I hate camping.

*adopts voice of old fogie she will become in five days time* When I was young, my family went camping fairly often, back in the days when we couldn't afford to go anywhere more upmarket than Costa del Morecambe. (Morecambe (pronounced More Come and famous for its sperm banks) being a dodgy seaside resort in northern England. Only Silloth surpasses its pantsness - well, I suppose Dungeness does too.) I didn't mind it then. After all, there was a pocket in my bedroom wall. What novelty!

We went again a few years later, but it rained so much that we went home before we'd even stayed a night. But it was The Grand Tour Of Europe (we did six countries, including our own and Luxembourg was an accident) (supposed to be a silver wedding anniversary present, but Dad couldn't wait another seven years) that put camping alongside polystyrene and graphs in my collection of Definitions Of Evil Incarnate. For a week, we stayed in an apartment, for a few days we stayed with Mum's German penfriend, and four nights we spent in Travel Lodges (or Novotels, as they're called on ze continent), but on the other four nights, in order to save money, we stayed at campsites. These were The Cruddiest Campside In The World (it claimed to have a swimming pool. It had a two-metre wide wooden tub), the wettest campside in the world (it was right next to the River Seine, which I had a great time rollerblading alongside, but I was not at all pleased by the weather, chaps), the coldest campsite in the world (and this was July - in the Swiss Alps), and the noisiest campside in the world (a passing helicopter at 5am would not have been an appreciated wake up call, had I been asleep in the first place).

The experience was so traumatic that it compelled me to write my first poem in six years (the imaginatively titled Camping). Shortly after it, however, we gave away our tent. It was a day of much rejoicing.

And yet, when Bryn asked me, "Do you want to go camping?" I said (not for the first time) "Yes! Take me now!"

Admittedly, the question wasn't phrased quite like that. In fact, there wasn't even a question. Instead, he sent me some text messages about Eurorock - a music festival in Belgium featuring a day of goth bands (including Gary Numan), a day of industrial bands and a day of metal bands. Anna The Goth and Darren (her boyfriend) highly recommended it. So I texted, "If you decide to go, please get me a ticket." (Well, it was more like, "IF U DCIDE 2 GO PLZ GET ME A TICKET" because I don't have word recognition, and I can't be bothered spelling or capitalising properly, as my fingers can only do so much button pressing.) I'd have to miss at least some of the final day, because I'd arranged to go and see U2 in Antwerp, but hey, it meant I could get more out of my time in Belgium.

Camping would naturally feature in this plan, but it seemed a small price to pay for such an appealing sounding festival. I'd always wanted to go to one, but I spent most of my life existing in the middle of nowhere knowing no one who'd go with me and not having enough money. And then popular alternative music went way downhill. The threat of violent moshpits and theft were also off-putting. This, however, would be stuff I liked, with safer less-frequent moshpits, and on a much smaller scale, meaning fewer dodgy types. (And, being in Belgium, less Brits. Compared to other species, Brits, are, on the whole, geens in the worst sense of the word.)

(Indeed, there was barely any moshing on the days I was there and apparently it was the better sort on the third day. Only two people got evicted, one for stealing, one for harassing.)

We weren't sure if we were going to get to go or not, since Bryn didn't receive any tickets, but after various conversations with the Eurorock folk, on the day before we left, we established we could probably get in ok. So we hurried to UKC travel agents to buy Eurostar tickets. The woman in the UKC travel agency said they'd be £59 (as opposed to the £120 the travel agency in town), providing we got student travel cards. "Have you got passport photos of yourselves?" the woman there asked.

"I don't have one," Bryn said.

"But I've got one of you!" I exclaimed.

What do you know? The woman in the employment agency knew what she was talking about after all!

Appropriately, "New York" by U2 started playing while we booked the tickets.

That evening, Bryn's parents came round to drop off his passport (silly geen left it at home!) He and I went to Re-Enactor Anna's so I could return her rollerblades which I'd borrowed, and the three of us went to Sainsbury's for provisions. "I like your diet," the cashier commented, as Bryn and I unloaded nought but a packet of Rich Tea biscuits and five big bags of sweets onto the conveyor belt.

After a brief stop at the playground (I'm not immature! Anna's six years older than me (precisely)!) and a bit of hanging around at Anna's house (spent experimenting with water pistols and trying to work out what a kettle helmet is), we went home, packed and played "Monkey Island 3" until exhaustion took over. At regular intervals while bored in Belgium, Bryn said, "I want to play 'Monkey Island'."

The next morning, I got up at 6.45, dragged Bryn out of bed at 7, and set off to Canterbury West Station. We arrived there far too early. We travelled to Ashford International, where we both bleeped as we walked through the metal detector. They spent a considerably amount of time feeling the lining of Bryn's coat. (He decided against wearing it on the journey back for this reason and nearly broke his back as a result, only for there not to be a metal detector!) We had a fairly long wait for the Eurostar, and passed the time by playing with the variety of toys lying around. (Ok, perhaps I am immature.)

