Citizen 16

What goes on at Download most definitely does not stay at Download.

09:00 – Awoke. At least, admitted to myself that lying down and mimicking a vague approximation of sleeping was getting pretty boring and got up. God bless Fitz for drunkenly asking the marshall to turn that fucking security light off but, unfortunately, he decided not to listen to a man who, moments later, was lying face first in the road. Unsurprisingly none of the others were up yet so I killed time by queuing for the toilets, a good half hour activity at this time of the morning. Returned to camp and sat and watched our neighbours packing up their tents, which struck me as a little odd.

10:00 – Adam surfaced. Still no movement from the other tents. We pilgramiged about a mile through the campsite to a trailer that had sold us rolls bursting with bacon the night before. They were less generous this morning.

Pro-tip #11: Bacon flows freer in the night hours.

We returned with still no sign of the others and were left at something of a loose end. Too hot to go back into our tents and too uncomfortable to lie down out in the sun, Adam improvised a half-and-half solution.

I learned the reason for our neighbours desertion: Apparently they’d all driven to the festival and were packing up their things now so, after the bands had finished playing, they could make a hasty getaway and be home by the end of the day.

Pro-tip #12: Do that.

11:00 – Chris awoke. He looked like this.

He promptly lay on the floor and tried not to move for the rest of the morning.

Still nothing much happening, as evidenced by the fact that the photographic highlight of this time was this picture of Adam trying on three hats.

Triple-hat!

Simple things and all, you know?

12:00 – Ominous noises from Fitz’s tent. We’d positioned him in such a way as to ensure he couldn’t choke on his own vomit in the night but, nonetheless, it was reassuring to hear sounds, however wretched. While we waited for him to emerge, we listened to the sounds of Saxon being carried on the wind from the main stage.

Saxon

They played Wheels of Steel and a bunch of other songs I didn’t know. Um, I’m not really a big fan of Saxon so wasn’t paying much attention beyond that.

Fitz arose! From his perspective this was probably a mistake, and one he quickly rectified.

However, it wasn’t just his wellbeing that had taken a battering from last night’s merriment. His possessions had also taken something of a beating.

*WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PICTURE CONTAINS UNPLEASANT CHUNKS*

An easy sign as to how hungover Fitz was: he let me take that photo.

Sometime around this point God reappeared and, in Her infinite compassion, offered to give poor Fitz a hug. In his diminished state he shouted at her not to come near him, without properly explaining that he was covered in regurgitated bacon. It would be the last we saw of our creator (and primary antagonist.)

The proceeding hours were mostly occupied with frantic cleaning and general dazed confusion until, finally, it was past time to get to the festival ground for the best day of music.

Slash

Guitarist supremo extraordinaire. We missed the first half of his set and it was entirely possible that Adam would have exploded with rage if we’d missed a second longer. We still caught a couple of the more popular Guns ‘N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver songs as well as plenty of tracks from his new album, including an on-stage appearance by Lemmy for Doctor Alibi. It was crowd-pleasing stuff, and all the better for it.

Billy Idol

The surprise of the weekend. Idol is clearly batshit insane, but still managed to deliver a brilliant set. Obvious highlights were Rebel Yell and White Wedding, both delivered with the energy of a man who is a complete and utter fucking nutcase.

Unfortunately it was also at this time that the Donnington decided it had had just about enough of this sun lark, and preceeded to pour down a small ocean on us. Of the four of us, only the All-Ireland Champion was prepared for this eventuality. Luckily Chris decided to trek back to the campsite to fetch our ridiculous man-size rubber sheaths.

Pro-tip #13: The weather is a harsh and unpredictable bitch-whore. Be prepared for this.

Motorhead

Time for more Lemmy, one of the more underappreciated Men of Rock. This was the first and only clash in my weekend timetable, as I also wanted to catch Porcupine Tree. As always I applied the ‘Who’s more likely to die first’ test annd elected to stick around at the main stage. By this point I was miserably wet and cold, but filled with steely determination of someone who is bloody well going to enjoy themselves however much their body protested.

