A wise guide to Happy Camping or staying put for the festival season

Even if a festival isn‘t for you, British holidays are the new coolest way to spend your summer, and will help you hold onto your pennies.

Festivals have become big business over the last couple of years and due to the current enthusiasm for anything retro, camping is once again cool. Everyone seems to be pulling on the welly boots we scorned our parents for donning on country walks not five minutes ago, and accessorising them with a pair of wayfarers to catch all their favourite acts in just one weekend. But some of them seem to be getting just as pricey as going abroad, and with the recent credit-crunch inspired trend of staycationing, surely a break in Britain should be fashionable, but cost-cutting? However, there are still a few festivals that aren’t going to break the bank, and could make for the perfect weekend of getting out in the fresh-air, having a few (too many) beers with friends and a good old-fashioned sing-song to our favourite acts. I have recently sampled Victoria Park’s relatively infantile festival Lovebox to very happy avail and would strongly recommend it for next year. Bestival is my hot top for this year however, as it is yet to go ahead and set to be the (you guessed it) best of the Summer!

Lovebox festival.
Victoria Park.
This years Lovebox took place on the 18th and 19th of July. Flagged as the best medium sized festival in Britain, it promised to bring heart and soul vibes along with good old fashioned rock and roll. As a local, up-and-coming festival, tickets were a bargain at £75 for the weekend or £42.50 for a day.

First impressions of the festival were that it offered a chilled out atmosphere with a hint of luxury befitting the capital, as everything from gourmet food to a spot of bowling was on offer. Bargains were also to be found though, as a vintage clothes tent offered up some must have retro gear. And as for the music, Florence and the Machine lived up to the hype, helping to banish the rain with a lively performance and spine-tingling vocals from lead singer Florence Welch. A stunning performance was also to be had from Simian Mobile Disco who ended the festival on the Relentless stage with some killer dance beats, and an endearingly humble performance from Ladyhawke was also a treat. NERD were a little disappointing though, failing to set hearts a flutter with a rather tepid set that wasn’t enlivened even when they allowed some under-age fans to shake their booties alongside them. They were definitely an anomaly however, with many up-and-coming bands winning over new fans and putting in performances that got lots of feet twitching as well as arms and hips for that matter! Bombay Bicycle Club, Chairlift and Filthy Dukes are definitely ones to look out for if their sets are anything to go by.

The fun didn’t stop at the gates either, as an unwitting stop at the local Lauriston Pub on the way back to the station also provided a welcome end to the first night with an electrifying after-party that was of course free, and provided the perfect measure of cheesy love songs, grimey remixes and classic r’n’b to get everyone sweaty, merry and suitably friendly. The DJs were Smash and Grab of the Proud Camden night of the same name, and I for one will be trying my best to catch the night at its regular venue as I don’t know the last time I have danced myself that silly!
Due to the central location there was of course no camping at Lovebox, but who would object to crawling into a comfortable bed and being left refreshed and - most importantly - clean after having avoided queuing for the dreaded cattle-shed-style festival showers, in time to catch all the action on Sunday. This also meant avoiding having to shell out on the latest, too-cute-to-resist Cath Kidston printed tent, or major travel expenses. And at just two days there was no risk of a week-long hangover afterwards. So while everyone else is talking about being knee-deep in mud at Glasto or Reading next year, having tried to see the over-hyped acts through binoculars, placed precariously between sweaty moshers, you can tell them about how you stayed at home and got to see the acts they’ll be raving about the following year, all ready, at a fraction of the cost. So what are you waiting for try booking in advance at http://www.lovebox.net/

Lovebox also has pages on Facebook, Twitter and Myspace if you want to find out more.

Bestival,
Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight.
11th to the 13th of September.
If of course you do want the authentic, Happy Camping experience; mud, beer sloshes and all, then Bestival could be the way to go. Plus they offer a cut price for students of £125, woohoo!
The last festival of the Summer, and founded by Radio 1 DJ Rob da Bank, Bestival is chilled out, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and best of all it’s on the good old Isle of White (yes, that means there’s a beach not far away) and whilst you may have spent scarring caravan holidays there as a kid, this will be different, and who knows it may even be sunny!

Anything goes at Bestival, and with the chance to see this years best girly bands La Roux, Bat For Lashes and Little Boots as well as many more, you would be a fool to miss out. And perhaps best of all, you won’t be the only one desperate to dress-up while surrounded by scenesters. Costumes are pretty much compulsory at Bestival, with a Space theme announced for this year, and a chance to win £100 worth of drinks vouchers if judged as the most out of this world by celebrity judge Lily Allen. To add to the kiddy style fun, you can also play a good game of hunt the disco, to get to the hidden dance tent, where you can see superstar DJs whilst getting dizzy under retro mirror balls and flashing lights. And if you’re feeling a little iffy after you’ve guzzled down those free drinks and strutted your best moves, there’s a pamper tent, so there’s no need to be grubby! You can get a manicure, make-over and (praise the lord!) straighten, yes straighten out that frizz! So for the, well best, festival experience, and a bit of childhood nostalgia, head to Robin Hill Country Park. And don’t forget a good group of friends, and just to be safe, (if the queue for that pamper tent is round the block) the obligatory dry shampoo, face wipes and loo-roll, if you want to survive the weekend unfazed!

