24 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling at 11:17 am by alby
Sometimes something happens that makes you cringe and look away and not want to know what happens next.
This has happened this week over on rec.j.
Someone advertised some juggly kit online shop. And didn’t they do well.
From what I saw the comments so far have included such minor criticisms as “well done for alienating most of your potential customers”, “why the ridiculous restriction in colours?”, “the site looks dreadful on most browsers”, “the site is unfinished to the extent of not having anything behind most of the links” and ”what you do actually have for sale looks rubbish”.
Nice.
The guy seems to have responded to these criticisms but, like at a car crash, I can’t bring myself to look. [edit: oops looks like I was wrong here. Still not looking tho. Really not.]
I shall avoid the thread.
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21 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling, People at 5:03 pm by alby
Wasn’t sure whether to go to Durham this year. I’m very pleased I did.
I was out on Friday so was up late-ish on Saturday but the drive was pretty good. Not too much delay anyway. Oh and I managed to leave the directions in the house. Specially printed them the day before n’all.
Wandered in to find a bustling lobby and hall at around 2.30.
Squeals and hellos and hugs abound. I like jugglers. P&C were there despite having travelled up in Philip. They had tales of bouncy dog which yet again makes me want one. Sigh.
Me and Clurb got down to some passing as per our usual want.
After a short while I realised I’d not really eaten anything in the day yet so buggered off to the village shop. Bought myself what should have been a lovely sandwich only to find out that the bread was sodden wet and therefore contented myself with stuffing the filling straight into my mouth and ignoring the ruined bread.
More time spent with an variety of folk from the usuals to Graeme and Kate (ex Lugeburf) to the Fletchers and doing crosswords with Lorri and more. An extremely pleasant way of spending a day.
In the aft we all headed off for dinner at the “other” pub. This one rather handily served food at sensible times (last year the other pub started serving at 7.30 - no good for those of us who wanted to see the show). Good food as well. Service was good. Recommended for next year. Whilst sitting there about half of the convention goers turned up as well which did cause Ewan slight stress as he was organising the show and the sheer quantity of food needing prep meant slow service. But despite this, laughs a plenty, lots of passing notes around ala school and I even had pudding which frankly is unheard of.
To the show. They had their £1 a drink bar again which is excellent. More places should try this. This was the start of me drinking rather too much.
Ooh no it wasn’t. I had a pint at the pub with dinner too.
After the show we all headed back into the hall for more juggling. At least that was the plan.
What actually happened was we sat around in a big group chatting, eating and drinking. I’d brought up the sausage Pete had bought a couple of weeks back, the Bulgarian meat and sausage I’d brought back from my trip and, to drink, the 4 remaining bottles of Belgian beer as delivered by my couchsurfing Belgians. P&C had also brought some chocolate that I’d given them from Germany.
We had a nice little group of folk around us. The meat went down well (not quite as nice as the really smoked version), Helen made herself into a special case by refusing to eat it on the flimsy rationale that it was pork and what with her being jewish etc etc. I mean the nerve of the woman! (this incident reminded me of a skit from “Beyond the Fringe” where one of them comments that Jonathan Miller is a Jew. “I’m not a jew. I’m jewish, not the whole hog.”) People ummed and aahed about whether the sausage was lovely and which was the better. Then we get to the chocolate.
PnC’d brought “Feuer” and “Wasser”. Feuer is a chili chocolate. Wasser is milk cream and watermelon. The chili one was a bit dull but it did its job of warming. But Wasser really was a discovery. Loads of people had a bit and reactions varied from “nyer” to “What is it? Is it really? I’ll sniff it first. No actually I’ll nibble a bit. Oh it’s disgusting. No maybe not. Ah really it is. Urgh. Ooh that’s space dust!”
By this time I was well on my way to being the drunkest I’ve been in ages. I totted up my booze intake this morning. 1 pint at the pub with dinner, 3 half litre bottles of Polish beer and 2 odd Belgian beers. And I was having a great time.
Sleep did come easily and the back of this car was pretty comfy with a thermarest, a 3 season sleeping bag and a duvet.
Woke up to a noxious headache and guts but the latter was soon passed. Coke helped ease the former.
