Leeds Festival, Day 3, Part the Second: Let's Watch This World Explode

We headed in search of food. Specifically, a stonebaked pizza. There was a huge queue, which is always the way. The only van that doesn't have a huge queue is the "Goodness Gracious Healthy Foods" vegan stall. Here, all was chaos and order as people with flour in their hair ran around throwing dough about and yoicking pizzas in and out of ovens. I ordered one with butternut squash on, and it was delicious.

With time to kill, I joined A in seeing Noah and the Whale - the deal being that I saw them with her, and she saw My Chemical Romance with me. I'd never seen them before and was curious. And they were very, very good. The turnout was fantastic. We were stood near the back, behind two men with matching Bert-and-Ernie-from-Sesame-Street hats, but it did look like the band were thrilled by the crowd, and made every effort to give them a good time. We jumped up and down, we sang along to "Bohemian Rhapsody", and I'd discovered a new band.

From the new to the old, as it were; it's somewhat of a surprise to think that My Chemical Romance have been around for ten years. (Possibly not as much of a surprise as it may be for the band, given their previous personal histories.) Leeds and Reading, famously, were when they were bottled by angry Slayer fans. (Gerard Way's take on it: "So I come on stage, I have white hair, I look like a super creep, everything about me screams 'Throw piss at me'...".) They swore that they would not return unless they were headlining, and four years on, here they were, and here was I. Having missed them in 2007, I would have been deeply, deeply, irritated if it had happened again, but it hadn't. And, even better, it wasn't bloody raining.

I had that faint nervousness I usually get around watching My Chemical Romance live, although I was distracted by 30 Seconds To Mars's final show, in which the audience were invited to invade the stage, and did so with gusto, screaming along to a song the name of which I do not know. Gotta say they don't grab me. All was silent... and then, BANG, My Chem were onstage and I forgot all nervousness and tiredness, and prepared to be entertained.

And boy, were we entertained. C, A and I jumped up and down until we spilled our drinks. I have never seen a band give so much to one performance, with the possible exception of Blur at Glastonbury 2009. You could see in their eyes "We are headlining, and fuck it, we will demonstrate that we have got what it takes". (What they didn't have was Brian May, who only showed for Reading, but frankly I didn't care.) A asked wryly if Gerard Way's hair was really that colour. (Me: "The colour depends on what album they're promoting at the time".) It was a brilliant, brilliant gig. The only very minor thing I would have changed is the absence of "Bulletproof Heart", which is probably my favourite My Chem song, but you can't have it all.

Back to the WBC village, still riding the high, and we joined in the late-night party in the bar. I drank slightly too much, learned the words to "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones, and we had a great time. One day left, and so far it had been brilliant. Could Pulp knock it out of the park for the trifecta? We could only wait and see!

Leeds Festival Day 3, Part the First: Real Blues and Fake Amy Winehouse

And action. Come Saturday morning, we headed back out in search of breakfast and music, before our midday to 6pm shift kicked off. The catering team were doing sterling work. I told them this. I make a point of doing so each festival; they always look so grateful. Shame they couldn't have made the porridge taste of something - you had to douse it liberally in dried fruit and maple syrup to achieve edibility - but there's a limit to what even miracle-workers can do.

C and A were still ribbing me about last night, when I'd mentioned that I was drinking red wine in tribute to Matt Bellamy, whose favourite drink it is. I maintained that: "Fandom is happening to read an interview in a magazine where he mentioned he likes red wine. Stalkerdom is where you try to find out what sort of wine it was and buy it". (Also, I really like red wine, and find it pleasantly warming at festivals. It also lubricates the creative processes, which is why I'm drinking it, right now.)

C had headed off to meet his mates, who were attending the festival as ordinary folks, leaving A and I to see what was happening. Fortunately, the mud was rapidly drying, and with the festival in full swing, there was music. We headed in the direction of one of the big tents (can't remember if it was the BBC Radio 1 or NME tent, don't care enough to look it up) to experience the delights of "Pulled Apart By Horses", heard what sounded like ten minutes of non-stop screaming emitting from it, and just as swiftly did an about-face and headed in the direction of the other big tent to see a blues band called "She Keeps Bees". This proved to be an up-and-coming American bluesy rock bank, fronted by a down-to-earth woman with blond hair, a demin shirt, and a guitar. Since she could sing, we enjoyed it. (I'm sure "Pulled Apart By Horses" are great, if you're into that sort of thing. I just prefer singing to screaming.)

Alas, good things must end, and bar shifts must begin. We yomped off in search of our bar, stopping on the way to buy a souvenir T-shirt for a friend of A's, a good-natured young lad who apparently once had a bad experience at Leeds involving ketamine. We found a suitable souvenir saying "Ketamine: Just Say Neigh". I pondered buying one, then remembered my rule about not buying stuff at festivals, and joined A on the yomp to the bar.

The bar shift was not too bad. Yet again I must praise the hard work of the other servers and the bar management, who were excellent. Things weren't too bad; busy, but not unmanageable. My nightmare is that I'll accidentally serve someone underage and get fined £80. So far it hasn't happened. Thank God, this year Leeds had decided to give people the option of buying a pink "I'm over 18" wristband for a few quid, which made life infinitely simpler for them and us. We were also visited by two men who apparently felt the need to pay tribute to Amy Winehouse, which made a refreshing change from the legions of students wandering around in full-length cow or horse outfits. I was so impressed I took a picture.

Between that, the odd fifteen minutes here and there spent listening to the acts on the main stage (nothing you'd want to write home about) and the odd break at the back of the bar, the shift passed pleasantly. I say pleasantly. Our bar was near the "fairground" area of the bar, meaning that all breaks were punctuated every minute by a giant fairground ride whirling overhead to the accompaniment of frenzied screaming. (Watching the ride to see which of us could spot the most terrified face on it soon became a favourite pastime among off-duty bar staff.) For some reason, they didn't insist that people take their shoes off before going on the ride, meaning the breaks were spiced with the low-level concern that at any minute a welly might fly off and wang you in the head. It didn't happen, I'm pleased to report.

We survived our six hours without £80 fines or being hit by flying Wellingtons, collected our drinks tokens, and escaped. I was really happy with how the festival was going - C, A and I were getting along just fine! We had a couple of hours to kill before My Chemical Romance hit the main stage, so there was only one thing for it.

Have a stonebaked pizza, and go and see Noah and the Whale. Of whom more later...

Leeds, Day 2, Part the Third: Soylent Green and Giant Tuning Forks

And now it was Muse's turn to dazzle. Oh, how we looked forward to it. I'd strolled past the stage being tested the day before, and taken some rather blurry photos of giant tuning forks, instantly recognisable to any Muse fan as the image from the CD cover of "Origin of Symmetry", which Muse intended to play in its entirety. This split opinion. Some thought it brave, others pointed out that their most famous tracks ("Hysteria", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Stockholm Syndrome") are from albums 3 and 4 and no-one apart from die-hards can remember what "Screenager" or "Hyper Music" sound like.

Personally I was in favour of it, on the grounds that a band that just gives people what they want is a band doomed to achieve little more in future. Also, let's face it, when you can sell out Wembley Stadium, you're allowed to do things because you can, which I suspect was the logic here (that, and it's ten years since "Origin" came out). I was looking forward to it, even if it did mean that I'd have to stand through "Screenager". I don't hate it as much as a friend of mine hates "I Belong To You" (from "The Resistance"), but it's not my favourite.

We passed the drinks and nibbles around, and chuckled with amusement as "What's He Building In There?" played over the speakers (I later learned this used to be how Muse used to open their gigs) and then, with a roar of sound and a light show, Muse were on stage, and "Newborn"'s opening chords blasted out over the crowd. Instant hysteria, appropriately enough. (Yes, I know that's a cliche.)

It was a good gig, although the crowd was obviously split between the diehards who were lapping up "Citizen Erased" (probably the most Muse of all Muse songs) and those who had turned up hoping for a mosh to "Hysteria" and "Time Is Running Out" and who were standing around looking confused. You could also feel the sigh of relief from the latter as the opening riff from "Plug In Baby" screeched over their heads, and it carried over into "Citizen Erased". Even "Screenager" wasn't too bad, as it was thoughtfully illustrated with a rather amusing cartoon strip, basically the plot of "Soylent Green" in four minutes done in the style of 1950s cereal adverts. And I did enjoy "Darkshines", always a favourite of mine.

After "Feeling Good" finished, it was straight into the mosh, with the old favourites causing everyone to jump up and down and forget about the mud. (A asked me "Is it me, or can you not understand a word he's saying?" after every time Matt Bellamy opened his mouth - not unfairly, I've never heard anyone so eager to finish talking to the audience and get straight back into throttling a guitar - the contrast with Guy Garvey couldn't be much bigger!) Definitely more of a gig for the fans, then, but a great one.