The Eurostar was v. smooth and it was satisfying to be able to experience three countries in two hours. From Brussels (yay, another capital city to add to my list!), we took the train to Antwerp-Berchen, and from there, we got the train to Neerpelt without difficulty. Again the tracks were smooth, and we were amazed by the cleanliness of the train. Then the conductor told us we were in first class. Oh well, even second class wasn't bad, compared to Connex South Eastern trains, anyway.

At the festival site, we set up the tent in about three minutes (ok, Bryn set up the tent in about three minutes, as I'd never put one up in my life). Then came the question of Now What?

It was very hot, which put us off walking around too much, and made drink desirable, but no open stalls were in sight. Mimph: I know most goths are skinny and a few fancy themselves as vampires, but it doesn't mean none of us need sustenance. We noticed a tap on the distant shower block, but after a lot of determining what would make a good container (we decided on my little plastic vitamin pill bottle - I have no faith in cups made from A4 paper), it didn't work. It started raining a bit, but nowhere near heavily enough to catch rainwater.

We were also looking out for Anna The Goth and Darren. But they were not to be seen. People watching was fairly interesting though. When we set off, Bryn thought I was crazy, wearing a mini-skirt and fishnet tights (not the best outfit to wear when it comes to putting in tent pegs) but that was nothing. There weren't many black tents to be seen though, which is something: gothicness does not stand entirely in the way of practicality. There were a few flash silver ones, though. Some people had brought stereos, playing good gothic music, although the nearest one to us played "The Race" by Yello and some awful R'n'B bumph repetitively.

At 8pm, we decided the need for drink was great enough to justify walking into town. Luckily, at that moment, a drink stall opened, and I got a cup of lukewarm water for a rip-off 60 BF (nearly a pound). It was something, though, and Anna and Darren turned up at nine. They set out to find some friends of theirs, leaving a stuffed Bagpuss on top of their tent which they'd told their friends to look out for.

A bit later a security bloke approached us, warning us that there would be serious rain in half an hour. This was good news, since it was horribly hot and stuffy, uncomfortable just to walk around in, never mind dance in. Bryn put out the guy ropes (my least favourite thing about camping, by the way. By Friday night, the tent density had almost reached its maximum, so how was I supposed to avoid tripping over them in the middle of the night?) and we watched the lightning coming in sheets and forks. It looked really cool.

But when the rain started, boy, did it start. We dove into the tent: we didn't even have time to rescue Bagpuss.

Mykos, it was scary. Bryn, who spends a sizeable portion of his life looking at tent catalogues, repetitively reminded me that his tent was three times more expensive than most people's and theirs were still upright, but the rain pelting down on the roof, and more to the point, the inner walls blustering like crazy, was a tad worrying.

Have I mentioned that I've never liked storms? Therefore a storm while in a tent is definitely not a good combination as far as I'm concerned. Come on, it has to be said: I was not a happy camper.

Luckily, it eased off after not too long, and Anna and Darren came round for a while. I was pleased to learn that I am not the only person who pronounces "knife" as "kuh-niff" on occasion. (As a strong believer in expanding and misusing the English language, I find Bryn's insistence on calling HSBC "huz-buck" and pronouncing "lingerie" the way it's spelt one of his more endearing traits.)

It was a difficult night. At first, music and rain kept me awake. I slept for a few hours, then woke up to hear French people talking. Had they been English, I could have enjoyably ear-dropped, but the only word I understood was "Arrête!", spoken after two wind-passings. Worse still, I had terrible bladder pains. I get these occasionally when at home, but I can cope with them there, by sitting on the toilet and reading Poppy Z Brite books until they go away. Here, getting dressed and out of the tent would be a struggle (putting on New Rock boots in a tent is not easy) and, especially since the torch had vanished, impossible without waking Bryn. I had nothing to read, and no desire to spend an hour in a portakabin (even on the first night, they were grim enough). So I stayed put and it took hours before I could sleep again. I woke up a couple of hours later, and couldn't sleep due to discomfort. My leather jacket, usually a trustworthy pillow, was icky in l'atmosphere du tente soggie.

We got up at nine, ate some biscuits, and headed for the festival. It was fine festival weather - not too hot or cold, a few spots of drizzle, a bit of a breeze. The storm, however, had damaged the main marquee so much that it had to be pulled down. There were, however, two other stages to keep us content, so we alternated between them. We saw a pleasant-sounding electro group called Synthetic; Shade, who I can't remember much about but Darren, who knows a lot more about this sort of music than I do, was impressed; and the very Yoj Division influenced Spiral Of Silence.

We tried to see Silk Saw (I think) but they were just noise, so we checked out Tarantella Serpentine, whose singer was wearing some sort of insectine head gear. The first lyrics I heard were "All you need is tits and ass" (or something) which set the tone for the rest of the set. It wasn't bad, though.

