Noise hangovers, being less documented cousins of alcohol induced hangovers, are difficult to convince people that you are suffering from. However, when you spend upwards of 7 hours standing in a muddy field with 90,000 other people directly beneath 23 of 46 enormous speakers, I assure you, gentle, reader, that same elephant-in-your-skull feeling will be yours to treasure the next day. And sometimes, even the day after that.

We delivered the Prawn into the capable hands of the Barmaid in the morning, and I have to admit to getting a bit weepy at watching a car carrying my baby being driven away by someone who wasn’t me. However, I got past this fairly quickly when I realized that I was going to get to leave the house for the first time in three months without enough supplies to equip an entire squadron of incontinent marines.

After getting lost enough in Central London to necessitate me crawling into the backseat and attempting to retrieve our London A-Z from some inaccessible crevice in the boot, we found our way to our secret parking spot right next to Hyde Park. I swear, this parking garage is like the Holy Grail for a concert goer. Not only that, but it’s probably the most secure garage in London due to the fact that our car was pretty much the only one in it worth under 250,000 pounds. Upon entering, the first two automobiles we encountered were a fierce orange Lamborghini Gallardo and a tasty red Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano. We parked next to a Maserati Gran Sport. We felt fairly confident about the safety of our Seat Altea, which probably cost less than the cigarette lighter in the Lambo.

You know that you’re getting to be a grown-up when you purchase VIP tickets to a concert simply to avoid having to share a port-a-potty with thousands upon thousands of weed monsters. The Rock Star and I splashed out this time for the more expensive tickets and felt, in general, that they were worth the extra cash. Not only did they alleviate the necessity of standing in a bloody great queue to get into the grounds, but included a very tasty portion of burger and chips (which probably would have cost 15 quid from the squirrel meat vendors outside) as well as a hell of a lot of free cocktail food including Krispy Kreme donuts, which, some might argue, would be worth 150 pounds all by themselves. The loos were indeed a cut above your average festival wazarie- they had, you know, toilet paper. And, perhaps, most luxuriously, THEY FLUSHED. IT WAS AWESOME.

Oh yeah, and there was some music going on too.

Due to the presence of the aforementioned Krispy Cremes, we didn’t really notice the music until N. Irish rockers The Answer took to the stage. We downloaded their album on Saturday and after about 5 tracks, I remarked to the Rock Star, “These guys want to be Zeppelin REALLY bad.” In fact, the lead singer seemed to be channelling Robert Plant in such an extreme way that I wouldn’t be surprised if Plant, sitting at home somewhere, suddenly looked up from his newspaper and went, “Shit, someone seems to be bogarting my mojo.” However, they put on a quite entertaining show and I came away with a severe case of hair envy and a resolve to give their album a second shot.

I wanted to get slightly closer to the stage for the set by Antipodean rockers, Jet. Although we haven’t gotten around to downloading their second album, their first, Get Born, was on constant rotation on my iPod (minus the ballads, which are dire) when it first came out. So, The Rock Star and I penetrated the crowd as far as we dared without getting lumped by other festival goers. Once we got there, it occurred to us that if we wanted to keep our places for the main event at the end of the evening, we were probably there for the duration, so we tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible as the crowd began to become dense enough to compress us to a fine human paste.

The surprise of the evening for me musically was Chris Cornell. I wasn’t really expecting to enjoy the set, as it was one more set that I would be forced to stand in the now pouring rain sans raincoat, slowly being flattened by other concert goers, waiting to see the Mighty Smith. While I’d appreciated the music of Soundgarden back in the day, I was never really an enormous fan. But after his explosive entrance with their hit “Spoonman” I was more than happy to groovy along to the rest of the performance. Cornell has got a voice that can knock freaking buildings over. Not only that, but he had a personable style that won over the crowd. Before performing the Temple of the Dog hit, “Hunger Strike”, he brought out his two very photogenic children from backstage, instantly liquefying just about every woman in the audience, and I dare say, quite a few of the men too.