More passing and sitting and chatting. And then home via my parents’ place.
I was going to join others for a pub lunch but realised as I set off that I was going to have yet another meal out with my folks when I got there. So rather than a lovely meal with lovely people I set myself to a long dull drive south before another lovely meal with lovely people.
So now that’s 2 Durhams and 2 great times. And 3 conventions in 3 weekends. I think I need a rest.
Have fun.
Pics here.
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15 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling, Life at 4:56 pm by alby
One of m’colleagues is getting marred [sic] next year and she’s just sent out invites to the evening do afterwards.
And just look when it is!
Friday the 22nd May. So right in the BBU. The 10th BBU. The extra-special-something-will-be-acer-than-normal-Bungay-aceness BBU.
I think this is the first time in my life that I’ve been able to say “no sorry, I’m busy that day” more than 6 months in advance of the event.
See you in Bungay!
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14 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling at 11:26 pm by alby
Ok folks this is a post I’ve just written that I was going to post on rec.j but now I’ve written it I’m not sure it’s worth it. What do you reckon?
——————————
Herxheim
After a good load of years attending conventions in the UK I finally got to go to a small foreign convention.
I’ve been to EJCs before but this was a little 200 person affair in the quiet town of Herxheim in Germany. I had a grand time and met lovely people and juggled a bit.
But what’s the difference between this and your standard UK con?
First off was the length of it. It started on the Friday and finished on the Sunday. Most of the small cons in the UK are 1 day only jobs. Arrive, play, eat, show, hang around a bit, leave. This extra time allowed more of the good bits of the longer fests, namely that there’s no rush to play all in one go, and there’s more time to chat and meet people. I quite liked it. No, scratch that, I really liked it.
It wasn’t expensive at E21 and food was included too. We had 2 breakfasts and 1 evening meal included in that price. Not a bad deal.
I’ve heard of this at only 1 event in the UK and that was at the BUC. I didn’t hear good reports of that (I’m not a yiker so didn’t go) in terms of either quality of food or of flexibility of eating times. If it’s 7pm you must eat now!
It wasn’t a problem here though as breakfast went on for some time. Other food was always available through the rest of the day as well (for a small cost). Good, decent food at a cheap price. The only UK event that had that, (as I recall) was Lestival this year (plug plug - it’s looking like it’s on again next June - put it in your diaries).
Facilities were excellent. Clean and well supplied loos and showers, sizeable and bright juggling hall (although Mr Garfield would be horrified that it was very much a “shoes off” event), a place to sit and eat and chat, a seperate sleeping hall with its own showers and loos.
Beer for sale too, you really don’t get that in the UK except at the biggest event.
And I absolutely loved their tick list system. There’s a sheet with names in the rows and prices in the columns. If want something from the shop, eg a beer at E1.50 then you just go and get a beer from the fridge and put a tick on your row in the E1.50 column. At the end of the event you add your row up and pay your balance. Wonderful idea. Nice to see honesty among the community to the extent of the orgs not even a: checking that the list is right, or b: not even checking to see if you’ve added up your own tally correctly. I like the honour system and I see the juggling folk being one of the honest groups out there. It pleases me greatly that this is so.
The show was a little odd but I’m not sure that it was representative of German convention shows. They called it an Open Stage and no-one was booked and paid to perform. I was told that this isn’t too common except at the little events such as this. No theatre space just a halved gym so you could still juggle in the other half should you wish.
Is there anything that they could teach us in the UK?
I doubt that beer sales would come in due to our licensing rules but the food service really is good.
How about more events being weekends rather than one dayers? Means more organising, means more hassle re finding sleeping space. Is it doable?
How about the tick sheet system? It’s quicker than everyone paying every time and means you need fewer hands manning the tills. Would it be a goer for the UK? Orgs do you trust the UK jugglers with such a system?
Sorry if this has been a tad waffly. It’s late, I’m tired. I’ll shut up now.
Have fun.
Alan
PS Hello to everyone I met and passed with and chatted to. And ta again to Lisa and the Duves (and of course the ever lovely Jules).
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Posted in Juggling, People, Reviews, Travel at 9:02 pm by alby
I do like Germany. I’ve just been away to Heidelberg (or its environs) for a few days.
