To begin my month off tour (in which i’ll probably end up going not that many places at all as if I thought I was skint BEFORE I moved to London, I was wrong) I am going back to Bishops Stortford for the day to see my parents, pick up some more stuff, and to see my good friend Nick before he goes back to uni tomorrow.

I am on a bus because after having spent the last eight years travelling in and out of London/Cambridge regularly, I’ve still not grasped that travelling on a Sunday is never a good idea. That the tube is always shit isn’t the half of it. There are no trains between London and Cambridge today, so the twenty minute journey to Bishops Stortford is now taking an hour and a half, on a bus.

I actually quite enjoy the bus. Despite having to drive through the not so heady heights of Broxbourne, Hoddesdon and Harlow, my brain has been conditioned into thinking i’m going to a festival any time I board anything vaguely coach like.

I do miss Bishops Stortford. Not in the way that I’ll want to move back at any point in my life, but in the way that I always look forward to visiting and coming back isn’t a chore. This is the fourth time i’ve been ‘home’ since I left at the end of September but before it’s always been only for the evening as I seem incapable of organising my time at all these days so it’ll be nice to be there for a whole day this time.

I miss my parents. I ring them most Friday nights on the half hour walk home from work, and they tell,me they look forward to it, but it’s not the same as seeing them. I feel like I can look them in the eye more now that i’m (sort of) finally getting my shit together with a flat/boyfriend/something to do with my time (ignoring my rent is being paid with a loan). They’re still my parents obviously, but seeing them now feels like seeing old friends as our hot topics are no longer when i’m going to clear my stuff off the chest of drawers in the front room, do my washing up or take my shoes upstairs, but what i’ve been up to, if things with my flatmates have improved and when i’m next seeing Dan. They’re more interested now in how my life is going rather than the little things that interfere in theirs, and I appreciate more that they’re there rather than wanting to get away from them. It’s nice.

I am content, relaxed and feel like I have direction for probably the first time ever which means I don’t have to tread on egg shells around them anymore, always with a slight air of shame that at 21 I haven’t begun to find what it is yet that i’m supposed to be doing yet. I guess what i’m trying to say is that I am comfortable with who I am and what I am doing around my parents for the first time in my life, and it feels good.

It’s still shit that the bus goes past my house on the way to the station though.

So I picked a great moment to return to tumblr, two weeks before the deadline of the first three modules of my Photography degree. All the work is in now though and I have a whole month off. Bliss.

My by reckoning my last proper post was my review of Latitude 2012, so here’s what I’ve been up to in the meantime.

I attended my sixth Reading Festival, and the fourth with fellow veteran Chris, and yet again had one of the best weekends of my life. Reading gets a lot of stick, this year I gave it a lot of stick, but it’s still the most fun I have all year, even more than at other festivals with better line-ups and more to do.

After meeting him at Reading 2010 through quite literally a friend of a friend of a friend and thinking he was possibly the funniest guy I’d ever met, then again at Glastonbury 2011 where we barely spoke at all, then again for the third time at Reading this year, in the most unexpected and brilliant way possible, I fell for a guy who spent the entire weekend dressed in a cookie monster costume. Enter into my life the brilliant Daniel Millar.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard in such a short space of time as in his company.

I found myself a not too shabby flat in Fulham and finally finally made the move from Bishops Stortford to London.

All CDs made it intact bar one (but it was a recent Oasis so not too big a casualty).

I embarked on a Photography degree at university! Something I was sure for a long time would never happen to me.

In November we went on a trip to Paris to see a HUGE exhibition at the Grand Palais, ParisPhoto.

I spent Christmas with Dan and his family.

We got New Years off to a bang at a house party in Glasgow, spending time with good friends and catching up with old ones.

My time since New Year has been spent locked up in my bedroom, manically, trying to get all my uni work done for the deadline yesterday. It’s all been submitted now, thank God, and I can concentrate on me again!

I live in London, I have a month free now to spend however I wish, and I am very very happy with a brilliant guy who cares for me deeply. Life is good.

mindfulhearts:

If Kristen Stewart can lose her job, risk losing her entire career, fanbase, and respect over cheating on her boyfriend, the fact that Chris Brown is still acknowledged and celebrated is a fucking crime. If you want a prime example of women’s inequality in the media, there it is. 

(Source: mermaidinamanhole)

Trying to settle an argument.

Did Foals ever fall into the “New Rave” genre?

denimcollar:

I’ve often thought about how I enjoy far more the thrill of listening to music that isn’t shit. I am sure most people think about this, in between their sad, depressing phases of thump thump basslines and those ‘calvin harris’ breakdowns that all clock in approximately sixty seconds before the torture ends. They were designed, as some hypothesised, as a way to signal - through vibrations - to those with ears clasped below hands that the pain is almost over; that everything is going to be okay.

