Merida, postmen, cowboys, and australian DILFS, - the green man experience

To be honest I was dreading green man festival, I’d just adapted to sleeping on real beds and I was not willing to live in a cold wet field in the Brecon beacons. it was meant to be "the quiet festival", the slow wind down to normal life from such an extreme situation. Obviously this is not how the night ended up. Something about sleep deprivation means that everything that occurred there was either the best or the worst. credit to the Green Man team though they treat their volunteer staff really well with a very reasonable expectation of hours, lively characters to keep morale up, and cheap food available to keep the cranky hungriness away. 

However it was the people that made that festival particularly memorable. Starting with my main companion for the weekend, a girl with fiery hair that can only be explained through a secret love child between River Song from doctor who and Merida from brave. She was distinctly well travelled and definitely not sheltered, yet had a quite cockney London speech pattern, complete with the unironic use of words like “geezer.” Most importantly she was on my wavelength in a way that I was worried I wasn’t going to find at green man.

The other people involved included a young Jewish guy named Dan (wearing a star of david and quipping about his religion every few seconds) who had an odd combo of nerdiness and confidence that quietly floated him through the festival, and a chef with massive poodle-rock hair (still can’t decide if it was styled like that or if his hair just afros like that) and a nerdy shrine of arm tattoos that he apparently drew himself. His accent was a cloudy, gentle, welsh lilt, and that paired with his cartoonish facial expressions and actions lead me to believe he was destined to be a stall merchant in a video game, or perhaps a pokemon gym leader. Either way I wanted to keep him around. 

On the other hand there was also a gentleman who introduced himself as "love", he was covered in eyeliner geometric cult symbols and spoke with a cadence to his voice that never seemed to arrive anywhere. he was full androgynous hippie, the kind of person who would have been charming if he gave you straight answers instead of trailing off on vaguely hippie-ish enigmatic wankery. he didn't seem to have much direction, and although his aesthetic was fascinating in a post apocalypse grunge homemade way, there was too much of an absence to him. like he was barely in the room even when he was sat in front of you. it also didn't help that one of the first things he explained to me was asking if I wanted to learn how to make a soy bottle into an ash tray and that he was collecting recycling bits for a craft project "as an artist."

On the first volunteer shift I was left with Dan, with whom I traded bad puns regarding basically everything in the area. I talked to one of the live events, a dynamic duo of sisters dressed in shorts and a caricature postman’s uniform. There was a service where people could leave messages for strangers or friends based on descriptions varying from “pink hair girl, elephant leggings” to a match.com style shopping list of traits. One of the posties even took a fondness towards me, adopting me as an honorary younger brother for the weekend due to a slight similarity to her own brother. This was incredibly useful due to the amount of hugs I’d need to keep morale at an acceptable level. 

She tried to set me up on a blind date, but I passed because I’d already found someone for that. I began viewing the posties as like the volunteer fire department in lemony snicket, a cult of inherently trustworthy strangers.

I went to compliment a stranger’s hair – a pink undercut – but lost them before I managed to tell them how cool they were. Luckily for me I found them again as Jodie, the redhead, went to visit something else. A tall figure, dressed in a leather vest with a cowboy hat and glasses, who I shortly got to know as “Mattie.” More commonly thought of by me as “the polyamorous, the 6 foot 6, pink haired cowboy” or simply just “the cowboy.” Despite this incredibly distinctive description he was incredibly hard to find.

He warmed up to me quickly and I guess we became amorous for the evening, everything above the belt but still incredibly good company. He clicked his fingers like he was at a poetry night when he was impressed and had a way of making you feel special for a moment before continuing without you. I found myself wandering around with part of my brain fixated on his whereabouts, not infatuation but fascination. The second time I met him had at least twice the amount of leather. I hope I left a good impression.

Event highlights included Emer Maguire singing science songs about animal sex, the temple of the tattie selling us into an Irish potatoe cult, the burning of the green man, and the mysterious caravan inhabited by vintage dressed people in animal masks, who would gesture to you and draw you if you visited, like an alice in wonderland booth. A raven woman typewritered me and Jodie a poem, and there was a simple sketch in sharpie marker to remember the weekend by.

I also missed a shift of mine and flurried back to the steward tent realising what I’d done. I pleaded for a replacement shift to get an older gentleman with a tan and Australian dark hair and maturely designed tattoos look me in the eyes knowingly. Despite knowing his name I refer to this gentleman purely as “the australian DILF” for ease. He smiled and said “I can see your stressing, go to bed and make sure you don’t miss the next one.” I followed his advice to see him the next morning grinning. “how was the night shift? Good wasn’t it!” he asked hinting. I followed suite and promised him I’d do a shift or buy him a drink or something. I never got to buy him that apology/thank-you-for-being-my-alibi drink in the end.

I did however suffer through my night shift, six hours in wet wellies at the pitch blackness that left a bad taste in my mouth. i was bitter and cold. be warned. volunteering leads you into deep bitter coldness.

Camp Bestival, urban myths and Mr Tumble

Camp Bestival gave me festival whiplash. I’d had exactly 2 nights to recover and could barely shuffle to the venue. The death glares on the train as I hustled gracelessly with my camel-hump backpack through rush hour and taking up far too much space cut me like paper. I hadn’t clocked the demographic of camp Bestival when I applied … younger than I anticipated. Like “Mr Tumble as a headline” levels of younger. That also meant that the people I was working with were getting paid because there weren’t enough volunteers to tide over the job. Most of the guests were that breed of “trendy start up mum/dad” where parents refuse to let their age catch up with them by maintaining a modern job in a tech start up or a gentrified street food business specialising in avacados and dyeing their hair a crazy colour in order to forget the fact they are in their late 30s/early 40s in an office half their time.

