29 August - RIP Reading Fest

Caught a bit of it on TV. Didn’t know who the young presenters were next to Jo Whiley. Was it on Popbitch or not that Lord Bono was banging her? He of the blameless reputation? If not ohmygod U2 will close down my blog for libel. And no, I don’t have any proof, it’s all hearsay. But then again, look at George Michael. He is gay, but back then in Wham days the papers never told you, though they knew. There seems to be a complex system that ‘decides’ when it’s time to go medieval on celebs ass. So, Reading Festival… Well, I see no reason to go unless I’m at Dave Grohl’s BBQ backstage (he is an enthusiastic barbie maniac, or unless someone’s paying me, like that year we sold the most useless piece of info to the Sun. A friend was linked to Rav, then presiding over the gossip pages, and he told us to let him know of any goss. This made going to the festival slightly less boring as we fancied ourselves intrepid detectives. But we spent a fruitless w/end coming across nothing that seemed that interesting to us. Then one of my exes told me how much the headliners, Blur, were getting paid. It was possibly the first year the fee went over the £1m mark. Again, who cares? You may say, but in desperation we offered the snippet to Rav. Imagine our surprise when the Sun run a whole page thingy with a picture of Damon’s new house in West London which was his new home with new post Justine girlfriend. How much did it cost? Well, £1m of course, it was very very big but not in the country (that was his record company boss). Never mind that there were 4 Blurs to share the bonanza, there it was, our bit of info crossed with another bit of info and voila’, scoop. Our eyes were opened to how papers concoct an article out of nothing remotely earth shattering. We did provide another one on Fatboy Slim but it must have been such incredible news that I totally can’t remember what it was, though again, it was a full page. But my co-snitch who’s in the legal profession had too much guilty conscience to continue and thus ended our tabloid career. I think we were paid beer money (or vodka in our case) anyway and it was hardly worth it. Last time I went to Reading Fest we had to stay in the Holiday Inn and frankly the time had come to give it up.