Bartender says, "Why the long face?"

An elephant was stopped by the police.

Officer asks, "What's in the trunk?"

Seems like 64Digits is staying up for a decent period of time! Saying that, the server will now probably be kidnapped in an armed robbery.

I recently got back from Reading Festival. I went as a steward this year, seeing as I'm 18 now and also because I get in for free that way. Although you have to do three 8hr15min shifts, it's not that bad and you get to see a decent number of bands. I saw 26 last year when I went with a paid ticket and 13 this year. Not bad, considering you get in free.

I was working on the Alternative stage on my shifts, which plays host to comedy acts and the occasional debate or film. There were some quite funny people on there, although I don't really remember any names. The only act I do remember was a guy called THePETEBOX. He's a pretty amazing beat box artist, who you can check out here: http://www.thepetebox.com

He uses a loop machine to create full songs, most notably Basment Jaxx's 'Where's Your Head At'.

On the Friday it was pretty rainy. We had to work an evening shift (3:45pm - 12am) which meant we were working through the Kings of Leon. I took my break to see the middle of their set and when I got back, the acts in the Alternative stage were finished. Our supervisor let us stand outside the tent to watch the main stage from there, which was better than nothing.

On Saturday we had to do a morning (7:45am - 4pm) which is slightly stupid, seeing as the arena doesn't open until 11am, so there's nothing to actually do. So our supervisor let us go off and get a nice cooked breakfast or have a shower or whatever. When we got off shift we went to see a couple of bands, and then came the highlight of the evening (and possibly the weekend).

The Prodigy.

They were amazingly epic. I pretty close to the front for their first song, but as soon as they started playing, the whole crowd crushed forward. It wasn't as bad as Rage Against the Machine's crowd crush last year, but still it was pretty damn scary. So during the first song I shoved my way out of the crowd and went and stood a bit further back, behind the barrier segmenting the front portion of the crowd. It was a lot more comfortable (well as comfortable as you get jumping around with 50,000 other people) there but pretty much equally as mental.

The Arctic Monkeys came on after The Prodigy. I was really looking forward to hearing a nice mixture of their old material (Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare) and a few well-known new tracks. However, they really screwed up by playing way too many new songs that hardly anyone knew and they were all pretty slow. They missed out some real classics like Ritz to Rubble and Mardy Bum. That's not to mention how smashed Alex Turner was. You could actually see him swaying about on the stage. Crazy.

On Sunday we were working another evening, to our dismay. Radiohead were playing that night. However, we noticed that the acts on the Alternative stage finished at about 8pm, so we asked our supervisor what would happen. He wasn't sure but thought we'd probably be redeployed to the Main Stage disabled access platform. We weren't. We were put somewhere much better.

The Guest Area entrance gets a lot more people trying to get through after each act finishes. For this reason, the stewards have to form a human wall to funnel people through, and a few others have to direct people into the funnel. I was doing some directing and just pointing for people to go right. That was just after Bloc Party had finished, who, by the way, were really good! Seeing as they only needed us just after that acts had finished they told us we should just wander around the arena, putting out fires or whatever. We decided to take a prolonged break instead and watched the whole of Radiohead's set before heading back to the Guest Area. It's tough to say if Radiohead were better than The Prodigy, because they're such different bands. I would say Radiohead edged it though, simply because I've known them for longer and have wanted to see them live for a long, long time.

The crowd for Radiohead was shockingly small though. It seems everyone went to watch La Roux and whoever couldn't get in there went to watch the Lostprophets and anyone else was dumped with Radiohead. Weird. They were amazing though, their set was beautiful and they played exactly the right mixture of old and new songs. They opened with Creep which delighted the small crowd. Really cool stuff.

Stewarding was really good fun as well, even if you don't get to see all the bands you want. You have a lot of banter with the regular festival goers, which is always fun, especially when they're drunk or high. One guy was bugging my brother for about 45 minutes to let him use the disabled toilet, trying to bribe him with beer, drugs and money. He got bored eventually and went off. I took over from my brother and the guy came back, so I told him that he couldn't use it too. He went away much more quickly. Seeing as we're working there and don't have any nearby toilets, we're allowed to use the disabled toilet. So I nipped in there quickly for a slash and when I came back out the same guy was sitting right outside. I had told him even the stewards couldn't use it. He wasn't too pleased, haha. He walked off yelling "SHAME ON YOU". :)

So anyway, other than that, I'm just waiting for my student loan to be sorted out. I've found out I'm getting the bog standard amount for maintenance, but I'm still waiting for the letter telling me *when* I get it.

University is only two weeks away! I need to get a new computer sorted quickly!

Ciao.