When I saw this sign on the platform at Feltham, I couldn’t help feeling that the unspoken subtext was “…and a whole load of places that you will probably never go to. Because you’re from Feltham.”
Slow start today. The number of bands playing today about whom we were enthusiastic in advance was less than previous days, probably mainly due to the silly heavy rock bands taking over the main stage.
We decided to start the day at the third stage, and the first band we saw were called Gratitude. The music wasn’t particularly remarkable, but the frontman was sensational. He was very talkative and inviting, spending a lot of time off the stage and stood on the fence before the front row, and he drew a very healthy sized crowd. This enabled him to crowd surf, which he did multiple times. At the end of the set he then climbed down into the crowd with a box of the band’s CDs, to shake hands, say hello, and sell some discs. The crowd followed him like a swarm of flies. I was most impressed. I’d speculate that this guy has a certain star quality. Which, as we know, counts for a lot in this world.
We were incredibly tired this (Saturday) morning, and so we slept in a bit. I then wanted to fill the car up with petrol, so by the time we were on site, we had missed the start of the music. I wasn’t too fussed about the first band, but I do think that we missed a treat by only arriving for the last two minutes of Editors. The crowd was immense for such an early-billed act, and those two minutes that we heard sounded like something special. I shall have to do some sort of penance.
As we walked to the main entrance to the site, I discovered that my watch, our only timepiece, had stopped earlier in the morning. What a start. However, the timing of our arrival was impeccable – we arrived in the main arena at exactly the same time as Do Me Bad Things, the first band of the day, were taking to the main stage. They had a slightly shaky start, as a technical problem caused the sound to cut out after a few seconds of their first song, but they disappeared off stage for a few minutes and when they came back all was better. The lead singer made a lame deja vu joke, but nerves can do that to you, I suppose. I personally would have gone for the “Sorry, children, due to a technical hitch we’ve had to cancel Reading. Go home.” gag.
During our three days in Prague, I mostly bored Pete with anecdotes about the two times I had been there before, over ten years ago, before it became the stag capital of Europe. In fact the stags weren’t too much in evidence, but that might be because it was the beginning of the week, and it rained quite a lot. My main conclusion is that, contrary to what I have been believing for years, Budapest is much more beautiful.
At heart, they are very similar looking cities; they each have the big wide streets lined with hefty grey old buildings; the wide river bangled with bridges; the castle district rising on the far side. They both have a smattering of english; cheap, stodgy meat dishes; better beer than the UK. They both have efficient public transport and a lot of shoe shops.
The differences are in the superficial bits, the tourist honeypot at the centre. Prague has more sugar coating concentrated in the heart of town, whereas Budapest is less obviously pretty, but opens into tree-lined squares and views of the river just when you least expect it.
Prague also has the Jewish quarter, preserved despite the holocaust as a “museum of an extinct race.” A few threads of low-rise cobbled streets clustered within the elbow of the Vlatva river, which should be so pretty and so accessible; but in fact are subject to high entry fees, and impossible to get near because of the crowds of third-generation americans rediscovering their european roots at the tops of their voices.
Budapest has the advantage that I know my way around, I know where to eat, I know how to say thank you in the right language. It has the allure of the place I nearly lived once, and the mystique of not yet being everyone’s favourite european capital. So don’t tell anyone that it’s better than Prague.
One of the many views of Prague.
Mmmmm, panties.
To gain the upper hand in a game of squash, let go of a really good fart in one corner of the court. Then, try to hit the ball so that it lands in that corner. Your opponent will be unable to get close enough to the ball to return it.
This is a most worthy extension for Firefox, and definitely worth having installed for those occasions when you may need it. It allows you to grab hold of the bottom, right, or bottom-right of any textarea and drag it to your preferred size.
Resizable Text Area (or a direct link to the xpi, if you trust me)
UPDATE: Another few extensions that I strongly recommend are AdBlock, WebmailCompose (for users of webmail) and Slim Extension List (for users with more than half a dozen extensions). All homes should have them.