Sound and Fury

It's a weekend in Summer, so there must be a music festival going on somewhere. Which means there's a fair chance that a dead Tory might turn up in the executive toilets. That said, this weekend it is T in the Park, in Scotland, and they don't have Tories there. Well, they do, they just don't dare call themselves Tories. Instead they usually call themselves Scottish Liberal Democrats. Whatever the nomenclature, I doubt we'll see a repetition of the Glastonbury incident. Unless, that is, there are more unpleasant revelations from News International, in which case Conservative Central Office could well send someone up to Glasgow with orders to crap themselves to death, in order to deflect media attention. If they don't want to stump up the train fare for Scotland, they could always send their sacrificial lamb to Crapchester's very own music festival. They'd certainly be welcome, as 'Crapchester Live' (or 'Crapchester Shite' as I prefer to call it), badly needs something to lend it credibility. A dead body in the kazi would certainly do that.

As I have the misfortune to live just across the road from the park where they persist in holding 'Crapshester Shite', every year my ears have to bear the brunt of its 'musical' assault. As it is meant to be a 'showcase' for the local music scene, I have to endure forty eight hours of utter shite. These are the same self-styled musicians who do their best to put various local pubs out of business by performing live in them. You know, I actually don't have a problem with these people deluding themselves that they're in 'the music business' and holding their annual festival. I just don't see why the rest of Crapchester should be subjected to their cacophony. A couple of years ago they had their sound system cranked up so high that my house was shaking.

But woe betide anyone foolhardy enough to criticise this annual ego-stroking session. I'm just a curmudgeonly old kill-joy it seems. I keep getting told that I should actually visit the festival before I criticise it. But surely that's the point - I'm not interested in it, yet I'm still subjected to it regardless. Let's face it, if it was a pub, say, putting out live music at these kinds of volumes, until past 11 o'clock at night, the council would undoubtedly suspend its licence for live music. However, if it's a council-approved 'festival', it seems that noise pollution is not just OK, but obligatory. Perhaps the most pathetic defence of this annual assault on my ears I've had is someone telling me that I should just put up with it because "It's only once a year, mate". To which my response is simple - if, every year, on the second weekend in July I broke into your house and bum-raped you for forty-eight hours, would that be OK? After all, it's only once a year, isn't it, mate?