» Tramps

Tramps, illegal raves, axes, coppers, goths, a bloke who'd missed his train and a free breakfast.
Me and my mates had attended an anti-war protest in Manchester a few years ago, it was very nice, peaceful and organised affair… The police were cool, the protestors were cool…. T’was a great day…

Anyhoo, after the protest had finished we sauntered off to a few pubs and had a few scoops and debated whether to get the last train home or stay in Manchester and get pissed. We decided (sensibly) that the latter option was the better one.

So we wandered across the city through a small park in the centre looking for a nightclub. As we passed through we could hear loud techno music being played and we noticed a large converted bus was parked up, a generator had been set up and some one was DJ’ing.

So we nip over and we notice that a loud crowd of assorted types were pretty much raving in Manchester city centre.
The group consisted of:

The bus owners: A six foot seven, dreadlocked geezer in a kilt, his lovely missus, and a few of their friends. They had driven up from Cornwall for the protests and decided to make the best of it.

The rest of the crowd consisted of:

A few protestors, some goths, also some skater kids, some chav kids, some punks, a bloke in suit who’d missed his train and three homeless guys.

But despite the rather obscure mix of people, this actually turned out to be a great, free outdoor/inner city rave, especially because we all knew this was breaking the law but nobody really gave a shiny shite. We got chatting to everyone and despite the cultural boundaries we all had a ruddy good time….
Until six copper suddenly ran over to us, very angry and quite possibly looking to arrest who ever it was who had set up the rig.
That is until the large braveheart looking guy approached them (towering over them all) and politely informed them that it was he who’d set it up and that yes, he will turn off the music, if the police could suggest somewhere that he could continue his antics.

I think we were lucky, one of the coppers just said ‘anywhere, just not in the city fucking centre’ and then a radio call came through and the coppers legged it.

Okay, so we basically had permission off the police and the braveheart bloke told us all to jump in his van. So, the Goths, the punks, the skaters, the chavs, the protestors, the tramps, the bloke in a suit who had missed his train and us guys got into his converted library bus and the tramps told us they knew of a good field on the outskirts of Manchester.
Sure enough they were right. Except a large padlocked gate prevented us from entering the field with his bus, leaving the braveheart guy with little choice but to take an axe to the padlock and smash it open…. To a loud cheer from us all.

The field already had a bonfire roaring, and many more homeless people were sat in the tents. The Braveheart guy and his missus rummaged in their bus and pulled out some pots and pans and got some food on the go and gave it all to the homeless.
He and missus then rolled up about five or six joints, set up the rig and blasted out some drum and bass tunes and then proceeded to get everybody stoned….

We all partied through the night, warm, happy and loving this act of complete randomness, as were where technically surrounded by complete strangers but we all made the very best of it.

Eventually the sun came up, people started to drift off and the few that remained all decided that breakfast was in order. So we jumped back in the van and as we were driving back into the city, one of the homeless guys told us all ‘that breakfast was on him’… and he gave braveheart guy some directions and sure enough we finally stopped at a donation centre.

The homeless guy led us inside and told the workers that we were his friends and we all got given free fry up, a cup of coffee and a place to sit. Now some of you stuck up types might cringe at the very thought of dining with the down and outs of Manchester, but it was something very different for me. They had returned the favour, and that in itself was all they could offer, but it was a hearty meal and we were eternally grateful.

We finally left, after a few of us had a bit of a whip-round and gave the three homeless guys whatever change we had left. The Braveheart guy and his missus donated the rest of the weed to the three guys and we eventually all went home.

I like to think that the homeless guys had a genuinely great time, I loved the fact the carefree attitudes of a couple of people from Cornwall turned a potentially boring night into a randomly beautiful act of human kindness. And I also like to believe the bloke in the suit finally got his train home (and hopefully still thinks of this event as much as I do).