We also checked out the stalls. There were more places selling food and drink now, and gradually, goth type o places opened, selling merchandise for the bands playing, badges and patches and stickers and postcards, jewellery, lots and lots of goth clothing, dodgy clothing and bondage equipment (for some strange reason, Bryn kept dragging me back there. I kept being attacked by some suspenders suspended from above), boots (they had some lush flat-soled purple ones with a cobweb pattern on) and so forth. Oh, for money! All I allowed myself to buy were a bunch of Cure and Sex Pistols postcards, since I hadn't seen such a range anywhere else.

We saw Freudstein (I think) who were funny, if unintentionally. They growled their way through the songs and at the audience between them. But at one point, the singer said, "Can we have some more on the guitars, please?" in a really camp voice.

At that point, the bands who were supposed to play in the damaged marquee started playing on the main stage, which wasn't supposed to be used until the following day. There, we saw Catastrophe Ballet who were enyojable and did a funchie goth version of "Anarchy In The UK". I think we went to see Arkam Asylum before the next act and I liked them. I hope so, because I've ordered their album. Next came S.P.O.C.K., famed for their Star Trek influenced songs. They wore space age clothing and were good fun. The next group, The Nina Hagen Band did The Tubes' "White Punks On Dope" in a foreign language (I think), but proceeded to be none too impressive, so we went to see Swarf in another tent, who were amazing. Everyone agreed - they were the first group I saw that were encored. Some of their support was probably due to the female lead singer, but the music was compelling too. It wasn't my usual sort of thing, melancholy electronica, sort of a gother Republica, but I was impressed and ordered the album.

We returned to the main stage and watched Anathema, who were more progressive rock than anything and bored me a bit, but Bryn liked them. Then Sigue Sigue Sputnik performed, who weren't as good as I'd anticipated - the cover of one of their songs that Catastrophe Ballet played was better - but they played "Virginia Plain" by Roxy Music half way through their set and improved from then on. Then we saw a brilliant industrial group called The Chaos Engine (said to be superior to The Prodigy), whose album I also ordered.

Gary Numan was on next. (Yes! A name I recognise! I hear you cry in relief.) Good? Of course, though heavier than I'd anticipated. The next lot we saw were Paradise Lost, who were constantly brillig and had one of the most strictly goth sounds we'd heard all day.

We checked out The Bollock Brothers (a parody of a punk group) but the marquee was packed, so we sat outside instead. It left more to the imagination that way, hearing the lead singer call for two women whose blood he wanted to suck during a song about vampirism.

The last band of the day were Fad Gadget. They sounded good and the visuals were interesting, featuring a doctor's coat, fake blood and an arm with a drill in it. By that stage, however, it was 1am. My feet had been hurting since two, my back was starting to give me serious grief (it could have been my backpack, sleeping on the ground or just standing up all day that caused it, but it was owie whatever the reason) and I could barely keep my eyes open. So we returned to the tent.

It was a very good day. I nearly always remember to take my birth control pill within fifteen minutes of the correct time, but the fact that I was seven hours late was a measure of my enticement. I felt like I could go to a festival every day. I proceeded to have a much better night's sleep, using Bryn's chest as a pillow, but woke up at eight when he rolled over, and heard the French people again.

When Bryn woke up, the number of countries I have had sex in doubled. Which you really didn't need to know.

Then we faced the music. Only the main stage was in operation to start with, and since we were both a bit knackered from the previous day's excessive band-watching, we sat out for the first band, Zornik, who sounded like a heavier cross between Manic Street Preachers and Shed 7. The next band didn't hold our interest, but we heard sounds from the marquee and discovered that bands who hadn't been able to play the previous morning were performing. Accessory were v. good.

Junkie XL weren't too impressive, so we went to see Inertia half way though, as Anna and Darren recommended them. They were jumping around all over the place and they were indeed enyojable. The only bands I remember seeing in the afternoon were Gail Of God, who were too heavy for comfort, and After Forever, who were ok. However, we got a turn of goodness in the early evening. First came Lacuna Coil, another familiar name, who again played heavier stuff than the songs I was familiar with, but the performance compelled me to ask my brother for their latest album for my birthday. Then there was Funker Vogt, an industrial lot in orange boiler suits, who kept saying, "This is our last song" and then playing another, not that I minded, since they had me dancing like a lunapath.

After them, we saw Garden Of Delight, who were chilled out and dark and synthy. During their performance, I spotted an obscured A4 piece of paper declaring that Lacuna Coil would be signing autographs at 9.30. Excellent! So we stuck around and got them. That takes the number acquired this academic year from four to nine. Anna was v. annoyed when she discovered she missed this opportunity.

We saw a bit of Mesh, who had some of the most memorable lyrics and tunes heard that weekend. Finally, we saw Umbra et Imago. The music was ok, but the stage show, apparently, was dodgy as beep. I say apparently, because, being short and far back, all I could see were a load of flame jets, bare female legs on occasion (yes, the woman was tied to a rack upsidedown), and two pairs of bare breasts when the women sat on top of the band members' shoulders at the end. I shan't go into what I missed, for the sake of my younger and more easily disturbed readers, but I wasn't disappointed. Firstly, why would I want to see a woman with a candle up her AHEM! and secondly, it's a good story: I went to my first sex show and couldn't see a thing!

