French Robots Invade Hyde Park
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2007
1
Trip End
Jul 08, 2007
London, United Kingdom
Saturday, June 9, 2007
So with backpack and laptop in hand I set off with a bunch of email printouts in search of summer fun. Arrival at dreary Stantsed to once again cop the pointed questions and suspicous eyes of British passport control. "Whats this??"(pointing at french work visa), "Why on earth would you want to work in France?", "What are you doing here?" "Who do your friends work for?" "How much money do you have?" aarrgh even the yanks aren't this rough I felt like pointing to the first page of my passport which ensures that "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, requests all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer, an Australian Citizen, to pass freely without let or hindrance" meanwhile Russian mobsters and penniless Poles are strolling freely through the EU line next to me. Never mind I'm soon relaxing in the leafy confines of East Dulwich with my gracious hosts feasting on duck curry and chicken tika, products of the only English colony to provide Europes culinary blacksheep(perhaps ugly duckling is more fitting??) with a decent bite to eat.
Owing to the unfortunate exchange rate and spectacular home studio of my host I spend the next couple of days indoors aquainting myself with a beautiful hunk of analogue circuitry known as the Andromeda(a synthesizer). Despite barely leaving the house the weekend still manages to cost me more than the standard annual salary of a Cambodian fisherman... 4 pounds for a one way metro ticket?! and that doesn´t even get me halfway home I also have to pay the kind folk of South East Mainline Services who have a different set of maps, lines and prices to the stations owned by South West Medium Density Commuter Link or Upper North East Passenger Express Limited who (for a modest sum) will ferry me half way from the airport where I have to locate the hub of Inner Eastern Light Rail Co and purchase a new ticket.
Still the o2 Wireless festival is good and the permanent showerhead installed in Londons sky somehow manages to hold off for most of the day despite the ever present halo of dirty grey lurking ominously on the sidelines. The festival is pretty run of the mill as far as big city park style festivals go, a few different stages, overpriced drinks, theme park rides, portaloos, bikini clad girls and cape wearing crazies. One new addition is the ramping up of corporate sponsorship, for the first time in my experience VIP now includes anyone who happens to be a mobile customer of o2.
With the sun making a half decent attempt at piercing londons drab slate mantle we spend most of the day lounging about in the grass our ears privy to the musical mash created by the accidental collision of sound waves projected from distant arenas. Despite the strange arhythmic dissonance this causes it doesn´t really matter as closer inspection of various bands reveals nothing of significantly higher quality. Of course this changes when its time for the main act, once the French space invaders land in their illuminated pyramid and start assualting the crowd with various mindbending configurations of light and sound its 2 hours of aural ecstasy before paying the the equivalent of a months rent on a 3 bedroom flat in Bangalore to get the cab home...