Anyway, Mot(umlaut ‘o’)rhead played a good selection of new stuff and old classics, which to most people means nothing beyond Ace of Spades. They didn’t, however, play (We Are) The Roadcrew so, in a very real sense, they are complete and utter gits.

Having seen some of Stoke-on-Trent’s finest, we headed back to camp to dry off. At least that was the plan up until the point we each realised our tents were leaky and had taken in massive puddles of water. Fitz, Chris and Adam’s because they’d bought the shitty tents sold by the campsite and mine because I’d bought it from a scouser.

Pro-tip #14: Don’t buy your tent from a scouser. This one should be pretty obvious really.

We salvaged as much as possible, applying various techniques to remove the standing water from the tents. If you find yourself in a similar situation I can personally recommend the simple yet effective ‘pretend your tent is a boat and bail out with a bucket/small plastic cup’.

Having purged the water and changed into dry clothes our spirits were rising once more. Except for Adam who at this point seemed to decide this camping lark could go fuck itself for a game of soldiers. Both Chris and Adam left the weekend convinced there was no place in the world for this camping business, but whereas Chris would carry on as n0rmal, only occasionally stopping to complain that the whole idea was a heaping bag of shit, Adam reached critical mass and decided enough was enough. He stayed behind while the rest of us trekked back to the festival ground for the final time.

Stone Sour

I’d always planned to ditch Sunday’s main headliner, Aerosmith, in favour of Stone Sour. However, after the camaraderie of the weekend, it seemed a bit dickish to abandon my friends at this late hour. Luckily, as we were queueing to get into the festival, we could clearly hear them playing Bother, the only song of their’s I really like anyway. Bonus!

Aerosmith

I don’t like Aerosmith. At all. Luckily we only saw them play one of there overbearing shitty power ballads (the one from Armageddon) although we did miss a lot of their set. I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of their songs, although they’d have struggled to live down to my expectations. However, everyone I talked to afterward who liked the band (including Chris and Fitz) seemed to agree that they were a massive disappointment. Still, fuck ‘em, we weren’t there to see them as much as say goodbye to the festival.

The day after…

We had a quiet one that night, chatting amongst ourselves while sheltered from the rain inside out tents. As a result we were all up early in the morning. The campsite was mostly deserted, many having left the night before. The day before had confirmed that our tents were complete shit and, mindful of the distance to the car park, we left most of our stuff behind to make a sneaky getaway. This guilty act of desertion was dampened somewhat when a marshall came up and asked us if we were ditching our tents and then, when we confirmed her suspicions, happily chatted to us while she wrapped tape around them marking them for destruction.

We caught the coach into Derby where a train would take us home. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen for hours, and so we were left to wonder through Derby with no real sense of what to do.

Pro-tip #15 (the most important tip): Don’t get stuck in Derby for a full day. There’s fuck all to do there.

Sleep is hard enough in a tent as it is, but it proved particularly so on the first night of Download festival for two reasons.

Pro-tip #5: Don’t go to a festival that is positioned right next to an airport.

Pro-tip #6: Don’t pitch your tent directly in the beam of a security floodlight.

Still, sleep is for the weak! We’re here to rock! etc, etc. God, I’m only 25 and I’m already getting too old for this shit.

Anyway, that morning our primary task was to not be hated by everyone camped near us.  This meant explaining to about 5 separate groups of people that we were told to camp here by a marshall, that we would move our tents slightly so they weren’t in front of their doorways and that no guy, we didn’t steal your Tetleys. The latter was actually pretty easy, due to the synchronised look of disgust that most of us pulled on the mention of Tetleys. With bridges hastily mended it was time to concentrate on the second problem of the day.

On the second day of a festival people, unavoidably, start thinking about poo. I don’t care if you’re the most uptight middle-England buzzkill this side of the hemisphere, by day 2 of a festival you will have a detailed plan for your fecal regimen.

Pro-tip #7: Accept that your poo plan won’t work.

