Roger

Habylab

I think I might of spotted you Lozzy, not sure though! And anyone got a picture of Roger, may of seen him and Annie too.

Bit late now, but click on my 'Public Profile' on this here forum, there's a photo taken at last year's Latitude, wearing practially the same clothes as this year (on Friday at least, because I was mostly wearing full waterproofs and wellies all weekend)

I don't think I saw you then. Shame, doesn't look like who I thought I saw that was you.

I didn't get time to continue updating this thread during the weekend (and I didn't want to annoy Nico too much by posting on the forum while at the festival), so I'll pick up where I left off.  After meeting claireh12, Nigey_boy, SimonW and meal_deal on Thursday I had more forum meetings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; 1 a day for each day, which is not a great average, but still very enjoyable and it included my main event for the weekend...

Friday: I was mooching around the In The Woods arena thinking about what 'butt bins' to replace and where (yes, my work is that glamorous!), when I noticed a small group of people, including a Pixie, watching me, I carried on with my rock 'n' roll task of making sure a large metal tin ash try was still cable-tied to a tree correctly, they were still watching me, with the Pixie pointing me out.  Forumers I decided.  So I went across and MrsBee introduced herself.  Yay, another one ticked off the list!  I'd slightly forgotten that MrsBee's daughter had wanted to be a Pixie, well it turned out that had indeed become a Pixie, and so when her mum met her in the Woods she was asked to point me out.  MrsBee and her (non-forum) friends were friendly, chatty and charming so another really nice chat followed... it seems us forum lot are all lovely people in reality! (who would've thought eh).  I did make one mistake though, I said to MrsBee (twice) that I was expecting her to wear a flowery dress because she'd said on the forum to look out for one, but afterwards I remembered that it was LucyLoo who said that, soz MrsBee! (and that does explain your look of slight 'eh?!').

Saturday: My forum meeting experience for Saturday came very late, less than half an hour before the Woods closed for the evening... but it was absolutely worth waiting for.

It was coming up to 02.30, the Woods were a bit packed, especially the In The Woods arena with Eddie Temple Morris spinning the tunes (a bit old skool rave at times, I kinda liked it, as did the crowd it seemed), one of the security for the In The Woods bar, acting on the 'duty of care' part of his brief, came to tell me he'd found a person in a bit of a state for me to assess and assist. As he was telling me all this I noticed a person nearby, furtively, and maybe nervously, glancing towards us: I was instantly quietly confident that it was Damaris, but I didn't have time to confirm it because I needed to rush off to see to the overly tipsy person. Situation dealt with I went back to where I'd seen Damaris in the hope that he was still around - as he was high on my list of forumers to meet - and after a couple of minutes searching I saw him again, and again he was glancing furtively, and maybe tipsily, in my direction, so I started towards him, and at the same time he came towards me, asking me if I know anyone called Roger, I didn't say anything, instead I gave him my answer by holding up my laminated penguin for him to see, he exclaimed a delighted “Roger!”, I said “hello Charles”, he was a bit surprised I knew who he was, but then he threw his arms out for a hug, which he got... now that was an hello!

We had a super chat, but not nearly for long enough, I was just too busy to be able to talk for longer or concentrate fully, we still managed to chat for longer than I'd imagined for that time of night in the Woods, but I just wished I could've thrown off my tabard and taken him to the nearest bar for a cocktail or 6. In the end though I really had to run (to make sure Mr Temple Morris had been told that 3am meant 3am). He told me he's met Tintin and Grouchy and that he'd try to get them along to meet me the following night, which all sounded good to me, so I expected to see him again, we shock hands, he ambled off, I made a direct beeline for the turntables..

Easily the joint highlight of my weekend (and the delightful Mr Damaris was also involved in my other joint highlight).

Roger



Friday: I was mooching around the In The Woods arena thinking about what 'butt bins' to replace and where (yes, my work is that glamorous!), when I noticed a small group of people, including a Pixie, watching me, I carried on with my rock 'n' roll task of making sure a large metal tin ash try was still cable-tied to a tree correctly, they were still watching me, with the Pixie pointing me out.  Forumers I decided.  So I went across and MrsBee introduced herself.  Yay, another one ticked off the list!  I'd slightly forgotten that MrsBee's daughter had wanted to be a Pixie, well it turned out that had indeed become a Pixie, and so when her mum met her in the Woods she was asked to point me out.  MrsBee and her (non-forum) friends were friendly, chatty and charming so another really nice chat followed... it seems us forum lot are all lovely people in reality! (who would've thought eh).  I did make one mistake though, I said to MrsBee (twice) that I was expecting her to wear a flowery dress because she'd said on the forum to look out for one, but afterwards I remembered that it was LucyLoo who said that, soz MrsBee! (and that does explain your look of slight 'eh?!').

 
Thanks Roger it was lovely to meet you too.  I did wonder about the flowery dress thing though,  flowery dresses are just not me, hats maybe, but not dresses, lol!  
 