I was dropped off by the staff buggy and saw a flash of a Swansea hoodie. There was a kneejerk grin, a fellow Welshman! I later explained that I wasn’t a psychopath for grinning the moment I saw her, and our conversations trailed from wales to genuine friendship. Somewhere along the line I met Eilish (pronounced like Billie Eyelish), a woman who somehow managed to fry her accent worse than mine. She was short and pale with borderline Scandinavian blonde hair. Our jokes managed to evolve into in-jokes, the most prominent involving Mr Tumble as a sexual icon, Mr Tumble as a dominatrix (mistress tumble), the Venga-boys, and a horrific merging of Mr Blobby (the 90s children’s show character) and the Slender man, (a photoshopped urban myth from the internet era.)

During my ticketing shift I explored with my customers what qualifies an adult ticket (aside from age), mostly suggesting that it was getting excited by Ikea cookware or enjoying scotch or something. Understanding a tax form perhaps? I’m surprised my teammate didn’t hit me after the 6^th hour of the same joke over and over.

I found cheesy chips spicy when they were laughably tame, I was lead on a wild goose chase by an online dating stranger who was not actually in the venue they claimed to be, and I saw a circus performance. There were a few overlapping people going from festival to festival, including a young French lad who was learning English through travelling Britain, and a manbunned festival enthusiast who was telling me in detail about how he’s attended smaller versions of burning man. Maybe one day I’ll go to the Spanish burn (was it called nowhere?) because it sounds really awesome.

I’m harsh about this festival but its also the

festival that brought me “Elvana”, a nirvana cover band lead by an Elvis impersonator with long dip-dyed red and black hair. He had a stage persona and kept the accent inflections that the original Elvis would have sang throughout his weird vintage mashup, with two vintage cheerleaders with beatnik bobs singing back-in music. It was a combination that I never expected but am glad exists out there in the world somewhere, goodluck Elvana wherever you are. Furthermore Mr Tumble had more of a stage presence than most of the acts I saw that month, including Lana Del Rey and Jess Glynne.

Latitude, a tale of hair dye and bottle theft

So I’ve survived festival season, each weekend sending me collapsing into a bath/solid bed and cursing that I would “never work a festival again” (spoilers, I usually do.) so I thought I’d write about them. lets start from the beginning.

Latitude started with a stumble. I’d joked to some girls on the train about how middle class the deal was, dragging my backpack to the cubbyhole and shoving it to the side. They went uncomfortably quiet and I knew my line about being worried Latitude was a “gap yaaah” (gap year but obnoxious) type of venue. The train ride dragged on and I eventually, after wrestling with my tent and marching through the crusty dry hay I had set up a base camp. In a stumble at friendship I offered my service to a blue haired stranger in a sleeveless tee shirt – we later debated if it was a vest or not. He said he was fine, but upon seeing my put my stuff away offered, no … insisted, he fix up my shambling tent. The dad instinct had kicked in.

I mingled with their neighbours and met a butch biker chick, an androgynous punk guy with tie-dye clothes and a pink/purple fringe who despite his heavily city kid energy was also surprisingly outdoorsy, and an English lit student who shared my deep seated love of Belinda Blinked. We were taught the radio call signs from the scrappy crew of hotbox officials and smirked at how bluntly on the nose the radio co

des were. After the official meeting we slinked off to see the empty festival ring. Glowing signs and projections on the bridge, as well as trails into the woods that showed us sneaky bars. Obviously as a Welshman I couldn’t help but make all the cheap double-en-tandras near the sheep. These were also the cluster of people I spent me evenings with.

The second/third day and I dowsed myself with glitter. Glitter beards, golden face paint, the works. I was fully following my dreams of being both a legend of Zelda forest spirit living by the river and guiding kind people to where they need to be, whilst also being a moustachioed man from the 1920’s/40s that twirls his facial hair and hosts the finest secret speak-easy parties in all the land. It was the gold face paint shoot that won me a runner-up prize for directions hair dye. My shifts were spent my time trying to crack the fella working with me, and it took me 4 hours but I did manage to make him go from deadpan with polite chuckles to an occasional sincere laugh.

On my birthday night I entered the speakeasy, expecting it to be a jazz bar. This was a mistake. It was spoken word poetry. I slinked away to an oxygen bar (literally inhaling squash, not my thing) and began my mission, trading a rubber duck - like that guy who traded a red paperclip - for something more exciting. The flavoured oxygen bar place was more than willing to help and beamed at me about the proposition. There were drunken photos and when they had found out about it being my birthday insisted I did a coffee shot before trading the duck in for a tambourine. They were truly lovely, both extremely Irish and incredibly kind. I want to hang out with them again.

at a point in the evening someone caught my eye, a tall man in what i can only describe at "slutty peter pan" garb doing circus acts for fun. I went to investigate. He introduced himself as "Dandelion Chalice" and explained that he was a pagan, an ex-circus-performer, and a lush employee. He also tried to sell me some rave gear after I complemented his look, to this day I don't know if I'm impressed by him or slightly concerned, there's only so much enigmatic wankery i can handle.