Fitz had been eating marshmallows all week to “bung himself up” and I was trying to hold off till Sunday based on some hazy scraps of memory reminding me that another festival I had once been to cleaned the porta-loos out then and, hey, surely it’s the same for all festivals? Adam and Chris, both newbies to the horrors of camping outdoors, seemed to be in denial about the whole thing.

Luckily we all had a backup plan: civilisation. None of us were particularly interested in Saturday’s line-up, so we decided to take a trip to the village near by, have a few drinks and something to eat that was more substantial than a lukewarm bacon roll from a trailer. Also, if need arose, we could actually squat down to a proper flushing toilet. Ah, the things you take for granted.

After finding directions from a marshall shocked that we were prepared to walk the “two miles or so” distance, we set off. On arriving at Castle Donnington, which is a village not a castle, we were made aware of one thing: their was a festival happening this weekend. Festival-goers and portable toilets lined the streets off this sleepy rural village. More importantly they lined the nearest pub. Still, most villages have a couple so we pressed on further in the hope that most people were too stupid to understand basic geography.

Bizarrely Castle Donnington didn’t have two pubs – it had at least five. Finding one that wasn’t too crowded we settled down to some lunch and a pint. Well, almost all of us. Chris was refused service on account of him looking like a small child and not bringing any form of identification with him. Still, plenty of pubs to try. After finishing our pints we moved on to the next… where Chris was again refused service.

Pro-tip #8: Don’t look like a small child.

New plan. In pub 3 we decided not to let Chris go into the bar and instead bought his drinks for him. With this revolutionary system in place we settled down to a pleasant afternoon of drinking beer and listening to Adam tell us the problem with Rage Against The Machine fans.

Well indeed!

*An unknown amount of time passes*

On leaving our fourth pub of the day we were, I’ll admit, a little bit sozzled. To the point where I got a whispered call from Fitz to check out what he had. He had a can of lager that he’d just stolen from a guy who’d overtaken us a few seconds ago. The scoundrel! We enjoyed our spoils right there on the street, not stopping to think, “Fuck, we’ve become teenagers.” After a quick pit-stop at the fifth pub of the afternoon, it was time to return and maybe see some actual music.

Dude's got a fucking awesome afro.

HIM

This was one of those “we got there early and only saw them because we couldn’t be bothered to move” bands. Him are almost entirely forgettable, to the point that I’ve almost entirely forgotten the set they played. What I do remember is:

1. They played one of the songs I quite like, but not the other one.
2. Ville Valo is much less of a cock on stage than I’d always assumed he would be.

30 Seconds To Mars

I hadn’t really heard much of their stuff but Adam and Fitz wanted to see them and I sure as hell didn’t want to see Rage (see above) so I decided to stick around and see what Jared Leto had to offer. Turns out what Jared Leto had to offer was the on stage persona of a complete and utter tool. Seriously, what I heard of the music was pretty good but most of it was obscured by him going, “oh I fucking love you, you’re so crazy! I want to see everybody go crazy!” At one point he stopped the band in the middle of a song so he could take a picture and upload it to Twitter. What a twat.

Cock

Meanwhile we could hear Rage Against the Machine playing Killing In The Name Of for the 5th time.

Back at the campsite – while Rage played Killing In The Name of for the 9th time (basically I’m trying to say all their songs sound the fucking same, okay?) – we took to sitting around and drinking. After Rage had finished and out neighbours got back we thought we’d cement our new “we’re not complete dicks” understanding and joined them for more drinks.

Here are some things that happened:

• Drinking
• Fitz deciding it was a good idea for me to drink my whiskey, and a large portion of his wine, through my eyeball.
• Drinking
• Waking God up with our revelries.

That’s right, shortly after Fitz loudly boasted about stealing a can of lager earlier in the day a disembodied voice boomed out, admonishing him for being a thief. We asked if it was God and she confirmed that yes, it was. After some initial hesitance to believe her, because she sounded nothing at all like we’d imagined God to sound like, she put on her deeper Godly voice which was all the proof we needed.

At that point, emerging from a tent behind us was a small pretty woman: God.