Leeds Day Two, Part the Second: Whacking the Hell Out of a Snare Drum

And we ate quickly, then returned to the Main Stage to enjoy Elbow and Muse. Let me say that again. Elbow and Muse. I like saying that. Two of my favourite bands in one sentence. Elbow and Muse. (Okay, I'll stop now.)


I was slightly... well, apprehensive is over-stating it, since I really think Guy Garvey's charm has taken on the power of a force of nature, but I was interested, let's say, to see how Elbow would cope with the Leeds crowd, particularly that part of it which had been hanging around in the mud for hours in the hope of getting prime position for Muse. I need not have worried, since their patented opener of ambling on stage, fag in mouth, pint glass raised aloft, is usually guaranteed to win the crowd. (I'm reminded of the tale of the journalist who went to interview Elbow in a pub before a gig, and ended up staying there with them for most of the afternoon. Towards the end, he looked at his watch and muttered "Bloody hell, aren't you on in an hour?" The band nodded and made to leave. Catching his stare at the table littered with empties, Garvey apparently looked at him, winked and replied "Don't worry - we haven't gone on stage sober in 16 years".)


If anything, Elbow were probably what the crowd really needed, even if they didn't know it. I'd read an interview before hand in which Guy Garvey stated they were going to "do the cheesy festival stuff", and there was certainly plenty of "this section of the crowd, cheer loudly... now this section cheer EVEN LOUDER... now let's all wave our hands in the air", but this was no bad thing given the risk of incipient hypothermia. Also, Elbow these days have The Songs. Everyone knows "One Day Like This", which may well be one of the best closing tunes ever, in my entirely biased opinion, but "Neat Little Rows" and "Grounds for Divorce" are bloody good, especially with the light show going off at full blast behind them and Garvey whacking the hell out of a snare drum.


Appropriately enough, though, given that it's the song Elbow fought to play live on the BBC after winning the Mercury, "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" was The Moment. You don't tend to hear about "Leeds Moments" in the same way as "Glastonbury Moments" (or "Reading Moments" either - funny how being at Leeds makes you feel like the poor relation), but this was it. It is still the song that gets me every time when I listen to "Seldom Seen Kid", and I swear I saw the entire crowd at Leeds staring open-mouthed at the stage, temporarily transported by the sheer force of emotion coming from the stage. After that (and this is not a sentence I type often), Muse had a hard act to follow. Next time...

Leeds Day 2, Part the First: The Mud Has Reached Glastonbury Proportions

And it rained.

It rained, it rained, and then it rained some more. It rained during the night, it rained when we woke up, it took a brief pause in the morning, and then it rained the rest of the day.

We filled in the morning hours by seeing Mark Thomas recounting his tale of walking along the Palestinian – Israeli wall, and nearly being shot by the Israeli army. It was told with great vigour and amusement. After that, we turned up our hoods, tucked in our trousers, donned our T-shirts and trekked back to the Main Stage bar to start our noon to six shift.

Rarely have I ever been so glad at a festival to be working. At least for six hours we were inside a sturdy, waterproof tent with ready access to a toilet and some hot drinks. I’ve never served so many people who looked at risk of incipient hypothermia. By the end of the shift at 6pm, I was ready to start handing out blankets and hot water bottles to people instead of pints of Tuborg.

We had the usual cider saga of faulty machines, although given the rain, it’s not surprising. I vividly remembered my first Glastonbury, when the rain knocked out all the MDUs on site. The only drink we had for sale was the real ale, since you pour it from a cask. I’ll bet the real ale suppliers were very happy that year.

I also vividly remembered the other reason I like Glastonbury: big tents and lots of coffee and bar tents. Admittedly Leeds has lots of big tents, but it’s short on bar and coffee tents, which is a problem in this weather – people need somewhere to sit and chill out – or in this case warm up – and hide from the rain.

Still, we did have two big things to look forward to, a) Elbow and b) Muse. Two of my favourite bands of all time. We ate pizza, and then headed to take up our places in front of the stage.

Leeds Day 1, Part the Third: The View From Up Here

Again, my team bravely faced the Demons of Poor Organisation and Poor Timekeeping. Yup, we ended up as the only team on the bar. Three of us in one of the busiest bars on site. All credit to the bar management, who pitched in with a will, but we stayed on for two extra hours, and the team supposed to be relieving us failed to turn up despite the manager’s increasingly desperate radios to the site office.

After two extra and highly frantic hours, we’d finally had enough and left the unfortunate bar management staff to cope. There’s a limit to how long you can keep going on your feet with no break and no food. We reached ours, and left in search of food, which we found in the form of a Thai curry in the main arena. I’m usually good at truffling out the food stalls on site that make food out of actual ingredients, and my nose had not deserted me.

A curry and a pint later, we roamed throughout the site, vaguely intending to get into the Silent Disco tent, but the massive queue put us off. A and C headed for the Beer Company bar, and I took a ride on the Ferris Wheel, which I’ve always rather wanted to do. We rendez-voused for a quick pint and check of the weather forecast on C’s smartphone (not promising), then fell into our tents and fell asleep.

Leeds Day 1, Part the Second: Die, Stripy Bastards, Die

We strolled off the coach, attached our backpacks to ourselves, and staggered off in search of the WBC person who was handing out the badges and directions. Having acquired both, we yomped off across the site to the WBC camping village. As is the inevitable way of these things, it was at the other end of the site. By the time we’d got there, my shoulders felt they had fused together in the middle.

Fortunately, the sun was out, the grass was dry, and it was perfect tent-putting-up weather. We carefully selected a spot based on my past experience (“Not too near the bar because it’s always noisy, not too far away from the toilets or we’ll have long walks in the middle of the night, not too near the toilets or it’ll stink by Saturday and everyone will fall over our tents in the middle of the night”). We chose to volunteer for an extra bar shift in the Campsite Bar, and set off to acquire some lunch and explore the site prior to our shift.

Leeds hadn’t changed too much from what I remember in 2006, although sadly our campsite back in those days was much nearer the coach park! We ate pizza for lunch at what I’m pretty sure was the same pizza stall I ate my first lunch at at my first Leeds festival. (If I can remember this, how come I can’t remember where I hid the spare shed key last year?) The sun was out, the crowds were roaming, and the site was not yet covered in litter.

It may be apparent that my love for Leeds is somewhat less than my love for Glastonbury. This is largely due to the fact that frankly, I find Leeds a bit boring during the day. At Glastonbury, there is always something interesting or strange happening somewhere. At Leeds, it’s all about the bands and the alcohol, which is great in principle, but a bit dull in practice unless you get lucky and find lots of bands you like.


(Actually, for many people it’s also all about the drugs, the sex in tents and the fights, with added possibility of setting fire to stuff at the end. For us, the first isn’t our thing, the second would have required our other halves to be present, the third was unlikely to happen unless someone really kicked off behind the bar, and the fourth was unlikely to happen unless it got really cold!) This is particularly an issue if, like us, you can’t drink much during the day due to having to stay sober for your bar shifts.

As 5pm rolled around, we headed to the Campsite bar for our first shift. It is a source of some amusement to me that the WBC makes (rightly) a big fuss about briefing its teams, but that at least half the teams I’ve taken to festivals over the years have done their first shift (ever) with no briefing at all, since we always volunteer for the extra-day shifts. This was no exception.

Luckily, both C and A displayed unflappable calm, and got the hang of it with great speed. Although there was some flapping, as the hot weather and the sticky spilled drinks attracted every wasp in a 5-mile radius. We had some quite effective wasp traps, but most of us got stung at least once. I’m normally a peaceful human being, but by the end of the shift, I was standing in front of the wasp traps watching the little buggers flap their last in stale Irn-Bru and shrieking “Die, stripy bastards, die!”

Ah yes, the end of the shift. There’s a tale….

Leeds Day 1, Part the First: Thanks A Bunch, Ricky Wilson

And here I am again, writing up my trip to one of the UK’s many music festivals – in this instance, Leeds, where once again I was leading a team of intrepid volunteers to serve pints behind a bar for six hours a day to raise funds for our trade union. As myself and the other two members of my team, A and C, dozed gently on the National Express coach to Bramham Park, I found myself reflecting on the last time I was at Leeds Festival.

It was back in 2006, the last year there was no Glastonbury Festival. (There will be none next year either, due to a) their needing to give the site a rest, b) it being impossible to get Portaloos for love nor money next summer due to the London Olympics.) I was jointly leading a team of ten intrepid volunteers to raise funds for our union’s regional Young Members network. This was also the year that marked the beginning of my education in why it is unwise to trust people you haven’t met to turn up and volunteer.

