Oh my God. I am so doing this.

http://www.streetwars.net/

And I will win.

Ok, feeling slightly more recovered now.....

Rockness defining moment # 1:

5pm. The sun comes out. Slam throw down Underworld’s “Born Slippy”. 22,000 Scots go completely mental at hearing their theme tune in such a setting. I feel happy to be alive. One of the most vibrant and heartfelt crowd responses I have ever encountered.

Rockness defining moment # 2:

2 am. Due to a lack of transport organisation, thousands of us have been stranded on the side of Lochness since the gig finished at 11pm. The coastguard turns up and starts throwing mountain survival tents over the more serious casualties of drugs and seeping cold. We can’t figure out who he is. After taking in his officious yellow uniform and busy demeanor, Zooty declares that he’s “a bee.” I giggle. It seems like a reasonable assumption.

What a weekend. What a crew. What a life. Ace.

Let's just say Rockness fucking rocked.
Much love out to Dougal and Pepper, Zooty and Zero.
Still too broken to write more.....I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Over and out.

So Dougal the man Dutch has blog tagged me.

Here are my 8 “interesting” things about myself.

8) There is a prevalence of hamsters in my life. See my flickr and recent hamster piss hauntings as a result of my basement flooding. If I owned a club I would call it the Hamster Piss Lounge.

7) I like to wear negligees most days.

6) I am getting married in Vegas on the 11 of September this year to a boy who completes me.

5) My mother has an MBE for services to homeless people as she ran a hostel/community for the homeless in which I was brought up. For the first few years of my life my family was made up of alcoholics, drug fiends, ex-military personnel, schizophrenics, OCD sufferers and sexual deviants. This is why I am so happy and comfortable as a Burner.

4) I am a Christian with a strong faith but I am also undoubtedly a SlutMonkey with a soul that is trapped in a cheap hipflask. Hmmmm, how to reconcile that one?

3) My father lives on a council estate, keeps horses in his backyard, walks them round the streets for exercise and is able to communicate with them in an uncanny fashion. Also, when we were kids he used to keep cockatoos un-caged and let them fly around the house at will. Consequently I am quite keen on birds and would even refer to myself as a twitcher.

2) The Lachrymosa from the Mozart Requiem never fails to bring a tear to my eye and push it down my cheek.

1) I have been known to steal public art.

Dougal has already blogtagged almost everyone on my links so I blogtag erm Boo and erm jamiejamiejamie so that's four really.... That'll do. Cheating is excellent.

Over and out.

Camping with Turtle is much more fun than camping has ever been in the past. Enjoyable, in fact. Even that bit where you have to pack down the tent in the morning, after 6 pints of real ale and a small quantity of whisky the night before and you are trying to finish it before it pisses down.

Love is strange and unpredictable indeed.

This slightly odd but welcome realisation is a result of our Northern jolly to Thorganby, where the boys played a blinding set and the girls were very excited. Halfway through the first song I realised that Turtle’s band are actually really fucking good. It was a proud moment.

And we got free beer.

I am considering re-naming the House of Rats the “House of Unwashed Hamsters” as that is the smell that wafts up from the snug and pervades everything.

I opened my bedroom door this morning and nearly threw up.

Carpets, underlay, futon mattresses and tarps are draped out of windows and across the yard, propped up on a variety of items in an attempt to dry out the floodwater.


The boiler is still broken and I ponder the fact that I will happily swim in freezing seas, rivers, lakes and disused quarries but a cold shower makes me bellow with rage.

Turtle and I are escaping up North this weekend. His band, The Beggars, are playing a beer festival in a small Yorkshire village called Thorganby.

It’s going to be excellent and utterly raucous.

Not a hamster cage in sight.

I am hung-over, slouched at my desk wearing a cummerbund & ever so slightly smelly.

The House of Rats has flooded due to the torrential rains, water has risen from underneath the house and claimed the snug for its cold and dank self.

The boiler has broken too, so once again the rats must endure cold drenchings in the morning or perhaps none at all. Why bother, frankly....

Cold water, it would seem, is one of the themes of this week.

It doesn’t matter though, because Turtle is by my side.

The other theme of this week is AWOL rats.

Helen has been called up to Yorkshire last minute.

Carla Parr finally came home last night, feathercut in tow and eyes a glow.

