Slush puppy white noise full moon mayhem

About fifteen years ago, I tried to make out that I liked science fiction. Perhaps I even *believed* I liked science fiction. I think this was because the men I admired all seemed to be reading it. Anyway, I started lots of sci-fi books, finished almost none of them, and moved back to novels when I realised the pointlessness of this exercise.

But the first line of one of the books I started has remained in my mind ever since. I can't remember the name of the book, but the opener went:

"It was 1986, and the hippies had long since left law school."

All Tomorrow's Parties is the spiritual home of the hippies who never went to law school, and of those from every generation since who never cut their hair and got jobs. They get to come along and perform their weird shit for those who did, but who wonder if they should have. And it all happens in a decaying holiday camp in a part of England that time forgot. It's the perfect setting.

    
    

L-R, top-bottom
1. Lemon yellow chalets as far as the eye can see
2. Japanese noise merchant Merzbow against a mural of can can dancers
3. The Chefette was shut, so we couldn't try the Traditional Indian Curries
4. You can have any colour you like as long as it's neon
5. joella's tongue after one raspberry slush puppy too many (ie one)
6. Everything was Vincent Gallo-branded, including the wristbands

I loved... Merzbow -- I hitched my anxieties, my stress and my period pain to his noise wagon and let him take them all away. *And* he's beautiful. I also loved Polly Harvey, who played solo for the first time in 12 years and brought me to tears, and I loved the slush puppies they sold from the bar as only a someone who grew up immersed in seaside tack can.

I hated... Peaches. There's got to be better ways to be empowered than standing on stage in your bra and pants and pole dancing without a pole. Call me a hairy-pitted old timer, but she ain't no heroine. I also hated Yoko Ono. Get *over* yourself, love. But M loved Yoko, and lots of people loved Peaches, so everyone was a winner.

Most of all I loved having the festival vibe in Pontins -- there's something about that combination of cool and naff which really does it for me. Camber is a one horse place (and that horse isn't very well), but get your friends down on the beach at midnight with a full moon, some wine and some grass, and there's not a lot better in this world.

joella