Two of my potential twelve volunteers dropped out the night before due to illness and childcare problems, which was fair enough. Another asked to travel separately to the rest of the group, turned up, collected her pass, and didn’t work the festival; we never saw her again. There were other members I hadn’t met before they turned up at the coach station; looking back, it’s amazing that things worked out at all. (Since then I insist on character references for people from their line managers, and that the team meets for a briefing and travels together. I also hit people from the start with the “you have to commit to it months in advance, you’ll be on your feet for seven hours a day, and if you serve alcohol to under-18s, you’ll be paying an £80 fine” approach. It may be tough but it well works.)

Apart from that, I remember good things of Leeds 2006, funnily enough. Except for one of the bar managers, who was universally hated by everyone in the bar. He opened his account with us by being found in the bar we did our late-night shift on the Thursday in, lying in the bar’s rest area claiming to be too drunk to stand up. He then bossed everyone around for the rest of the week, to the extent that even I wanted to dot him with a trayful of twelve pints of stale lager.

Oh yeah, apart from that… I remember seeing Franz Ferdinand in my 20-minute rest break (I snuck out of the back of the tent and into the arena to get a better view), who were great. I also remember trying to force my way into the NME tent to see the Kooks. The crush was so bad that we made no progress, until eventually someone yelled “Sod the bloody Kooks, let’s get out of here.” I took their advice and shoved my way back out of the tent and back towards air. It was at this point I realised I had lost all my team, no-one was responding to my text messages, and I was facing the prospect of spending the entire Friday night on my own… until suddenly one of them appeared in front of me. Our catching sight of each other must have been a thousand-to-one chance, but it happened. The rest of the night was fun.

This was also where the famous “I Predict a Riot” event occurred. We were on the main stage bar. It could just be that at the time I was less experienced a bar worker and thought the crowd was worse than it actually was… but I remember queues ten deep at the bar and servers tripping over each other running around the bar. The MDUs pour twelve pints at a bar, and the trays literally would not touch the table before people snatched the pints out of them and dashed off. At the time, we had cup holders that would hold six pints at a time, and people would order two or three of them at a time to save having to come back to the bar. I was trying to fill one, waiting at the table for the machine to pour, when the harassed person on it yelled “It’s only doing three pints at a time! Sorry!”.

I turned round and caught sight of the queue for the first time. I could not see daylight between their heads, they were so closely packed together.

And then, with perfect timing, the Kaiser Chiefs struck up with “I Predict a Riot”. Thanks a bundle, Ricky Wilson.

Funnily enough, I discovered at Leeds 2011 that my memories are wrong. I’ve actually seen Muse not three times, but four; I saw them at Leeds 2006. This was before I really became a Muse-head though.

This time around, things were different. I deliberately gave up my place at Glastonbury 2011 to go to Leeds, which was not an easy choice. (I’m entitled to one place at one festival each year as a reward for doing the organising.) But when the festival headliners are Muse, My Chemical Romance and Pulp, supported by Elbow… well, when your four favourite bands are headlining, there can be only one choice, even when you love Glastonbury as much as I do.

The coach bumped its way into the coach park, and we hopped off into blazing sunshine.

Bottlefed Ferrets (Newcastle Green Festival)

...I then wandered toward the bar, drank a half of exceptionally bitter beer (maybe “endured” is more the word), and listened to a local band. Continuing the trend started in 2003, lunch took the form of a slice of pizza from the StoneBakedPizza van, which was doing a roaring trade. I’d managed to come out with only £20, there were no cash machines onsite, and I couldn’t be bothered to wander off into town and find one, so it was a bit like being a student again and having to account for every penny. (Something my bank manager would be happy to see me do, no doubt.)

My accounting for every penny took me around several stalls, where I purchased a keyring and dodged people wanting me to buy secondhand books and sign petitions for things I don’t know enough about. Since shopping wasn’t on the agenda, I strolled past a woman bottlefeeding a ferret in the rest tent(1), and headed in the direction of the other music stage.

Here was the festival vibe, if you take the view that festival vibe consists of ramshackle wooden music stages watched by teenagers in black with bottles of cider, and adults with dreadlocks (and also bottles of cider). Having been to quite a few festivals in my time, that tends to be my view, and I should know because I’m often the one selling the cider. Albeit at this festival I thought it unlikely that anyone would be selling pints to two men in full Victorian British Army officer uniform, and their pal in a gorilla suit, as once happened to me in Glastonbury.

Still, people were decidedly Having A Good Time, pogoing up and down to some white-guy reggae played by several men from Cambridge with dreadlocks. Even better, there was a tea tent nearby. Or possibly a tea yurt. Either way, it had hot drinks and buns for sale, and I ordered a coffee and a cupcake. (Don’tcha love British festivals? You can’t part the British from their buns.) The man behind the counter revealed the secret of the tea yurt’s handsome profits by murmuring “Do you want a shot of brandy in that?” Answer: yes. I took myself, my cupcake and my slightly alcoholic coffee outside to groove along to the reggae, which was nearing its end, but the band refused to go quietly.

With the security staff giving them increasingly hard glares (and the police stood behind them watching the situation with expressions of “we’ll see how this pans out”), they launched into an encore, wisely choosing a song with a refrain even the thoroughly pissed could sing: “In my TREEEHOUSE, in my TREEEEEEHOOOOUSE”, so that by the time the security staff finally yanked the wires, everyone was providing the chorus. It was as close to the communal spirit of a music festival as I’ve got in some time, and I wished, not for the first time nor the last time this year, that I’d made it to Glastonbury. It was the right decision not to go, but it wasn’t an easy one. Still, I’m looking forward to Leeds. As the festivalgoers strolled out of the park in the rain (“In my TREEEHOUSE, in my TREEEEEEHOOOOUSE”), I smiled, and headed for a rendezvous with my tea.


(1) Yes, really. I don’t need to make weird stuff up for this blog. I just go into Newcastle.

Hanging with the Hippies: Newcastle Community Green Festival

Back in June this year, I wandered on down to the Newcastle Community Green Festival at the weekend, late on Sunday afternoon. I’d hoped to get there earlier, but life got in the way, as it is wont to do.

Now in its 16th incarnation, the Green Festival and I have a long history, going back to 2002, when I first attended it in Exhibition Park with my university boyfriend at the time. I remember the sun shone and we had fun. In contrast, in 2003 I was staffing a stall on climate change with a friend from the university’s People and Planet environment campaigning group (having since broken up with the boyfriend), and it chucked it down all day. It rained to the point that a regular occurance involved sticking your head out of the marquee, yelling “Watch out!”, and then poking the tent roof with a broomstick to tip the water that was collecting in it onto the ground. I also remember watching live poetry, the joy of trying to carry a massive display board between two people all the way from Exhibition Park to Central Station and back to Durham, then eating a much-needed pizza when I got back home.

Since then, I’ve attended when I can, a highlight being when I and some friends spent a sunny afternoon there back around 2008 when it moved to Leazes Park, when the sun shone, they had a live dance music stage, and a streaker entertained everyone by running into the pond and staying there doing laps whilst the police waited for him on the shore. There was no festival in 2009 due to “financial irregularities”. I know someone who knows the organisers, and her verdict was “corruption never, possible financial confusion with the paperwork – yes”. Anyway, the festival is now back on, and I went along to enjoy.

This time around I was on my own, which didn’t particularly trouble me. I strolled on up to Leazes Park on a grey and slightly drizzly Sunday afternoon, and said hello to a friend who was staffing the Newcastle Cycling Campaign stall... (TBC)

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the Fourth

The other best cure for seasickness is to jump in the sea. Since it’s caused by confusion between the signals for the eye and the inner ear balance mechanism, being in the sea, and thus moving with it, cures this. Hence the oft-recommended cure for seasick divers – “Just go on the next dive” – is not born entirely of heartlessness. (Although there may be an element of that among the more gung-ho instructors.) And yes, you can throw up through a scuba regulator mouthpiece underwater, though I imagine it’s not much fun.

The first batch of divers kitted up for the second dive, and jumped in. Two of them promptly jumped back out again; a diver from Edinburgh whose drysuit was leaking badly, and A, who threw up at the bottom and promptly decided he didn’t fancy half an hour’s swimming around and puking through a reg (since the cause in this case was an OD on brandy, jumping into the sea didn’t cure him).

L decided that he would take A’s place on the dive, and jumped in, leaving me with J as my dive buddy. As I kitted up, I wondered balefully if this was L’s idea of revenge over the failure-to-stop-vanishing-banana incident.

We submerged as fast as was safe. In answer to a frequently asked question, yes, you can (and we do) dive when it’s raining, but it’s not ideal for two reasons, even though we are planning to submerge ourselves entirely in water: a) rain and wind stir up the sea and lower the visibility, and the lack of light means photos don’t come out so well, b) it’s one thing to be entirely surrounded by water, and another to be bobbing about on the surface getting cold water repeatedly blown into your face. Think of the difference between swimming in the pool and getting caught in a winter downpour without an umbrella. It’s like that.