It made me realise that at the end of the day, no matter where you are from, or what occupation or opinion you have, or what clothes you wear or how you style your hair or whether you live in a tent or a mansion…. We are all the same, we all appreciate human kindness, a fire, a meal and a smoke.

Peace.
(Tue 7th Jul 2009, 0:43, More)

» Festivals

Broken heart, LSD, Hitch hiking. Sheds.Psycho lady. Kidnapping.
Okay long story short, i'd recntly split up with my girlfriend but we had tickets booked for the sunrise festival and decided we'd still both go with down there with our mates.

The first day or two wasn't good. Despite the festival being amazingly good, i was unhappy...
It was too much to take, she acted like a total stranger to me, she ignord me and the coldness was what hurt the most. I couldn't really enjoy myself at first. I had too much inner turmoil, and seeing her laughing and joking with other guys, was too much too take.

So i thought, sod her... I'll gobble some acid. And gobble some acid i truly did. Two sugar cubes of LSD and a tab later, i was high as a kite. The day was perfectly sunny, the bands were amazing and i seem to recall dancing like a maniac to some kind of live drum and bass performance, played on strings, drums, keyboard and double bass... Truly the best band i've ever seen, but to this day i have no fucking idea who they were.

The rest of the day was an obscure blur on my brain. Eat static and red wine, manic dancing, befriending a one eyed juggler; sitting wild eyed in a reggae tent and talking absolute shit to anybody that would listen, and generally just having an amazing time.

But then everything went wrong.

I spent the arse of end the main night in an LSD induced state of mental break down in my tent. The love of my life, we'd travelled the world together, lived together and shared a dream.... was ignoring me. It suddenly hurt again.

I can honestly say, i've never cried so much, uncontrollable sobbing, partially due to emotional struggle and mainly due to tha vast quantity of LSD in my system. My friend Libby found me, she was an absolute angel, she didnt even say anything to me, just stroked my head and hugged me. That at least sent me to sleep, to a land of delirious dreams and sun burned restlesness.

Anyway...
The next day. Presumably still high, obviously NOT thinking straight...
In a last ditch effort to win her heart, i decided that i would refuse my mates offer of a lift back from the festival today (Somerset to Merseyside) , instead i would try and woo her.


I thought she would love the fact that i'd stayed down south for her, hoping she would admire my recklessnes, maybe just maybe it would be alright...

But no.... She ignored me.

So here i was. Stuck in a festival that was pretty much over, stuck with my big fucking rucksack and tent and little bags of souveniers, in the baking heat and suddenly realising i'd lost my wallet. The girl i'd stayed for had bugered off, and slowly reality was kicking in.

Fucksocks.

The next three hours i spent looking for my wallet. But it was no use, it was gone. So i thought the next best option would be to hitch hike to glastonbury.
No problemo, a lovely hippy couple picked me up and drove me for thirty minutes and dropped me off in Glastonbury.

Great... I vaguely knew a couple who lived in the town, so i thought i'd pay them a visit and possibly use their phone and sort something out. I wandered to their house and saw a guy in their garden.

It turned out to be their landlord (who happened to live in a shed in the garden), who turned out to be a complete tosser. He didn't believe that i knew the people who lived there and that i should clear off. He didn't listen to my point that i knew the names of the occupants and that i simply wanted to abandon my bags for a few minutes, drink some water and rest up.

The cruel bastard didn't even give me any water.

At this point, i'd had enough. The sun was baking me. I was delirious and simply wanted my bed. Yet here i was on the other side of the country, trying to beg for water.

I wandered to the edge of town, knowing that if i headed for a few miles in one direction i would at least be on the right path for the motorway. Easy. Simple.

So i stuck out my thumb and patiently waited for a good samaritan to pick up this bedraggled northerner. My lift arrived in the form of a thirty odd year old woman in a converted ambulance, that looked like she lived in it.

'Where to?' , she asked.