Finally on one of my shifts there was an older woman named Veronica. she was in her 70s and i was paired with her for part of my shift. however, she turned out to be the adventurous type, telling me about all her travelling plans and how she'd even visited North Korea. in the family camping area there were a pair of bottles left out under a gazebo, and although alcohol was completely legal at the festival the glass bottles were to be confiscated. with the severity of a policeman she whipped out a notepad and scribbled a message to the owners of the alcohol before looking for a sensible cup.

when she couldn't find one she placed two deliberate cereal bowls on the table, flicked the lids off the spirit bottles with a flourish, and decanted the spirits with a theatrical flourish. it was alarming that this 70 year old was more mischievous than i was. "we're called OWLs, Older White Ladies. means i can get away with so much more because people just see sweet grannies." she justified, the bitter irony being that I'd been talking with the deadpan guy before she tagged in about airport security and how hes always made to clean his beard beforehand. this also earned her the nickname "Veronica the Bottle thief" and god i wish she had a blog.

Its just a shame that I was too bitter and sleep deprived to fully enjoy George Ezra properly and that Marina overlapped with one of my shifts, plus hotbox camping tended to be tight with the treatment of the festival guests, not providing the perks I'd grown accustom to such as a comfy seating and cheaper staff food. However I did add a few new artists to my repertoire.

Chester pride 2019, finally a pride i felt comfortable in

So Chester pride was postponed due to weather issues, which to many was seen as a problem. However the hosts of Chester pride don’t realise they have accidentally done me a favour. For you see I usually find the pride event itself, or at least at other events, a little out of my area of expertise. Much like Christmas there is too much pressure on the event, with some believing it’s a party and others thinking it’s a protest, catering to both groups makes it, in my eyes, a sensory overload.

However with the event postponed and the side parties still occurring to satisfy all those with what I can only describe as “pride blue balls” I was left with a mystery cabaret that poured young queers into town with enough excitement to fill an entire day. So I text my nearest and queerest to find two sets of friends at the party, one of which had been drinking since 10am (yikes) who I tag along for a while. The only problem is that these people are anxious wallflowers and my restlessness, my hunger for adventure was kicking in, so when they went to retire in the leader – Finn – ‘s home I sloped off to the cabaret night and within seconds of entering the bar was confronted by a middle aged man in sequin shorts and a black leather harness, which set the tone for the night.

The next thing I bumped into was an old friend of mine and his brood. I hustled through the crowd of eccentrically dressed strangers to the front of the stage to see the tail end of some strip tease from a stranger. I took a breather outside for a second and was welcomed by the well rested couple from the hippie wedding. The bride mentioning in passing one simple sentence that completely changed my interpretation of the entire wedding. “Rumour has it you had an interesting time too” she smirked. I had sincerely thought my discrepancies had gone under the radar due to a surplus of drugs hard enough to topple a hardened 1960s Woodstock hippie to the ground. We bantered with the couple and their friends over pancakes.

When I returned to the Liverpool arms things started getting spicy, starting with a burlesque performer dressed as miss piggy – including the stout and ears - who

began strip teasing to a miss-piggy-fied version of the macarena. She even had nipple tassles … and an ass tassle of Kermit. It was an incredible sight to behold. That paired with my confused resting face made it look like I’d walked entirely into the wrong bar, but alas I regrouped with a tribe. Acts came and went including a 6 foot candyfloss figure with a face that seemed far too familiar. I looked closer, but it was only when this quite shocking statue in front of me gave me a glance and a wave that I realised, it was a sales clerk from boots in town. You see everyone in Chester knows one another by faint description, even if you don’t remember one another you could still match the face to the job. I just never joined the dots that the boots make up guy who helped me with a Halloween costume that one time would be a freAKING DRAG QUEEN.

After a few photos she was shortly joined by a couple of figures in nun robes and heels. One with an alarming crimson beard and the other with regal cat eye glasses. I’d heard about the sisters of perpetual indulgence before, but never seen them up close. Drag nuns from Manchester with the main goal being to leave the world better than they found it and offer hugs etc to those who needed them.

There were just two of them at this venue, and I don’t know how but the kindly old lady vibe seemed to bleed through to these stubbly men in their 20s/30s. I was expecting more of a party spirit, but if anything they had a calming effect. You just felt compelled to trust them. “I’ve got a few sins to confess sisters” my friend joked. One of them, sister Mona Key smiled gently and chuckled “don’t do that, as long as they aren’t hurting people at least, do more of them. In the sisterhood we don’t call it confession we call it bragging” she purred. It was that line paired with the warmth they generated that sold me on the concept, which was ironic considering their ghostly white make up and the vaguely horror movie black nun robes.

After they graced us and the bar with their presence they tottled into town to explore the city. I saw them again in passing at a vintage tea place drinking from dainty china cups and sharing a cake like genuine old ladies. I didn’t want them to go, but alas my night continued. I like to think they went off to help those who needed it, or at least they went to have a nice time. Swap the tea for something more exciting.

Fast forward to me venue hopping between the three bars actually making the effort to celebrate pride and darting through empty streets to follow the music. Without expecting it I ran into Kenny, the tall black guy in the flowy robes from liverpool that was almost always mistaken for a jedi or a wizard. He whisked his way through the cobblestones, shooting me a toothy grin and stopping to say hi. I compared notes with him regarding my evening plans and a hug later was on my way. I grabbed a kebab and was warned by a stranger outside the bars that the mayonnaise globules dripping down my chin were beginning to look a tad suspect. I also took part ring of fire, the drinking game. One particular rule made it so I had to drink whenever one of the group talked, famously I’d been tormenting her and she was also very talkative to begin with. My drink was finished very quickly.