This dive immediately looked more promising. The vis was not brilliant as we were relatively near the shore, so the surge (waves going back and forth overhead) was pushing a bit of sand around, but the light was a bit better and there was immediately more to see. More plants, more fish, more rocks, and less depth, so more light to see them. Also, a welcome absence of the slightly sick feeling I’d had in the pit of my stomach. It was so mild I hadn’t realised I had it, until I submerged and it went away. (It may not surprise anyone that it was whilst diving off Eyemouth that I developed my habit of singing “I Feel Better” by Hot Chip to cheer myself up during surface intervals.)

We happily paddled about hunting for lumpsuckers. It was an interesting experience, which I’m tempting to say was a bit like diving in a washing machine, albeit the sea didn’t actually spin us around! I don’t particularly mind diving in a bit of surge or current, as it’s quite fun playing with the sea. (Albeit a wise diver never ever forgets that the sea is bigger than you are, stronger than you are, doesn’t get tired, and has no affection for you whatsoever.)

Suddenly, J spotted it. There, beneath a rock, was a flash of pink in the sandy water. I promptly swam on over, and was rewarded with a sight I’d never seen before: a lumpsucker guarding its eggs. As you can see from the photo, the “lump” part of the name is apt. They must be one of the least hydrodynamic creatures in the sea.

As for the “sucker” part, the lumpsucker has an interesting reproductive cycle. They normally inhabit deeper waters than most divers venture into, but during spring, the lumpsuckers migrate into the shallower and warmer waters near the shore to lay and fertilise their eggs.

The female lumpsucker then thinks to herself “bugger this child-rearing lark, I’m off”, and swims back into the deeper waters, leaving the male lumpsucker to guard the eggs, which are attached to rocks near the shoreline. The male then attachs himself to a rock near the eggs to defend them and keep them oxygenated by finning water over them. Since the eggs are on rocks near the shore, the swell of the tide going in and out would dislodge the male, were it not for the part that his ventral fins (the fins just below the head) form a sucker, which he uses to firmly anchor himself.

I was extremely excited by this sighting. I enjoy the sensation of diving in itself, but for me an extra-good dive is when I see something I haven’t seen before. The photo I took can be seen above. We paddled around the rocks some more, then headed on back to the boat for the journey home and a hot chocolate. Several toasted sarnies in the harbour café afterwards, and we were on our way home from the Boat of Puking Divers.

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the Third

B sat with his arms folded.

“Why aren’t you going back in?” I asked, as I attempted to make myself a coffee whilst not acquiring a burn on my left arm to match the one on my right (the result of an accident with a kettle earlier this year); no easy feat when the boat is pitching around.

“It’s cold.”

This surprised me, as B is by no means a fair-weather diver. Then it occurred to me. “Didn’t you just get back from the Phillipines?”

He gave me a look of deepest gloom. If you imagine the expression of people who have just arrived back on the plane from Florida in August wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals only to look out of the plane window and see black skies and hurling rain, multiplied by a factor of ten, you’ve more or less got it. “Yup.”

“’Scuse me.”

This was not B, but A, another regular dive buddy of mine. A suddenly stood up and dashed past me to join the other divers on the puking side of the boat*. This also surprised me, since I’ve never seen A throwing up on the boat.

“What’s up with him?”

“Two bottles of wine and a brandy last night.”

“No sympathy then.”

“’Scuse me.”

B pushed past me to join A. This was becoming a pattern. I looked through the wildly-lurching porthole, and counted five people throwing up over the side. This was something of a record, which J, the senior divemaster pointed out with slightly more relish than was necessary. I decided to go outside myself; I’m not usually cursed with seasickness (thank you, God), but even I was feeling slightly “off”. The best way to cure this is to sit in the fresh air and look at the horizon, which I did for all of five minutes, before I got fed up with being rained on and decided I could look at the horizon through the entrance to the cabin.

As I wandered in vaguely thinking about a Mini Roll, J was asking “Does this banana belong to anyone?”

I looked across. “Yes, it’s L’s,” I replied, somewhat pointlessly since half the banana was well on its way to become part of J. I sincerely hoped this meant L wasn’t going to be suffering on our next dive. I can’t say that I was exactly looking forward to the dive – I was having visions of the warm seas, clear water, and sunshine I hoped to encounter on my upcoming summer holiday in Crete** – but it did have the great advantage that it would take us away from the boat of puking divers.



* There is a system for this, and it’s mentioned in the PADI Manual, believe it or not. You go to the leeward side of the boat (leeward = if you stand on that side facing towards the sea, the wind is blowing on the back of your head, not the front – windward is the other way around), and throw up over the side, the theory being that the wind will blow it away from both you and the boat. Which makes sense, since if there’s one thing guaranteed to add insult to injury when you’ve just thrown up, it’s getting it all blown back in your face. (The PADI Manual also helpfully adds: “Stay out of the head [toilet] – that’s about the worst place to go”).

** Correctly, as it turned out. Watch this space.

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the Second

I cannot say that the first dive out of Eyemouth was the most visually interesting dive I’ve ever done, but in its own way, it had a certain hypnotic calm. Vis was not too bad, and we were at 12-15m. The only real sights were the pale grey rippled sand beneath us, the green water around us, an occasional rock or crab on the bottom, and thousands of small hydroids in the water around us. Hydroids are the free-floating larvae of sea anemones before they attach themselves to rocks, and look like very small jellyfish. It was a surreal experience, but in some ways almost meditative, drifting steadily along with the current and following the divers ahead.

After half an hour, I was mentally taking bets with myself as to how soon it would be before the large male novice diver (LMND) in front of me got towards the reserve on his air tank and we went up*. I interspersed this with the occasional barrel roll to see if my buddy was there, as he had a fondness for swimming about two metres above me. Technically I should have been swimming at the same level he was, but I like to see what’s on the bottom… he told me afterwards that drifting along with the current with only the bottom for reference was giving him nausea and vertigo, and he was happier swimming a bit higher up.

The answer proved to be “not that much longer”. LMND and his buddy started to head upwards, accompanied by a flurry of hand signals from the instructor in charge of the dive. My buddy produced his SMB and deployed it at about 6m whilst we were making a safety stop: it was as well he did it at this depth, as the line attached to the damn thing got tangled around his tank valve, and we did the underwater Untangling Waltz. Buddy and I surfaced with no mishaps and yoicked ourselves back onto the boat (thank god for boats with lifts).

The instructor informed us that his hand signals had been intended to mean “you two can carry on if you want to”. We replied that our actions had been intended to mean “we know, but we don’t want to ‘cause it’s a bit cold and boring, and we fancy a cup of tea and a Mini Roll”.

In search of the aforementioned Mini Roll, I lurched into the cabin – the sea was getting quite choppy – and encountered a shivering, coat-wrapped and be-hatted mass in the form of one of my regular dive buddies, B. B looked up at me and ground out “I’m not going back in there”.

It was going to be one of those mornings.


* Risk factors for going through your air quickly: being a physically large person, being male, and being new (new divers tend to move through the water less efficiently, and waste more air through inflating and deflating their buoyancy jackets). The reserve air is the amount of air everyone on the dive agrees to have left at the end of the dive, usually around 50 bag. You never plan to dive until the tank is empty, for safety reasons – you need the reserve in case something delays you on the way to the surface or one of your buddies runs low on air.

Back Very Soon

I've been writing stuff, believe me, and it will be posted here at the weekend. Until then, in the words of someone much wiser than me...

I Thought There Was A Light At The End of the Tunnel

And it turned out to be some bugger with a torch and some more work, hence the absence of blogging fun. Believe me, I know this blog is littered with half-finished tales, but I shall not give up. With the patience of my friends and enough caffeine I can do anything, so just watch this space until I'm back from holiday in a couple of weeks, and there shall be completed tales, fun and photos. Promise!

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the First

I’ve been diving a lot recently, hence the absence of blogging activity. I’m now a Rescue Diver following a recent trip to Bute, of which more shortly. I’m also doing my Emergency First Response course, basically a First Aid course run through the my local diving centre. Always good for laugh when you have divers pretending to be casualties and two of our senior instructors, J and T, taking the class. T actually works in the health profession and has had cause to do CPR for real on three occasions.

None of them worked out in the way anyone hoped, but apparently this is not uncommon with CPR. (Should this sort of thing happen to you, try to keel over as near to a defibrillator as possible. Apparently the odds of being successfully revived if your heart stops plummet drastically after about six minutes regardless of the quality of the CPR being performed. This little First Aid bulletin brought to you care of CyclingDiver.)