I'm very pleased that the Pixies seem to have made a good impression judging from some of the comments on here.   I hope my daughter was one of the helpful ones, she enjoyed it but struggled with the overnight shift.   Luckily it was the last one, she just looked a bit like a zombie for most of Sunday, she does like her 8 hours lol!

MrsBee

.....I'm very pleased that the Pixies seem to have made a good impression judging from some of the comments on here.....

I'm pleased too, it's been nice reading some of the comments, and it's great to know the Pixies were appreciated, they were all a great bunch and I'm sure their happy demeanour helped the general mood in the Woods
 
 

MrsBee

.....I hope my daughter was one of the helpful ones.....

Actually, she was indeed, which I know you'd expect a nice person like me to say, but it is actually true and I thought that before I knew whom her mother was.

Highlight of the weekend material, YES.

Your piskies were great. As you say, as well as the work they did, they just lifted everyone's spirits and helped keep the woods a unique and smiley place to be.

Roger


Later in the evening I was 'ambling' towards the Sunrise listening to my radio earpiece, or my phone, or both, when someone said hello... it was meal_deal! (and a friend, who wasn't a forumer but whom I still talked to anyway).  They were both drinking astonishingly inviting looking pints of one of Hektor's ales (I could almost not keep my eyes off 'em!... but it had been about 6 hours since I'd had a sip of any fluids and 2 days since a beer). Another really nice chat followed, and it turned-out I was his first forum meet-up, which for someone who's been at it for quite a while was long overdue I think.  We had a bit of chat about music and the line-up then finally I let them wander off into the evening. 

A very nice day.

 
Hi Roger.  Was good to meet you.  I do apologise if we appeared a little drunk, the Hektor's Scarecrow did slip down rather easily, and sorry we couldn't have shared a pint with you.  I do remember, however, you (unintentionally) giving us tips for secreting bottles of spirits in the woods ;-)
 
I didn't see you again the whole weekend, despite keeping my eyes peeled, and you remain my sole meet-up the whole weekend. Although I think I may have Geofelgie watching Bright Eyes - Geof, were you near the front wearing a spotted shirt and a 'fetching' pair of denim shorts?

meal_deal

.....I do apologise if we appeared a little drunk.....
 
.....I do remember, however, you (unintentionally) giving us tips for secreting bottles of spirits in the woods.....

A) I didn't notice that you were drunk (ok, thinking about it, maybe that explains your friend's vibe).
 
B) It wasn't a tip, more of a warning, and if you recall it didn't actually work for the young lad that I told you about: it was Woods 1 - Illicit booze 0.

I do seem to be stretching this thread out far more than is ideal, not purposefully, but the week after Latitude I stayed around locally and probably got too deep into a Suffolk state of mind, and this week I've been getting ready for the Big Chill. So basically I forgot that I haven't complete this... and I didn't write about perhaps the most momentous meeting.
 
Sunday:  I met only one forumer on Sunday - ▲ / aka Grouchland.  Yes, he graced the Woods, and me, with his presence.
 
It was late in the evening, the midnight hour or thereabouts, and as usual at that time I was running about dealing with this, that, and a fair bit of the other, when suddenly Damaris was in front of me - of course I'd met him for the first time the previous night - it was good to see him again and this time he had a friend with him, he said something like "guess who", I instinctively knew it was Grouchy, so I said "Thomas?"... my brain was second-guessing me (or it had remembered something Annie had said about Thomas that day and something inside me thought this might be him), anyway, the blank look I received encouraged me to guess again, so I went with "Kieran?" (looking back maybe I should've said "Karen?", for a larf n all that).
 
We had an all too brief chat, because they had unknowingly chosen exactly my busiest time of the entire weekend - Sunday night at any festival is the time when many people try to squeeze every last drop of 'up-for-it-ness' out of themselves - and as the Woods are already a big draw for those people it does get a tad manic at times.  So I was kinda a lot distracted during most of our chat, then I had some news about something that I just had to deal with (some inevitable muppetness had occurred elsewhere in the Woods).  I did ask if they could hang around a while because I really wanted to chat more, but one wanted to go somewhere else and the other wanted to go to bed... I was actually, and really, disappointed.  They headed off.  A few moments later I ran past them on my way to deal with the issue, I did think about slowing down and saying "hello again boys" but I also thought if they saw me running it'd look like I was doing something important... so I just ran past... then fell over in the mud.  Karma again (luckily I was, I hope, too far past them for them to see me hit the floor).
 
Although it was brief it was another nice forum meet-up and I do really wish I had more time to chat, because the time we did have was enjoyable, I would've loved to have bought them both a pint and sat down for a longer chat.  I did try to persuade our dear ▲ to meet me for a drink in the week after the festival (it was one of the reasons why I stuck around in Suffolk), but the silly sod was playing hard to get.  His loss... and mine.

Ok, I should finally wrap this up.  And now's the time to do it because I'm heading to the Big Chill tomorrow so I'll most likely be off-line for 8 days or so.
 
Aside from the ones already mentioned I did meet a few other forumers... all in one go.
 