As I finished it I received a text from my landlord asking for cash to sort some kind of problem, with a slight snark. It took the wind out of my sail, a number a tad higher than I was expecting. I took a breather in the storyhouse and shake off the drain in the back of my mind. Why does spending money hurt so much? My quiet sulking was punctured by a text from an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while. Kendall. I told him where I was and we arranged to meet. He was taller than I remembered, and he introduced me to his friends with a warm welcome. We head to a bar for drinks and a dance (he danced well), it was fun. Was. Until I kissed a friend of his, and he got twitchy. I didn’t catch it at first but then I kissed his other friend in that kind of a flirty haze. He snaps. His friends, drunkenly check on him. I’m left on the side-line scrambling for the logic.

I scurry sideways to talk to one of his friends and find out what the hell just happened. He liked me, yes, but we hadn’t hung out in months. His friends were on the market, so I didn’t see the issues. We left him to have a breather after his main friend lectured him on how he’d “never let anything get between them as friends” etc. He explained to me after clearing air with his friends that he is monogamous, which would make complete sense if myself or anyone I made out with was dating him. The shame was that if he hadn’t had this outburst I would have considered it, we’d be in wildly different places in life … but he was charming. I held onto this discussion, “yeah your friends might be fine with this but I’m not. We haven’t hung out in months dude, I should be able to kiss who I want” I justified, perhaps a tad high on adrenaline. “that fine, I’ll just never hang out with you” he brushed off slinking down an alleyway somewhere. “we’ll meet you back later perhaps” his friends hinted, that was my cue to go.

I ended the night heading to the nightclub to meet the friends from the bar, brushing past exes and feeling a spark of joy when I hear my name shouted from the smokers perch opposite. I excused myself for a second from the bar friends and surfed over to one of the couples from the hippie wedding. There was a hug and a grin, I’d gone full circle. Normality at last. And a breathe of fresh air.

the hippie wedding

So I arrive at the station in a makeshift floral shirt and shorts combo, and book my ticket. It was Brighton pride in the city which to others meant a party, but to me meant fighting through glitter clad strangers. It was then I saw them, a couple in smart clothing lugging freshly purchased camping gear and walking away from the party. They had the vibe of “how I met your mother” characters, so I did what I do. I talked. Turns out the couple were going to the wedding too, my theory was right. So I tag along with them, the redhead and the scotsman. She was a tattoo artist and enriched the journey with stories about the matching couple tattoos of the couple and the brides infamously bad reaction to pain.

When the cab from the station arrived I collapsed with my bags to find a couple of friends, one of which was in a wide brimmed almost witchhunter-y hat, enjoying a drink at the café. It was them, along with the people I was yet to meet that really made the wedding. After a bit of hugging and handshaking with new guests and a tent setting up moment with a gold clad cartoonish friend of the groom’s that was torn straight from a carry on film, the 20-

somethings huddled together as a tribe to avoid the adults. We drank and one by one, branched out to the adults one by one starting with the father of the bride. He was a tall gentleman in a thick green coat and an ‘alice in wonderland’ top hat adorned with a bird skull and a beetle stuck in a crystal. Despite the mad hatter appearance he almost definitely played the role of the white rabbit, fussing about time and leading his party through hedges and fields.

The sermon was hosted by a short, facepainted older woman named River. She encouraged us to welcome the elements into the relationships and had a family member represent each element (complete with props) and ask questions related to each element – lines about keeping sparks in the relationship and letting the love flow etc. eventually we were given a ribbon and told to tie it to a giant master ribbon before tying the couple up (I didn’t get it either) and scurrying to the processco table.

It was then that I really got to meet people, including a blue haired older lady with what I can only describe as lesbian water-spirit vibes. Short choppy white and blue hair and a set of mermaid scale legging shorts. She was lovely and apparently one of at least four old paramours of the brides mum. It was almost a queer version of Mama Mia mixed with a look stolen out of the legend of Zelda. I wonder if I’d unlock some kind of achievement if I met them all. Most iconic adding to this vibe was the main couple.

The bride wore a guacamole green that seemed slightly ethereal and the groom’s look was very much “if willy Wonka was a gameshow host”, complete with a bold purple jacket and enough glitter on the eyes to satisfy the groom’s deep craving to become a disco ball in human form. The venue was cosy, a small beer-garden style park area, a river of ducks and pondlife, and a cute little barn with a bar on site that served drinks at prices only available with a faustian bargain.

I went to check on the others in the tent field, only to find a gaggle of others by the borderline sacrificial fire pit – no really it looked like it was stolen from the set of buffy – and a few minutes later a tiny Italian with a dramatic head scar, and the gold lipsticked pantomime man nose deep in a powder spread across a copy of catcher in the rye … officially the most Brighton thing I’d find that trip, earning their tent the nickname “the pharmacy”. Later someone asked the Italian about his scar and he told us of a brutal parkour accident, even going as far as to show us the giant spinal scar on his back and the spider tattoo he had spindling down it to make the scar a spiderweb.