I’d hoped to have an old pal but calls and messages weren’t returned and address changed ages ago from what I know. Very sad.
A swift note on flying again. I’ve recently said that I hate the whole process. But this time I went with a proper airline. Not a cattle train thing but one where they give you a seat number. There was far less hassle, no pushing, a chance to pick your seat, “free” drinks and food. Just a stack load more civilised.
Having said that the airport at Frankfurt is majorly weird. I got off the plane and followed the signs to passport control and baggage reclaim. After an age of walking I went through some doors and seemed to be outside of the secure bit. There were people waiting for travellers, the shops were all around; but I’d still not seen a pass control or baggage place. Eventually I found a passport control desk. Through that to more shops and more people milling around as if they were non-flyers. Very odd indeed.
I was met at Heidelberg Hbf by young Mini and her mum. The train was 6 minutes late, so much for German trains being wonderful. Tsk.
They laughed at me for saying that German trains should be on time. They stared with amazement when I told them that UK trains must be more than 15 mins late to be counted as “late” in the figures. I still think they win.
Their home is rather nice and like all family homes the action all takes place in the kitchen. My bed was in another building in a little outhouse where the girls had a room each and a living room space for both of them. I was in that bit. Comfy and warm.
On Wednesday afternoon Tamali was away and Helena had to study so I was with Mini who I think would be the first to say that she is not the most confident English speaker. She managed marvellously well though. We had a good hour or two chatting about stuff in poor german (on my part) and adequate English (from her).
Later on in the evening we headed out for food in a restaurant called “Fody’s” which involved a minor trip over a river. The food was excellent german stuff but the place was odd. There were 3 bits to it. Outside was too cold so we didn’t sit there. There was a tent which was quiet but allowed smoking so smelt a bit. Inside was warm and comfy but they had awful music on. We chose to sit inside on the basis that bad music isn’t as bad as smoke wafting our way.
Another oddity was that dogs were allowed in the place. There were a few dogs hanging around under tables. I’ve never seen that anywhere else.
But the highlight was that Jules and Lisa joined us for food. Lovely group of folk, lovely food. Rather a good evening.
Oh apart from “the phone call”. As the group were all here we phoned Clurb and Pee. Clurb gave me my “5 things to do”. She did this by telling Jules who gave a running commentary to the table. Unfortunately one of them involved me taking notice of “Mini’s rack”. Jules didn’t know what this was so kept asking me. My discomfort told them that something was naughty. Tsk.
Thursday was a quiet one. The girls had gone to school early so I slept in til late. Loads of reading done. A couple of supermarket trips followed in the afternoon. And that was about it until the evening.
Helena had an English test to do on Friday and she asked me to chat through the work to be tested. After that we had a long chat about politics, the environment, the economy, religion and more. She held her own admirably and if she failed that test then I’m impressed by how advanced their tests are. Very impressed.
I also briefly had a play on the net. Couldn’t get through to clurb.net. Odd but prolly nothing beyond the server having a spasm. And so to bed.
Oh my phone’s ringing. It’s Pee telling me that clurb.net has vanished. Hmm. Swift return to the web to see that the registration of the domain had lapsed and they’d not bothered to send me an email to tell me.
A slightly nervous time trying to fix it but it seemed to work, eventually.
The following day was the start of the Herxheim convention. Tamali was working in the morning and the girls were at school so I didn’t do a lot until 11 when I was handed the car keys and told “do something!”
Car loaded and we were off. Firstly to pick up Jules and then to Herxheim.
On the way we were passed by a juggler’s car. Not only that but it turned out to be Jules’ mum.
We were there a few hours before it started so we could help out setting up. I didn’t get to do a lot at first. I’m not sure whether they wanted to spare me hassle (as I’m a guest) or that they just didn’t want to chat to someone who may not understand. Of course they may just have assumed I’d be useless at anything they wanted. You decide!
When people started to show up Lisa bounded up to tell me that Thomas! had arrived and that Clurb would have been excited to hear this. After a couple of hours of starting I think I recognised about 2 people (including Thomas!)
