Pulp- Do you remember the first time? (Live at Reading 2011)

It was a toss-up between this and the glorious Common People. In the end I went for Do You Remember the First Time? because it seemed to fit the crowd better. Whilst for the majority of the weekend I felt at times - at the age of 20 - like I had sneaked into the best school holiday ever, during Pulp's set, I was surrounded by people in their thirties. It seemed as though the majority of the crowd had seen the band before and were taking this as an opportunity to relive their teenage years.

What also struck me about the show was the energy on the stage, due mainly to (extraordinarily flexible!) frontman Jarvis Cocker. Rather than stand motionless on the stage like many of his peers (yes, Liam Gallagher, I'm looking at you), Jarvis refuses to grow old gracefully and during parts of the set you would see him writhing around on the amps in his tradmark dandy fashion. Surprisingly, it works. What I liked most about this show was that the band weren't taking this for granted - they were loving every minute of it, and so too did the fans.

My only criticism would be that they weren't headlining the Saturday night (although I know that this wasn't the case in Leeds). I love The Strokes as much as the next person but the incredible energy that Sheffield's finest built up was lost a little during the New Yorkers' set.

Right, I've spoken enough; get watching this masterclass in showmanship. I also recommend watching Common People, purely for the lovely speech Jarvis gives about it beforehand.

Elbow - One day like this (Reading 2011)

Elbow were definitely one of my favourite acts of the weekend. A major crowd-pleaser and One Day Like This is such a sing-a-long. The lyrics are so uplifting and really resonated with me for that weekend. Being part of a crowd whilst we all sang along to this was special and for this reason I would definitely recommend seeing them live. My brother, who is a massive music snob and has waxed lyrical in the past about how boring he finds Elbow, even enjoyed this one.

Reading 2011

I realised that whilst I haven't blogged for a while, I have actually been up to some blog-worthy stuff recently! Normally my summer is spent lounging on the sofa watching E4 alone at 2 in the afternoon whist slowly sinking into a state of depression, but this year I got my arse into gear (and had some ERASMUS grant left over) and so the self-hating sofa time was kept to a minimum. The highlight for me was definitely Reading festival.

This was the first festival that I'd ever been to (I know, at 20, this is embarrassing, particularly considering I was clearly one of the oldest there). I went with my brother who is a Reading-appropriate 17 years old and if you think that I am sad for doing that, believe me it gets worse, as on the Thursday morning the plan was that I was going to be going with my mother. This was due to my brother's admission the night before that he was going to spend the whole weekend with his friends and I was to be left alone in the tent. Luckily, we managed to sort things out and we turned out to have one of THE best weekends.

I am at the best of times a little uptight - more so when I have to spend the whole weekend looking after my little brother who doesn't know his elbow from his arse and has never cooked himself a piece of toast, never mind a bowl of pasta. So I was a little anxious as to what the weekend held in store. As it happened, it was brilliant. I discovered so many new bands as well as seeing some of my all time favourite acts, the best of which was definitely Pete Doherty (made better by the fact that the only people at his gig were the ones that really wanted to be there - Muse were playing on the main stage at the same time). I'm going to include a few videos (all nabbed off YouTube: I hate videoing gigs) of my favourites now.

Yes, yes, I know, I haven't blogged for months. A sign of a bad blogger is that all of their posts seem to be apologies for not updating their blog, so I guess that makes me a pretty bad blogger. What's more, I am now back at uni and have forgotten my camera, so I can't even do a lazy blog post of "The view from outside my window", "A picture of a trendy student". I will be going home next week though so I can hopefully find my camera and take some pictures for inspiration! I'm also going to Dublin to celebrate my friend's birthday next weekend so I will definitely find something to photograph there (providing that the floods stop - otherwise it will just be snaps of a grey and rainy Dub, I'm afraid).

Sorry I've not posted in a week, I've been in Rome (pictures and posts soon to follow). Looking through the pictures I took in Rome, it reminded me of the ones that I had taken last month on my birthday here in Turin. I rather stupidly had forgotton to take my keys out with me, so I was left hanging around outside my house from 5 in the morning. Rather than wake my flatmates, I decided to have a wander around the city in the early morning.

I loved how warm and inviting this shop looked whilst I was stuck outside.

Italians are patriotic.

If I could drive... I would be driving this car.

Hugh Grant for PM!

Not really...
Hugh Grant did a good job on Question Time, proving not only is he not a little airhead, but also that he has some morals and backbone. Occassionally he came across a tad smug and actor-y (see:the glasses) and let us not forget that the non-politican role on Question Time is always the easiest. However, he rightly teared into the panel, especially Jon Gaunt, who unfairly brought up Grant's past misdemeanours. He may not go down the Joanna Lumley route of actor-turned-protestor but who'd have thought that an apperance on QT would be Hugh Grant's wisest career choice of the last five years?

This week, Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe came out and said that he had been sober for a year, deciding to give up drinking after beoming reliant on alcohol to enjoy himself. This reliance on alcohol is pretty common amongst people in his age group, but the reaction to Radcliffe's admission has not really been one of praise. Instead there have been many sneering commentators with lots of (generally older) people suggesting that he is a bit of a lightweight and boring, as though getting blindingly drunk every weekend is the done thing for teenagers and people in their twenties. Now I don't want to come across all Daily Mail; I think young people should go out, have a laugh, have a drink and have fun. If you can't do it when you are twenty, with no responsibilities and a student loan to waste, when can you? However, I don't like the attitude that this should be the done thing for twenty-somethings.


People seem to find Radcliffe's admission interesting because there have been no - or very few at least - pictures of him falling out of nightclubs drunk, nor has there been any knowledge of his drinking. I think it this lack of awareness that is surprising people. There seems to be a general consensus that, if it was so bad, why didn't we already know about it? But for Radcliffe, this isn't the point. It isn't that amount that he was drinking that was the problem, it was the reason for doing it - his belief that he couldn't have a good time without it.

There is a very strange attitude in this country towards drinking, especially towards those who don't drink, or who want to limit their drinking. In the past when I have cut down on smoking, I have had nothing but encouragement from friends. Yet when I have told them that I won't be drinking this evening, I have heard only complaints that I am "boring" and spoiling other people's fun. In fact, the minute I say that I'm not going to be getting off my face, it becomes my friends' personal mission to get me wankered. These are the same friends who see me puking my guts up the next day, the trips to the toilet the only breaks in my weekend under a duvet where a Smiths CD, a loaf of bread and a crushing sense of shame are my only company. Don't get me wrong, I do the same, encouraging people to come out when they don't want to, buying drinks for those who have only brought out a tenner (normally for the reason that they don't want to get to wasted). However, I think it's time that as a nation, we became more tolerant to those who don't want to drink, or who don't want to drink to the excess. Everyone is happy to lambast Amy Winehouse when she turns up drunk to a concert and get on their high horses. Yet when a young actor says that he has given up drinking in order to regain complete control of his life, he is mocked. I think people see it as a criticism of themselves and their own drinking when someone says that they wish to give up. This is not the case here. Daniel Radcliffe is just saying that drinking doesn't do it for him. For that, he should be applauded.