My friends from Chester discovered that gold lipstick was massage trained and proceeded to collapse into the panto man’s lap, making moans and reactions like that of a porno made in the 80s. she gushed to her boyfriend as the golden stranger quizzed them about Chester life, getting the review of her declaring that her boyfriend “needs to learn to do this”, before the golden stranger carried on to the remainder of his guests.

Later that evening I met the bride and the groom again, who were in a fake sobriety that I was completely convinced by until the bride offered me drugs. Not how I’d do a wedding but each to their own. I also witnessed the bride’s dad in low-cut rave clothing and the gold lipstick guy in a kimono that gave him the aura of a hedonistic Greek emperor – his 3^rd change of clothing that day. There was a silent disco with neon headphones that changed colour depending on the radio channel, and a DJ set hosted by a pair of middle aged women in classic 50s housewife pin up gear laughing and dancing along with a feather duster to classic 80s hits. The fire burned into the night and I crashed into my tent.

The morning after, I was tasked with getting to the station before a hellish journey home. luckily the Italian and the now goldless masseuse had room in their car. I bundled my stuff in the boot and was warned that I was a walking crime scene of evidence for my sins the night before. In order to be subtle I snuck into the barn to retrieve my charging phone, except on the way back down to the round floor I missed my footing and animal instincts kicked in. I found my arm deadlocked in an anchoring position around a banister until I found my footing. The station was a sweaty battlefield of forgetting baggage and bumbling through a London station connection, but I arrived alive and steeled myself for the grand university move waiting for me in the wings.

Of Float Tanks and Pagans, a night out in liverpool

Lesson learned. If you get drinks with a guy who looks like Amenidiel from Lucifer

with the username “Northstar,” be prepared for a night to go weird. But lets start from the beginning.

So I went to do a sensory deprivation tank in Liverpool in the afternoon. It was a very Miranda Hart style experience. I rock up and get shown a small waiting room with an incredibly comfortable chair, soft blue lighting, and zen meditation music before being lead downstairs. The incredibly hushed-tone scouse man running it walks me into room 3 and introduces me to the system of incredibly fancy showers, as well as the apple-product-white egg in the centre of the room. The inside of the smooth dome was dark until a button lit it with a neon blue that added to the sci-fi vibes. He also recommended I do it naked, meaning the trunks I’d taken with me from Chester were deemed dead weight from the beginning. So after he leaves I strip off and get in, sealing myself away and hitting the light switch.

I lied there. It was certainly floaty. Dark. Okay. lets see what happens. Did I just get tricked into a £40 bath? Salt! Salt in the eyes! Salt in the other places! I scramble for the eye spritzer before showering instead. Round 2. This time I get the foam halo for “added head support” and lie there. Better. I wonder when the enlightenment magic moment hits. My brain continued to reach for thoughts it couldn’t quite get to, making puns, counting breaths, searching for fixes to my life outside the giant egg. Until finally the mediation music eased in and I could leave. I towel off and head to the surface in my scruffy jeans. At least its off the bucket list.

I take my bag and en-route to the train station head to the shopping centre, marvelling at how shops in cities stay open so late. Everything in Chester closes at 6. The idea of shopping at 8pm feels like turning water to wine. So I do what all single students do in new towns. I open the dating apps. At this point I’m already considering staying a tad later. Just to see Liverpool *properly* in the evening. So I get some local knowledge and flirt for a bit, until a profile catches my eye. “Northstar”, a broad, bald, black guy with some way-too-professional profile pics and a quip about “not being a pizza to be ordered by the inch.” I say hi, I ask him all the usual questions about pubs and new towns until he mentions Jupiter.

I find it on google maps, my curiosity piqued to the highest degree, ending up at a very chill bar with aliens on the window. There, by the door, stood in a dramatic smoking pose in a slightly grungy ankle length cardigan-hoodie-thing that was almost definitely a wizard cape, was bootleg ammenidiel. “sorry? did you message me a few seconds ago?” he asks unsure, in a much better accent than I was expecting. “yeah, I was curious” I justified heading in for a nose. “well you can join us if you like” he smiled.

The pub was dark, 80s music playing off the TV and a lesbian woman in a football shirt and a ponytail manning the DJ booth. Speckles of groups, mainly soft-butch women but with a few dudes thrown in, just chilling out. Too few people for a singleton to go amiss. The grunge-wizard, whose name I now know is “our Kenny” – a very scouse title if I do say – introduced me to his side kick, a skinnier lad who’d have been cute if some of his anecdotes didn’t remind me of the kinds of shenanigans my gramps had told me about. We chatted for a bit and I remember having a warm moment of “oh, so *this* is human connection. I now get it!”

Then the weird got turned up a bit. Kenny pulled a face. “are you okay?” I ask him as he strikes the universe with a glance like he’s realised his ex had walked into the room and the oven was still on at his apartment at the same time. “yeah, I’m … sensitive to energy. Some bad energy went into the room” he justified, asking the bartender for her input. She was an older woman, striking eye make up and a constellation of charms around her wrists and neck, I have decided because the bar was called Jupiter’s after hades, and the woman was a pagan (hence Kenny asking about energies etc) that she is the Persephone. “oh don’t worry, he does this. he’s recently got some … newer beliefs” his friend explained non-challantly as Kenny stroked the air like he was in a Florence and the machine video.