But then Helena introduces me to quite a lovely bloke with a guitar. He’s called Jurgen and has an interesting story of performing, drugs, alcohol and dropping out. He’s now trying to build a full on eco-life with sustainable everything. I had a great time chatting for a good few hours.
A little later Lisa introduces me to a guy called Gerhard. She’s grinning a bit and then tells us that we know each other. We’re both blank at this but then she calls me MonkeyJuggler and him Palmcron. We both go “Ohhh!” and then start passing. Another grand person to meet. Was fun teaching him 7 club 3 count and 4 count too.
I was up late that night. I spent my time chatting to Tamali, Helena, Lisa and a pair of fellows called Andreas and Kristian. More nice folk.
I went to bed on a borrowed fake thermarest. The most amazing thing about this was that the air squashed away from where the weight was. In practice this meant that I was sleeping with little cushioning between my body and the floor but my feet were on the biggest bulge of air. Very odd indeed.
So a bad night’s sleep and up early.
There wasn’t much going on in the morning so I headed out to see the town. A rather nice place, bizarrely twinned with a place in Rwanda. And also with Ilfracombe!
Once back I did some juggling. Unheard of.
And watched people.
There was an acro workshop that had the bizarrest warm up of running at people then leaping and slapping hands. Then crawling and going through people’s legs. Then they started “swimming” on each other. Very odd behaviour.
Oh yes and part of the warm up included full lumbar flexion and then twisting whilst fully flexed. Note to acro workshop leaders - this is not such a great idea. This movement is the one that is most likely to put someone’s back out. Don’t do it.
Then the show was getting set up. It wasn’t a full on gala-show. Helena called it an “open show” to me and then giggled.
After the show came more passing and then to bed.
Jules showed me to my room (she had the key) and then sat and chatted for hours. Very nice way to end the day.
And I really managed to sleep well. Thankfully I’d set my phone’s alarm, otherwise I’m not sure I’d have made it to the train.
Hugs to everyone and then to the station with Jules.
Met a guy called Jan there and managed a half hour conversation in German. Woot.
And that was it. Home now and really wanting to go back.
Work just isn’t as fun.
Pics here.
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04 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 11:33 pm by alby
Saturday hosted the first of the Manchester conventions I’ve ever attended.
Pete had spent the previously evening calling it the Manky convention (when he wasn’t feeding himself pear cider, Bulgarian meat and some sort of euro sausage). I thought it was just twee nicknamage but it appears not.
The venue was really very small. It seemed about 2/3rds the size of the Ladywood hall but that might be my dodgy memory talking. And anyway if you’ve been to one you’ve prolly been to the other anyway so you already know the relative sizes. I’ll stop talking about this now.
There weren’t huge numbers of folk there when we arrived but we had gone early. But then huge numbers just never showed. But it did mean there was enough space for us to play.
Me and Clurb got back into the passing thing. First juggling together since EJC way back in August. But it seemed to work ok. Looking at our schedule of sessions at the uni though, it seems that decent practice (to the extent of being able to show off on stage) doesn’t look awfy likely.
So between bouts of passing we managed time chatting. Hi to Lorri, Andy and Nigel whom I talked to more than I ever have before. I got my legs sat on by Dr Helen. We did a cryptic crossword in a little group. Suzanne and DB were as lovely to chat to as ever as well.
And then the games. Oh and raffle. My 2 least fave things that regularly happen at conventions. But in this case from start to finish the games and raffle took up a grand total of 19 minutes.
Around 5ish to 6ish the passengers decided they wanted to eat. So off to curry with P, C, DB and Suz. And a lovely place it was too.
And that was that. A pleasant way to spend a day.
Apart from the mildly horrific drive back along windy roads whilst it heaved down with rain. Great fun.
Pics here.
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08 Sep 2008
Posted in Juggling, Self-indulgence, Work at 9:18 pm by alby
Way back at the EJC I had a strange encounter with Luke B.
He’d asked me ages ago if I’d be ok to do an interview with him re my PhysioMonkey work and that.
Well he went and interviewed me and has now only gone and stuck the interview out on his podcast. And I’m quite pleased. I don’t actually sound too much like an idiot. Well not too much.
Some over-usage of one or two phrases and a bit of unclarity at one or two moments but generally not too bad.
