I probably should have written this as soon as I got home, as I’ve since had a little sleepy and some lush foods (M&S Sweet Pumpkin and Amaretti Biscuit Ravioli, far nicer than it sounds), I feel less like ranting.

I spent some time in Reading town centre this weekend. On Saturday lunchtime and Sunday afternoon. I realised there are still an awful lot of people using plastic bags. For years and years my Mum has taken her own bags to the supermarket, I just sort of stopped noticing bag usage. Or maybe I never paid any attention in the first place. I do know it’s only now becoming easier to say “I don’t need a bag thanks”. There have been a number of occasions where I’ve had my canvas bag/rucksack/old plastic bag ready and waiting while the cashier paid no attention and thrust my goods into a new and completely pointless plastic bag. Sometimes I’d take my purchases out and make a big deal of putting them in my own bag. Most often though I’d just sigh and resign myself to getting another future bin liner.

I looked at the people scuttling around, arms laden with plastic. It’s madness! One woman had one of those over-sized handbags that were all the rage last year, it looked almost empty. Yet she had what was probably a eye-shadow and a bottle of perfume in a plastic bag. WHY?! I just don’t get it. Not only is that plastic bag pointless and a symbol of doom, but surely it would be easier to carry just one bag? The more I looked around, the more I felt like the odd one out; having not one, but THREE canvas bags in use. I ended up buying one in Waterstones as even though I’d taken an old plastic bag out with me I realised all my canvas bags are huge and their ones are more conveniently sized. The killer came as I left M&S, a family walked past me loudly declaring their disgust that they’d been charged 5p for a plastic bag! Apparently it’s disgusting as plastic bags should be free, they always were and this particular family would be shopping elsewhere in future. The fact that the goods they bought could have easily fitted inside the mother’s handbag didn’t even cross their tiny little minds. I despaired. Openly. They glared. Good, it proves they heard me.

I’m sure reading ‘Crap At The Environment‘ has had an influence on me noticing these things. I chuckled when reading about Mark’s tussles with Kevin at the checkout. The idea of counting how many “I don’t need a bag thank you”s in a day was something I’d already done myself! I don’t want to come across as preachy here as I’m as guilty of plastic ownership as the next person. I have a whole host of Vinyl figures for a start. However, I am a total hoarder and this makes it slightly easier to justify as I try to save my plastic treasures from ever going to landfills. I even take discarded disposable lighters just so they don’t end up floating around Midway. Instead they float around in a box on my floor. I haven’t noticed any dead waterfowl around them though… yet.

For a short while I tried to influence my friends; get them to buy refillable lighters, use their bags instead of plastic carriers. I’ve given up now. It seems that those who care are already doing something and those who don’t care can’t be made to care. Unfortunately much as the apple-haters are now more fanboyistically annoying than the original Apple-ites, being anti-environmentalist is the new cool I often hear the younger generations claiming it all to be nonsense, why should they care anyway, it’s all going to happen long after they’re gone. I simply cannot understand this viewpoint. I want to scream at them “BUT IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING!” I know they’d take no notice though, declaring me a tree-hugger and sneering. They should also learn that once things start to change they can do so at an unimaginable rate.

While I’m on the subject of such things, if anyone knows where I can buy (wholesale) biodegradable packaging for the jewellery I make please let me know! UK based is best. Thanks!

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, another festival is over. Not a great one this year in all fairness.

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Went to exchange my ticket for a wristband on the Thursday and found the signs for the exchange were absolutely dire. In fact we only saw one and the only place you could see it was AFTER you’d been through the exchange tent. Not good enough…

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Friday

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Got up late and really could not get motivated to get to the site. As a result missed Future of the Left and Barry Castagnola. Can’t remember why I missed Mitch Benn, but I did.