“so the last train is at about half 11, the one after that is 6ish” I explained “do I go hard or do I go home?” This later lead to me deciding FUCK IT! I’LL STAY TIL 6. But, to be fair to the lads who I was drinking with, they did keep an eye on the clock and one of them offered to make sure I got to the station okay. “one last pub before the train, its only around the corner. Posthouse” he propositioned, dropping some trivia about the posthouse being the only gay bar in Liverpool with a signed photo from Adolf Hilter. I nodded pretending to listen and Kenny gave me a weird look. “you did not just say ‘oh nice’ about Adolf Hilter?” it was then that I realised what was going on. “Wait … you said Hitler???”

So we went, and its there that we met Dan, our 3^rd companion for the night. He was Scottish with an accent that sounded like smooth whisky against drunk ears. We talked about accents, until I discovered he was part of a Scottish gay rugby team. “how many have you shagged the way through?” I joked. He actually stopped and counted. Apparently getting a load of testosterone filled young homosexual men into a confined space for a week gets things to turn a tad … Olympic village-y. I added it to the bucket list.

I explained my situation. Go hard or go home. half 11 or 6ish? Before agreeing to carry on until 6. If nothing else it’s a story. In the next bar I asked the scot about his open relationship, which was fun, until I discovered that one of the more drunk of our party thought mahogany was the opposite of monogamy. I had to tipsily explain that one was only dating one person, the other is a type of wood.

By bar four I met Mohammed. At this point the scot and the scouser were very intensely, drunkenly kissing, and Kenny had vanished. So I chatted to the Arabian guy at the bar. He was cute, well dressed with a Marylin Monroe beauty spot, immaculate hair, and teeth like UV lights. except he went from 0 to wanting a relationship in the mere hours I’d known him.  it started off with his relief about me not being weirded out by his name and his arabian background, and evolved into incredibly heavy kissing on his side, until I essentially had to give him a quiet reality check that I was off home in under 6 hours.

After hours dancing, dodging trouble, waiting for the trains to start back up again, and enduring my friends very heavily making out with one another I managed to fight my way back to bed. Just goes to show there are wacky and interesting people in all sorts of places, even if you have to get stranded in Liverpool to meet them.

student pride, london, and camden market

I’m staring out the coach window and I’m tired. My hair is a mess, my nails are a chipped barely there blue, and I’m clutching overpriced WH smiths notes paper because the mere concept of writing this down and not having to wait is worth the sting of the credit card. London has left me in a state of tired where I’m somehow desperate for both sleep and company yet starved of both. But lets start from the beginning.

I was speaking to an acquaintance of mine that I hadn’t seen in a while, and he mentioned in passing “student pride,” A London event they did every year. This seed, once planted managed over the course of a month to snowball into coach tickets and a hostel booked for the weekend, helped along by “maybes” from my actual friends that became no’s swiftly after I booked it.

So the week rolls around and I’m suffering extra shifts at work with London as the light at the end of the tunnel. Four days of minimum wage and a 6 hour bus journey later I arrive in London, my phone basically a zombie from the music I was listening to. It was there that I witnessed the first blow London had to offer. A 20 person hostel with triple bunkbeds and thick curtains lining each bunk. The bed itself resembled a crashmat from primary school and the bedsheets were thick enough to block out radiation. I shrugged it off, you get what you paid for and the room was £14 a night. It wasn’t like I was planning to spend much time there.

The acquaintance, Marcus, summons me via text for help with set up. So I turn up and after some chuckle brother-esque near misses we finally met. A short, half Asian man, He was in a canary yellow get up. He had a track record for wearing outlandish clothes. Last time I saw him there was a croptop involved. He lead me downstairs and gave me a drive by tour before starting with a few of the lighter jobs. I followed in an unsure haze. “you don’t need to follow me around like a lost puppy” he offered, before dishing out the easier jobs for me. I smiled and made small talk, doing what I was told. “what’s your tee shirt size?” he questioned among the banter. “medium, why?” I responded, feeling the bane of surprise labour encase me. “we need ticketers and since you wanted to help” he trailed off. This wasn’t what I signed up for, how did this happen?

I nodded along under the pretence of free tee shirts and preferential treatment … except I  left my tee at the party and forgot to give myself the discounts I originally paid for and was put in charge of dishing out.

It was also here that I saw my first genderless bathroom in public (not including disabled toilets etc.) I did a double check, not wanting to get caught out, “you said unisex earlier … you meant the toilet not just the tee shirt, right?” I received a pitying look, one that said poor naïve gayby. “it’s a gay bar, they know your probably joining the girls in the loo for sexy reasons” he justified. I shrugged, I never cared about the whole gendered bathroom debate. Nothing actually sexy has ever happened in the loo.

At that note I shake the thoughts of escape out of my head like an etch-a-sketch and remind myself of the yes theory mantra of seek discomfort, before finally the army of netted twinks and artsy lesbians baked in glitter came in. It was a Britney spears based zombie hoard and I - having had half an hour of notice and no training - did my best.

When the Cardiff lot arrived, I said hi and hid into my “pleb clothing” (as my drunken self described them) and began to mingle awkwardly. It was like getting blood from a stone. They only vaguely remembered me, and those who did knew me as a friend’s plus one, which lead to some goofy instagramable photos and conversations that had the substance of packing foam. Needless to say they did a French exit on me by accident. but I was eager to adventure on regardless. It wasn’t my first time solo travelling and it probably won’t be my last.