As well as Fun with EFR videos (if you have a macabre sense of humour, the EFR Training Video is not unlike an episode of Casualty with voiceovers), I’ve been jumping off a boat into the North Sea on a regular basis. Specifically, the Scimitar out of Eyemouth harbour. I rather like boat dives as they involve slightly less scrabbling up and down over rocks in full diving kit. My full kit weighs around 25 kilos, and whilst I’m reasonably fit this is still quite a lot of weight to be carrying around.

Instead, you simply stride off the boat, go for the dive, then surface, scrabble onto the boat’s trail line (the rope along the side), haul yourself along the side and stand on the boat lift, which lifts you and deposits you back on the deck just in time for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

At least, this is the theory. My most recent dive was slightly less harmonious than this might suggest. Not, I must add, due to any fault of the excellent captain of the Scimitar, but due to the marvellousness (or lack thereof) of the British weather. Cold and rainy. It rained when we set off from Newcastle, it rained whilst we were driving up there, it rained whilst we were unloading our dive gear from the car to the boat, it rained whilst we were getting changed, and it rained whilst we were on the boat. This did not promise good visibility (see the photo for what the view was like under the water).

Whilst it is true that our hobby involves getting wet, it is a mistake to assume that this means divers are impervious to rain (although it must be said that a wetsuit, semidry suit or dry suit is an excellent choice for standing around in the rain). When you’re in the water, you’re no more aware of the water around you than you are of the air around you in the air world. Having cold rain blowing in your face is an entirely different experience.

Anyway, we bumped out into the chilly waters of Eyemouth, and jumped off the boat to begin our first drift dive. (A drift dive is where you drift along with the current.) Always fun, especially when, on the way up, you looked out of the window at the grey fog rolling over the sea, thought “It’ll be fun for the captain trying to spot us in this”, and then thought “Did I put my surface marker buoy* and reel back onto my buoyancy jacket after I took the jacket in to be serviced? No, I did not.” My strobe** had also packed in after it flooded on a recent shore dive, although I did have a smaller automatic strobe stuck on my jacket shoulder.

This did not bode well.

To be continued...


* Surface marker buoy, or SMB : A six-foot inflatable fluorescent orange tube which is filled with air from the diver’s tank (usually using the spare “octopus” mouthpiece, or sometimes the diver’s exhaled breath), either on the surface or whilst the diver is submerged. Regarded as essential safety kit for boat diving as it enables the boat captain to find you in poor visibility or if you surface further away from the boat than intended, due to currents or getting lost. The reel is attached to the buoy when deploying it at depth, so that you can stay linked to it!

** Strobe: Flashing light, usually worn on the diver’s shoulder, to enable other divers to find you underwater in poor visibility. Also used on the surface when night diving. Most divers I know favour the sort made by Beaver Sports, which combines a torch and strobe and comes in handy if your main torch packs in during a dive. Also regarded as pretty much essential safety kit when doing UK dives: the vis is not always, or even often, awful, but you might as well take the strobe in case you need it, since it weighs almost nothing.

Back Under The Water At Beadnell and Eyemouth (Republican Dive)

Done a lot of diving recently: shore dives at Beadnell, and boat dives at Eyemouth. I wonder if other divers go through their dives thinking "I could have done that dive differently..." Probably. Then again, I've only just done 60 dives, so I'm still serving my apprenticeship. I'm also still in the process of getting all my gear set up, since I now have quite a lot of it. Fortunately, I have good diving buddies to help me on the way!

Highlight of the dives at Eyemouth were some rather pretty corkwing wrasse, and some amazing diving seabirds. We were 10m down, and they were swimming around us like penguins! Sadly, the camera battery had flattened itself by then, so you'll have to take my word for it. Here's a picture of a plumrose anemone to make up for it.

Visibility at Beadnell on 29th April 2011 was not great, but it was a sunny day and carried with it the inestimable happiness of not being stuck indoors watching the Royal Wedding. I have no particular dislike for Wills'n'Kate, but I don't know them, either. The vis was awful, but the dive was redeemed by my dive buddy K's sharp-eyed spotting of a scorpionfish. I've never had a chance to take a photo of one before, so here it is!

Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 2

...This is, perhaps, the aspect of diving most difficult to convey to those who do not dive. Not only do we enter another world, we gain new abilities within it. We float weightlessly, our bodies hovering within the water, drifting elegantly past rocks and reefs with steady kicks of our reefs. Whereas when we swim or snorkel on the surface, we can only very temporarily experience what a fish experiences before the need to breathe draws us back to the air world, a diver swims among our fellow creatures as one of them.

Perhaps the only comparable sensation to the weightlessness a diver experiences when submerged is that experienced by astronauts who have left Earth’s gravity field, but the underwater world is very much of this Earth. The other question people ask British divers (the first one being “Don’t you get cold?”) is “Can you see anything down there?”

They would, I think, be very surprised to learn that when we return to the sea in the spring, the underwater world is teeming with colour and life. Beneath us, tiny hermit crabs in brown shells scuttle about on their orange and white legs. Their bigger relatives, the green velvet swimming crab and orange edible crab, walk quickly across the pale sea floor, or wave their claws at the curious faces peering in at their rocky homes in the reef. Dark purple and orange kelp forests cover the rocks, providing homes for small silver and green fish to dart in and out of.

A diver armed with a torch may even find one of our most striking creatures, the common lobster, hiding in a hole in the rocks. An impressive sight, with their navy blue armour and bright red antennae, they are rarely as pleased to see us as we are to see them. Perhaps most unexpectedly of all, pink and purple are colours often seen beneath the waves. Vivid pink rocks litter the seabed, purple and orange sponges grow across them, and an observant diver will often spot an elegant purple starfish clinging to the rocks!

Spring beneath the waves is a time of renewal. We re-enter our other world with joy, greeting again the familiar sights of crabs scuttling beneath the waves, kelp swaying in the back-and-forth of the tides, and small starfish making their homes upon the rocks. At this stage in the year, most animals are smaller than the size they will eventually reach in the warmer waters of summer, and we have yet to see the familiar summer sight of a large lion’s mane or purple jellyfish drifting in the current with its passengers of small silver fish. Elsewhere in the sea the seal pups born the previous autumn will be adult seals now, playing among the rocks and wrecks of the Farne Islands.

Eventually, of course, we must return to our own world. Even the large volume of air compressed into the steel bottle on my back will only last for so long. We did not evolve to live here, but we are very privileged to become a part of this world. I once heard of a diver who dived because, he said, it was the only place he became convinced of the existence of a Creator. Perhaps for him, as for me, the encounter with another world helped him shed the old habits of mind we acquire through long familiarity with our world, and look again at the miraculous complexity and beauty of life.

Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 1

(Written for my church's "Spring Miscellany" service.)

“A school of fingerling trout hangs motionless above a meadow of freshwater grass. We could pick them like apples if we cared to. They’re sleeping out the winter, drunk with cold.”

So said the American diver, Andrew Todhunter, diving beneath the surface of a frozen lake in the High Sierras in California in the middle of winter.

I myself, however, have never seen this. Although it is possible to scuba dive in winter in Britain, it requires a warmer diving suit, known as a drysuit, which I have yet to purchase. In addition to this, as Todhunter says, little moves beneath the waves, or beneath the surface of our lakes and quarries, in the depths of winter. The cold-blooded creatures of the water slow down and, like many of their land-based counterparts, hibernate throughout the coldest time of the year.

So, like many British scuba divers, I eagerly await the arrival of spring. There is no official start date to the diving season, since it depends upon local conditions and individual divers’ toleration of different temperatures, but March is usually the earliest many divers will venture back into our seas. Before this, short hours of daylight, rough seas, cold water, and bad weather on the surface make sea diving an unattractive proposition. And, as I’ve said, there is relatively little moving down there to see!

The first dive of the season is always an exciting and slightly anxious time, as we venture back into the habitat we have been away from for so long, and strap ourselves back into our equipment. Though humans evolved to be excellent swimmers on the surface of the water, to return to the world sixty feet below the surface is to venture into an environment we are not naturally adapted to be part of. So, to return to the water we must instead use that great product of evolution, the human brain.

Human ingenuity has designed equipment to compensate for all our physical shortcomings beneath the waves. As I prepare to enter the water, I carry on my back enough air to fill the interior of a large wardrobe at normal atmospheric pressure; compressed to 232 times atmospheric pressure, it fits into a bottle I can carry on my back. A thick wetsuit compensates for our human lack of insulation in the cold water. Lacking flippers or a tail, plastic fins on my feet enable me to propel myself through the water, and a plastic mask holds air in front of my face, so that eyes that evolved to survive on land can see clearly 60 feet beneath the surface of the North Sea.

We climb down across the rocky beach, and cross the rocks to the shoreline with care. Pausing to check that our equipment is working, we fit our masks and fins, put air into our inflatable jackets, and waddle slowly out into the waves. Like seals, divers are not graceful upon the land.