They have been on a most wonderful adventure which has involved island exploration, catamarans, WW 2 re-enactment, dancing to 60s music with wild abandon and “the Man Who Talks to the Animals”.

Add this to tales of Helsy and Lorna prancing on cherrypickers & trapezes and there is only one sensible conclusion.

The Isle of Wight is officially the most random festival of 2006. (So far)

A houserat has gone missing!

Last seen on the Isle of Wight (Saturday) with a Mancunian Feathercut and a pocketful of medicine....

Answers to name of Carla Parr and can be tempted by Marlboro Menthols or a cup of coffee and a nice slice of cake.

Carlsy, if you’re reading this please let us know you’re ok.

Also: Happy Birthday darling....Hope it’s a good one.

Turtle finished his exams on Saturday and it was our six month anniversary.

We celebrated by watching the football and then swimming in the River Taff with our clothes on whilst Welsh urchins jumped off the bridge and threw stones at people.

Cardiff University boat race was very entertaining. Students paddled their way down the river, crammed onto a variety of inflatable sharks, bananas and in one case a bath tub no doubt procured from their rented accommodation. They used shelves as oars and swigged lager whilst a man with a megaphone stood on the bridge abusing them in extremely colourful terms.

Oxford and Cambridge just doesn’t compare, frankly.

I'm feeling quite sad today as that was my last visit to the Land of my Fathers. I will very much miss my Cardiff weekends and I’m glad that I strengthened my roots over the last six months.

Wales rocks ass.

Rat quotes of the day:

Leo – “No, I’d better not have any alcohol, I want to keep my body sober for big brother.”

Carla – “I quite like Mongolians, we had one in our street when we were kids.”

And so the last week went something like this....

Monday – Played on pedaloes and rowing boats with rats and my Turtle on the Serpentine.

Tuesday – Had dinner with a dear tranny who, I am pleased to see, is very happy and behaving incredibly well. He has decided he wants to live on a farm and join the National Trust but I don’t think that’ll happen. Farms are quite hard work and leave now time for beauty routines.

Wednesday & Thursday – Domestic bliss.

Friday – Went to see some Kippenberger and Roth with my darling fiance in an east end warehouse. Fucking formidable work, good context and it made me think a lot. Which is always refreshing.

Saturday - First festival of the year.

Hels and I created a new way of engaging with the punters:

Piggy back team fights with a rabble of fifteen year olds and drunken men in their 50s to a backdrop of Alice Cooper. Most bruised now. Note to self – boob tubes do not count as practical wear for war.

Ate some pork, danced to “the Littlest Hobo” with my colleagues and then put a very drunken Carla in her sleeping bag as she could not manage it, although I note she had managed to put on stripey toe socks over her jeans.

Also got gifted a luminous green lizard neck ruff by a man who was wearing a rather nice lilac version. Later gifted my one to five year old Maisie(new friend) because it looked better as a little tu-tu on her. She then gifted me a “Wales” baseball cap which she and Carla found on the floor.

I wore the cap with pride in the pub all day Sunday – along with boob-tube, shades, filthy hair and cigarette grafted to my sunburnt hands I made a worryingly convincing double for Britney Spears in Starbucks mode.

Made some excellent new friends from Birmingham and spent Sunday pissing ourselves laughing at their anecdotes.

In the evening cooked seafood ramen for the hungover rats collective.

Dum de dum, I love summer.....bring it on.

So my baby brother (now quite large and shouty admittedly) got married last weekend and it was one of the proudest moments of my life. It was joyous and tearful with an appropriately wonderful ceremony and a raucous reception.

My brother suddenly seems like a young man and his wife is completely fabulous. I am pleased to have gained such a great sister. The tears come again as I type.

The night ended with drunken Bed & Breakfast shenanigans involving rats, turtles, red wine procured from an Indian restaurant, massive Cardiff chav boys sliding down the stairs on their stomachs in crocodile formation, 4.30am dips in Swansea bay, lost room keys and fire alarms.

In the morning the golden couple ventured out from their hotel room and found us all on the beach, hungover as hell playing football, Stuck in the Mud & Wounded Soldier and frightening the locals by climbing all over the kid’s playpark. After that we went and ate various types of fried meat and eggs with my parents and then some ice-cream until it was time to pile on the train back to London. I love my extended family so much....

What a perfect weekend.