So I rock up at heaven (the club) and realise my lack of pink “free entry” wristband. Fuck! I queued up, and a slightly troubling number of security checks later I was in.  It was warehouse-y, the way a club in Budapest was … except for triple the amount of Britney. Not even good Britney either. So I explore, I dance, I loiter, until halfway through “I don’t care” the song by Icona pop. This slightly blocky looking south Asian (Indian?) dude in a choker and a pretty girl in similar gear begin to dance with me. Friends! I think goofing around, maybe they’ll adopt me.

That was until … at the climax of the song, the choker lad leaned in. I swerved his attempt at a kiss, taken back and he corrected himself before returning to default. He didn’t even know my name. he wasn’t bad looking, just not my usual type… maybe if he actually asked I’d have considered it. I was also propositioned by a more Michael Macintyre looking gentleman tried his luck, which I responded with a cold shoulder that could have frozen a steak. I left for the hostel and after various uber/tube station calamities crashed for a few hours.

On arrival the next morning, the university was completely different. There were strangers in glitter everywhere. I explored, receiving heaps of employment leaflets, charity info, and app recommendations from technicolour clothes and too much glitter. I especially pittied the sexual health people and their advice, which all centred around getting tested every three months and getting preventative medication for sex I wasn’t having. I sat in a chair nook and tried to shake off the brands sensory arms race. Before the trip I joked that “if shit his the fan I’ll run off the Camden” … I didn’t realise that was a Chekov’s gun situation.

So I did, and it was less suffocating, yet I still didn’t quite feel right, so I did as I always do in times of trouble. I called my dad. Just a few minutes did me the world of good. It was refreshing to have a conversation that wasn’t purely transactional. It also began to dawn on me that the solo teen pity party I was having sounded like an angsty teen 2000s emo song.

After breathing in the energy of Camden market I returned to the event, caught a snippet of some song cover and the tail end of the Ian mckellen interview, but I was too exhausted to take in his witty banter. I also swore that if I had to endure one more gaga/Britney song I’d have to deck the DJ. Why couldn’t the gays like indie songs? Just give me one queer indie bar. One.

After a wholefoods pizza slice the size of my face and a grim health drink to wash it down, I found myself visiting Soho. No. I found myself doing laps of it. Partly out of being lost, partly due to the perfect people-watching it provided, with everything from specialist slightly trashy gay underwear to bars with poor young men vogueing in barely any clothing doing what I refuse to refer to as dancing. It was also there (although much later) that I was offered “Charlie” by 4 separate strangers. I’m not even sure what Charlie is, but I bet it gets sold by the gram.

Back at heaven for round 2 and I notice someone, a girl in maroon perched by herself. I began chatting and she bantered back a bit. she was taller than most, mid 20s, and kind of librarian-ish looking. Judging by the facial features I suspected she was transgender (albeit an almost passing one.) A theory that was confirmed by her dealing with curious yet harmless drunken strangers and their questions as I watched in silence. If I wasn’t planning to go below the belt then it really wasn’t my business.

She explained her situation (socially, not biologically) as an employee of the event who came down impulsively from the north for the party and ended up also getting flaked on. We danced awkwardly and laughed. The dynamic was very much like co-workers at a Christmas party. Apparently company is the difference between a good laugh and a flaming hot garbage fire of a party.

After a few hours of mingling and dancing we went our separate ways and I returned to Soho to find a wildly different atmosphere. The aftermath of parties soaked the pavement, the bars were dark, and there was drunken merriment from strangers, finally I head home.

***

The final morning I was defeated. I used an old tee shirt as a makeshift towel and try to have a calmer day. I learned a few things that morning, 1. Gay bookshops are a weird combination of ivory tower activism and 90s smut with monochrome abs on them, 2. I would make a killing as an ancient roman, 3. Soho has always stayed the same, there have always been cross dressers and scandals since before the Victorians*. Which leaves me to the mocha stained, slightly smelly mess on the coach.

 

*weirdly enough apparently cross dressing was legal, sodomy wasn’t. proving it was a whole thing

But the chaos didn’t stop there. I arrived in Liverpool at midnight, my phone died and the trains weren’t running. Stranded at the last hurdle. I asked in a pub and was locked out. I asked elsewhere and cursed the myth of northern hospitality. MACCIES! I grinned, scurrying through the night. It was by the 4^th plug I tried that the security guard kindly informed me that the power to

the sockets went off at night. I kept going. Wincing at the louder, more aggressive strangers.  It was only when a lad throwing sweets at his friend noticed my distain that fear began to settle in. was I stranded? Was I gonna get murdered at midnight in the north? Then I saw pink! (and no, the accidental theme is not lost on me.) a dessert place? Fast food? They let me charge my phone, and with an extremely pricey black cab I managed to do home one minute short of a Britney style break down.

lipsync battle 2019

Its 9:00 on a Saturday night and I’m staring myself down in the mirror, a whipping of silvery blue against my cheek, a bangle remnant of the early 2000s, and the plainest white tee shirt I could find. Queen blaring through the speakers as I pat the beat of “we will rock you” against any surface I can find. I crown myself with an inflatable crown (which I looked almost too perfect in) and switch from stoic rocker to a sassier Avril Lavigne tune, giving it an enthusiasm that might be considered “a bit much” in most other situations. Complete with a black and blue wig loaned from a friend who used to have issues with her hair. It looked perfect and slapped me in the face every time I moved, but it would do.