Pleased.
Have fun.
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14 Aug 2008
Posted in Juggling at 10:11 am by alby
EJC pics are up: here.
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13 Aug 2008
Posted in Juggling, People, Travel at 1:46 pm by alby
Oh my word.
So much stuff to pack in. A week’s worth of activity and experience. This’ll be a very long post. I was going to do it as separate days but it’s taken me this long to get round to it so here it all is. I’ll do the gala show in another post.
Day 1
Travel there was straightforward if a little on the long side. I got to P&C’s at about 6pm and we’d left before half past. We finally ended up at Karlsruhe not long after midday local time. So it was a 17 hour trip. Hard work and I was dead when we got there. There were some good lines though. The most memorable being “He woke the windowsill woman up and she was NOT happy about it” and “If we were in Australia we’d already be there”.
As we got there I realised that I had no Euros and I didn’t expect to be able to pay by card. The registration queue was long and I didn’t really want to have to either queue for ages and find out that I couldn’t pay with a card, or walk ages to find a cash machine.
Now many of you may know Mini. He was walking the queues trying to speed things up. He heard of my hassles and promptly lent me E100, P&C lent me the rest. Huzzah - helpful people.
Mini - thanks so much - the thought of having to walk to the cash point at that moment was really depressing me.
Tent was put up and I slept. Or at least I tried to. My word it was hot. I ended up in a pool of sweat so picked up my pillow and slept in the shade outside of the tent. I have no clue how long I was out for but I’m assured it was quite some time.
The show tickets were dished out at registration too but this was odd - P&C got Thurs pm - I got Friday afternoon. These were just given to us and there was no choice. I’d quite have liked to have been given an option to maybe go to the same show as the people I’d just driven all this way with. Mini saw this and set off with my ticket to change it. He did but I found out later in the week that he’d swapped the Fri afternoon for Fri evening. I tried to change it a couple of times but everyone pretty much wanted the Thursday show and no-one would swap. I was annoyed at first but through the week more and more people I met were going to the Friday evening show that it became less of an issue. But I still don’t see why people weren’t just asked which show they’d prefer.
After the marathon journey and sleep I checked out the showers - top news they were grand, hot and clean.
The site was pretty impressive generally. It was in 2 halves separated by a tram line. One side had the main hall (an indoor sports place big enough for a running track - a 200m one anyway) and the camping areas. This whole bit was for conventioners only. The other side was based between a couple of hills and had a couple of huge big tops for shows, a beer tent, catering and more and was open to the public as well (although they couldn’t get into the tents to see any shows).
I spent the first evening there sitting on the grass drinking “Jugglers Brew” a rather nice local Pils rebadged specially for the EJC. It was here where Pete found a lost wallet and then we enjoyed watching a harassed looking man show up and look for it but not opening his mouth to ask anything. Eventually we asked him and Pete gave it him back. It was odd but I suppose he may not have had much English to be fair.
Still tired that first day so off to bed earlyish only to be kept awake by annoying American family with squealy young daughter.
Day 2
Rained a lot overnight which did wake me up but generally not a bad night’s sleep. Me and Clurb’s first juggle was this morning where the gym was rather annoyingly hotter than anywhere else.
Apart from juggling we met more known faces. Me and Tom enjoyed a kebap each and chatted with others on a lovely sunny knoll.
And then one of the highlights - Jules was there. I haven’t seen Jules since about 2000. Wonderful person to know and a great re-union. Hurrah for Jules.
Then we fought our way through the “queue” to get into the “Chapter 2″ show. The deal with this one was a showcase for the Chapter 2 festival coming up in Brugge in October. Was an interesting show with lots of improv stuff done by lots of folk. Highlights for me were Wes Peden and some Chilean guy I’d never heard of called Carlos Munaz. The final act was a double bill of Marco Paoletti and Stefan Sing - nice ideas but too long. The best bit was their sound man doing live sampling - can’t remember his name; Sebastian something I think. Later on discussing the show I came to the conclusion that I’m a heretic in that I think Marco is over-rated. Don’t get me wrong, he’s bloody good, just that his invention and performance just isn’t as good as he wants it to be. I feel it’s like when I was a kid wanting to draw a picture and knowing what that picture should look like but just not having the ability to do it like I wanted to.
