26.08.09
BJC 2009
Finally got some time to write stuff and edit pics!
Wednesday was a work day and I was to pick up Mats and teh Biskups in Leicester before heading to Norwich for the delayed BJC this year.
Mats has been local in the past so “knows Leicester”. Hah! At 5.30 he was supposed to have them both at my work (taking an hour off the trip should I have had to go home and then to Norwich). Quick phone call and they’re miles away in the wrong bit of Leicester completely. Still not as far as they would have been if they’d gone to my house tho.
After a decent drive and registering I went to put my tent up before it got too dark. At least 1 person approached me for advice on twinges before I’d even got to the campsite. Nice to know I’d be useful at least.
Met a few bods and pitched near to some nice folk. Whilst putting the tent up Mini was stomping around letting us all know that “The Sharpe Twins”(sic) were going to do a show. Looking over from the tent they seemed to be performing in the dark. I got there more or less as they finished. Ah well, an evening of hugs and hellos ensued.
That was day 1 really. No open stage and I didn’t stay up for renegade.
Thursday – Woken by 2 annoying teen boys in the next tent. Wittering about “Meat slurry” and trying to sound big and clever by using pointlessly over-long words. V tedious (and yes it did remind me of my teen life).
Day was spent alternately chatting and snoozing and with a big wodge of clinic time being done.
I was down to do a gym ball workshop too but this didn’t happen due to me not having heard I was doing one and thus hadn’t taken any gym balls along. As it was a few folk turned up and we did a basic Pilates thing instead until the combination of Mandy and Liz (stars) came up with 1 gym ball and a pump between them so we did a few of the sillier exercises to round off our session.
I briefly managed to say hello to Duncan (from Canada) too just before he disappeared off to move home from Edinburgh. Sorry to see you go Duncan, hope to catch up with you again some day.
After a day wandering through the site (one tent had the very large words “I piss myself” daubed on it) the evening was spent with the Lugeburf crowd (a good lot of them were there) chatting and ta to Kate for supplyage of beer. Best decision of the day was when we all thought “curry after BYJOTY then!”
I avoided renegade again but there was the fire show. A decent number of people I chatted to were going along to have a look but weren’t expecting much. It turned out to be better than most were expecting. There were still rather a lot of pointless body moves but a couple of the poi acts were bang on with their pairs moves and there were lots of pretty shapes being made. The finale was quite nice too with fireworks and flames shooting off all over the place. Definitely a step up from many fire shows I’ve seen but still not sure that it holds my attention that well. I don’t have the “ooh fire” factor any more so it’s just pretty lights moving around. I’d rather see that in a theatre rather than in a courtyard. Mind you Luke did make the point that it was fun to see a fire show and not be freezing whilst watching. The man with the fire wheelbarrow was quite fun too (if a little limited).
Friday – woken up by annoying teen boys in the next tent. This time they were cooking bacon and seemed to be bollocksing it all up right royally (and noisily). And one of them kept sniffing which is so bleedin’ annoying. I dragged myself out of bed and handed him some bog roll, much to his surprise. But he did accept gratefully and apologised for his sniffing. Ta.
More clinic time but no workshop afterwards so more napping done.
In the evening me, Kate and Graeme went into town for the BYJOTY show. I managed to wangle my way up into the balcony on the pretence of doing the photos. The show was ace but there’ll be another post for that.
Afterwards a whole bunch of us found ourselves a nice Indian place (Ali Tandoori) – thanks to the man in a pub for the recommendation. Again a lovely evening with nice folk but this time with excellent food.
Back to the site for renegade, chatting and more beer. Later I was introduced to some of Lizzah’s new southern pals and we played a bizarre dice game.
Renegade started off with Jay hosting but after a couple of uninspiring acts I gave up and went to bed.
A short while later I heard Jay announcing Ben Beever to the stage. Ah well that’s the problem with renegades; you have to endure the rubbish to find the odd nugget of worthwhileness.
Saturday – woken up by annoying teen boys in the next tent, complaining about the mess in their tent – for about an hour. Note – not “doing something about the mess in their tent” just “complaining about it”.
As I was woken early I needed yet more nappage through the morning.
Wandered into town with Lizzah for the games and then the show.
We did get to Pizza Express for lunch but they totally failed to live up to their name and we left before they got round to coming to ask us for our order. We ended up in the Norwich market where we found a chip stall – it just did chips. And nice ones they were too.