And One were on next, who I wanted to see, but I was dead. I could hear them from the tent, though. I fell asleep before the music stopped, but woke in the middle of the night to hear a load of people singing rowdily in Dutch or German or something. In the morning, the frogs once again woke me prematurely.

On Sunday, I made it to Antwerp at noon, only having to make three calls to Sofie (my online friend, who I was going with): "I'm coming" "Is Antwerp-C the same station as Antwerp-Zentraale?" (stooped tri-lingual country!) and "I'm in the station. Where are you?" since it's huge. We went to her new *sparkle* vast apartment. I'd heard that Belgian staircases were narrow, but I hadn't been prepared for quite *how* narrow. Anyway, we met her younger brother (who was going with us) there and got the bus to the concert venue.

The reason we turned up so early was so that we could get into the heart. At U2 concerts, in front of the stage is a heart-shaped . . . rostrum, I guess you'd call it, which about three hundred people can get inside and enyoj the concert unsquashed. We got numbers 222-224 written on our hands and met AevilSteve, who was also attending.

A strange experience, two years and four months after we spoke on the phone for the first time. He didn't seem the same person who sent me e-mails all day every day and called at least once a week for six months. But that can only be a good thing. Not for nothing did I nickname him AevilSteve.

There were a bunch of barriers in front of the entrance. We sat on a rug in front of them, for leg preserving purposes. Suddenly, there was an announcement and as many people as possible crowded into the barricaded area, climbing over the barriers in necessary. None of us made it. We could have possibly squeezed in, but it would have been uncomfortable if not downright dangerous.

This was flipping fligget. Were these people going to get in first just because they could push the hardest? Steve, who'd been there since 9.30 was annoyed. Sofie was annoyed - she'd seen U2 in New York, where the attendees had been lined up in numerical order. I was annoyed - if my early arrival was going to have no significance, I might as well have stayed at Eurorock for the morning and early afternoon. Heck, everyone was annoyed.

Steve talked to every security person he could find, but none of them did anything. He called the police, who were sympathetic and promised to turn up, but didn't. We waited on the street, hoping for an announcement, but none came. Steve did get interviewed and filmed, though.

When the doors opened, everyone surged towards them. We struggled over the barriers and pushed our way in. I argued with the official who insisted that I was already wearing a wristband - "It's for Eurorock, not this!" "Calm down," he said. I should have told him that it wasn't possible - this was U2, man, and I was about to be cheated out of my place in the heart - but I didn't have time. Once I had my wristband, I ran down a flight of steps as quickly as my New Rock boots would allow, and sprinted towards the stage.

None of us got a place in the heart. We were only a couple of rows away from it, but after our long wait, it was by no means the same. It had been a test of who could be the most aggressive and run the fastest.

The concert didn't start until 8.30. The Stereophonics opened. Hearing that they were the support band confirmed my wish to attend the concert, but I'd listened to their new album a couple of times and wasn't impressed. Unsurprisingly, two thirds of their set came from it. Those songs sounded better live, but still not great. The two songs taken from their second albums were mellow ones - "Hurry Up And Wait" and "Just Looking", the latter of which I usually love, but the first verse was played ultra-slowly which annoyed me. Even the song off the superb generally bouncy first album was the melancholy "Local Boy In The Photograph".

I guess they could only be expected to play new stuff, and they presumably opted for the more chilled out part of their repetoire on the grounds that they were supporting primarily soft-rock U2. But I wasn't best pleased. I like a wide range of music, and I don't like it when my favourite bands try to sound the same. For example, I like both the Manic Street Preachers and Aerosmith, but when the university radio station presented me with a song by the latter that reminded me of the former, I gave it a bad review. And the Stereophonics are in my good books for their upbeat tracks.

The audience, on the whole, wasn't thrilled. Some of them must have been Stereophonics fans - Sofie's brother (whose jeans have both U2 and Slipknot written on them) thought the main act and support should have been the other way round. But in all likelihood, the more enthusiastic concert-goers were annoyed by the lack of organisation and wanted their U2.

Everyone got a bit more incensed during the gap between the two bands and the roadies were cheered. But when U2 hit the stage, cor blimey, the place went mad. And rightly so: they opened with "Elevation"! That, I had not expected (the Stereophonics opened on a slow note, as have most bands I've seen with the exception of Alice Cooper), but it was definitely a nice surprise. Then came "Beautiful Day" which followed on perfectly.

The audience was wild. The fourth song, "New Year's Day" and others subsequently caused mass bounce-age. Bono got two little girls to go up on stage with him. As Sofie put it: squee! He could have talked (and did talk) absolute testicles, yet his every word was cheered at. Every time he came near (which was fairly often, yojfully enough, by walking and running round the heart) (as did the others, on occasion), every arm was outstretched. And I could barely recognise "Sunday Bloody Sunday", the screaming was so loud.