So I turn up at the event, dressed in my britpop attire and lashings of silver jewellery, before being confronted with my rivals. There was a Latina drag queen who I mistook for Egyptian on the night, and a young skinny black guy in a cap. The entrance stamps me through and we get ushered to the DJ booth for a proper sign in. There stood Wanda, the local drag queen whom I never expected to be a reoccurring character in my life, in a glitterbomb 80s one-piece gown thing and a foot tall wig. She smiled warmly and herded the ragtag gaggle of contestants towards the VIP corner, where her henchman, a third year uni student and Rosies worker, gathered us free drinks and the reality began to sink in. 

I hadn’t made it this far last time. I watched my rivals move to whatever was playing, it wasn’t too bad. Was it? My stomach was filled with free liquor and uncertainty, not quite fear. Did I choose good songs for the vibe? Or could I get a more bombastic response from a Janelle Monae song or something by the Vegaboys? No. it would be fine. People would be too drunk to care anyway. If I couldn’t recall half the terrible karaoke that happens at my weekly karaoke night, then no ones gonna remember a mediocre lipsync from that one nightclub that one time.

Wanda announced the 5 minute warning for contestants, and I sip my cocktail clean, sliding the inflatable crown from my bag yet leaving the wig as a big finale. Queen first. Wig later. As I blow it up, I clock a glimmer of concern dance through the other competitors eyes, not quite fear from the queen, but “oh shoot, he’s got more tricks than I realised”, the black guy on the other hand looked like a train had just zoomed past and caught him off guard. Finally the hostess returns and announces the event, demonstrating the rules with her mute rendition of “I cant sing live,” and throwing in a few quips about Cheryl Cole. The Arabian went first, the violin intros to Toxic by Britney spears filling the room and a fairly simple beginning happened. Okay. I can handle this. she even stops “singing” when she turns around sometimes, that’s gotta be worth a point deduction. I thought. Then halfway through the song she tears off her black wraparound dress thing and reveals a sequinned red number, before doing at least a dosen pole dancing moves I could never have the core/upper body strength for. Fuck, I curse mentally. Fuck fuckity fuckwits. Well even if she’s gonna destroy me I’ll at least give her a fight.

The violins faded and I was called up using my full name. for some reason being “Matthew” feels slightly more jarring than “Matt”. I enter in my jacket with my inflatable crown, and begin to drum to the iconic beat. The lyrics came, and I have never been luckier to pick up the background radiation of my brothers elocution lessons. I noiselessly shouted the lyrics, throwing my hands up into rocker signs and nodded along with as much charisma as I could muster, sometimes throwing in claps for good measure. By the final verse of “somebody better put you back into your place” I had no choice. I had to sell the show. I tossed my crown into the crowd with a flourish into the abyss and began air guitaring. People loved free stuff from the stage, right?

The 3^rd contestant went, the young black man. He acted to Chris Brown, at one point leaving the stage to try and pull. I smirked in relief. At least I’d make round two hopefully. Although to be fair he did manage to dance with a pretty girl for a couple of minutes so the trade off was understandable. Wanda announced the people who stayed for round 2, which were me and Diana the arabian, before lovingly despatching the young wannabe rapper with a quip about maybe having his friends take him to cruise (a lesser, slightly chavvier nightclub and Rosies’ rival.) before setting Diana up again, freshly changed, into a Ru Paul’s drag race song that made me sigh in angst, but also slight relief.

Her second performance was slipping a bit, no gymnastics and a song that barely vibed with the room. Did she strike out with her first song? Maybe I did stand a chance, I drunkenly thought, still glowing from the power of the performance. I could see how famous people could get addicted to it in the right light. Hero worship makes a great pick me up. I was hungry for round two, for a rematch. Lets see what I could do.

My name was shouted once more, and I put the wig on from behind my back gracelessly, taking Wanda by genuine surprise. “you look like my sister” she gasped legitimately. I translated that as successfully looking like an angsty 2000s pop punk teen girl*. The first few notes kicked off and I fully went for it, getting rewarded for my flirty winks and gestures out to the audience by a roar of approving cheers and participation. I threw in a few interesting hip moves that I’m sure sober Matt should never witness, ever, followed by a chin framing motion and a finger wiggle that as I listen to the song while writing this I am discovering has been trained into my subconscious. Curiously, it the more “laddy” guys who seemed to be the most enthusiastic about the song.

The final scores came up and Wanda prepared to measure it by applause. I threw in a tongue in cheek line about having student loans to pay. There was a roar for Diana and whimper for me, then a roar for both that completely scrambled the data. I arched an eyebrow. Maybe I could walk home with the money. “since the cheers seem to be incredibly similar, lets take it to our volunteer judges who aren’t payed by stonegate (the business that paid everyones bills). The microphone went to the DJ booth, with a plucky young rugby lad behind it and a stand in DJ. Both in Xfactor style, dramatically paused. “Diana” the first one admitted. “now remember, if (rugby player) says Diana she goes to the final, if he says Matthew then we need a tiebreaker.” 

My eyes lit up at that sentence. Please please please please please I begged mentally. Rugby made a pained expression. Maybe we were going to have an unplanned tiebreaker, that would have tipped the scale surely. “Diana” he gasped. I clapped and settled. a close second. I could live with that. I received a runner up kopperberg on Wanda’s tab, and her private admission that she preferred my act. I barely cared, I was drunk and riding the highs of performance all the way to my local bar before home before 1am.

*Within two hairflicks I discarded the wig and continued. Those things are a liability.