet have a lot to thank me for, as throughout the weekend I decided to test the sincerity of the middle classes by doing all our shirts for a tenner. Anything you wanted to pay over a tenner went to Free Tibet. Anything less than a tenner, I made up the difference on and donated to the Chinese military. It was a good weekend for the denial of basic education or healthcare to a larger populace in order to prop up an backward looking unelected theocratic elite too, as Tibet got about £150, so quite a victory for, I dunno, people power, probably.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal rioting tips for beginners and the miracle of conception, among other stuff]

Leeds Festival that year was exciting, as there was a riot. This added a surreal twist to an already slightly strange summer during which we were being constantly filmed for a television documentary. I’ve never seen it – I consider it vulgar to watch yourself on the telly – but I’ll get a copy and upload it somewhere at some point, as it has loads of footage of the East Yard stall and the old Hawley Arms, both of which now belong to history. During the disturbances, I hit a security guard with a tin of apricots from sixty feet away, which is sadly not captured on film. There was a lot of uprooting of telegraph poles that evening, as I recall. Telegraph poles are really hard to uproot, and I was astonished to find myself among a group of people who knew how to do it. They had obviously done this sort of thing before. It was knowledge they just had, such as a normal person might know how to dress a crab, comb an anchovy, or introduce a halibut. If you ever find yourself in a situation of civil disobedience – and I do recommend that you at least give it a try – you uproot telegraph poles by pushing them to one side, then the other, then the other again, and then back, and so on for about five hours until eventually it is very slightly dislodged. My suggestion – that we just set fire to it and get an early night – went unheeded.

The season finished with more Nice Earnest People at Bestival, on the Isle of Wight. I was conceived on the Isle of Wight, statistically in the missionary position – although this is where statistics are wrong, as my old dear has of course never known a man in that way, and has no carnival knowledge whatsoever. She certainly gave birth to me, though, an event made additionally notable by my failure to make any noise whatsoever during the whole process, leading onlookers to the understandable conclusion that I was either dead, asleep, or bored throughout. I probably just found the whole thing a bit awkward, because let’s face it, it is a bit of a performance, and no one likes being naked in front of their old dear. But anyway. Tony and I shall be at the River Festival this weekend, with our aprons and such. We have a pitch between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, in the – oh dear me – Rivers of the World section. I dunno about you, but Rivers of the World brings to mind one horrific word: jugglers. Quite possibly, jugglers on stilts.

Tony and his Unfriendly Soviet Wife will be there during the day while I am having it out with the general public at Greenwich Market. I’ll be doing the last couple of hours at the Festival, from 7.30 to 10.00, for my sins. And, if the evidence surrounding the circumstances of my conception are to be believed and I turn out to be Jesus, for your sins, presumably, too.

Photard: The River Thames. It’s all over the place. You don’t realise, when you just look at it normally.

Twitter. Big news in February. Pretty much had it’s day now, but still.

Facebook. Up to 96 members now. 97 at one point, but someone thought better of it and left on Wednesday. Sorry to have troubled you, whoever you bloody are.