I was torn between watching the band (I would say Bono and Edge were slashy as hemp, except I don't find plants all that slashy. You know what I mean though: phwoar!), watching the lush black and white images of the band on the four screens high above the stage, and just shutting my eyes and drowning in aural ecstasy. Which sounds a bit over the top, but it was definitely worth being over the top about. For the best part of the concert, I couldn't stop grinning. I might have had an orgasm.

The only problem was, I was dead. My feet hurt from three days of standing up. My back hurt, for afore-suggested reasons. My stomach hurt, either from lack of food or my tights digging into it or both. I was totally dehydrated due to not drinking all day. (I was too concerned about getting the shuttlebus to seek a drink at Eurorock and it wasn't until the next day that I worked out that Spa Reine was still water.) In spite of this, I couldn't stop screaming and singing along. I kept yawning, due to lack of sleep. Even clapping was unpleasant, as I hadn't had a chance to wash my hands since Thursday morning.

We were among a load of big pushy jumpy blokes, one of whom kept squashing my toes, despite them being four inches off the ground. Sofie, however, was having an even worse time of it, and kept nearly fainting. Luckily, the people around her were fairly supportive, in both senses of the word.

But in spite of the hardship, I'd still say it tied with Alice Cooper 1 and Mel C as "best concert attended". Even AevilSteve, who's seen U2 multiple times, was fairly impressed, despite the long hard day.

After the concert, Sofie, her brother and I went back to the apartment, where I got a good night's sleep on a camp bed, despite it talking in a high pitched voice and waving its hands around a lot. (Oh come on, I couldn't write an entry primarily about camping without at least one bad joke!) I even got a pillow! What luxury! Although once more I woke at seven, presumably expecting to be awakened by talkative French people anyway.

We went to the station and took the same train as far as Mechelen (or Meech Helen, as Bryn and I call it). Sofie got off to go to the dentist; I stayed on until Bruxelles Midi.

There, I wrote this journal entry while I waited for Bryn to arrive. Appropriately enough, he turned up just before I wrote "Midi".

We compared experiences. I told him about the pants security - I would have said I was on edge all afternoon, but we'd already done that joke to death - and the fact that I was planning to write a letter of complaint. I'd heard somewhere that mail addressed to "Bono, Dublin" reached its destination. However, he dissuaded me by letting me know that security is pants all over Europe except in England and Germany. *Now* I find that out!

He'd had a good time at Eurorock. Therion had been on - heavy metal but with male and female voice choirs - and he'd been impressed enough to declare them his new favourite band. He'd also been hit on by a v. drunk German bloke, and had woken up to the sound of the couple in the next tent having sex. (The girl kept saying "Me! Me! Me!") I don't know, some people!

We wandered around Brussels for a bit, but couldn't find much to do, as neither of us wanted to get any more Belgian francs. One observation: it is a land of extreme dodginess. In Britain, pornographic magazines are hidden away on the top shelf. Here, they were on the bottom one!

So we sat in the waiting room for a few hours. We discovered that Bruxelles Midi has the most eerily silent toilets in the world. Then we got the Eurostar back to Ashford International and sprinted along the platform to catch a train back to Canterbury.

When we got back to the house, he had received two letters and I had none. And he doesn't even officially live there! Mimph!

A much nicer discovery was found in Sofie's Livejournal: I had been on Belgian TV! Well, my feet had been: they were saying something about the diversity of the fans, and they showed her brother's jeans and my New Rock boots! Fame at last!

(Although Sofie and Steve went to see them again the following day, and got to hear the world première of a new song. Bioches.)

All in all, a brillig holiday, tying with Malta, Portugal and Canada/America as Best Taken. We *will* return next year!

Best t-shirt seen: "I'm only wearing black until they make something darker."

Most inappropriate t-shirt seen: New Kids On The Block. Mind you, seeing an Eminem t-shirt was also disturbing.

Tuesday 14 August 2001

The days between Eurorock and my birthday were largely enyojable. The best part of them were spent catching up on sleep and playing "Monkey Island 3" and "The Feeble Files".

On the afternoon of Tuesday 7th, Bryn and I went into Canterbury. We hung around in Blockbuster video for a while, while we waited for "Cats And Dogs" to start. The film was entirely unspectacular, with nothing in the way of sneaked-in adult-orientated humour found in "Rugrats In Paris" and "Shrek". However, the pre-film entertainment made up for it: finally seeing the trailer for "Harry Potter" was fantastic, but the letters on noticeboard advertising forthcoming films was better still. "A Knight's Tale" had been modified to "A Knight's Late" and "Planet Of The Apes" now read "Planet Of The Peas". Afterwards we went to Re-Enactor Anna's house and watched a film on TV, during which I fell asleep.

On Wednesday, we stayed in the house all day, waiting for the video machine to be delivered. Naturally, it didn't get there until about 5pm. Then we went in search of videos.