I know! Who’d have thought it.

She chatted for a bit and went back to bed – which is when things went a bit wrong. I came back from a trip to the toilet to be told that Fitz had fallen on his tent. As if to prove the point, he did it again. Things only got worse from there, so I’ll skip the embarrassing stuff and get to the part where he gets put into his tent to pass out in peace. Clearly God had smote him for his earlier petty theft.

Trouble over right? Well not quite, as by that point Chris had also caught a case of the being horizontal on peoples’ tents, a fact Adam wasn’t too pleased about. This was more trouble, as he kept insisting, “my cognitive skills are fine, it’s just my motor skills that are all to fuck!”

Pro-tip #9: If your motor skills are all to fuck to the point where you’re destroying people’s temporary accommodation then your cognitive skills can take a running jump.

Chris doesn’t remember the rest of the night. That means he doesn’t remember telling Glen, one of the people we were drinking with that night, he had a nice arse. He also doesn’t remember grudgingly admitting that Adam had a nice arse after I told him he’d hurt Adam’s feelings.

Pro-tip #10: Always – ALWAYS – be a complete dick to your friends if you’re pretty confident they won’t remember it in the morning.

Still, our neighbours seemed to enjoy watching people embarrass themselves, and Adam and I were happy we weren’t the ones being embarrassed, so overall a successful night.

As we lay down to another night of barely any sleep a strange whinnying noise came from Fitz’s tent.

Next time: Aftermath.

Wait, scratch that. To be a double entendre it would need to have two possible meanings.

I checked, and it’s a genuine poster on their official website. I don’t know where to even begin describing what’s wrong with this.

Last month we went to Donnington race track for Download Festival 2010, the UK’s biggest metal and rock gathering. Surprisingly, for a trip taken by me and Fitz, things went (relatively) well. With no major disasters to speak of (just some minor ones) my primary reason for writing this up is to stop the people who went from asking me at weekends, “when are you going to write about Download?” I’M DOING IT NOW, OK?

Still, to keep things interesting I’ll also be peppering this tale with some band reviews and handy tips for anyone who’s planning a future trip to a festival.

Our Heroes (L-R): Chris, Adam, Phil (me), Fitz

I don’t remember much about the process of getting to Donnington; it was early and I wasn’t quite at full mental acuity (such as it is.) Here’s a bullet point round up of the snapshots that I’ve been able to drudge up:

• Fitz being cranky at the rest of us arriving at the train station with ruthlessly efficient timing instead of 20 minutes early. Admittedly a dangerous practice when dealing with the British public transport system.
• The train inexplicably going backwards for one stretch of the journey, sending us into the usual uncertain panic of wondering if we were on the right train and where we’d actually end up.
• Running to another platform during a change in trains then looking at a timetable and running back to the original platform while onlookers wondered if we were, in fact, retards.
• The final leg to Donnington Park on a bus containing two arseholes who wouldn’t shut up. One of these arseholes had met every single celebrity in the world, living and dead.

According to this arsehole Kiefer Sutherland is a big fan of Queen. It’s hard not to lose some respect for him on learning that.

Your first job on entering a festival ground is to find somewhere to live for the next few days… Unfortunately this proved to be difficult.

Pro-tip #1: When you’re drunkenly ordering festival tickets, don’t pick the 3-day camping pass over the 5-day camping pass just because “dude, they’re like £10 cheaper.”

All the sensible people had pitched up when the campsite opened the day before, leaving the pillocks (us) to wander back and forth between the different sites trying to find some mythical virgin piece of land large enough to accommodate four tents. Here’s a breakdown of our physical condition during this seemingly endless and utterly futile quest:

• Me: Not used to strenuous exercise. Rendered flabby through years of drinking, Chinese takeaways and ice cream. Compulsive and frequent smoker. Despite this can walk long distances without nearly dying or complaining about nearly dying.
• Fitz: Did honest to goodness outdoor activities as a nipper. No longer at peak physical fitness after enthusiastically taking up his nation’s favourite pastime of alcohol abuse. Despite this can also walk long distances without collapsing in a heap and sobbing uncontrollably.
• Chris: So thin he may only exist in some theoretical quantum dimension. Seemed fine with the walking, but always at risk of snapping in half when carrying any weight.
• Adam: Not used to walking distances further than from car to building. Has asthma. Has infrequent, yet hilarious, back problems. Seems ideologically against any of this ‘outdoor business’. Goes a bit quiet when he’s had enough of all this bollocks.

