Month Last Monday

My past twenty-four hours have played out like a high-budget action movie.

There was the tense on-the-edge-of-your-seat-in-anticipation moment. The interesting yet obligatory plot twist. The happy ending. Heck, there was even a lovey-dovey kiss scene, the type that makes every ten-year-old boy in the cinema look away in disgust or put their fingers in their mouths and gag in a bout of bulimic self-expression.

(I am quite aware that the paragraph above gives away the main direction and ending to my story. I will also tell you that, during the tale, somebody sustains a bruise to his or her upper arm. In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning whose upper arm sustains the bruise.)

For those of you out of the loop, Reading Festival tickets went on sale yesterday, hence why this week’s blog had to take a back seat and be written on the Tuesday instead of the Monday. Headliners were announced just before six in the evening and I just missed them being announced. Bit of a tense moment on the bus as I listened to Radio 1 with the hope of them repeating it. They did, just as I was taking my headphones off. Close call. Franz Ferdinand, Muse and Pearl Jam are headlining the main stage, which was not much of a surprise. While I could imagine worse bands to headline, I can think of better ones too.

It is about now I wish I could continue with my movie metaphor and insert a high-speed chase. Wait. This is my blog and I can do what I like.

I wanted to get off the bus at the stop near Sam’s house however I couldn’t as the bus driver ignored the stop and sped down the road past Bowlplex and onto the motorway. It was of course more or less this moment that one character sustained a nasty bruise to the upper arm. Three police cars were soon on our trail and I’m bored with this scene so a quick montage and back to the story.

I arrived at Sam’s and we sat in front of the computer waiting for tickets to go on sale. We were on ticket master but they went so quickly it looked like they had never been available in the first place. My joke back-up plan (phoning my dad to get them for me) turned into reality as every online system crashed, taking our hopes of going to reading with them. Dad did his best but to no avail. Our attempts to get tickets were as vain as the person talked about in that song by Carly Simon. It looked like we were not going to reading this year.

Resigned to the fact there was nothing more they could do, the two desperate festival (non-)goers watched Shrek, in which Pinocchio has a cameo.

Fade to morning.

I woke up, got ready and headed off to college as early as possible in the hope the rumours of a second wave of tickets at nine in the morning were true. Alas they were not. I heard that others had headed off to Southampton in the early hours of the morning to queue outside HMV and buy their tickets. I believe that they were successful.

While inspecting SeeTickets, I noticed that there was a weekend festival ticket/coach journey combination pack with a coach leaving from Bournemouth. One short phone call later and three tickets were mine. Or rather my Dad’s - as it was his credit card I used to order them. Sam also bought three tickets, bringing our collective total to 6 tickets and our total spend to almost one thousand pounds. Not too shabby.

So now the five-in-a-bed group (excluding Martin but including David and Ellie) shall be attending this years festival by coach. Oh what a time we shall have. There is your happy ending. Tickets were bought, shouts of joy were heard and Pepsi was drunk, as I was a bit thirsty after all the excitement.

And there you have it. My last twenty-four hours in glorious Technicolor and available in Dolby digital surround sound. In cinemas from today. Signed screenings are available upon request.