ATP!

[juliet]

ATP was splendid. Highlights, in no particular order, included (er, further details to be added when I go home & have another look at the programme):

• TurboNegro, who did a large number of things that should have been wrong (e.g. guitar solos), but wound up being utterly ace. boyofbadgers had "I Got Erection" in his head for the rest of the weekend. Pete found himself unable to resist doing that rock hand thing with the fingers sticking up, you know (which was pretty damn amusing in itself). They had a bucket of fake blood. Top stuff.
  
• Phillip Roebuck, a one-man-band (with the drum on his back & a banjo & everything) perhaps best described as 'techno bluegrass'. Fantastic.
  
• Lovely John Peel DJing for a couple of hours, although admittedly his style of DJing isn't best suited to dancing lots, as he changes around too much.
  
• Mclusky - bouncy bouncy Welshmen who slag off Tories in between songs.
  
• The Boredoms
  
• The Dishes - shouty stuff, requires jumping up & down to.
  
• A Whisper In The Noise
  
• Botnledja - Icelandic, bouncy, much fun.
  
• Doing lots of knitting whilst sitting at the back of upstairs/downstairs.
  
• Staying up Far Too Late in the chalet on Saturday night.
  
• The fact that the steps at the back of upstairs were open again (which they weren't last year) & thus could be sat on. Hurrah.
  
• Spending 3 days escaping from London by the beach with very splendid people. Hurrah some more.
  

Lowlights included:

• Converge - this is the noise that comes from next door's garage when their 15-yr-old is going through a disaffected phase. Bad.
  
• Sun City Girls - random wibbling, followed by offkey singing, followed by hasty exit before my ears started bleeding.
  
• Nobuyzaku Takemura + Aki Tsuyuko (at least I think it was them) - more offkeyness. Ouch.
  
• Kid 606 committing one of the Ultimate DJ Sins by stopping Peelie's last record as soon as he came on. Boo. Especially as the last record in question was, of course, Teenage Kicks.
  
• Lightning Bolt declining to play on the stage & instead setting up in the corner of downstairs. With the PA on the floor. Thus ensuring that the noise went through a large number of human bodies & came out of the other side approximately nonexistent. Apparently, not playing on stages is a 'thing' of theirs. I have no patience for that sort of self-indulgence.
  
• Unicum. Actually, in some ways this may have been a highlight, in terms of memorableness (& entertainment value gained). I am unsure. Unicum is the most unpleasant drink you will, or can, ever experience. I am not kidding. It tastes a bit like bile mixed with Camp coffee, except that I would, for preference, drink bile rather than Unicum. Apparently, they like it in Hungary. I have no idea *how* - maybe your tastebuds grow differently in Hungary. It smells a bit herbal, then the initial half-second of sipping it you think 'oh, that's just a bit minging', then it hits the back of your throat & you realise the full horror. And *then* it develops a bit further, revealing the *full* full horror. Experimentation revealed that nice whisky, beer, and vodka all failed to rid you of the flavour; cigarettes worked a *bit*, and plum brandy was most successful. But it's not the sort of taste you forget, like, *ever*. [shudders in recollection]
  
• The inexplicable decision to close off one of the entrances/exits to upstairs, thus making it twice as hard to get in & out. Bizarre.
  
• The similarly inexplicable decision not to switch the (very low) lights on at the back of upstairs till Sunday, thus leading to much intense darkness & falling over & spilling of people's drinks, whoops.
  
• The hotness of upstairs by late evening.
  
• The fact that the onsite shop doesn't sell veg, like, at all. Other than potato, onion, & cucumber. Also they ran out of orange juice by Friday late afternoon.
  
• Shellac on Sunday night - bit tedious, sadly (not as good as 2 years ago). Also very hot. So we all buggered off back to the chalet for a couple of hours.

Things to bear in mind for next year (mostly for my own benefit):

• Take a torch, in case they leave the lights off upstairs again.
  
• Take more vegetables. Nice vegetables.
  
• And a toaster (er, this may be getting excessive, granted)
  
• Take nice warm jumper - it gets cold, brr.
  
• If there's enough people going from London again, it may be worth hiring a minibus rather than going by train/bus

Am back at work now, boo. However, the insurance have finally delivered my New Bike, which is currently at the bike shop getting checked over (brakes slightly misaligned & I couldn't get them right, dubious noise from right pedal). And I have a Bigger and Heavier lock now, as well. [sigh]