Eventually someone approached a marshall, possibly to seek advice for where to camp but more likely just to get a hug and reassurance that it’d all be okay. The marshall took one look at the seemingly packed camping area in front of him, walked to an arbitrary point and pointed to a selection of tents, telling us to just camp around them. Too tired and fed-up to protest that this was a stupid idea, we unloaded and started to pitch out tents.

Pro-tip #2: When camping, be sure to have an “All-Ireland Champion” to hand.

I don’t think we were told exactly what Fitz was All-Ireland Champion of but it seemed to involve walking around woods with sticks as a child or something. Still, he was confident and eager and Chris and Adam had no camping experience, so I let him get on with the job of telling them slowly and “patiently” what to do, while I did my best impression of someone who also knew what they were doing on my own tent.

Eventually we were set up, with only minimal need to move other people’s tents while they were away. Something I never knew about Fitz: he has some manic obsession with camping. He kept this a secret from me despite the fact I’ve been camping with him before at Oxegen festival. But as much as he was enjoying regaling us with his tales of camping adventures back home, eventually we had to go to the festival ground itself before we all lapsed into a sleepy coma.

First though: hats!

Pro-tip #3: Don’t keep your hat in your back pocket in case it falls out and you don’t notice until it’s long gone.

Still, Adam misplacing his hat provided two bits of good fortune for the weekend. Firstly, it persuaded the rest of us to also get hats! “Look out Download, we’re hat wearing motherfuckers now!” A fact that the rest of the festival-goers seemed entirely unappreciatave of, the miserable bastards. Secondly, it gave Adam the chance to buy a hat that was too big for him, meaning he spent much of the weekend trying to rescue it from the wind, which was endlessly entertaining.

Tents: check. Hats: check. It was time to actually see some bands.

Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders

Get it? Coattail riders? Because the lead singer is in a much more popular band and no-one would bother seeing them otherwise, you see? Ah, forget it.

There’s a problem with your drummer also being your lead singer: the panting. In between songs Taylor Hawkins was panting like a – well, you can probably draw your own simile. Also he swears like an absolute trooper. As a quick guide to how much Taylor Hawkins swears on stage, I was stood there thinking “bloody hell, this guy swears a fucking lot.” He was so annoyed at how little time the band had been allocated that he spent more of the gig panting and swearing about how little time they had than they spent actually playing music. Clever.

In between his impression of a sex pest the band played largely forgettable music. Adam probably gave the best review of the band when he compared Taylor Hawkins’ drumming style with that of Foo Fighters band-mate Dave Grohl.

Pro-tip #4: Don’t let me near video recording equipment. I have a blog and a YouTube account.

Killswitch Engage

Wolfmother, who we wanted to see, had been replaced with Killswitch Engage, who we didn’t. Still, it seemed like a good time to find a spot at the main stage for the evening so we ended up seeing them anyway.

It’s somewhat difficult to provide any meaningful review as I spent the entirety of their set alternating between sleeping and finding exactly the right angle to lay my new hat on my face to convey maximum nonchalance. They did play that one song I kind of like though, so whatever.

Them Crooked Vultures

It’s entirely possible that John Paul Jones is completely batshit insane. He spent the entire gig switching between ‘sombre bassist’ and ‘super-happy lunatic’ modes seemingly at the flip of a switch.

Anyway, the band’s somewhat shambling style suits a live performance, allowing them to give life to the wandering melodies they were criticised for. That said the fact that they’re Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones does seem to make them think they can get away with excruciatingly long solos.