During the last ten months, Bryn and I must have watched hundreds of films together, both on video and at the cinema. And yet, despite all the previous day's browsing, apart from "Quills" (which I'd seen before), we could not find a single video that we both wanted to watch. Maybe we've seen everything worth seeing? Or perhaps we'll just watch anything, if it's free or going to be a cinematic experience, but when two trips to the video store are necessary, we're more fussy. Well, we were tempted by the series 5 "Buffy" tapes and series 2 "Angel" tapes. However, we wanted to watch them all at once, but only wanted to get two videos that evening. The same applied for all the slasher series. (I really hope we don't get bored enough to watch "Friday 13th". The first one was bad enough and there's about a million sequels!) In the end we just got "Battlefield Earth", which wasn't as bad as I'd expected.

On Thursday, we walked about three thousand miles to get to Argos, in the hope of finding a water gun, only to discover that they didn't have any. We went and saw Bryn's friends Vicky and Harvey, watched the American version of "The Weakest Link" (which is so much more evil than the British one and consequently much better) and walked home through a storm.

On Friday, my last day as a teenager, we went into Canterbury where I got approached by a market research woman who asked I was twenty. She didn't seem bothered by the one-day discrepancy, but when she asked if I prepared meals for anyone else in my household, I said no. I didn't want to confess our diet of toast, toast and occasionally toast, if we were feeling extravagant.

Bryn gave me twenty pounds (in accordance with my age) with which to buy the Motley Crue biography, since Classic Wok said it was the best one ever written. We went into Siesta, and checked to see if the enormous spiky (that looks more like a medieval torture weapon than a piece of jewellery) that Bryn has wanted forever had come down in price yet. It was still £192 though. Oh well, all he has to do is live to be 192, and I'll get it for him as a birthday present. I also set about confirming my gofficness for the decade ahead by purchasing white make-up.

Bryn left for Fritton Lake (a week of re-enacting) that afternoon. And so my birthday, the next day, began strangely: I woke the only person in the building too. Furthermore, I had no cards or presents. A few trickled through the letterbox on previous and later days, and many greetings awaited me when I went online the day afterwards, but I had nothing there and then. I dressed gofficly and backcombed my hair and put on the make up and set out for Canterbury station. I was just in time for a train I'd fully expected to miss.

I arrived in London an hour and a half before I'd arranged to meet Soppygit and Ibid, so I browsed in Borders Books (the location of every London rendez-vous I've been to in the last year). I noticed Derek Jarman's biography. I knew he'd made some Smiths videos, so I looked that up and read about them . . . and immediately after that were a few pages about Dungeness, the most evil yet fascinating place I'd ever been to, which I couldn't find out anything about elsewhere. I ended up parting with fifteen pounds so I could buy it. It's worth it, though: it links to so many of my interests. Apart from the above two, it concerns Alice Cooper, The Sex Pistols (plus Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jordan, Adam Ant, Helen Wallington-Lloyd etc), Ken Russell, Soft Cell, film making and slash.

Ibid and Soppygit turned up presently. The former presented me with presents: a fountain pen (which I'd asked for) and a book about the history of telephone boxes. Since I love and worship old-fashioned red telephone boxes, this was most appreciated (although it was in black and white). Oh yes, she also gave me a card containing the most terrible poem ever. I think it needs immortalising:

Today it is your birthday
To which I say HIP HIP HOORAY!
I hope you have many more of them
And do not choke on some phlegm
May Mykos keep you all your days
And keep you from getting lost in a maze
Thus ends this bad poem
I hope away you don't throw 'em.

We walked along Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, stopping at shops that took our fancy. These included Marks and Spencers so we could look at the chickens that Ibid might have packed (she works in a chicken factory [sorry Laurie] but is intending to quit soon, as constantly having to listen to Atomic Kitten on the radio is driving her more insane than she was to start with), and Foyles The Magic Bookshop. Ibid dashed through the foreign language section, learning new words of languages she'd never heard of before; Soppygit was enticed by a book by David Icke until I told her that he was a lunapath inspiring a cult of people in turquoise tracksuits (the trivia you pick up from Adrian Mole books!); and I found a book about voodoo. Playing "Monkey Island" a lot has reignited my interest in it, but I bravely put it back. In not one of the bookshops we visited could I find "Girl, Interrupted" though, even though its sales rank at Amazon.co.uk has three digits. Most odd.

We went to an exhibition about the history of photography at the National Portrait Gallery (cause it was free). Soppygit learned of some photography person with the same name as her ex-boyfriend. She really does know how to pick 'em, what with him and former-England-football-manager Walter Winterbotttom!

Then we went to Camden Town. We gazed lovingly at the oodles of clothes (me at gothic ones, Soppygit at 80s ones, Ibid at hippie ones - amazingly, we found a dress that we all liked), which were, alas, far too expensive for us to afford. I had to buy something, but the only thing within my budget was two pairs of stripy tights, one pink and black, one purple and black. We returned to Leicester Square where we hung around for a while, before Soppygit had to go home. Ibid and I went to a record shop where I was amazed to discover a fair sized section called "Goth / Industrial". Then we sat in Borders until it closed, before going to Slimelight.