By the time Cornell’s set was over, the rain was still falling steadily and the crowd was getting steadily more soggy and baked. As we were next to the front fence, we were privy to the sight of many people being escorted out of the grounds due to overexcitement, illness or fuckwittery. Aerosmith’s stage crew worked diligently to try to clear the thrust and sides of the stage of water by sweeping it onto concert staff below, who already looked like they were hired by Surly Security Solutions Ltd. (My guess is that they would find this preferable to Joe Perry slipping and dropping a £25,000 Les Paul on their heads.)

Finally, Aerosmith emerged and all hell pretty much broke loose. I’m not really a stand-at-the-front music festival kind of person, to be honest. I’m more of a take-a-picnic-and-enjoy-from-the-back type. But Aerosmith is the only band I’ve ever really wanted very badly to see live, so I was willing to put up with it. Let me tell you though, I WOULD DO IT FOR NO OTHER BAND. Standing at the front of a rock concert blows mighty goats. By the time they came on, we were surrounded by people who had been slowly marinating in a stew of beer and skunk all day and were completely oblivious to the fact that they were still at a rock concert.

However, the moment that strung-out cat and bourbon voice came out of Steven Tyler’s mouth, I pretty much stopped caring and just started to enjoy.

A lot of people will accuse Aerosmith of selling out long ago, but you have to admire a band that has spent nearly 40 years trying new things with music. Not to mention survive almost 40 years of being rock stars and still feel motivated to go out and put on a good show. (I think I may have mentioned something about Steven Tyler having “class” in an earlier post. Perhaps, in light of the fact that he had “lick me” written on his stomach in magic marker, I should amend my statement to say that he has “style”.) Although they played a number of old favourites, I was most impressed with songs off of “Honkin on Bobo”, their mysteriously titled blues album. Tyler is one of those people that completely loses himself while performing, so it’s always a treat to see what physical or vocal flight of fancy he’ll launch himself into. Shamanic, almost.

Joe Perry, of course, completely ripped it apart on guitar. As the Rock Star commented, while his style isn’t as complicated and speed based as some of his contemporaries, he’s blessed with a very solid playing style, honed through 4 decades of live experience. He and Steven Tyler are a true double act and although he must have long ago gotten used to Tyler in his face during performances, one wonders if he sometimes thinks, “Damn it, man, I’m totally in the Zone here, could you please not be all up in my bid’ness while I’m trying to bust out the mad note?”

Their set ended FAR too soon (they’d actually come on 45 minutes late) and due to the large concentration of people with large sticks up their asses living on Park Lane, the concert had to end at 10.30pm. When we’d come to see Bon Jovi a few years earlier, they’d gone over the curfew and gotten a fine. “Those last two songs are gonna cost me 20,000 bucks, but it was worth it!” Jon Bon Jovi shouted at the crowd. In contrast, Tyler bemoaned the fact that the cops were hassling them and made a speedy exit. I had to wonder what his 20 or 30 year old self would have thought of rushing off stage into a waiting limo because of a noise curfew. My guess is that that self most likely would have taken down his trousers and waved his tackle at anyone and everyone.

Our magical parking spot proved magical once again when we finally managed to get out of it (Note to anyone exiting the parking garage: If you’ve forgotten to pay, please do not park directly in front of the only exit gate LIKE A KNOB, trapping fellow motorists.) and we were on our way home before most of the concert goers had even managed to get out of the gates.

There was a fireworks display of stupidity all around us; people trying to cross 4 lanes of speeding traffic after having consumed 12 beers, people falling over barriers and of course, the ever present vehicular stupidity that London is famous for. Once we cleared the city, we thought we’d seen the last of it for the evening, but, as we were stopped at a petrol station, we noticed a young woman filling up her tank WHILE SMOKING A CIGARETTE. While one feels obligated to actually SAY something about this level of stupidity, the presence of her incredibly large boyfriend who bore a striking resemblance to Busta Rhymes made us feel less inclined to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. The Rock Star, who was feeling rather worse for wear, stepped on the gas and got us the hell out of Dodge before the impending catastrophe. We were damned if we were going to spend a whole day at a rock concert with all manner of freaks and weirdos and then get blown up by some silly bint who accidentally ashed in her petrol tank.

