Insomnia
I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights. This is bad, because I haven't really been in a fit state for lectures the next day and when you've got a man with a russian accent thicker than Ron Jeremy's piss stick talking very fast about differential operators, you need to be on the ball.

Never mind. I've had a jolly old night by myself so far. Let me share the mirth with a story from the halcyon days of this past summer as the sun stretches out and yawns in gentle anticipation of the next one.

Oh, what a summer it was, dear reader. It started, for me at least, on June 28th, the day of my final exam, the ferocious STEP papers for cambridge mathematicians. I came out feeling encouraged - I didn't think I'd met the grade I needed to get in (turns out I was right, and am now in the lovely city of Bath) but neither had I utterly disgraced myself as I fear I might - considering I was from a state college and the odds were therefore against me, I thought I'd accredited myself very well and my hard work of the previous few weeks had paid off.

Anyway, from then on, it was more or less non-stop having a good time. Which is pretty good considering I had only £100 in my bank account at the beginning of it and only owed £70 to various friends at the end some three months later. It's amazing what fun you can have on a budget.

Every weekend in July was spent with my band, more or less. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the seven of us would jump in our big blue transit and jaunt off round the country meeting people, playing gigs, getting high and just generally having a laugh. One moment you'd be in Andover crashing at the house of a currently away man who has a collection of knives and apparently knows how to use them ('oh it'll be fine for you to stay here, he probably won't get back till tomorrow evening. If he does come in, explain you're with us'. Suffice to say I was jolly scared), the next you're in a field in the back of beyond in North Wales en route to a festival at four in the morning, quite drunk and stopping for a piss, then your drummer is throwing turnips he mysteriously procured from somewhere and shouting, in his finest west-country accent 'TURNIPS!', while gurning. It was odd.

That was freedom, though. Freedom like I think most people don't get - we literally had nothing to worry about other than showing up somewhere cool at a vaguely appropriate time then making music. And that was hardly a worry, it was a privilege.

Weekdays would be spent bumming around in the Sun with various small groups of friends, maybe driving up to the top of Portsdown Hill in the evenings to listen to some jazz, maybe a big house party somewhere, maybe just a nice pub somewhere (I am wondering how I managed this all on £170).

Anyway, in case I'm starting to bore you with the reminiscences (there's more, so much more), I'll progress the story. On August the first, we began our seventeen day UK tour. I remember it well, the Sun was hot, the air shimmered, life happened noisily everywhere and I could barely contain myself with excitement. It'd be like a two week weekend! I packed all my clothes, my saxophone, some cutlery, as we were planning to cook on a little gas cooker out the back of our van in servise stations along the way, which worked very well if it did engender some funny looks (I don't know why, but I decided to pack five forks, two spoons and four knives, much to the mirth of my bandmates. It did seem to makes sense at the time), then hurried to the station with a spring in my step. A ten minute train journey later, and I was in Bedhampton, about a twenty minute walk from our singer's house. The walk somehow managed to last one hour and twenty minutes because even after two years of walking it I still don't know the way, so I arrived sweaty and with an arm absolutely on fire from lugging my suitcase, but with enthusiasm undamped. It turned out our drummer had taken four hours to walk here because A whale was stuck under Hayling bridge and no buses were running. Strange times.

Anyway, tour was as stupidly good as you'd expect, the stories from it are for another time but most of them sound made-up anyway.

Tour ended back in Havant, our hometwon gig. We played with a band from all the way up in Darlington we'd befriended a few gigs before who actually ar the most insane people I've ever met, so we took this opportunity to throw a massive, massive party with our two bands and all our friends, in our band practice room. It truly was the party to end all parties.

So, through all my ramblings, we arrive at the penis bit of a story that deserves to be written so much better, but it is four thirty in the morning so cut me some slack. I've mentioned these chaps from Darlington were insane. They liked getting naked. A lot. The first time we met them, they showed us pictures from their trip to the gig. Apparently not content to sit in a traffic jam on the motorway passing the time idly, they instead got out of their cars, undressed, and capered naked through the becalmed traffic. They really did. The best picture showed a little girl in a car staring at their nude forms with the biggest grin on her face.

One of them had one really, really big testicle, with which he did a trick he liked to call 'the millenium dome'. It involved him covering his other ball and his cock with it, and indeed, it did resemble a fleshy, hairy, waste of govenment money.

Anyway, back to the party, which was now in full swing as about fifty people, in age between sixteen and maybe 25, got very, very drunk and very, very stoned and danced to some very, very good music. Predictably, our nothern friends were starkers and making some really very crude jokes. We were outside at one point, just a few of us, possibly having a joint, when their naked bassist asked us all if we'd kiss his penis. I don't think anyone from my band knows this, though they probably will now [hello Doug], but kiss it I did. Not deeply, or passionately, but I was chemically stupefied enough to give it a little peck. I'm not actually all that ashamed, it was all very much in the spirit of the night that ended with one of them with one of them passed out with a glass bottle an appreciable distance actually up his bum.

Anyway, at the end of this really quite shit ramble, summer 2008 - I salute you. If summer 2009 is even half as good, I'll be a very happy man.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 4:51, 9 replies)

I didn;t bother reading it
because too many paragraphs started with "anyway", suggesting everything before it is irrelevant.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 7:10, closed)

You're right
Everything before it is more or less irrelevant. But at the same time, have you really come to b3ta determined to read stories only about penises and nothing else? Not saying mine was particularly good or anything, but I'm not sure drifting in and out of topic on a reply is a particularly heinous crime.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 8:09, closed)

Well I read it,
and enjoyed it immensely.

For the record, I once kissed my sister's (clothed) buttcheck- like yourself, a quick peck, as a response to yet another childish jape to 'kiss her ass' (I dunno, she'd demanded I get out of the toilet so her holy ass could adorn it or something, for a change).

Never lived it down. Bitch.
(Angie the Redneck Wonder, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 7:53, closed)

I enjoyed this as well
Very well written, have a click from me. Although I don't remember the summer being warm! Rainy, perhaps...
( jim_bob can herd cats., Wed 18 Mar 2009, 8:47, closed)

What's the name of your band?
I've got a feeling I might know you.
(username1, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 8:51, closed)

A bit of a ramble but,
Reminded me of some good times playing gigs and driving bands about on tours.
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 11:15, closed)

Russians...
You're not talking about Dmitry Skryabin are you?? I thought about him and his differential operators before you even said you were at Bath. I almost never understood him.
(Sinister Carp doesn't mind the gap, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 13:59, closed)

Victor Galaktionov, actually
Okay. Although I've never been sure whether he was actually russian or greek cause of an off the cuff remark he made in his first lecture. I'm pretty sure he's russian, though. It doesn't half crack me up when he says 'opps'.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 14:23, closed)

fuck the
first two replies, their killjoys bro. ive been there done that, and been sick on my tshirt (the band bit that is) and the penis story is probably something that happens on a daily basis lol.... keep up the rockin bro 'click'
(gingerbollocks 'happy and content' since, Wed 18 Mar 2009, 14:58, closed)