The games were a surprise for a few reasons. Firstly I was watching them, second I was in one game, third I came about 2nd or 3rd in it – it wasn’t very obvious to be honest. I was sat next to Luke and we watched the first round of club distance passing. They were all pretty awful and Luke seemed actually offended at how bad the first round was. “Come on we can do better than that” so he got me involved. It was the first time I’ve juggled for months and we came about 2nd. Not bad I reckon.
I left shortly afterwards thus missing what turned out to be the shortest 5 club endurance game ever when a sudden gust of wind blew up at the exact moment of the start of the game meaning only 1 person got more than a flash.
The games were ok. The compere was audible (credit due for not succumbing to the usual problem of not being heard easily) but I didn’t think the order of the games was too hot. The first one took some organising whereas maybe a quick and easy round of unicycle gladiators would have been the ideal “splash” intro to the non-BJCers in the audience.
Later he put the hardcore ball games together so we had first up 5 ball endurance. Followed by 7 ball endurance followed by 9 ball endurance. The problem with this was that the only people who could take part in the 7 and 9 ball games were also in the 5 ball game and were very good at it so were in it for a long time hence getting tired. Maybe it’d have been better to split them a bit to give them a rest before the harder games.
Anyway I’d gone shopping at this point to find myself another memory card for my camera. I was hoping to get lots of pics from the show later so thought a card for the show would be a good idea. Unfortunately I hadn’t reckoned on the cost of the larger cards. I would have needed a mortgage extension to get the 16Gb card so I settled on a 4Gb card instead. Big enough for something like 1400 pics so that’d do.
To the show venue at 3.30 for the early show. Show description coming in another post though so I’ll leave the show there for now. Oh apart from one item of non-show note. I got a text message telling me that 2 lovely people (Rob and Annette) had had their baby (welcome to the world Nico) and the text was written in a “just happened” style. I dashed downstairs to share the news with other folk. First person I met who’d know them was Lynne who responded with a blase “Oh yes that was yesterday”. Thus stealing my thunder somewhat.
After the late show me and Lizzah were both starving and looking for food. We ended up at 3 Ways Lebanese restaurant which turned out to be rather good. Recommended.
Back to site for beer and renegade. I left when the uninspiring acts just carried on being uninspiring. Tired so to bed. As I was walking there I heard them announce Komei to the stage. Ah well again.
The night was very difficult to sleep through as the show seemed to have energised everyone. Shame it couldn’t have energised them away from the tents though. So I had to put up with lots of shouting and screaming and drunkeness – part of the deal I suppose. At about 4am the annoying teen boys in the next tent came back shouting something about a man who gave them some sort of chilli flavoured foodstuff. “That man is awesome! I’m going to give him a Dr Pepper!” This last sentence had someone else coming back at him (from inside a different tent) with “Dr Pepper is minging – urgh!” Thus began a spirited discussion between opposing world views.
Later they moved on to chatting about Haribo and how the word should be used by Hari Krishnas instead of Gouranga. They eventually concluded that shouting “Haribo” would cause more happiness than “Gouranga” does. Hard to argue with that I suppose.
Then one of them got into an infinite loop of worrying that every time he swore he’d lose the game and swore about this therefore he lost so swore again etc etc… Ad nauseum.
After this they moved onto phoning one of their friends, giggling at how funny it would be to wake someone up. Har har.
After that interlude they went onto a “Who can sing the highest note?” competition. This was annoying but it turned from annoyance to entertainment quite quickly as these 2 drunken fools’ contest degenerated into 2 boys squeaking a lot and giggling even more. I was in hysterics. Ah bless ‘em.
Tired on Sunday morning I was. And I don’t think the man ever did get his Dr Pepper.
Sunday was a very quiet day of mellowing and packing. I’d managed to get teh Biskups and Mats to pack up before 12. We weren’t going before 3 as Pol and Freddy were to do the closing show. It was originally due to be on in the big top, then as we were sitting there we were told it was on in one of the gyms. The gym was packed but the 3 of us managed good seats on a table at the back.
Pol and Freddy were excellent. Lots of 2 person manipulation stuff with a very thick layer of clowning on top. Clearly very well practised and very entertaining.
A very fitting end to a very good weekend.
Thanks to all who contributed, even those 2 teen boys in the next tent.
Pics here (show and BYJOTY pics to come later).