So ended our journey of rawk.

Due to the presence of the Prawn, we’re not really planning any big getaways this summer. However, tomorrow, we’ve managed to secure the babysitting services of the Idiot and the Barmaid (despite the name, the Idiot is a dab hand with babies as he’s had two of his own.) to bliss out at the Hyde Park Calling Festival headlined by Aerosmith. Despite the collective ages of the band members coming in at a whopping 281, they still rock most mightily and I’m supremely pleased to finally be seeing them live.

This evening, the Rock Star and I were watching some of the coverage of the far more famous festival taking place this weekend in Glastonbury which is, at the moment, a field of mud, excrement and marijuana shavings with a little bit of music thrown in.

I can’t state too clearly how I feel about the state of British music at the moment- pretty much exactly how I’d feel about sitting in a field of mud, excrement and marijuana shavings. In fact, my feelings about every act that I witnessed can pretty much be summed up with your basic internet acronyms.

The Arctic Monkeys: OMG.

Lily Allen: WTF?

Babyshambles: OMFGWTFF?? (You can probably figure it out.)

Even more surprising than the absolute poorness of what can only be described as “chav pop” (“Hey, she’s talking about going to Tesco! I go to Tesco too! She’s wicked!”) is the unbelievabe collective widdling of pants in the audience to really, really shockingly awful performances. I mean, atonal, sloppy, out of tune, the whole works. These are people who have NEVER learned to play live. And yet, everyone claps. TV and radio presenters go into a frenzy of obsequious arselicking. Albums fly off the shelves. What am I missing?

NEWSFLASH: THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON.

At any rate, we will be going to enjoy some masters of the art of rawk tomorrow (besides Aerosmith, we’ll also be enjoying the stylings of Jet, Chris Cornell, The Answer and Joe Satriani.) and try to forget about the current state of affairs of the music charts for a few hours.

Just before bathing the Prawn, the Rock Star warned me that extra wipes were probably needed.

“I think she’s got a nappy full of Lily Allen.”

“A whole load of Arctic Monkey?” I asked.

“A great steaming pile of Babyshambles,” he replied.

As part of my necessary on-going battle with my soggy midsection, trips to the gym have become part of my weekly routine once again. It’s one of those things that I chaff at the thought of, but almost always feel pretty good once I’m there and working out.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone. All of the machines operate via keys that store all of your workout information. I’d neglected the place for so long that my key had gone inactive.

“Erm, this says you haven’t been here since June last year,” said the sceptical spotty youth behind the desk when I asked him to reactivate it.

“Yeah, I had a baby.” I felt obliged to say in my defense.

The youth looked terribly embarrassed, as if I’d just offered to explain the mechanics of human reproduction right there on the gym floor.

There’ve been some changes since I last darkened the doorstep. Being that our gym happens to be situated in a country club, there are many neat bulletin boards with notices regarding new services, events and vaguely passive/aggressive suggestions for changing room etiquette. (i.e. Please don’t pee in the showers or let your children pee in the showers and for god’s sake, don’t bring boys over the age of 8 into the Ladies changing room as they have obviously reached the age of sexual deviancy.)

One notice that caught my eye, among the numerous beauty treatments and cancer causing sun-bed sessions was one for the in-house personal trainer. The picture of the young buck in question said it all really. Instead of the headline, Tired of Not Seeing Results from Your Workout? it might has well have read, Attention Rich Golfing Types! Allow me to En-Fitten and Bed Your Trophy Wives While At The Same Time Funding My Obviously Expensive Hair Gel And Tooth Whitening Habit! My guess is that the same poster is NOT on the wall of the Men’s changing room.