The security guards repetitively told me that my membership card was invalid before letting me in. (The beep?) Inside, it was most odd. Slimelight's layout seems to vary every time I visit, but the top floor has always been the industrial one. This time, the goth floor was the top one, and the industrial one, the bottom, which was supposed to have closed.

The first half of the night wasn't good. The music was generally a bit on the poo side and The Cruxshadows (who played at Eurorock, but I didn't see) performed, who compelled me to sit out. As for trying to dance, I came up with the following letter:

Dear Slimelight,

I love you. I sing your praises on my website. I recommend you on the mailing list I'm on for goths who live in the frozen wasteland that is Cumbria. I have convinced fans of both Rachmaninov and N Sync to attend you. However, my most recent visit to you has left me unimpressed.

I first started going in October 2000 and liked the set up very much. Then I experienced the new goth floor, introduced in May 2001, and while it took a bit of getting used to, I still had a great time utilising it. But when I went on 11 August and it had moved upstairs, I found dancing space very limited. People were forever pushing through it to get between the chill out zone and the stairs and the number of people just wanting to dance caused a feeling of claustrophobia.

Consequently, I was tickled by neon dreadlocks; my spiky bracelets must have caused hundreds of pounds worth of damage to people's clothing; and air drumming, the dance move I have perfected (like air guitar, but without requiring you to remember which way round a guitar is held) is out of the question.

Please could you review your decision to have the goth floor in this location? Thank you,

Z

At about three o'clock, I fell asleep, but woke up again less than half an hour later to discover that the dance floor was less crowded and the music was brillig. This was the first time I'd attended and recognised half of what was played, rather than 5%. (Although quite why they played "Antmusic" and "Girls On Film", I do not know.) We danced off and on for the rest of the night: for once I got by on less than an hour of sleep and wasn't limping by the end. Unfamiliar with Slimelight chatting up protocol (if a boy starts talking to a girl, it's just for conversation; getting somewhere is a bonus, but it isn't expected), Ibid valiantly protected me from a bloke who offered to send me MP3s of the new Depeche Mode album. Grr for saying no through fear of further attacks by the Patricia Pitt virus.

Went to Euston station, nearly fell asleep sitting on the ground outside Sock Shop, caught the train, fell asleep again, read and got home (which is to say Brampton, where I was to stay for a week; Brampton is "home", my residence in Canterbury is "the house") without difficulty. Mum had made me a cake, but she only put two candles on it. Is that what she thinks my mental age is? I managed to blow them out in one go, though: on my tenth birthday, it took me eighteen attempts.

I had received a few pieces of mail, one from UKC. I expected it to be bumph, but it was in fact £80 of book tokens, given to me for doing so well in my exams!

A nice surprise, but grr! I'd bought two expensive books in the last two days and resisted all the temptations of The Biggest Bookshop In The Land, which I probably won't get to return to for quite a while. And I don't think book tokens work at Amazon.

On Monday, I went to work at my parents' shop: the week of work that needed to be done there was the reason I'd gone home. (An added benefit was that it would be nice to have some company during Bryn's absence.) It was dead boring and continued to for the rest of the week.

Wednesday 15 August 2001

About a year ago, the man who lives across the road from us started playing the bagpipes. Apparently they can be heard all over town. Since I have spent most of the last year not being at home, my experiences of his performances have been mercifully few.

The bagpipes, in case you couldn't guess, are not my favourite instrument. For anyone who lives a sufficient distance from Scotland, they may sing of rolling glens and burrrrrrrns and men in skirts, but having spent my entire life no more than ten miles from the country, they fail to inspire any romantic notions. The nearest bit of Scotland to me is drab and dead.

Tonight, however, when I got home from work, my neighbour was standing on his drive, playing away. Why? Did I go outside to practice the clarinet? I've heard of street musicians, but aren't they, like, people who don't have homes to go to? Perhaps his wife tired so much of his bagpipe playing that she kicked him out, and now he's playing outside her house to exact revenge.

I wonder if he's heard that you can be fined £20000 for playing your music too loud . . .

Thursday 16 August 2001

LiveJournal gets ruder and ruder.

Two days ago, when it wasn't working at all, I'd get "This page could not be displayed" interspersed by occasional "The server is overloaded" messages every time I tried to reload.

Yesterday, in between bouts of success, it told me "User pelicanzed has messed up their template definition." Huh! The cheek! I did no such thing!

And today, when I tried to look at my friends page, it gave me a black page with green boxes, and told me that Zed had no friends defined! How dare it accuse me of being friendless?

Saturday 18 August 2001

What the beep is Political Science? The only explanations I can think of are that it's either the politics of science (such as why new elements are called ahundredandtwelveium - to prevents battles over who gets credit for their discovery) or the science of politics (what goes on in a politician's brain).

I was watching Kerrang Interactive this morning and I saw Alien Ant Farm's take on "Smooth Criminal" followed by Godhead's version of "Eleanor Rigby" followed by Fear Factory's cover of "Cars". Are there no new songs left to be written?

Has anyone ever written Bill and Ted slash? Called "69, Dude!"?