As we enter the water, the cold seeps slowly through our suits. Despite what many people think about diving in Britain, though, it does not stay cold. The thick wetsuits we wear soon trap the water next to our bodies, allowing it to heat to body temperature and keeping the diver warm and comfortable during the dive. People do not believe me when I say that diving in the North Sea does not make you cold, but with the proper gear it’s quite possible to stay comfortable!

Most importantly, as we swim out from the shore to the point at which the water becomes deep enough to submerge, we turn onto our fronts and dip our faces into the water. With our masks on, we can see beneath us into the world we will soon be entering.

The concept of the doorway into another world is a long and ancient one. There can surely be few human cultures that have not developed the concept of human beings being able to pass from the day-to-day world we all inhabit into another world where the normal rules of existence do not apply; whether it be Alice going through the Looking Glass, or the ancient Romans worshipping Janus, god of doorways and gates. Typically, the person going through the doorway must prepare themselves in some way to do so, and, whilst in the other world, may find that they have acquired new abilities, or will face new challenges...

Overheard in an Italian Restaurant in Newcastle

"Oh yessa, we getta the people in here, sometimes inna fancy dress. Rocky Horror Show, that is notta so good. Too strange. Reminds me of thatta MP, found dead in... mysterious circumstances. Issa how his companion musta been dressed, she look at him, go "Oh dear, he has croaked it. Oh well, onna to next appointment". You cannot getta the hookers these days. Look at Silvio Berlusconi, evenna the prostitutes lie about their age these days, 15-year-olds looka 22! Strange man. Who wants coffee? Dessert?"

Wearing My Dragons, Part 1 (My Chemical Romance)

To wear the dragons, or not to wear the dragons? I pondered the question as I wandered slowly home via Warwick Street.

I have owned my dragon pants for ten years, making them one of the oldest items of clothing I have in my wardrobe. They were purchased from a stall in a mall in Toronto when I went there to visit my cousins on a gap year. (I am somewhat proud that, if anything, they fit better now than when I was 19.) They are somewhat hard to describe, which is why I’m including a photo of them here. They came with a matching top, and ever since then I’ve wished I had bought it, but I hadn’t really got the money even for the dragon pants themselves, so it wasn’t going to happen.

They are probably the most unique item of clothing I own. When I was at Uni I used to hang around with some vaguely Gothy friends, largely because I went to Durham University and after the first week’s shock at being surrounded by posh public school kids wore off, those of us who were in any way “different” swiftly banded together for support. We used to go to Krash rock / alternative club in Newcastle, as it was then, and jump up and down to “Jump Around” whilst swigging vile alcopops. It was the sort of place where people danced so madly you had to wear Doc Martins if you wanted to return with all your toes intact, and I was vaguely unnerved the first time I went in, but the magic dragons worked their spell. Krash had UV lights, and the dragons glow purple underneath it. I would have Goth chicks with layers of make-up that could double as armour and piercings in places I hadn’t known piercings could be (I had a sheltered upbringing) coming up to me and going “Awesome dragons!”.

In short, they are fantastic. However, they can only be worn on days when I’m feeling really confident and kick-ass, since it is impossible to wear them and not be noticed. Did a trip to see My Chemical Romance merit the dragons, I wondered? I wanted to wear them, but I would be going in on the bus… on my own. I knew no-one else who liked My Chemical Romance, and frankly I’d rather not see a band I really love than see them in the company of someone who’s sitting there hoping things will all soon be over. What’s the point? Perhaps I’m over-sensitive to other people’s feelings, but this was my present to myself.

Presented to myself with not a little trepidation, since the last time MCR played at the arena (in 2007) it didn’t go so well, with the crowd not being as enthusiastic as the band would have liked, and Gerard Way screeching at them to get up and jump. I’ll admit, I was somewhat put off by this. On the one hand, I guess that there are few things more frustrating than giving it your all in front of a crowd who can’t be bothered (and if you’re a rock star, bad days at the office happen in front of thousands of people). On the other, there will have been people in that audience for whom that gig will have been a big, big, deal (MCR attract that sort of fan) and who will have been jumping up and down with all their might, and having their favourite band’s frontman cursing them out won’t have been much fun for them. In the end, I decided that I’d kick myself for the rest of the year if I missed the chance to see them live, and I was going to take the chance. If it turned out they were awful, then so be it; I’ve been disappointed before.

In the end, and in a similar vein, I decided it, it, I’m wearing my dragons, ate tea, and caught the bus to Central Station, where I blended in with the stream of people wearing some variation on black. Pleasingly, I was not the only person over the age of 15 there; there were certainly a few teenies, but also quite a few who, like me, fit into the “old enough to know better, young enough not to care” bracket. The steward on the road block shouted “Nice dragons!” at me, and I acknowledged him with a grin. I wandered into the arena and peered in at the stage. Skinny men with guitars were making a racket, but since it was 8pm it was the support act (Blackout) and I wasn’t that bothered (sorry, Blackout fans).

I wandered around the merchandise stalls vaguely wondering whether to buy stuff or get a drink and go inside and have a listen, and contemplated that well-known question: When the hell did my life get so boring? This was the first time in months I’d done something purely for myself, and if you think that makes me sound selfish, then I thought that too – and realised that I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I throw all of my energies into making my own life better? What I’ve been doing so far hasn’t secured me any of the things that I want for my life. I’m nearly 30 and my apologising for myself, thinking of others, trying to be a better, more considerate person, seems to have got me absolutely nowhere. Why shouldn’t I have more fun and do more things based on what’s best for me?

My musings upon the meaning of life were interrupted by a thousand-to-one encounter with a friend, who, like me, had not told anyone where he was. We had the following exchange:

“You told anyone you’re here?”

“Nope. You told anyone you’re here?”

“Are you kidding?”

We drank our pints, swapped tales of graphic novels and gigs, and dislikeable colleagues, and wandered in for just before 9.

How To Fit A Rear Reflector To A Mudguard

• Highly recommended (by me) since this gives drivers a good idea of where your bike actually is. Reflectors on the saddle post are helpful, but can be a little deceptive at night, since they show where the saddle is, not the rear wheel. Most are sold with the advice that you will need to drill a hole through the mudguard. Do not let this put you off, here’s how to do it even if you are a mechanical idiot (like me).

• You will require a couple of Phillips screwdrivers, one smaller than the other, the rear reflector, a black marker pen, latex gloves if you have them, possibly some Blu-Tack, and a rigid but thin board. This latter can be anything: cardboard, plastic, metal, antyhing so long as it will fit in between the mudguard and the tyre. This, of course, assumes that your mudguards are plastic. If they are metal, you may wish to trot down to your friendly cycle mechanic and smile nicely.

• Mark (with the pen) on the mudgard where you want the reflector to go. Put the board inbetween the tyre and the mudguard.

• Put the point of the small Phillips screwdriver against where you want the reflector to go, press it against the mudguard, and twist until you make a small hole. The board is a vital part of this operation since, to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, it takes a great deal of effort to push the screwdriver through the mudguard, and almost none whatsoever to put it all the way through into the tyre, which is a bugger.

• If the hole isn’t big enough, use the large Phillips screwdriver to widen it – insert and twist.

• Fit the screw through the mudguard, and fasten with the nut that came with it. Check as you do this that the screw is not rubbing against the tyre at all. it will weaken the tyre if it does. Hold the bike off the ground, spin the wheel, and listen for any sounds / feel for resistance against the tyre.

• You may find that the screw is slightly too long to put the reflector flat against the mudguard without the screw pressing against the tyre. This is why you have Blu-Tack. If this happens, get the reflector as close to the mudguard as you can without putting the screw against the tyre, then press the Blu-Tack in between the reflector and the mudguard. This is a good idea anyway, as it helps to hold the reflector onto the mudguard. Believe me when I say that whenever you turn the bike round, the rear reflector will get bashed against doors / walls / bike stands / whatever, so it needs to be very firmly fixed on.

• If you’re feeling fancy, colour in the Blu-Tack with the marker pen so that it doesn’t show.

• Done!

Toddlers With iPods: Some Further Thoughts on Cycling

1. Assume that all pedestrians you see have the road sense of toddlers with iPods, particularly if they happen to be students. Most of them aren’t, but this will prepare you to deal with the inevitable one or two who are, and who will step right out into the road without bothering to look. You would think that people who have voluntarily deprived themselves of the sense of hearing would be extra-vigilant when crossing roads, but it doesn’t work like that.

2. Ride assertively, but don’t be an arsehole. Give cars room to pass whenever you can, but only when it’s safe to do so. You have an equal right to be on the road, and you must claim it. If you need to pull out around a car and there’s another car behind you, get in position nice and early. If they have to slow down, they have to slow down. Drivers will deal with this far better than if you suddenly swerve out at the last minute.

