I hate PJ Harvey. Up until yesterday I was a fan of her music. She is playing Camp Bestival today and I was really weighing up the odds of staying at Camp Bestival to see her or not. I almost didn’t have a choice as I had to cancel my gig in Leeds because they needed me at the festival for Saturday then they didn’t and now tonight I’m going to be in Brighton instead. Which I’m pleased about. As PJ Harvey isn’t in Brighton. I don’t hate her music. Far from it. I would have quite liked to have seen her tonight. I don’t hate her in person either. I mean I might do, but having never met her this would be rather mean. Unless of course she is a twat in real life which is possible. Its possible because she told the Bestival people she did not want to play the main stage, and therefore they had to build a Big Top tent at the other side of the field for her. This meant they did not build the usual cosy comedy tent in its place. This consequently meant that comedy was to use the Big Top tent when it was on and due to PJ Harvey it could not be on all weekend. Ultimately this meant that I had to play a tent for about 2000 people with only about 80 in it and have a 20 minute set that felt like it went on for a torturous eternity. Of those 80 people half were kids and half were adults. The adults did not like my kids material. The kids did not like my adult material. This meant some of them left. This meant the set got even worse. And what all of this means is that I HATE PJ HARVEY. For it is all her fault. Carl Donnelly also pointed out she has a much larger lower half of her face than the top half. I haven’t even looked at pictures to verify this but I believe him and perhaps wonder if her stupid half big face means she was too scared to be seen on the main stage. I hope so and I laugh at her giant chin. I bet PJ stands for something stupid like Prominent Jaw.
It doesn’t. It stands for Polly Jean. And I still like her music. And her. But not much. It didn’t help that there were lots of other elements wrong with yesterday. The five hour car journey was no joy. Well it was but only because of Layla constantly berating Matt Reed for his Casanova ways, some serious funk dancing, questions about ‘would you rather’ often involving seriously ugly people that we passed on the way, and the saddest pirate I’ve ever seen. He was standing in a service station off the M27. Dressed in full pirate regalia he tried to offer balloon animals to all the customers but most of them gave him looks like he’d just asked to kick their pets. We didn’t give him that look. We laughed and pointed a bit. Which probably didn’t help. He had such a miserable face on, and I wondered what was going on in his head. Possibly the constant question of ‘Why? Why oh why?’ I said he was called Long Faced Silver. This didn’t help. When we finally arrived it took another 40 minutes just to get our wristbands and work out that the artists car park was as far away from the field as it could be before it became a different area of the UK.
Camp Bestival is a great festival for families. In fact, possibly the best family based festival event there is. However, for everyone else, its a bit lame. By 6pm most of the tent’s had closed. There wasn’t much left going on the music stage. Florence and the Machine were no way as good as when we saw them at Blur. Florence’s voice was not on form. I assume her machine was a bit broken. I honestly don’t know why she ever joined the machine and didn’t just form a band with the rest of the Magic Roundabout. Dillon was ace on guitar. The night was by Kid Creole and the Coconuts who only sing one song I’ve heard of which is basically about telling a child you’re not remotely related to them – ‘Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy’. After they sung this I saw a crying child. I wonder if the song had sparked off a rather awkward conversation about family truths. Layla and I stuck around for a few hours, watching all the other comics walk offstage just as annoyed with PJ Harvey as I was. Scouting out the grounds we saw a giant Spongebob Squarepants tent. Inside kids were running amok. None of us had any idea what was going on in there, but the children were properly going crazy. I can only assume sponges are like catnip for kids. This may be why they hate having baths as they know how nuts it will make them. I like Spongebob Squarepants, but I also pity him. If he ever pissed himself it would stick around in those pants for ages until he was able to wring them out. No one wants that.
After queueing up for 30 minutes for some churros (which are totally worth it) we escaped. Never have I felt happier about not camping somewhere or using festival loos. It had been a fun trip but not really that fun. In fact it wasn’t fun at all. It was the opposite of fun. It was nuf. That’s not true. It was a bit fun, like fu. On the journey home we heard Sarah Millican and Tom Craine on Claudia Winkleman’s Radio 2 show. They were both great on it, but, and I’ve said it before, Winkleman is such a vacuous twat. After Tom’s appearance she said she had had a text through. I thought it might’ve been a nice comment on the comedy, but instead it was someone asking Claudia where she gets her hair done. Its a radio show. I can’t see her hair. I don’t think her hair is part of the topic of this week’s cultural events. What I do think is that Stinkleman (which is what I call her) is an idiot. Her laughter during Tom’s 2 min set was so off putting. Not because it didn’t deserve laughter, but more because no one deserves her laughter. Its a horrible insincere sound like someone punching a cat. One day, someone at Radio 2 will actually listen to the show, realise what horror’s they’ve unleashed and ban her and her stupid face. Even if she has nice hair.
That’s now Stinkleman and Harvey newly added on my hate list. It grows ever longer by the day. I fear this is old age. On the other hand it could also be that more idiots are getting better profiles. Tonight I am back to normal gigs at the lovely Komedia. Very pleased my gig mess all worked out and actually look forward to normal audiences, even if it contains hens and stags. As long as they haven’t moved the venue to a giant tent because a music star said so, I think it should be fine.