Sunday 26 August 2001

Bryn and I decided to go to Camden and Slimelight yesterday. But Saturday 25th dawned very very hotly. Usually when I go to Slimelight, I wear my leather jacket over my Cure shirt over my PVC dress. This time, I couldn't face wearing anything other than the dress. I lent Bryn my PVC trousers, since he'd left all his ubergothic clothes at home. He was not at all comfortable.

Bryn was looking for a cyber top of some description, so we headed straight for Cyberdog. There was nothing of interest there, though, so we went to Black Rose. I found a short PVC skirt (no prizes for guessing the colour) and Bryn picked up a long sleeved mesh top (no prizes there, either). Then we worked our way back towards the tube station, on the opposite side of the road, where Bryn found a funchie waistcoat with UV panels and spikes on the front.

We checked to see what was on at the cinema and decided to see "Swordfish". It wasn't on for another hour, though, so we decided to check out the other side of the road.

That was where we discovered Glitters.

It was a poky little place. We were about to leave without anything, but I suggested we checked out the back section of the shop, where we found some stairs up to another storey. Bryn had said the word "trousers" (in the sense of "these trousers are killing me, I need some different ones") and one of the assistants asked what sort he was looking for. They found some for him, he tried them on, and then went downstairs to pay. We were about to leave until a man said to me, "We've got something for you. Here's the key, take her upstairs," he told one of the assistants.

So, despite the fact that it was closing time, she led me up two flights of stairs and unlocked a door. "This is rather dodgy," I thought. But inside the room was a vast amount of PVC clothing. "Now, what are you looking for?" the assistant asked.

Despite the fact that I wasn't planning on buying anything, and the next item on my List Of Goth Clothes To Buy was PVC hot pants, I somehow found myself saying, "Well, I bought a skirt today, so what sort of tops have you got?" I explained my problems with finding ones that fitted, and the woman started handing me a selection of basques, all of which I liked and fitted well. I decided on one, and while she was seeing what other colours they had (unsurprisingly, I ended up with one that was completely BLAAAACK!), I inquired about the tartan mini-skirt I'd spotted earlier. I was advised what size to get, and I tried it on, liked what I saw, and bought it.

I spent £80 there. (They knocked £5 off the price because they liked me, but I bought some fishnet stockings too.) Argh! But the clothes, and the discovery of such a useful shop, is certainly worth it.

We went to the cinema after that. When I got out my phone to switch it off (as if anyone would call me!), I discovered I'd received a couple of text messages from my online friend Helen. She was in Nodnol too, and had suggested we met up. But by the time I replied, it was too late. D'ohness. Oh well. I wouldn't have found The Shop Of Excellency if I'd read them earlier.

The film was ok, if not as intellectual as the review or the beginning suggested. Then we left the cinema and immediately ran into Anna The Goth.

She was not having a good time. She'd broken up with Darren and lost her wallet for the second time this month, putting an end to her plans to attend Slimelight. The three of us went to Ask The Trendy Restaurant (which lived by the sea, until Puff magicked it into north London). Anna left after about an hour, as she'd arranged to meet Darren; Bryn and I stayed until 9.45, then set off (as Slimelight opens at 10, even though no one dances until 11).

Angel tube station, from which Slimelight is just around the corner, was closed! Gah! So we had to get off at the next station. Luckily, the walk to Slimelight wasn't too long or complicated.

Slimelight wasn't great, although we did hear a funchie industrial remix of "Sex Dwarf" by Soft Cell. Luckily, when we left, Angel tube station was open again. (I couldn't have faced walking back to Old Street after dancing all night.) We went back to Bryn's parental home, where we slept fitfully (it was very hot and we stunk of Slimelight).

We had lunch, at which I discovered that they have renamed the desert Spotted Dick "Spotted Richard". The beep? Yes, the former sounds rude, but opportunities for innuendo are a good thing, and to rid us of them in this day and age seems a bit bizarre when you can go to a bar and ask for "Sex On The Beach" or a "Kick In The Balls". (Indeed, when we went out on Friday night - pub avec Re-Enactor Anna et Treefrog, a video shown by the Socialist Worker Party which we left as soon as possible as it was too flipping hot, and a visit to Vicky - I was v. happy to be able to say, "Treefrog gave Bryn a Kick In The Balls and he really enjoyed it".)

Anyway, we returned to Canterbury after a fashion. (After thinking we were going to miss the train, it was twenty eight minutes late.) It was raining, so we got a taxi back to my house. On the way, we saw Anna and Darren walking along. After being dropped off, in order to find out the latest news, we chased after them as best we could (not easy, since we were carrying many clothes, some chain mail and a stereo). They had disappeared out of sight, though. But we'll assume their togetherness is a good sign.

Will I ever escape from The Curse Of The Smiley Nirvana Shirt? I know a lot of people own them, but no one else wears theirs when I don't wear mine. But when I do, wherever I go, there's always someone else in one! First Camden, then indie night, then the cinema, then an exam. And on Friday night, walking home from Vicky's, I was in mine and on the other side of the road there was a boy in one!