Another anecdote from days on tour
As a band, we've been described as 'tighter than a virgin with pelvic cramps'. To be fair, we were pretty strapped for cash too. (Oooh snap!)

When calculating our expenses, we decided we could save some pennies by living on Asda Smart Price food. We all lost a lot of weight. And not the good losing weight some of you may be imagining. Think malnutrition.

But food wasn't all we were going to need. In terms of sleeping arrangements, we reasoned that some of us could 'van it', and the rest would sleep in tents wherever we managed to set them up. In theory this was fine, and even in practice, finding a place to set up camp was not the issue.

What we did was simply to drive away from any light we could see, houses or streetlights, and then keep going until everything was dark and tomtom no longer recognised where we were.

The problem arose a few nights into the tour, as we began to penetrate Wales. We found that other than some good festivals, all there really is in Wales is sheep... and rain.

So i wake up in my tent, located in a field somewhere, and it takes me a moment or two to understand the patterns of the rain drops all over the roof. It takes a further few moments for me to make sense of the rain drops still falling onto me. And i slowly realise why i am quite so cold.

It transpired that the tents had also been purchased in Asda, and as such were in no way waterproof. Clothes, shoes, sleeping bag, pillow and self, completely drenched. And it wasn't as if we could get new ones, or even dry ourselves or our belongings.

The tents, of which we bought 3, cost us about £5 each. The utterly shameful part was that we couldn't afford to replace them. So each night we said a small prayer, and climbed back into the sodden things, only to wake again the next day, in a large puddle.

"Shotgun van!"
(ShitBitch, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 19:44, 2 replies)

Ahaa!
Another example from tour again, so may as well go here.

Fuel! It made up a huge percentage of our over all costs, and we were driving a big transit van which drank petrol like a bitch.

We found after a while that it didn't really start guzzling until you get to about 55 mph. So we drove at 50..

Not only that, but we later found that the speed gauge on our lovely old van was slightly broken. We had in fact been driving hundreds of miles at 45 mph..

Caravans overtook us.. All the time..
(ShitBitch, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 19:58, closed)

But you didn't have to pay speeding fines. More economy!
I had a van that told me when I was about to hit 50. At 48, the gear lever would start to vibrate loudly.

My brother reckoned I'd set it like that to help pass the time on long journeys.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 7:39, closed)