Betty's Utility Room

It's with great sadness (ahem) that I have to note that Weston Super Mare Grand Pier has been *engulfed by flames* as the tabloids would have it.

GMTV this morning encouraged viewers to send in their "memories" of the pier. I mean - who the fuck has memories of a seaside pier? They're much of a muchness and you'd have to be really easily pleased to think of them with any fondness.

I do have (not particularly fond) memories of Weston though, because we used to take our annual week's holiday there during my childhood.

As I've said before, if you grew up in the 1960's or '70's, and you were of 'umble origin, chances were that you went to the same holiday destination every bloody year. No one ever questioned why they had to go to the same place year in year out - they just did. One of my uncles and his family went all the way to Swanage in Dorset, which was a bloody long way from Staffordshire. They didn't moan about the long journey or the dreariness of the caravan park they stayed in - they just rolled up their sleeves and got on with it.

Holidays weren't to be enjoyed really, once you'd got past the age of about five. They were an endurance test from which you emerged tired, depressed and malnourished, but eager to get back to home comforts.

When I was eight, my parents took a controversial decision - THEY DECIDED TO CHANGE THEIR HOLIDAY DESTINATION.

In previous years, we'd gone to Colwyn Bay in North Wales ... but the landlady of the guesthouse we always stayed in had decided to retire.

My dad decided that we were going to a place he had fond memories of ("????") It was the place where he convalesced after breaking his leg in a mining accident.

I just put that bit in so that I can score a few salt of the earth prole points over you middle class ponces.

Anyway, that place was Weston Super Mare.

Here are some happy memories of Weston. Do you think I should e-mail them to GMTV, and would the lovely Kate Garroway read them out tomorrow morning?

1. I can remember us finding a nice, quiet spot on the beach which was warmer, more sheltered and less blustery than anywhere else on the seafront. We put down our deckchairs and relaxed. About two minutes later, a donkey being ridden by a small child walked past, stopped and dropped a stinking heap of dung a few feet away from us, so we had to move.

2. Once we went on a coach mystery tour around Chew Valley Lake, stopping off at a few pubs on the way. The journey back around The Mendip Hills was particularly memorable. As the coach screeched around winding hidden bends are great speed, and veered bumpily across the country lanes, it became apparent that the driver had partaken of a lot of beer in each of the pubs. "The driver is completely drunk," my mum whispered "but don't say anything about it because his bloody wife is sitting in front of us".

3. On another coach tour, this time to Bath, in 1974, I time travelled back to 1971. That's all I'm going to say. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, I felt very nauseous afterwards and it involved people in tank tops.

4. The dodgy guesthouse we stayed at was run by one of those women in their fifties who has a very dark suntan, long, dyed black hair and always wears carmen red lipstick. The sort of woman who says "people always say to me that I look a bit Italian or Spanish and a man who chatted me up once told me that I look like Gina Lollobrigida". When we were sat down for breakfast once she leaned over my dad and said "you've got lovely eyes".

5. One year, in a Fawlty Towersesque way, a bloke died during the first night in the room next to us.

6. On another night it was raining heavily and I awoke to find that my bed was soaked from water that had leaked through the ceiling. We weren't even on the top floor.

7. Once I dry heaved all the way through the dinner. The salad was covered in living, moving aphids.

8. I was nearly run over by a motor bike in the town centre.

9. We used to go to the Golden Egg eaterie in Weston once every holiday for an omelette and chips. The seats were big, puffy, mustard coloured things and the backs of your legs used to stick to them so that when you stood up you had wheals all over your thighs.

10. Most of the West Midlands population decided to take their annual holiday in Weston the same week as us, for reasons unknown. We bumped into one bloke who my dad knew and his family. Later, my dad informed me that this bloke was the real dad of one of my friends, and she was the result of a one night stand.

11. For many years afterwards, I used to have regular dreams about drowning at Weston, even though the sea was usually about twenty miles out at any given time.

Will that do?

Labels: drunken coach drivers, GMTV, mud, mystery tours, piers, the lovely Kate Garroway, Weston Super Mare

Here's a running commentary from the recent BBC3 coverage of the first annual At One With Oneness Festival which took place last weekend just outside Grimsby.

Even though there have already been 96573 music festivals in Britain this summer, the At One With Oneness Festival is, say organisers, "a completely new and exciting concept".

The BBC cameras captured the highlights over the weekend. On hand were Radio One's Edith Bowman ...


Edith: muddy but amazing

... and Radio One's Zane Lowe (aka Zip Love, aka the New Zealand B-Boy, stop larffing at the back).


Zane interviews somebody or other on site, fuck knows who.

The camera cuts back to the studio, which is done out in the style of a barn, with haystacks and a zany papier mache cow. There has just been an OB featuring Rufus Hound interviewing the Moving Cardboard Theatre Co., who are dressed up as egg cartons.

Zane: "Thanks Rufus! Edith, I believe you've been having a bit of a walkabout and took in a few bands earlier today. Who've you seen?"

Edith: "Well, I went to see The Fratellis on the Hope And Serenity Stage."

Zane: "How were they?"

Edith: "What can I say? They were just ... amazing ... incredible. Then I moved on to the Recycled Pigeon Shit Stage halfway through Groove Armada's set."

Zane: "What were they like?"

Edith: "Oh, they were incredible, just amazing. The atmosphere was just amazing. I was amazed. After that I felt like I needed to, y'know, chill out a little bit so I went to the Acoustic Smugness Tent and saw Duffy doing a low key set."

Zane: "What was that like? A lot of people would say that people like Duffy don't belong at festivals ..."

Edith: "That's just ridiculous - she was amazing. That girl can sing! She was amazing. Anyway, I've been told that you've been hanging out at the Post Ironic Stage!"

Zane: "Ahem. This is true."

Edith: "And a little bird told me that you saw ... Engelbert Humperdinck! Wow! Amazing! What was he like???"

Zane: "I tell you man ... when he took to the stage I had my doubts. Does someone like Engelbert belong at a festival? But after a couple of numbers he rubbed into Please Release Me and I tell you, the crowd went crazy and he JUST KILLED IT! What can I say, the dude's a legend!"


Engelbert: killed it

Edith: "Amazing! Wow, who would've thought it! Anyway, now we're going over to three hours of highlights from The Editors' set because the singer knocked me up ... but they were just amazing."

Labels: amazingness of everything, Edith Bowman, Engelbert Humperdinck - dude, Groove Armada, mud, Rufus fucking Hound, The Fratellis, Zane Lowe - B Boy