3. Never, ever, undertake. Do not go up the left-hand side of a lorry or bus. More cyclists get killed doing this than any other manouevre. They can’t see you and they WILL squash you. Filtering up the left-hand side of a row of stopped cars at a traffic light is a different matter – UNLESS one of them is a lorry or bus!

4. Flashing lights are legal as of 2005. I used to think they weren’t, and rode with steady lights, but not any more. As a driver, I realised that when I saw a flashing white or red light, I immediately thought “bike”. This is the reaction you want. No other road vehicle uses flashing lights, so they immediately identify you as a bicycle, and they are more eye-catching than steady lights. My two cents – choose what suits you.

5. Keep the wheel reflectors on your bike. As a driver, often the only time I’ve seen a bike crossing a junction or road in front of me at night is when the headlights reflect off the distinctive rotating reflectors.

Stuff Which Is Not Essential, But Which You May Wish To Consider, Part the Last

With a special focus on maintaining the bike, to round things off.

15. Chain cleaner, solvent and sprocket brush

This is edging towards the “bike maintenance” side of things. A chain cleaner is really two things: a set of brushes that clip over the chain, and a concentrated solvent used to make up the solution in the brush holder that dissolves the grease and muck on the chain. You will need to buy this from a bike shop, or you could look online. No particular mechanical skills are required to do this, but it does take a willingness to spent 15-20 minutes cleaning the bike, then cleaning the chain cleaner brushes. A sprocket brush is used at the same time to get the muck and debris off the sprockets and chainwheels at the back of the bike (this is, of course, assuming you’re riding a bike with derailleur gears!). Most serious cyclists will do this at least once a month as cleaning the muck off helps to stop wear and tear on the chain and sprockets, leading to easier gear shifts and making the parts last longer. If you are going to do this, buy yourself some latex gloves! and you may want to think about getting a bike stand (see below).

16. Latex gloves

Usually available for a couple of quid from Wilkinsons / the pound shop, or anywhere that sells motoring supplies. Few things can stick to your fingers quite like the unique mixture of road muck and cycling oil that the bike chain gets covered in. Latex gloves are great for avoiding this. Pop them on before you do any work on the bike, peel them off and bin them at the end, problem solved. (If you do get cycle grease and muck on your fingers, a nail brush and neat washing up liquid is what’s required!).

17. Bike stand

Again, this is for if you’re getting more into cleaning and maintaining your bike. You will probably need to buy it from a bike shop. A bike stand supports the bike, holding the rear wheel off the ground. This allows you to rotate the pedals freely, which is essential if you’re trying to clean the chain – it is well-nigh impossible to hold the bike off the ground with one hand, hold the chain cleaner on with the other, and rotate the pedals! Also essential for if you get into maintaining your bike and need to adjust the gears. About £15-£20.

18. Multitool

Essentially a cycling Swiss Army knife. They often come in “bike repair kits” from Wilkinsons, etc., or you should be able to get them quite easily online or at the bike shop. They usually consist of a set of Allen keys, and a set of screwdriver heads, the idea being that you keep it with you to help make any adjustments / running repairs to the bike as required (they are best kept in your saddlebag, rack pack or panniers). Well worth getting since, even if you don’t plan on doing any bike repairs, someone else might be able to use it. If you do buy one, bear in mind that they can go rusty if they get soaked in the rain, so it may be wise to keep it in a plastic bag (a sandwich bag is about the right size!). And finally...

19. Trouser clips

You may or may not feel you need these. They do have a rather dorky, businessman-on-a-folding-bike type image, and a lot of people never bother with them. Personally, I tend to avoid the need for them by wearing trousers that fit closely and don’t flap about. Since my usual cycling apparel is a pair of El Cheapo trackie bottoms from Primak, I usually adjust them by using safety pins to pin together any loose fabric at the bottom of the trouser legs. I really don’t like my trousers flapping around when I’d riding; it’s distracting, and the worry that they might get stuck in the chain is one more thing on my mind that I can do without. I’m also not a fan of clips, however, since I’ve yet to find any that don’t feel as through they are about to slip down your leg, no matter how firmly you try to clip them on – another distraction I can do without. However, one thing I have found that works well is trouser bands. These are elasticated fluorescent bands that fasten with Velcro around your calves, and they are a lot more secure. You can buy them from Poundland for a quid each, and if you are lucky you can get the extra-dorky but highly visible ones with flashing lights on. I keep a pair in my panniers just in case!

Stuff Which Is Not Essential, But Which You May Wish To Consider, Part the Third

Some of you may have noticed a bias towards cycling and away from finishing up the Epic Tale of Glastonbury 2010. The reason is simple. I'm knackered and writing up a list of stuff that you need to go cycling with is way easier than dragging back my memory to June 2010, when the sun shone, life was simple, and I wasn't having to interview for my own job.

The Epic Tale of Glastonbury will be finished, probably some time in April.

Also, some of you who have read Nick's post may wonder what a cyclist in an Ozzie hat looks like. Here's a picture: wonder ye no more! (And yes, that is my bike in the background with the panniers on.)

More stuff to consider buying if you take up cycling:


12. Toe clips

Opinions are mixed. Some people feel they trap your feet on the pedals and prefer to ride without. Some people scorn them and prefer cleats; special pedals with special shoes, where the shoes clip onto the pedals. Personally, I find them the perfect compromise. They are much cheaper than cleats, not difficult to fit even if you are a mechanical incompetent, and mean that you don’t have to have two pairs of shoes: one with cleats for the bike, one without cleats for the rest of your day. They greatly improve your pedalling efficiency by holding your feet in the ideal position on the pedal, and meaning that your feet can’t slip off. There is a certain technique to getting your feet in both clips when starting off, but it takes around half an hour to master, and with practice you can do it with no thought. As for the trapping your feet thing, it’s not really an issue – pull your foot firmly backwards and it will come out of the clip!


13. Cycling glasses

Essentially wraparound shades that cover the whole of your eyes, including the sides. These are mainly handy for people who don’t wear glasses, as they keep wind / rain / flies out of your eyes, but people who do wear glasses may also find them handy! I have two pairs; a tinted pair for daytime, a clear pair for nighttime. Again, you can buy them cheaply on Ebay.


14. Water bottle

Available dead cheaply from anywhere that sells cycling supplies, but not often actually sold with the bike. Most bikes have a place on the frame – usually on the bottom tube – with holes where you can screw the water bottle holder onto the bike. Remember to remove it if you lock the bike up outside! Change the water in it frequently.

Stuff Which Is Not Essential, But Which You May Wish To Consider, Part the Second

9. Rack pack

Highly useful if you have a luggage rack. A rack pack is a single bag which straps onto the luggage rack and can be used to carry cycling essentials such as the lock, puncture repair kit, pump, etc. Crucially, unlike a set of panniers, it comes with a shoulder strap and is small enough to sling over your shoulder and carry around, meaning that if you are locking your bike up outside, you can strip anything removable (lights, water bottle) off the bike, stick them and your helmet in the pack, and off you go.


10. Gloves

Essential in cold weather – thermal ones are ideal. Handy in warmer weather as they provide an extra layer of padding between you and the bike to absorb jolts and knocks. You can buy cheap padded cycling gloves from just about any sports shop or Wilkinsons for about £5. You may like to buy some bright yellow / reflective / fluorescent ribbon (haberdashery shops often sell it) and stick it across the knuckle area of the gloves; this means you can give hand signals at night and drivers behind you have a better chance of seeing them.


11. Cycling jacket

Not essential, but purpose-made waterproof cycling jackets are usually better at keeping you warm and keeping the rain out than an ordinary jacket. Be aware that if you buy one that does not have a lining, it will have all the insulation properties and comfort of wear of a crisp packet. This is not a reason not to buy one – my own jacket is unlined and does a fantastic job of keeping the rain and wind out – but it does mean that you’ll need to wear something with sleeves underneath it.


12. Balaclava

Not fashionable but invaluable in cold / rainy / windy weather. You are a bit more exposed on a bike than you would be walking: the extra speed increases the windchill factor (although the exercise will warm you up nicely on longer rides, hence the popularity of wearing layers for ease of temperature control!). You can buy thermal skiing-type balaclavas for less than a tenner on Ebay, which are warm but thin and fit nicely under your helmet. Ski caps are also popular for keeping the cold off. Important safety tip: if you wore a hat or balaclava the last time you wore your helmet, and you’re not wearing one this time, take a few seconds to adjust the helmet so that it fits snugly. A helmet that slips around on your head might as well be made of chocolate for all the good it will do you if you fall off the bike.