Later on that night a strange man stared at Clurb’s boobs for ages and I finally got to speak some Deutsch.
Day 3
I woke up the next morning to find ants everywhere. Sigh. Camping is so much fun. More passing and that. Me and Clurb spent some time hiding in a big top as it was raining and we had a little chat with Jeanine (contact performer). And the rain started to remind me of Ptuj - luckily only lasted an hour or so.
During the day in the gym there had been some announcements over a loudhailer. None of them were understandable, at best the sound carried about 10m. Apparently the place most of us were parked was a payable spot and we were all going to get fined and towed. So I moved the car and on my way back to the site saw a tow truck with the magic name “Auto Spancker” in the area.
So announcements - loudhailers don’t work, shouting doesn’t work. So what would? There was a huge electronic sign at the site. How about putting announcements on there? That would allow various translations at once etc… V helpful I reckon. Or another idea - get a really tall stiltwalker to carry round a board - that would surely be noticeable.
Later that evening we went to the German showcase in the big top. Now here is a German showcase, in a tent in Germany, with all German performers (nearly), hosted by a German, with a mostly German audience. And they did all the hosting in English. No no no! Don’t do it like that. The rest of the event can be in English or a variety of languages - but this should have been a nice little respite for the Germans from having to listen to English. I know it’s friendly and more people will know some English but if there’s ever an occasion to stick with your own lingo then this was it.
The show’s main issue was that it was very long - 3 hours plus. In a very hot tent and on hard benches. But the performers were excellent in the main. Peter Gerber and “Duet Complett” (?sp) were the stand outs. The latter showed off a very funny act (the host stated that they had to move to France to learn humour, being German and all) all Flamenco style with guitar, acro and ukelele juggling. Culminating in a 6 ukelele passing pattern whilst playing a tune on them. Top stuff.
I could have done wihtout the drummer but the 12 year old lad at the end is certainly going to be someone to keep an eye on. Snazzy circus style stuff by someone clearly coached from a young age. And why was the Japanese guy there? Something to do with Bavarian dialect but I have no clue what was said.
I stayed up quite late that night chatting with a stack of Brits including Urszula (NB emphatically NOT “Ady’s mum” or “Mrs Adrian”) - interesting chat with a juggling mother.
Day 4
Woken up by oppressive heat. Awful feeling. Too hot to juggle that morning so I didn’t do a lot until time for a CouchSurfing meeting. I’d not posted on the site that I’d attend but it seemed like it would be a good chance to meet some nice folk. As it turned out there wasn’t a massive turn out but those who were there seemed like a lovely bunch. Andrei (US), Rosie (Israel), Olga (Czech), Monika (German living in Denmark) and Bridget (Ireland). Monika in particular was quite interested in my job as she’d hurt her shoulder earlier in the week and was bemoaning not being able to juggle all week. 5 mins later she had full movement - magic hands you see. Actually she was still in pain but that was no surprise considering how recent her injury was. But hopefully I was of some use.
The bunch of us then went to take in the Latino Fiesta show. Bad choice. It was quite awful. Bad staff stuff (miles off Meghan standard), ok hula but way sub-Silvia or Rachel, droppy other performers, very Spanish sense of humour which entertained the Spanish but not me sadly. At the interval the CouchSurfers all found separate excuses to leave. So that was that. I left too and ended up sat with friends on the grass drinking jugglers brew.
Day 5
Yet again too hot to stay in the tent so I crashed out on the seats in the gym for a while.
Me and Clurb had decided to go on a day trip to Heidelberg and today seemed a good day as any as it was due to be stupidly hot so no juggling would get done anyway. P was to hang around and help Beard out in the traders’ area.
Wow, aren’t German trains ace?
Heidelberg is lovely. Definitely my fave place in Germany (that I’ve seen). Spent the day wandering and wondering why the hell I don’t live there. And why isn’t anywhere in the UK that civilized?
I did try and phone my old friend there too. Her old number was dead - no surprise. But I’d found an old address book not long back and it had her mum’s number in. I phoned that and got an answerphone but it was my pal’s voice on it. Bingo. Garbled message in German was left.