My workout pretty much consists of about 40 minutes on the treadmill walking briskly on an incline. (I’m not a runner. After getting devastating shin spints in high school, I rarely ever get above a yomp) This is incredibly boring, but the gym has the ever present row of televisions offering a variety of programming. This is great as long as you feel like watching Bargain Hunt, Mtv or Sky News.

Me, I usually go with Mtv, but only when Sky News is more depressing. Today was one of those occasions. My sessions at the gym are the only way that I can keep tabs on what the pop world is doing, because for the most part, I don’t give a rat’s ass. At best, pop music at the moment is insipid and uninspired. At worst, it’s an abomination to both god and man. During my workout this morning, I was treated to more of the first variety. (Although can I just say how much I can’t stand R&B/rap crossover? I couldn’t tell one of those videos from another to save my life. YOU GUYS LIKE TITTIES. WE GET THE PICTURE)

I have discovered some “guilty pleasure” music during these workouts, including Avril Levine’s “Girlfriend” (It’s kind of rocking that 80’s “Mickey” vibe and allows for bopping around the living room while your daughter watches you, wondering what the hell she’s gotten herself into) and “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. The fact that I’m probably closer in age to these “artists” mothers than to them inspires the need to keep my little musical naughties a secret. (Like the kind of secret you only tell to the whole internet.)

Post workout, I discovered another change since I’d last been to the gym. The showers in the changing rooms are motion sensitive, which I’d never really cared for. This usually resulted in you finishing your shower, going to dry off and ending up with a very wet towel. However, these are infinitely preferable to the new ones that have been installed.

Me, I like a high pressure shower. But there is a difference between a high pressure shower and a shower than can strip meat from bones more efficiently than a horde of flesh eating ants. I will most definitely take my chances with the wet towel on my next visit rather than feel like I have been flayed alive by a cat-o-thousand-tails.

Onward in the pursuit of fitness.

In our quest to make the Prawn into a well rounded human being, we’ve tried to fill her life with as much music as possible. Indeed, she attended at least 3 gigs and one UKMG Annual Piss Up before she was even born. While she seems to be quite enamoured of Green Day and fairly tolerant of just about all of the rest of our record collection, we thought it was probably prudent to invest in some children’s music to make sure she doesn’t have any rage issues from being exposed to repeated listenings of Appetite for Destruction at an early age.

I went browsing on Amazon.com for suitable Prawn-friendly tunes and after handing over a fair amount of cash, I received a package from the States with many hours of listening pleasure in it. Children’s music can be so, so SO AWFUL and I was willing to part with a fair sum of cash to make sure that my daughter didn’t grow up believing “The Wheels On the Bus” sung by people that sound as though they have frighteningly white, sharp teeth was not the limit of her musical horizon. (Not that there’s anything wrong with “The Wheels on the Bus”. They’ve got to learn the basics of public transportation somehow. The wipers going swish, horn going beep…they pretty much have it covered except for the drunk next to you who goes puke, puke puke.)

First and foremost among my purchases was Peter, Paul and Mommy, the classic children’s album that was a classic even by the time /I/ started listening to it. The first track, “Marvelous Toy” had me in floods of tears as I remember quite clearly my mother and father singing it to me. The Prawn looked bemused; the whole sunrise/sunset thing was slightly lost on her. The rest of the album was not quite as perky as I remembered it although see seemed to enjoy “Daddy’s Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow”. I urged her not to take it literally as there is little time this week available for zoo visitation. (Luckily, there IS quite a good one just over the hill, filled with bears that are huff-huff-a-puffin, monkeys scritch-scritch-a scratchin and seals honk-honk-a-honkin.)