'To the motorway, so i can hitch home, i've just come from the sunrise festival in Somerset'

'Okay no problem, clamber in, you'll have to get in through the back and sit in the front because the door on your side is broken'

'Thankyou'

So at least i was on the right track. Soon i would be home (hopefully).

The nice lady seemed quite chatty. Perhaps a little too chatty. Maybe it's nerves though. She doesn't know me. So why did she pick me up?

Why has she got the fucking heating on full blast on a burning hot day. Why is she talking to me about her friends in an overly-familiar way as though i'm supposed to know them.

Why is she looking at me like that. A kind of vietnam stare.

Why are we driving this way?

Yep, i'd been kidnapped. She totally ignored my request that i wanted to leave the vehicle. She was driving completely the wrong way. God knows where she was taking me. I was already too tired, too hot, and now very, very scared...

She drove me for many miles down lonely roads, even once laughing when she got lost and ended up reversing down a long arse country road, seemingly choosing directions at random.

I couldn't honestly do anything. I couldn't jump out the vehicle because my door was buggered and my bags were in the back, i couldn't wind down the window, i politely asked her to turn the cooling down, but she said she had to leave it on because the engine was overheating and still she was driving me the wrong way.

I asked her if i could get out.

'But you're in the middle of nowhere' was her reply.

She had a point. Nothing but obscure country roads and little towns, and i was without a map.

After maybe and hour and half, of her rabbiting on about her equally strange friends, she finally, finally dropped me off....

At the fucking festival. The same fucking festival i had left many hours ago.

I jumped out the van, thanked her (for not raping or killing me) and
collapsed on the grass for an hour or so, resting and trying to decipher if this was just some kind of strange dream. A lovely lady gave me a bottle of water (which probably saved my life) and then i had to hitch hike back to Glastonbury and try again.

This time hitchhiking back was a problem. Nobody wanted to pick me up. I was wild eyed, sweating, shaking and burned.

It took me at least another two hours to get a lift, and eventually i was back in fucking Glastonbury. It was getting dark and i was completely alone and didn't really fancy my chances of risking another psycho picking me up.

So i did what anybody would do in my circumstance. I walked back to the landlord guys house and waited for his shed light to go out and then i crept into the garden and fell asleep at the back behind a hedge.

The next morning i was awoken by furious swearing, an anger that i had never imagined. The landlord screamed at me to get off his property and never darken his soil with my lanky, northern ways. To hear him, you would have assumed i'd shat in his hat or something....

Bastard.

Anyway, i staggered back into town and decided that i would throw away one of my bags as it had become a burden. I was truly exhausted and simply wanted to get home now.

As i was rooting through my stuff, ready to sacrifice my tent, clothes and what-not, what did i find?

..... My bank card.

After all that fucking about, getting lost, getting shouted at, getting kidnapped and wandering around Somerset and Glastonbury in some dehydrated, drug induced fever...... begging for water and shelter.

I had my bank card all along.

Fuck socks.

Length. Longest day of my life.
(Sun 7th Jun 2009, 14:24, More)

» The nicest thing someone's ever done for me

It's not much..... but it changed my life...
A few years ago, a friend borrowed me some shoes.

I was down in the dumps, i was going through a bad split up with the missus (and still living with her)and was out of work,I skint and pathetic if the truth be known. I was a coward and could have patched my relationship up, but didn't.... For the last few weeks, we grew apart and she made a decision to move away.

What has this got to do with shoes, i hear you ask? Well, i'll tell you (in a bit).

In my town, work consisted of mostly labour type work or office jobs or retail. Boring stuff, stuff that would have ruined my soul if i'd have stayed there, as i was already feeling depressed with the fact that my girlfriend was moving down south, planning on leaving me permanently.... so the idea of sitting in an office or working in a shop wasn't great.

Anyhow, i was skint. I was so skint, i couldn't buy shoes... but somehow i'd managed to wangle an interview at an arts centre which would consist of working with bands, artists and creative people.... Fine, much better than sitting in a dull office.