The other notable thing about Heidelberg (actually Germany so far) was the sheer number of injured and maimed people around. At the convention I saw about 3 people with neck collars on (bad idea neck collars - if it were me etc etc…) and people with casts and slings. In Heidelberg there was a man with no arms, one with 1 leg. A homeless woman with no legs (and a rabbit) and more. There were rather a lot of very small men as well.
And to add to the tally was me and Clurb. The walking gave her a blister. It gave me 2 on my heels and I was already suffering from excessive chafing. We must have been a picture as we limped back to the Bahnhof.
Once back in Karlsruhe we sat and drank with Graham and Kate from the Lugeburf jugglers. It could be said that we got quite giggly. Ooh I slept well afterwards.
Day 6
Urgh. Bad morning.
Was v tired and yet again had my bout of convention tonsilitis. Really a rough start. This was the most uncomfortable I can remember being at any event. Too hot, blisters, a cold, tonsilitis and nasty chafing. Oh lovely.
I didn’t do much today - really not in the mood.
This evening was the first gala show and most of my pals were off to it, but not me. But Lisa had organised us all to go for a German meal. It’s not her city granted but the route took us to the wrong tram stop, the wrong way to the road and then not knowing what the actual place was called. Apparently later they got lost walking to the venue - a walk which entailed going along a main road and then turning right.
In the end Me, P&C, German Mini, Lisa, Tom and Tiff came along for the food and it was pretty good to be fair. Not a massive choice but dirt cheap for what it was and there was good beer. Oh and our waitress had an EJC wristband on. Hmm I wonder if this was why this place was recommended to Lisa…
Clurb had her first Cola-Bier here. Think shandy only with Coke instead of lemonade. An odd concoction but she seemed to like it well enough.
After food and drink me and Tom wandered back to the site whilst they got lost before the show.
Actually I went off to find a hotel room for the Friday night. I was suffering for lack of sleep and I reckon a very long drive after a day awake after poor sleep might have been a bad idea.
As the weather seemed cooler I did worry that it was a waste of money but later events demonstrated the wisdom of the move.
Back at the site I went along to the Open Stage and bumped into MattDS, Martin, Pete2 and Helen. Some of the show was awful (more sub-Silvia hooping and sub-Meghan spinning - vigour and enthusiasm is good but no substitute for skill or choreography) but there were some standouts. A Canadian guy doing diabolo was pretty nifty, a Norwegian woman doing a 3 ball cascade for 3 or 4 minutes was also spectacular. Apparently she’s been around on the Euro circuit for a while but it was the first time I’ve seen her act. Think keeping going with a 3 ball cascade whilst doing stuff like forward rolls - I mean slow forward rolls, not 1 high and catch again afterwards.
Oh and one other act was a German acro couple - he was huge, she looked anorexic. At the curtain call he showed up, she was nowhere to be seen prompting one wag to wonder aloud if she’d gone to throw up. Oh and he dropped her twice during the routine.
Stayed up late again chatting and drinking. Got to the tent only to be kept awake by a small bunch of french folk chatting, laughing etc. We picked this field as it was furthest from the site. They made me so angry with their apparent belief that talking loudly would endear them to other campers and that bursts of deafening laughter would be just the thing to lull fellow campers to sleep. This is why the hotel room tomorrow turned out to be a really good idea.
Gits.
Day 7
As well as being kept awake by the french I was also woken too early by them. They are so twattish!
Wandered blearily to the gym and the loo. Whilst there my phone rings and it’s my friend from Heidelberg. Not heard from for years. What a way to cheer my world up in an instant.
A little later on a select few of us went to Tom’s Algorithm March workshop. Was a giggle. Shame there were so few there though.
After that I wandered to the hotel to check-in (managed all of that in German - wahey!) and slept for an hour or so. At this time I was waiting for the lift to come and who should walk up behind me but Urszula. Apparently her and Ady had been at this hotel all week.