Alkelda’s gift of Elizabeth Mitchell’s “You Are My Little Bird” after the Prawn was born turned me onto the children’s folk artist in a big way, inspiring me to download “You are My Flower” and purchase “You Are My Sunshine”. Although the latest album is by far the most polished, there are some lovely gems on her earlier recordings. Despite my rawk leanings, I’m really kind of a floaty, folk chick at heart who enjoyed living in a same sex dormitory in college and singing along loudly to the Indigo Girls. (No joke. I totally went to Lillith Faire) Mitchell obviously takes her folk music seriously (anyone who invokes the name of Woody Guthrie usually does) so I’m pleased to have her warbling away in my living room on most mornings.

No children’s record collection would be complete without at least one Dan Zanes album, I’m lead to believe, so, invariably, the Prawn now owns one. I don’t know much about him other than that he’s the Raffi of the day. (I can’t say I ever listened to Raffi, but kids went apeshit for him. But then again, kids also went apeshit for Bananas in Pajamas, which scared the hell out of me, so who knows WHAT’s going to turn the little buggers on?) I enjoyed the album a lot, although I believe that the Prawn will most likely enjoy it when she is slightly older. While Mitchell’s music is repetitive and fairly simple in structure, Zanes’ is slightly more complex, not to mention banjo heavy. I’m sure it will provide many happy hours of bopping around the living room for a toddler.

Along with the aforementioned Sesame Street Bathtime Sing-a-long and a Putomayo Playground compilation, I’m sure the Prawn is now musically tooled. For curiosity’s sake, please feel free to share childhood musical memories of your own!

The Rock Star, who got up before me this morning to practice guitar, told me that the BBC news reported the launch of the Shuttle Atlantis. Instead of staying with the amazing footage captured by the camera mounted on the external fuel tank that showed the earth falling behind the speeding orbiter like a bright blue jewel and the orbiter finally seperating from the fuel tank and glinding gracefully into space like a great, silent whale…..

They instead chose to show arial footage of the car carrying Paris Hilton to and from court. In it’s entirety.

This is why we are doomed.

I have taken to taking the Prawn out for afternoon strolls in her buggy. I was once led to believe that small babies are quite passive and happy to stay where they are put, gleaning information from the world around them, ready to impart what they have learned in a philosophical treatise entitled, “Mama, Dada and Doggie: Nouns, Caregivers and Face-lickers” when they turn 9 months old or so. However, I found that I was much mistaken. The Prawn is BORED and lets us know by telling us, “ATTENTION PARENTAL UNITS. STIMULATE MY BRAIN OR FEEL MY WRAAAAAAAAAAATH!!” Hence, the daily change of scenery.

Yesterday, as I made my way up the sidewalk with the Prawn, a boy, on the unchanged voice side of puberty shouted out a window of a taxi at me, urging me to display a set of familiar female body parts.

There are many things that one thinks of saying long after a speeding car with a rude pre-pubescent wank-pot in it has disappeared, (i.e. “I would but you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”, “Come back when your balls drop”, etc) but nothing really covers the disgust that one feels when hearing something like that out of the mouth of a child while you yourself are pushing your 3 month old daughter up the street in her buggy. Having been to college in a small midwestern town with a high pick up truck to population ratio, I have experienced this phenomenon on many occasions, but almost always from the person who was DRIVING the truck rather than someone who should be strapped into a booster seat in the back.

It got me thinking, on the rest of my stroll (The Prawn, who is supposed to BENEFIT from the change of scenery, fell fast asleep and when we returned home looked at me reproachfully as if to say, “Weren’t we going to GO somewhere, you lazy wench?”) about the whole nature vs. nurture argument. It’s fairly obvious to me that one can’t rely on either one or the other to completely shape a child, although either can limit the extent of his or her horizons. Children obviously aren’t BORN with a need to behave like utter asshats- asshattery is a learned skill. In the case of my squeaky friend, my guess is that he’s heard such phrases from his father or older brother with startling regularity. In true Blogapotamus fashion, I began composing a letter in my head.