But all I had was scruffy trainers... I had no chance.

So my good mate Brogan comes and visits me, trying to cheer me up, knowing that i'm depressed and on a downward trail. So, he tells me to hang about and wait....

And he gets on the bus and heads out of town, jumps on another bus and goes home to grab a really nice and comfy and smart pair of black shoes. He then jumps two buses back and tells me to check if they fit.

And they did... and he convinces me to take the job, to stop worrying about the ex and to get on with my life. To take a new step into a new position and to appreciate what i've got....

And i took that interview and gave it my 100% best effort and i got the job and kept it and loved it and he was made up for me and told me to keep the shoes... :)

But.... a week or so later, all happy with my job, i get back home to find my girlfriend/ex with tears in her eyes waiting for me at the door....

But, this wasn't anything to do with our relationship....

She told me that Brogan had died. Of a drug overdose, due to getting involved with the wrong people.

I was wearing his shoes when she told me the news....

So, I just want to take this opportunity to say.... Thankyou Brogan, I never got to say goodbye mate, but you changed my life.

I was too busy being wrapped up in my own pit of despair, that i forgot to look at the real life that was out there.... and at the same time, i realised how easily things can change.

I still have the job and I now do about twenty different things in there, as a result of that, I managed to get experience that put me onto my degree, got me away from the depressing split up and changed my life and gave me a more positive outlook on life....

So again, thanks for going all the way home for those shoes.

R.I.P mate, I miss you and I love you for what you did man.
(Tue 7th Oct 2008, 1:32, More)

» I don't understand the attraction

B3ta /talk
As good as the rest of this website is, /talk is full of the most ignorant, nastiest little clique loving losers i have ever had the misfortune to talk to.

If you don't get the 'in-jokes' then you are insulted and made to feel like shit just for daring to ask a question or mention something about your day.

I bet half the wankers who occupy it wouldn't say boo to a goose in real life. Little turds.
(Mon 19th Oct 2009, 0:23, More)

» Neighbours

My angry, paranoid neighbour.
A few years ago i used to share a house with my girlfriend, her sister and her sisters boyfriend. It was a nice set up, the house to the left of us was empty and the house to the right had a neighbour who we barely saw and was pretty down to earth.

So this was all good, we could have friends around, we could party at weekends and we could relax without any bother or noise complaints.

That was until Ste moved into the empy house with his family (wife and two kids). Now Ste was almost always drunk on Stella artois, he was very twitchy and paranoid and had was extremely dodgy. Like a kind of skinny Del Boy crossed between a Jack Russel dog.

For the first few weeks he could often be seen opening his back garden gate and bringing (presumably) stolen furniture into the house from the back of a van (full of equally dodgy men). So far so good, no real problems to speak of... Until we dared to have a party on a friday night. We had a few of our closest friends around for a meal and a few beers and it was as a whole a pretty relaxed affair.

The next thing we knew, we heard banging on our back window and Ste had climbed onto the garden wall and was spying through the curtains.
I opened the back door and was instantly greeted by :
'Fuckin party at this time? I've got kids in bed (which was a complete lie as they were both in the back garden eating ice cream) and you're taking the fuckin' piss!'

'Ok sorry, i didn't realise it was so loud, i'll turn it down' i said and proceeded to do so.

'Make sure you do!' He yelled.

Nothing more came of it, until a few weeks later, we had another gathering and with the previous events in mind, we kept the volume to a minimum.

Now, my good (and totally harmless) friend Richard had gone to the back door to have a smoke and a few seconds later Richard asked for me to come to him. I popped my head out the back door to find Angry Ste was again propped on the garden wall with a kitchen knife in hand and was shouting at Richard.
Upon seeing me, Angry ste said 'Eh tell your mate to stop being cocky!'

'huh?' i exclaimed.