Back to site to meet up with a large gang of Brits and then on to the restaurnt we went to yesterday. More nice food oh and Clurb got ID’d. She asked for a Cola Bier again and the waitress asked how old she was. Of course Clurb didn’t know what she’d been asked so I translated - cue gales of laughter around the table and me answering “26″ to the waitress. No proof needed, the laughter and confusion evident around the table must have convinced the woman.
And then to the Gala Show. I’ll describe that separately but I’ll take this opportunity to slag off how shit the euros are at queueing. Ady told me later that he was nearly flattened. There was just no need considering the venue had no bad seats.
Back to site for more drinks and chat before a proper night’s sleep at the hotel. Ah marvellous!
Day 8
Tom ran his March workshop again this time with a few more folk involved including Olga from the CS group. This went better and we could get a few runs through at last. We did have some great looks from confused people including a Jap or 2. We were also treated to Tom singing the tune at us throughout the workshop.
Later in the day Luke and Pola ran the games. These were supposed to be outside between the main big tops but changable weather forced a move into the main gym. This worked quite well for spectators as we had the gym seats to use. And the games were fun. One or two lasted a tad long, most notable was the kids game of “getting into groups” which seemed to be a version of organised bullying. I expected tears. What actually happened was that the kids all spoke different languages so they didn’t know what was going on most of the time. Still it did end up with 4 of them charging into each other and then 2 of them chasing Luke around.
The other interesting game was the club balance which included the bit of “remove your trousers”. The guy nearest my seat was gesturing that he had no pants on. Luke’s response was “If you want to win you’ll do it”. Was quite funny.
Outside for the big toss up and that was that.
Luke later came to interview me for his podcast and I think that went reasonably. I have to say that the order was a bit all over the place but we’ll see what happens after editing. Afterwards I kept remembering stuff I should have said etc…
Earlier in the week Martin had let me know that he’d signed up for tonight’s Open Stage so I had to go for moral support if nothing else. Good job he’s a star.
Matt Hall was hosting. I’d lost my mates so was sat away from them when the intro happened. Matt walks out and announces that the first performer is from Belgium. Cue cheers from the Belgians. He then says that he first saw this act at this year’s Scottish convention - cue titters from me and laughter from MattDS loud enough that I heard it from the other side of the tent. And then he introduces him as “from London, where he lives now. Belgian Martin!”. Wild applause from me and laughter at the thought that there are huge numbers of Belgians there thinking “Who’s he? Never seen him before” whilst shrugging at each other.
And Martin did himself proud. No slips, drops or mistakes. Bloody marvellous. Top show there boss.
I left after the next act (unremarkable to the extent that I can’t even remember what sort of prop was used) and met the others for a last evening of chatting. Sadly no booze for me as I would be driving.
Sat in the gym being hugged by Jules and Helena for a while before me, Clurb and ^Tom_ Algorithm marched out of the gym and to the car.
Farewells said and good friends to go back and visit soon.
The trip home was hellish. Long, tedious and even with the better night’s sleep I was drifting on occasion. But we made it safely and the real world is horrible.
But my house is secure. Woot.
Well done if you’ve made it this far.
Photos to come when I can get home internet (or round to P&C’s to use theirs).
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31 Jul 2008
Posted in Juggling, Rants at 8:25 am by alby
Hah that title should have worried a couple of people who are going with me to EJC.
Anyway it is about juggling but not the EJC. The EJC will be fun.
This Vova vs Gatto spinning round like a dick competition thing. What a tedious waste of everyone’s life it is.
We have Vova’s mates hurrahing. We have Vova cheating then getting arsey when people call him on it, we have people actually giving a toss about a completely contrived “record”.
And ffs this shite is still going on?
I’ve avoided it so far but frankly it’s bunging up the juggling pages with shit and I’m now annoyed by the level of seriousness that seems to be exercising people there.
“But he’s the best”, “No he’s the best”, “No he really is the best.” etc ad nauseum. Massive stack of wank. Well done.
I like my internet and I like reading the juggly stuff but frankly the week away at the EJC will give people time to chat about something even vaguely interesting.
Well done you’re very good, now go and do something a: worthwhile, b: interesting and c: else.
[edit] I’ve just thought what this “contest” is like. Imagine a local golf pro bragging that he’s better than Tiger Woods because he can play a local par 3 quite well. That’s what it reminds me of.
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