Find out more at http://www.bestival.net/.

Or you could try something different…

If you don’t fancy a festival then there are other ways to keep it cheap and get away with friends, or the boyfriend for a weekend. If you’re not adverse to a few extra hours travelling, even along the (eek!) M25 and don’t have a car to speak of, then National Express Coaches offer great advance fairs for as little as £1, to 180 locations as far a field as Edinburgh. So, this could be a great chance to try out a new city, new clubs and to make use of that diddy little Connect 4 set you knew would come in handy some day! It may just be the key to the perfect Summer Holiday, and after all a coach was good enough for Cliff Richard way -back-when, so why not see if you can have just as gay a time for much less than it probably cost him to stay on that blasted bus for so long!

On reading for pleasure: the Bell Jar and beyond.

Following up the three-book-a- week regime demanded by my degree course, reading for pleasure seemed a bit of a mind-field. Fighting the temptation to underline, make extensive and later illegible notes, as well as skimming like there’s no tomorrow seemed far from easy. But getting into my first post-degree book was much easier than I had perceived, and whilst it was a relatively short read, I still managed to pursue the Bell Jar at a reasonably relaxed pace. Purchased with the remaining credit on a university bookshop token, it was a parting gift of sorts to myself on ending my university career, and whilst unprepared for something quite so harrowing I was proud not to have reached straight for some temptingly trashy chick lit.

The opening chapters of The Bell Jar revealed a world not entirely unfathomable; one that drifted precariously between the familiar and the disturbing. Little different in age to myself, Esther Greenwood has the opportunities before her of an enviable peer, as she records her experiences of a prestigious summer internship at a famous fashion magazine in the 60s. Yet her monologue is inflected with a niggling angst that rapidly becomes a debilitating futility as the novel progresses. The world of the New York elite becomes insipid, and the glamour in which she immerses herself merely an unobtainable illusion. She then becomes consumed by a suffocating paranoia, as she descends towards mental illness. Everyone becomes feared as a potential traitor in Esther’s mind and her former boyfriend is believed to be the greatest hypocrite of all.

The novel is clearly influenced by Plath’s own experiences of mental illness. It is not trite and formulaic like many coming-of-age novels, but without restraint, draws us inside of the suffocating Bell Jar that surrounds Esther in her attempts to retreat from the feelings of inadequacy that plague her. Plath’s novel is perhaps little about the common-place theme of her genre – of finding oneself, and instead about discovering that ambitions do not always hold up outside of our minds, and as a result, being forced to learn to become someone entirely different.

The novel ends on uncertain terms, but leaving something wanting appears intentional on Plath’s behalf. Retrieving oneself from the depths Esther experiences is not as simple as a miraculous happy ending, and this truthfulness is what makes this novel an exceptionally readable account of the ascent into adulthood.

This novel seems to have provided the perfect antidote to my own potential disillusion. Esther’s story is a haunting one, and will always occupy a space in my mind, not just as the first book I have read as an English graduate, but to remind me of my own ability to transcend the obstacles that inevitably infringe on our lives; to look towards the spaces opening before me rather than letting the world close in around me.

A modestly sized treat from the BBC: The Supersizers Eat…

The BBC has surprised me lately with its Supersizers Eat… series. As an adamant Channel 4 loyalist (with occasional guilty-pleasure channel surfs to the trash overloaded BBC3), I have been surprised to find a refreshingly historical and thoroughly entertaining shown on BBC2. Ok so granted, I only gave it a look with the hope of seeing gluttonous over-eaters attempt to shed pounds by eating vintage grub, but what I found was much better.

Supersizers eat… sees comedian Sue Perkins and food critic Giles Coren guffaw, gorge and generally disgrace their way through seminal historical decades, throwing etiquette to the wind and embracing the culture of the day with a relentless appetite. The show is insightive, accessible to history-duds such as myself, and boasts the added pleasure of showing the hosts shed any semblance of decorum they may have held up previously.

This week’s episode was a return to the fifties and no holds were barred as they threw themselves into the sugar-rush of a diet that was available after the austerity years of the Second World War. The menu boasted mixed delights from some rather suspect looking Wheatabix based appetisers to banana splits and Coca Cola, which were the choice diet of American influenced teenagers of the day. Major events are revisited including the Coronation, and Sue is seen heading an anti-Bomb demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Under the radar activities of the day are also relived behind closed doors, including a game of ‘whose lap am I on’ which makes for scintillating after dinner entertainment for some unsuspecting guests.

The two’s reviews of the era are mixed, as Sue is less than happy with her role as housewife, failing to revel in the thriftiness of grow-your-own and making her modest new homestead glimmer, but Giles embraces his role as man-of-the-house, car sales manager and general glutton for sugar. All in all though, the episode attests to the fact that we really had “never had it so good” as Harold MacMillan exclaimed at the time (whether he referred to the influence of the pure alcohol cocktails the two commit to necking is of course questionable however!).

Next week sees the two embrace the diet of the eighties, and I for one can’t wait to see them quaffing champagne in their New Romantic get-up.

Supersizers Eat… airs on Monday at 9pm on BBC2.