'He's being a cocky bastard and keeps smiling at me!'

I told Richard to go inside to diffuse the situation (so we didn't get killed) and tried to calm Angry Ste down. He told me he had anger problems and didn't like people smiling at him. (Doing my best not to laugh) i told him it was okay, and not to worry about us, we're just a bunch of harmless hippies and we won't be any bother to him.

'Yeah but i wanna fucking talk to you, and you keep trying to go inside you house!'

'Okay Ste i'll talk to you if you put the knife down'

Ste chucked the knife into the garden and remained sat on the wall. Now it was at this point i thought 'if this keeps up, the next few years are going to be hell', so i told him in no uncertain terms that the only time we ever get to party is on a weekend, we have respect for him, but i didn't like him threatening my mates. I told him if he ever has problems with any noise or people smiling at him, to come and talk to me and not shout at people.

'You're a bloody good lad you Lizard, you're a bloody good neighbour, not like my last neighbours who got me kicked out, fucking cunts, you're a good lad Lizzy!' and with that he shook my hand, dropped down from the wall into his house and returned seconds later with a can of stella for me.
Result.

Now occasionaly if anything happened Angry Ste would shout for me (at all times of the day) 'Lizzzzy!!! Lizzzy!!!' and we would have a good chat and smooth everything out, despite the fact he was a red-faced nutcase. Every chat would be resolved with him handing me a can of stella.

Now in regards to the music volumes, i didn't dare mention the fact that EVERY fucking morning WE would be awoken to the Rolling stones 'Gimme shelter' at exactly the same time 8:00 am on fucking repeat, blaring from the kitchen next door. I didn't want to call him a hypocrite as we'd managed to sort things out. But it was a kind of neutral resolution. He didn't mind people partying here on the odd weekend, as long as we didn't mention his very narrow and loud and repetitive musical taste in the morning times.

He obviously had social issues and was more than likely on the run. Eventually we got used to his strange habits and the musical awakening at 8:00am every morning. He befriended me, telling me 'if you ever need anyone sorting out Lizzy, you tell me!'

Now - he eventually buggered off, doing a moonlit flight with his family, but i still remember the time on Christmas day I was alerted to his loud shouting of 'Lizzzzy, Lizzzzzy!' to which i appeared at the back door to find him in his usual perch on my backwall with two cans of stella in his hand. The rolling stones 'Gimme shelter' blaring from his kitchen as per usual.

'Merry Christmas Lizard, you're a good fucking lad, have a drink with me'

He gave me another can of stella and a jack daniels glass and to be honest it was a nice feeling to have a yuletide beer with this nutter of a neighbour. The thought was obviously there and in all honesty he was all mouth, he looked after his wife and kids (even if he couldn't look after himself much) and treated them like princesses.

I once talked the poor guy out of suicide. One spring morning, he shouted for me 'Lizzy, Lizzy!' and he told me he was sick of life. That he was planning on jumping off Runcorn bridge and he gave me a handful of money to give to his wife and kids and to tell them that he loved them.

I was taken aback. I told him that he was being selfish and that he could sort his life out one step at a time, i refused to take the money and told him to calm down and think about things. Which he did and after contemplation, he again returned with a can of stella for me.

'Cheers Lizzy!'

He's long gone now (presumed drunk and shouty)... But i often think about the strange man. How he was very confrontational, a bit mad but ultimately just troubled. I'm quite proud of the fact that i didn't ignore him and listened to him and gave him the time to talk, and i like to think he respected that, especially by showing no fear to him.
I'm glad i changed the whole situation round, becoming friendly with him instead of being afraid of him. He may have even killed himself if i hadn't have gone outside to talk to the mad bastard.

Whenever i hear the rolling stones, i often raise a wry smile and a beer to him.

Sorry for the unfunny.

* For clarity: -my name isn't Lizzy, but it sounds similar enough...
(Fri 2nd Oct 2009, 17:25, More)