29

Its 5.30 and its the morning after the night before. About 3 and a half hours ago I was dropping to sleep in bed in a euphoric drunken haze.

Now though the come down is upon me. A combination of alcohol inhibiting my deep sleep; the heat; the early daylight; and my suddenly overactive brain.

So what better than to log onto my pc (I know, I know - how 1990's am I?) and try and dredge something up from the seething maelstrom of electrical signals running round my cerebral cortex.

Yesterday was the Long Division festival in Wakefield - hence the drunken euphoria at the top of the page. I'll give you a proper thought out review of that later (whether you like it or not).

For now though I just want to say thank you. 

Thank you to the organisers, creators, ringleaders or whatever it is you want to call them; who thought of the whole idea and had the guts, passion and tenacity to not only just talk about it or dream about it; but to actually get out there and make sure it got done. (Not sure about the punctuation in this sentence but my English O level was over 30 years ago and I never have done a refresher).

Thank you for all the people who had the tedious reality of making it all work. Dishing out wristbands; organising musicians (equivalent to herding cats I guess); answering stupid questions and all the other things that I don't even know about.

Thank you to all the people who put together the stages, the sound systems and all the other installations and have to then dismantle them all again.

Thank you to all the bar staff and people who served us through the day. I know they all had 'thousand yard stares' at 11pm.

Thank you to all the soundmen who were constantly called upon to put some more 'vocals/guitars/bass/tibetan nose flute' in the singers' wedge.

Thank you to all the ushers, door people, first aiders, marshalls for keeping us safe, guiding us to our seats and resisting the urge to punch me when I made all the same jokes that you'd already heard a million times.

Thank you to all the musicians who took the time to learn their instruments and then come to Wakey to perform.

Thank you to the takeaway staff at the end of the night.

Thank you to the good citizens of Wakefield that kept me amused in the early hours with their crazy antics whilst we waited for our pizza and then our taxi.

Thank you to everybody I spent time with and talked to.

Anyway for each and everyone of the above click here for my love song to you. 

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All praise as well to the Swedish train drivers sticking it to the man. 

Apparently Arriva have taken over the running of the Roslagsbanan line and banned the drivers from wearing shorts. 

So a dozen male drivers have circumvented the rules by wearing skirts for the last two weeks!

The action of these drivers is just so cool on so many levels.

But as for Arriva (another faceless 21st century corporation) what the hell is going on?

Its now 2013. We were all expecting to be living in a shiny brave new world now rocket ships and such like - not the same old same old - where somebody can't be happy unless they are stopping somebody else from been happy by making them uncomfortable.

 How the hell do these people's brains work. Do they think that if the passengers catch a sight of drivers in shorts they will immediately stop using the train?

I can just see it now - I'm at Westgate on the seven o clock to London. But then I catch sight of the driver and oh my god he's wearing shorts! No that's it the final straw I can't possibly catch the train to London now - I'm off to get the mega bus!

So to the Swedish train drivers keep on keeping on. To Arriva go and boil your heads - as my Scottish relatives would say.

 

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