Why then, do we not take our own music with us to clubs? People love silent discos. Those young whippersnappers at Reading absolutely love them, late into the night, screaming the words to Use Somebody at the top of their lungs outside of a portaloo full of overdosed acid addicts thinking they’re in fucking ‘Nam.

Read More

My Latitude 2012

The aspect I’ve always admired most about Latitude and the reason it’s one of my favourite festivals is the diversity of the line-up and seeming intent the organisers have of booking someone different and steering clear of the usual bands that play every festival. There’s always something new to be found and surprises to be had here and there’s something very magical about stumbling upon your new favourite band that way, especially in a setting as idyllic as that of Suffolk’s Henham Park.

I found myself approaching the line-up with zero tolerance - no time wasters here please! I went in with the aim of seeing as many new names as possible, consciously choosing acts who don’t play too often over constantly touring names as that is what Latitude is about after all - the highest quality in both the new and obscure, you just have to know where to look.

Making this a read more as it gets quite lengthy (and after all the festival was a couple of weeks ago now) so here’s a list of who I saw with the best acts in bold and capitalised if you don’t fancy reading the long analysis. I haven’t mentioned every band but go into detail about why I loved the ones I did, why I found certain acts to be very overrated and why I in the end came to question some of my musical choices

Friday
Ice Age, Givers, Kindness, TWIN SHADOW, The Antlers, Janelle Monae, Lana Del Rey, Yeasayer, Bon Iver 

Saturday
Sharon Van Etten, Sunless ‘97, Deap Vally, Sam Airey, Baxter Dury, Josh T. Pearson, Wooden Shjips, Michael Kiwanuka, I Break Horses, Richard Hawley, TOY, Zola Jesus, THE HORRORS

Sunday
Rufus Wainwright, Gabriel Bruce, Alabama Shakes, Ed Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, St Vincent, BATTLES, M83, Ben Howard, Perfume Genius, WILD BEASTS

Special thanks to Dermot O’Leary and his Thursday night indie disco. Dermot, you rock.

Read More

(Source: Flickr / emilyrowan)

For the last week and a half I’ve had endlessly aching eyeballs.

Looking from side to side has been fine but whenever I look up or down, too far to either side or turn my gaze too quickly I feel a throbbing ache in the back and on the top. I had headaches for a few days but they have gone now, replaced with light-headedness and extreme tiredness.

I’ve spent less time on my laptop in the last few days and the pain has eased a little, so here’s hoping I might have temporary eye strain and don’t need glasses. It’s worse at work under the fluorescent lighting and with my face so close to the screen and a few consecutive days off would do me good. Shame I’m working full-time odd hours right now.

Thinking about it if I’m often close to a screen at work, on my laptop if I’m at home and on my phone and ipod in between, it’s a no brainer really. 

I’ve spent the last few evenings watching the Olympics actually and have found myself getting sucked in which I didn’t want or expect to happen. The last few months I’ve moaned about it more than anything else, but being in London at the weekend with eight out of ten customers talking about it and you can’t even get on the tube without someone in Olympic uniform sitting in your carriage, well there’s definitely a ‘buzz’ and it makes me want to be a part of it. 

Until I found this yesterday http://www.protestlondon2012.com/ and I realised it’s easy to forget the bad stuff when the sport starts and you’re cheering for a gold medal all of a sudden

This is fine. Though I feel we’re still a little young, I don’t have a problem with it.

I am however confused as to why these people are changing their profile picture to a picture of their baby. Have you suddenly morphed into a newborn yourself?

I know they’re your bundle of joy and you’ve never loved anything so much and all that but why? Why do it?

I am probably more stumped by this than I should be but it’s been bothering me hugely.

Flat hunting is hard.

The first ad I clicked the “Show Interest” button for I got sent a message simply saying “No”. Bemused, I messaged back “No? Just No? That’s a little rude”.

I received another reply saying ”Sorry we meant yes. can you move in next week you stunner? cant wait to move in and start a casual relationship :) lots of love nuterzzzzz”

They sounded alright in the ad as well. Poor judgement?

I was walking home from the pub thinking about the nice evening i’ve had catching up with old friends and, fresh from Latitude, how soothing it is to be walking and outside at night.

It’s a warm night, warmer than my last few nights at the festival, and though i’m on my own at midnight I feel safe walking on the familiar streets of my town and it’s at times like this that I begin to think i’ll miss this place when I leave, the town i’ve always called home.

And then the two lads walking towards me shouted heartily “Well i’d feel bad for about ten seconds, haw haw”, and as I walked past them and carried on down the street I noticed the intact but still body of a fox laying in the middle of the road and my mood slumped a little .