Missed Vampire Weekend too as they clashed with Queens of the Stone Age. Really gutted to hear that Vampire Weekend’s set was one of the best of the weekend as QotSA they weren’t all that great this year. It was alright, but I’ve seen them play better. Ended up going to see Does It Offend You, Yeah? with some friends even though I hate them (the band, not my friends). It’s safe to say I still cannot stand DIOYY. They may be local, but their on-stage banter is utter tripe and their music does nothing for me. Stayed around the Festival Republic tent for Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – MUCH more like it! They were genuinely happy that people had come to see them while Rage Against the Machine were playing. Not a hard choice for me, I’m in the minority of RatM haters. I cannot stand Zack de la Rocha as I think he’s way too hypocritical to be doing a lot of that political stuff on stage and his voice grates. I don’t mind their music, but it all sounds exactly the same. I hadn’t realised until I found myself singing along to “Bulls on Parade” on GHIII with the words to another of their songs… Walked back through the main road which handily was an actual road this year as they’ve moved it all about. Nice and mud-free which made a change.

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Saturday

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Didn’t have to get in that early on the Saturday which was a definite bonus. I did miss Milton Jones though which was a real shame. Wandered in through the Orange campsite using my new shortcut (15 minute walk – whee!) and choked on the smoke from the White CarPark fire. Saw some of Seasick Steve’s set, but the sound in the NME tent was really bad. I could hardly hear anything and further in there were too many idiots. I’ve seen him quite a bit over the last couple of years so decided to go for a wander. The shops are total trash these days which is a shame. Just as all town centres are becoming clones, as are the festival shops. Caught a bit of Jason Rouse’s set, did not laugh once. Found it completely unfunny, so sauntered off again. The people working in the arena were incredibly miserable this year. Makes me wonder if they’ve been given a huge paycut as everyone was happy last year. Even the people at The Fine Burger Co. practically threw my burger at me whilst having a bitch with each other in foreign tongues. I was really disappointed.

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Moved up to the main stage and met up with Janine for The Raconteurs. They mostly played stuff from their new album which I really love, but I much preferred them in the smaller tent. Stayed around for Bloc Party. Enjoyable, but a little dull for some of their set sadly. Went out to the Yellow camp bar with the free beer vouchers Simpson had thieved worked hard for.

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Sunday

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Didn’t get to sleep until 04:30 which well and truly scuppered plans to see Robots in Disguise, the headache didn’t help either. Got a text from my mate to say her tent had been trampled by idiots during the yellow camp ‘riots’ in the night, she’d gone back to her car this morning to find it was one of the ones in the big fire and was burnt out. Understandably as she was ill anyway and none of the bands had been that great so far she decided to call it quits and leave. As I understand it Festival republic paid for their cab fares home. I cannot believe this happened. They’re saying it was an accident, but I find it very hard to believe as the fire was reported by people in the campsite who saw the massive column of black smoke when the fire had already claimed a couple of cars. If it was an accident and started by a BBQ I cannot help but think it would’ve been reported much earlier on and caused nowhere near as much damage. I felt totally helpless as I couldn’t think of anything I could do to help her out. I don’t like bad things happening to my friends

I got to the main arena entrance while Hadouken! still had about 15 minutes left in their set. Unfortunately I then got trapped in a mass of people who decided they were going to stand still for the next 20 minutes… So I missed the only band I was desperate to see all weekend. They were fantastic last year and from what I’ve heard they were just as good if not better this year. To say I’m gutted I missed them is an understatement. Ended up meeting people outside the NME tent anyway and stayed there for Pendulum’s set. Would’ve been better had I been able to get in the tent I think. Still, was the first band I’d seen all weekend (except Dan & Scroob) that I was glad I got there for. After that I headed to the main stage for Tenacious D. OK, so they were filling a lot of time (silly bands pulling out at the last second), and yeah it was blatantly all scripted. It was still damn fun though. Enjoyed their set a lot. Wandered about some more, saw a few minutes of Metallica. Seen em loads of times before and I still don’t like them. Really just not for me. Found some people, failed to find some other people. Went back to the bar with the last voucher. Walked back through the smog that was Orange campsite.

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Bought my 2009 ticket this morning.

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(Excuse the pathetic dots everywhere, WP is refusing to let me use any line breaks).

Such a Reading-ite quote on this news article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7376917.stm

About 25 firefighters attended the blaze at the four-storey Hong Kong restaurant in West Street, Reading, which was described as “well alight”.

That cracked me up this morning.