To the caregivers of the vile whelp who verbally assaulted me on Marsworth Road, 6th of June, 2007,

If you will pardon my tone, just what in the name of holy hell are you doing in that home of yours that makes your ignorant man-cub think that it’s okay to shout “show us your tits!” to a lone woman pushing a baby buggy up the road?

You are clearly inbreds and should be locked in public stocks and pelted with rotten tomatoes at earliest convenience.

Love and kisses,

Blogapotamus

I don’t get math. Or Physics.

I was in the kitchen, preparing the Prawn’s bath. As the tub was filled, lifting it out of the sink proved difficult.

Me: For being, you know, WATER, water sure is heavy.

The Rock Star: Love, if you filled a box the size of our dishwasher with water, do you know how much it would weigh?

Me: How much?

The Rock Star: Just guess.

Me: I don’t KNOW. A fuck-ton?

The Rock Star: ……….

Me: Sorry, a METRIC fuck-ton. This is Europe after all.

Okay, how much would you have loved to have been in the room when the idea for THIS weapon was suggested?

The Rock Star turned 31 on Friday. Although we had planned an excursion to the nearby Whipsnade Zoo (who DOESN’T like the zoo on their birthday?) the evil forces of toil overtook the day and we were forced to postpone our journey due to the fact that some clients can’t find their asses with both hands tied behind their backs.

I had a bit of a surprise in store for him, however, in the form of his birthday gift, which other members of the family also contributed towards the purchase of. He begged me for clues, but all I told him was that he would be very surprised that it was my idea, for you see, I got him an Xbox 360.

I have railed against the time-wasting evil of video games for many years now (I know they waste time because if I am foolish enough to get hooked by one, you won’t see my butt for dust for many moons until I tire of playing or win) and swore blind that I’d never allow a console into my home. But the Rock Star has often wistfully spoken of being able to play games against his brother using the on-line capabilities of the Xbox (beating him at hockey, playing him at tennis, sniping him from rooftops in first-person-shooter games, etc.) so I thought it might be a nice treat for him to actually be able to do it. (However, now that BoyRacer and Trumpet live 200 paces up the road, it seems to me that it would be easier for them to just get together to destroy eachother, but, hey, I’m not a guy, so I’m obviously missing something.)

While the Xbox will inevitably be a pleasant time-waster, I thank my lucky stars that neither of us have had occasion to enter the on-line phenomenon “Second Life”.

The Internet will never be “new fangled” for the Prawn. I, however, remember when email seemed like sorcery and a “web page” consisted of an aqua background with a couple of pictures of you, your cat and your boyfriend on it. (While there are still some of those sites out there, the pictures are now generally obscured by a bewildering landscape of “blinkies.”) While I consider myself an informed and savvy internet user NOW, the on-line realm to me is still very much for reaching out and keeping in touch rather than setting up camp and living there, so games like Second Life, EverQuest, etc, have never particularly appealed to me. Especially after reading the article entitled “Does Virtual Reality Need a Sheriff?” on msnbc earlier this week. Apparently, there is all KINDS of hinky stuff going on inside these games including, theft, murder, rape and child pornography that law enforcement is rather at a loss to deal with.

If someone steals your wallet on the street at knifepoint, the precedent for prosecuting them is fairly solid, because YOU’RE NOT ALLOW TO STEAL SHIT FROM PEOPLE. However, if you pay real money for virtual items, are virtually mugged and your mugger sells the items for real world cash, the precedent isn’t quite as clear, according to the law. (It my mind it seems pretty clear, although the mugger has obviously taken a slightly more roundabout route to your wallet.) There are also allegations of rape, which seems to me to lay squarely with the game designers-WHO DESIGNS A GAME WHERE PLAYERS CAN RAPE EACHOTHER?

At any rate, I went to bed last night, leaving the Rock Star happily playing virtual tennis. At least there, he’s safe from marauding cyber gangs, thieves and perverts.