Here’s a picture of Josh Homme, posted purely because Adam took approximately 62,400 pictures of the man, presumably because he’s a ginger lad that made good. Would be a shame for all that effort/creepy fanaticism go to waste.

AC/DC

It seemed like the entire festival turned out to see AC/DC, probably because:

1. No other bands were playing in that timeslot.
2. They had their own stage all to themselves to incorporate the full stage show from last year’s tour.
3. They’re fucking AC/DC!

Not a lot of point reviewing them, suffice to say they’re a fucking brilliant live unit, so here’s some pictures.

Later, back at the campsite, we finally met our camping neighbours. As they started to trickle back from the festival ground most of them started loudly exclaiming, “which dickheads have camped right in front of our tents?” Whoops.

Next time: Gammon! Theft! God!

I’m currently in the middle of a “being awake marathon” designed to try and realign my sleeping habits with those of regular functioning human beings. Point being, between the sleep deprivation and the intrinsically linked over-caffination, this is a really bad time to be re-evaluating the purpose of this blog. Fuck it.

A couple of conversations with friends over the weekend have catalysed something I’ve been thinking for a while now; basically, shit be getting slack up in this place. Here’s the plan to invigorate things.

• The Month in Links feature dies. Next time I feel the need to start a monthly feature I am, instead, just going to stab myself in the hand with scissors. In place of this, I’ll just stick good stuff from around the web onto my Google Reader shared feed, which appears in the From The World sidebar box.
• Less reviewing things just because I’ve seen/heard something. In future it’ll get a review if it’s A) brilliant or B) shit. Possible also C) I’ve got something to say about it that’s different to what most people are saying about it.
• More attempts to craft something, however ridiculous. If I had to pick between umpteenth review of a thing or a stupid story about Alan Titchmarsh for “things that are more fun to write,” the stupid stuff wins hands down.
• “Shit, I’ve not posted anything in weeks. I really need to write about something.” No, you don’t. Dickhead.
• I’m also going to start looking at giving the place a new lick of paint. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the current theme. I’m just bored of it.

Primarily this post exists as a mental checkpoint, which is the sort of thing my brain needs to neatly process changes in attitude. That means you can largely ignore it. I probably should have put that disclaimer at the beginning.

Despite being unemployed for the whole of July, it has been a terrible month for productivity. Days seem to have been lost in a daze of applying for jobs, watching westerns, playing Final Fantasy XIII and browsing the Internet in my pants. Luckily my new Productivity Plan for August (step 1: write more) should mean a better month for content. I’ve also largely forgotten to make a note of any links this month, so here’s a condensed edition for your perusal.

Words

• Best news story of the month award goes to CNN for “Mexican Police Arrest Man Hiding 18 Monkeys Under Clothes at Airport.”
• Boing Boing publishes a lovely story about Simon Parkin’s personal relationship with JRPGs over the years.
• Quintin Smith’s tale of his hunt for the Citizen Kane of games is turning out to be quite the thing.
• I never imagined there could be anything interesting about a website I’ve never heard of reviewing an office chair. It turns out, when that website’s owner is completely insane, I was wrong.

Pictures

• All my friends are dead. Darkly charming.
• If you didn’t understand the plot of Inception then this infographic probably won’t help. It looks spiffy, though. [via Pentadact]

Videos

• Markets of Britain, a film from the creators of Look Around You.

• Quinn’s article reminded me of this, which I criminally forgot to include last month. Citizen Kane: The Remake: The Trailer. [via Chris Remo]

• Finally, here’s some stunning time-lapse photography of Red Dead Redemption’s vistas.

Mark Richardson must be fucking livid. As Feeder drummer he seemed to be on a one-man mission to re-enliven the band and to drag them kicking and screaming out of their mopey phase, primarily by hitting the skins hard enough to drown out the sounds of sweeping strings and Grant’s heartfelt vocal swells. For this the man is to be saluted. Then, as soon as he fucks off back to Skunk Anansie, they release Renegades, probably the band’s heaviest release since the Swim EP.