Monday: I went all the way to the Billy Loadsa Mates camp to say 'ello to the gang!... twice! (because the party poopers were in bed the first time, or, I couldn't actually find it, or both perhaps).  Sunday night/Monday morning, after my last shift in the Woods and tidying up a few loose ends I had a quick 'debrief drink' with a few colleagues, then I decided to hunt the BLM camp, so I set off in the general direction where I thought I might find it. It was my first ever trip out into the Latitude campsites but I found where I thought it should be quite easily.  So I'm there looking for the BLM flag when I suddenly realised 2 things: 1) I had no idea what the flag looked like, and B) there were quite a few flags.  B*gger.  After a while traipsing around I decided to give-up, especially as there weren't many people around at that time in the morning, so my plan was to schlep all the way to my cabin (way-up at the top end of the arena, beyond even the Word tent) and check the location of the BLM camp online on the map that Nige had posted before the festival, plus I was thinking it would give 'em time to get up.
 
So, after a check of the advertised camp location, a quick shower and a bit of a rest, I set out again to find the camp, this time armed with at least some knowledge... that didn't do me much good.  Again I found the place where the camp should've been, but not the camp, so I gave up and texted Annie in case she'd been to it, she called back and described where it should be, also suggesting that I scream "Billy Loadsa Mates?!?"... I decided against that idea.  Then a brainwave:  I knew 2 people would be there for sure and I happened to know what they look like - Nige and Claire.  Within about 40 seconds of looking I found them.  I think I said "Good morning Nigel" and I think he said "oh, it's you" - with a welcome like that I knew my chances of being offered a bacon sarnie were probably slim (I'm teasing of course Nige!).  Then within seconds I was sat in a whole circle of forumers, offered a can of something fizzy and chatting commence......

Lol, first time i have heard beer described as a can of something fizzy:-)
 

Looks like I'll be adding another one of you lot to my list of Forumers what I have met.  I have plans to meet Raffles when he visits my home city next week.  He wants a beer, in a 'non-corporate' place.  Can do.  I hope he likes scuzzy-looking dive bars.

I can now add Raffles to this list.
 
The decidedly friendly and easy-going Raffles and I had a mini, out-of-season forum meet-up last night in a bar or two in Warsaw, and a lovely evening it most certainly was.  We had a fair bit of chat about a certain Suffolk-based festival of course (our joint conclusion on future line-ups: Neil Young wouldn't be a bad idea).  We also had some chat / gossip about this ere forum: including him saying more than once that "Eddy the Viper is great" and me saying that Grouchy is "surprisingly good looking" (true dat).
 
I was a relatively brief meeting but I did manage to show him a bit of Warsaw that he would probably have been unlikely to find himself, when we ended up in a bar that is somewhat tucked away -  you go down a small street, turn through an unpromising looking archway into the dark space behind the buildings, walk through a dodgy looking courtyard area (with a boarded-up fetish shop and skips that you almost always see the local winos going through), approach a dark, slightly derelict looking building with no outward sign that there is anything inside, step in the once grand (I'm guessing) doorway into... and empty room with an old sofa and litter. Oh.  But through that room, turn right and you enter a plush, sparkly-lit, velvet-lined piece of Lower Eastside New York meets Berlin shabby chic... with cheap beer, a great cocktail list and probably the second best chips in town (and smoking is still allowed in most of the bar! Not to mention the swinging bed that's big enough for two people (we didn't try it)).
 
Great to meet you Raffles! 
 
Who's next?

Roger

including him saying more than once that "Eddy the Viper is great" 

That statement there has warmed me little heart up, yay :)
Thank goodness though, this house is FREEZING haha. 
 

Freezing? FREEZING? It's an indian summer where I am at the moment!

Roger


I can now add Raffles to this list.
 
.......
 

IWho's next?

Thanks for your hospitality, Roger.
 
I can definitely recommend an evening’s bar touring with “The Penguin” should any forum members ever find themselves in Warsaw.  He is clearly has something of the Bohemian spirit which seems well suited to the city; a great antidote to the sterile hotel bars and “designer” restaurants which normally seem to fill my agenda on eastern European business trips.
 
It is also fascinating to get something of an insider’s view how Latitude and other festivals function behind the scenes.
 
Back to reality today. Off to the St Albans Beer festival this evening in the municipal surrounds of the Alban Arena.   About as far from the Warsaw bar behind the skips as one can imagine!  But live music from late 70’s post punk blues legends “Nine Below Zero” should be fun. 
 
PS:  I should just like to point out that my fondness for EddieTheViper is purely based on his consistently thoughtful and un-cynical postings.  Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea!
 

Raffles

 my fondness for EddieTheViper is purely based on his consistently thoughtful and un-cynical postings.  

Everyone spells my name wrong i swear haha >,<

Thanks though Raffles, does mean a lot :)

And yes Habylab, last night was awful in this house, i swear this house will forever be freezing...  
This being said yes, today was SCORCHING outside, i was doing tours for the uni open day and it was ridiculously hot, nice change to last night i feel.