13. Waterproofs

See note above re: being more exposed. Depends a bit on the sort of cycling you intend to do, and whether you mind being damp or soaked when you get there. A full head-to-toe set of waterproofs includes the following: rain cover for your helmet, possibly a balaclava, waterproof jacket, waterproof cycling trousers (standard hiking waterproofs can have an unfortunate tendency to leak when cycling, and can catch in the chain or wheels if you don’t clip them around your legs), waterproof Sealskinz gloves, and “booties”. These latter are neoprene covers that fit over the top of your shoes. They are not very fashionable, but keep the rain out like nothing else. I have tried waterproof Sealskinz socks with mixed results: fine for a short ride or mild drizzle, can give you soaking wet feet over a long ride as the water runs down your legs. Unfortunately, proper cycling waterproofs tend to be on the pricey side. If you are limiting your spends, I’d recommend that gloves, a waterproof jacket and raincover for the helmet are the priorities.

Overheard in a Coffee Shop in Newcastle

"So I was having this dream last night. We were out riding."
"Was it fun?"
"Yes. I was on the Patient Horse, you were on the Little Red Pony, your beloved was on the Giant Horse. Then I fell off."
"Ouch!"
"It was okay, I was just surprised. I got back on again."
"Excellent, that's what you're supposed to do."
"Then the zombies attacked."
pause
"Did you order the hot chocolate?"
"I'll go and do that."

Overheard in a Curry House In Newcastle

As I returned from the bathroom, somewhere around the sixth round of the evening...

"So which of these beer bottles is you?"
"None of them."
"None of them? They were ALL Filipino gangsters in a beach bar who you defeated using martial arts?"
"That's right. [pause] I'm the rogan josh."

Stuff Which Is Not Essential, But Which You May Wish To Consider

6. Foot pump

Not something many people think about buying. This is a shame. It’s important to keep your tyres at the right pressure; soft tyres make for more difficult cycling, and are slightly more prone to punctures. Unless you possess the upper-body strength of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, however, it is difficult to pump tyres up to the right pressure using a handpump, and the gauges on many hand pumps are not very reliable. A foot pump makes it much, much easier to get the tyres up to the right pressure. (Note: it will say what the pressure for your tyres should be on the tyre wall AKA the side of the tyre.)


7. Luggage rack

Up to you if you want to get this fitted. Some people prefer not to have the extra expense and weight on the bike. On the other hand, a bike with a luggage rack has a much higher carrying capacity and thus becomes a much more versatile machine. Riding with heavy backpacks is not ideal as it throws off your centre of gravity and is likely to give you backache. If you decide to go for, ask about getting this fitted if you’re buying a new bike – they may give you a discount and fit it for free.

If you go for a luggage rack, you will probably also want at least two stretchy “bungee” cords (thick elastic cords with hooks at each end) to hold stuff onto it. Panniers are also an option if you plan on carrying a lot of stuff around with them. Both items can be bought cheaply from Argos or Wilkinsons. I’ve hauled my gear (work clothes, gym kit, shopping, six days’ worth of clothes and other supplies for a cycling holiday) around in a pair of £20 panniers from Argos for years. A bike with good gears, a luggage rack and a set of panniers can haul a mighty amount of stuff for surprisingly little effort.


8. Mudguards

Like a luggage rack, something of an optional extra. Some people prefer not to have the extra weight or expense. Also, they do not look “cool”. Some people take the view that cheap plastic mudguards add little in the way of expense or weight, and that there is nothing terribly cool about arriving at your destination covered in muddy spray from the wheels if it rains.

Again, it’s worth asking the shop to fit them if you’re buying a new bike. You may like to ask them to fit a rear reflector to the rear mudguard at the same time. This aids visibility, as it’s at the same height as a car’s headlights (all bikes are sold with a rear reflector, but it’s usually mounted higher up the bike, under the saddle). It also means that if you decide to go for a luggage rack, you can pile stuff on top of the rack and not risk obscuring the rear reflector.

As may be apparent from this article so far, I subscribe to the view of Richard Bernstein, author of the Bicycle Book, that: “Cycling at night can be dangerous. The only really safe way to do it is looking like a Christmas tree gone berserk”.

Stuff You Don’t Realise You Need When You Start Cycling, But That You Do Need

(For Brow of Oscillation.)

Here’s a post which I hope will be handy to anyone thinking of buying a bike. One of the aspects of getting a bike which I hadn’t expected was that the buying of the bike is only the part. You need a whole load of stuff along with it. Well, okay, maybe you don’t need all of it, but you do need some of it, and the rest will make for a more pleasant cycling experience.

Be aware that much of this can be purchased quite cheaply, depending on what it is. The only areas where I have found that paying more money results in a difference I actually noticed is with cycling-related clothing, and even then only with clothing designed for cycling, like my jacket and overshoes. My standard cycling outfit consists of a base layer (available from fitness shops – less sweaty than a t-shirt, but optionl) and jacket on top, with optional layer in between for cold weather, fleecy tracksuit bottoms and knee-high socks from Primark, pair of old trainers, helmet from Argos and an old pair of thermal gloves. (Pants are involved too, I hasten to add.) The only clothes worth more than a tenner are the base layer and jacket.


1. Helmet
Controversial. Some people will argue you should never ride without one. Some will argue that they are ineffective, and some will argue you are actually safer without one. It’s up to you. Personally, I almost never ride without one, unless I’m on a long ride on a quiet country road and at risk of overheating if I wear it.

You do also have the consideration of where to store your helmet, which depends on where you’ll be locking up the bike. If it’s in the shed at work and you can keep the helmet in your desk drawer, this is somewhat less inconvenient than having to carry it with you if you’re doing the shopping on Northumberland Street – albeit a helmet will usually fit easily into a backpack and weighs very little. With some helmets, it’s possible to thread a cable lock (see below) through one of the ventilation holes in the helmet, and thus lock it onto the bike when you leave it. You can pay anything for your helmet, from £8 in Argos to £130 at a specialist bike shop. Whatever you decide, you need to consider the issue.

Something else no-one tells you when you start cycling. On many helmets, the thin plastic band inside the rim of the helmet (that holds it on your head), plus any strips of padding inside, are removable. (Mine stick on with Velcro.) This has the advantage that you can remove them and wash them, which is a good idea if you ever get a sweaty forehead during cycling – it avoids the dreaded “forehead break-out in spots” syndrome. You can machine-wash them, or just rinse them under the tap!


2. Lights

You can pay as much or as little as you like for your lights, but you do need them, even if you don’t plan to ride at night – they are important in bad weather during the daytime as well. Fortunately, these days good lights are easily available for a cheap price. You want LED lights which are not very big and which easily detach from the bike so that you can take them off if you are leaving the bike in a public place. Most LED lights come with a choice of “steady” or “flashing” settings.


3. Puncture repair kit, spare inner tube, pump, and a bag to carry them in.

There is, as far as I know, no cycling equivalent of the RAC. If your tyre goes flat on a lonely road in the rain, it’ll be you needing to fix it, unless you fancy pushing the bike all the way home. Fortunately, all of the above can be purchased for about £10 from Argos or Wilkinsons. If I had to give only one piece of advice to anyone buying a bike for the first time, it would be “Buy all of the above, get someone to show you how to change an inner tube / stick a patch on a puncture, then put the pump, spare tube and repair kit in the bag and attach it to the bike”. Do this and you will always be able to get yourself home.

With regard to the inner tube: you do need a spare, in case you can’t find or repair the puncture in the old one. Bikes come with two types of valve: Schraeda or Presta. It is not particularly important to remember which one is which, but it is important that a) your spare inner tube has the right type of valve for your bike and b) your pump will inflate a tube which uses this type of valve.

3a. Framebag or saddlebag.

Part of “3” above. These are the smallest types of bags that attach to bikes, either at the back of the saddle, or strapped onto the top tube / seatpost. Ideal for carrying around puncture repair supplies and spare batteries for your lights. (You might also like to chuck in some tissues / wet wipes / plasters.)

4. Chain oil

Available cheaply from Wilkinsons. Add a couple of drops to the chain each week.


5. Locks

Ideally you want two locks. One is a D-lock, which is a rigid metal hoop which can be used to lock the bike firmly onto a post / fence / cycle rack. The other is a chain or cable lock, which can be used a) in situations where the D-lock won’t fit round whatever you want to lock the bike onto, b) in conjunction with the D-lock, where you use the D-lock to lock the bike onto a post or whatever, then wrap the cable lock around the frame and through the wheels to immobilise the bike and make it impossible to nick the wheels.

Again, you can spend as much as you like on your locks. Some people recommend assuming that you should spend the equivalent of 10% of the bike’s value on them. Personally I use the El Cheapo locks from Argos, but then my bike is not massively valuable, except to me. If you don’t plan to ride with panniers or a luggage rack, you’ll need to either remember to pick the lock(s) up every time you get on the bike, or find some way of permanently clipping them to it. Many D-locks come with clips that attach to the frame for just this purpose. (Cable locks can be coiled around part of the bike’s frame to keep them out of the way when you’re riding. I’ve seen quite a few people keep their cable lock permanently coiled onto the bike.)

More in this vein soon!