That’s not to say the band have gone completely back to basics. They’ve lost some of the irreverence that marked their earlier releases, specifically songs like Women In Towels. Or, more accurately, they’ve lost the intentional irreverence of that period. Renegades features some of the most disposable lyrics you’ll probably hear this year. Frankly Grant Nicholas needs to be punched square in the face for the line “if you want to hear this song, you won’t have to wait too long,” from the album’s first-single and easy contender for worst song Call Out. You’d hardly call Left Foot Right a lyrical masterpiece either… and don’t even get me started on the “sitting on the bus, sitting on the bus” chorus to City In A Rut.

Still, lyrics aside, Renegades is a really good album with the band sounding, for the first time in years, like a proper 3-piece outfit. It’s clearly an album designed for live shows, full of short, fast and easily recognisable tunes. Nothing life changing, but a quality 40 minutes of music.

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Holy shit! Only forty minutes to collect together a bunch of neat links from the past 30 days and arrange them in a new and easier to pick through format before the month is over! Can I manage it? Well, yes because even if I don’t I’ll just change the publish time and pretend that I did. Ah, deadlines: they only exist for the people who are paid for this sort of thing.

Words:

• News outlets had a great month. Seriously, any month in which you can run a story about a student throwing a puppy at a bunch of German Hell’s Angels has got to be a top month for journalists.
• Similarly, here we have a contender for Headline of The Year.
• And then John Walker linked to this Guardian reporters heroic efforts at live blogging the endless Isner-Mahut Wimbledon match. Yeah, I know, Wimbledon – but don’t run away, this is top stuff. A sample:

7pm: The umpire climbs down from his chair and starts mildly slapping the net cord with his right hand. No one knows why. John Isner winds up for a backhand and misses the ball entirely. No one knows why.

What’s going on here? Once, long ago, I think that this was a tennis match. I believe it was part of a wider tennis tournament, somewhere in south-west London, and the winner of this match would then go on to face the winner of another match and, if he won that, the winner of another match. And so on until he reached the final and, fingers crossed, he won the title.

That, at least, is what this spectacle on Court 18 used to be; what it started out as. It’s not that anymore and hasn’t been for a few hours now. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it is long and it’s horrifying and it’s very long to boot. Is it death? I think it might be death.

• Okay, so one news outlet didn’t have a great month. Would you be surprised to hear that it was the Daily Mail?
• Has apocalyptic fiction killed off the enthusiasm and excitement that we used to feel for the future? Jim Rossignol explores the issue.
• “At some point around the 22nd hour without sleep – as I forced myself to play Hannah Montana: The Movie: The Game whether I liked it or not – I asked myself, ‘How did it come to this?’”
• Three reasons why we buy those crazy Steam bundles. Pretty apt considering that Steam is pretty much all crazy bundles this week.
• An interesting take on the story of Red Dead Redemption. Contains massive spoilers for the ending of the game, just so you know.

Pictures:

• Illustrations of those things you’re just left to figure out on your own.
• Ultra Culture linked to the Jeff Bridges website. Why? Because it’s full of brilliant hand drawn illustrations of the films he’s starred in!

Sounds:

• This is what the Sun sounds like. A sci-fi movie, as it turns out.

Videos:

• Violinist plays Super Mario Bros live to Super Mario Bros. Bloody hell!

• Live performance of the final song in Plants vs. Zombies by its composer.

• Another piece linked by John Walker: Dan Telfer delivers the best audience solicited stand-up routine about dinosaurs you’ll ever see.

• And finally… I nearly didn’t bother with this, but what the hell. Baby sloths are cute as fuck.

Remix albums. Generally they’re not very good, especially when they’re remix albums for industrial bands. At their worst they’re basically an unlistenable stream of noise, trying hard to appear challenging to the listener, but coming across like a confused mess of pretentious guff. Nine Inch Nails first couple of forays into the remix business, in particular, were fucking awful.

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You can get American Porn Songs // Remixed from Amazon. It’s the best industrial remix album since Chemlab’s Rock Whore vs. Dance Floor. Yeah.