Saw this picture and thought I'd put it up, the guy that designed the alien for Alien does them, I think the art is better than the films though

Check Her Out! I love her music I can't wait for her to play the UK! If I can afford to when she does I mean haha

  Well Don't take my word for it just go check her out!!!

I'm a fan of some films about the end of the world but not the theorists who tell us where, what, when and how It's gonna happen!

Fuck all that malarky these people who theorize the end of the world couldn't tell you you'll win the lottery never mind the end of millions to billions of human lives, zillions of living things on and IN the world and nevermind the fact you're talking thousands of miles of land and ocean.

Now tell me out of all living things any one person can guess?

Yep it's true I am back, still In black like Johnny Cash and this time more power!

That is all... Have a good day/night :)

Ok I've just found another site which showed up as OK on my security when the link came up on a Google search. There Is also a quite cool picture of the Morrigan  which there are a lot of in many forms. Some show her with raven black hair and others with like ginger or fiery red hair which all look cool. Soon I'll put up a few pictures I've found and like.

The GuardHouse: The Morrigan...Celtic Raven Goddess

Okay It's been a while since I was on this contraption but I've recently been reading Celtic Fairy Tales and became fascinated with the fact In Ireland (Erin or Eirinn) we use to believe in gods and goddesses and were pagan, druid and even wiccan so during an information search I came across the Morrigan who I was instantly fascinated with as at first found she was the goddess of the raven/crow but also of death, life, war and sex. You really should check this out about her. It goes into more detail about Arthurian times though but If you want a separate link for the Irish goddess that Is the Morrigan then check out this one: www.Elessacar.com and look for An Mhor Rioghan (Gaelic for Morrigan)

Ok well I hope anyone who's interested will enjoy what that read. Also she Is a sister and of the three war goddesses.

Morrigan

>The Doom Machine II

God knew we’d do this, he must’ve known...

We are human, most of us, some of us…

well not so human as we think.

God knew this

.

How did we survive this world...?

We didn’t.

We survived nothing we destroyed the earth ourselves with no help from forces predicted to end mankind. We burn in our own hell, rot in our own bodies for as long as eternity will let us.

God forbid the earth be cracked into so many pieces we are thrown into the black abyss immortal…

God…

We’re still use to saying his name although there is no such thing to be real here, we should be saved by now, saved from this living hell with living things that should not exist outside our fears and nightmares.

Yet they exist despite the imaginations being unreal to the world about us.

And we are far from being saved. We’re forgotten like the mythical meek this place belongs to.

If this world we and I see is still even real to us who but those powers that put us here would know the answer.

I sometimes pray that we’re all in some coma state to where we are yet to awaken.

The thought and idea of it gets me through most grimmest times, like the thought of dying one day being something to keep a stressed man or woman sane long enough not to let insanity take permanent control. Perhaps it is insanity around us? Mine or a group of us who are real here.

I’m concerned to my existence too much I think?

We suffer. Here. We suffer here.

No one on this world of ash, flesh and blood can help us now, this is only a mere document to what is and nothing more. This will not end with us all being restored to mortality and hope.

This is the real world for fuck sake!

Such madness left with us here, such despair we offer each other, to old friends family whom I do not remember anymore to be recognizable amongst the flesh and the things about me.

I’ve probably feasted on them by now or even did worse and impregnated them with spawns of me in that time I was of great need and uncontrollable.

I feel that time hungering nearer in my depths again this time I know what it is, does.

I shall not remember the hunger only what I’ve done during the hunger, which is hell itself because I subconsciously know the hunger is a full force addiction. A cold turkey.

I think I’ve eaten turkey… So hard to remember what Cold Turkey means right now.

So hard to remember what any of anything I remember means sometimes- we don’t use language much vocal or literal. We use what we were born with, a primal modern being.

But we’re not all zombies… I doubt there are names, descriptions for most of us.

Most of us are only new to this world, like babies but… Adult and lost.

Being lost to this dark void where I doubt any human can see around here.

We’re practically underground it’s that dark, we see clouds now and then when the moon must be fullest. So there must still be a sun out there. Humans scream quite loudly,

They can be that irritating I’ve wanted to and sometimes have torn them to pieces and, eaten them.

But I’m not a living dead, I don’t think…

Screaming and screaming it’s all they fucking do!

They know their going to die they fucking know they are so why the fuck do they keep screaming, it only attracts more of us because we’re quiet! We don’t scream when we’re being eaten!

Fucking girls are worse with making our heads spin with their screams.

Treble E.

At least men have deep screaming, Bass E.

What am I talking about??

Doomed.

We are all doomed.

My battery’s damaged, I didn’t change it I don’t know how long I have to reach the Cave before it dies. My flesh doesn’t need changing yet. Except my left eye.

I haven’t queued for the durable eyes I think I believe in being as me as possible.

Long live Doom!

The sky is bleeding again, the black-gray clouds move violently slow but there’s a dark redness like blood within it tonight again. A sky behind a sky? A hole in the sky, luring back to where we were from once upon a time? Who knows, I certainly wouldn’t know anything all I have is ideas.

Questions nothing here can answer.

I must begin my journey to the Cave now, it’s imperative that I do this now or I fear what immortal state I shall become when my battery ends.

I think hell gave us a way of life but we opted for something else and we’re living it now.

This tomb I have dwelled in, part of the earth, part of the undead earth we inhabit, I find my way to the mouth of it from where I’d entered, the sky bleeding like the whores and bastards we eat and use,

The land is black and gray. Shadows and ruins reaching to the sky, some perhaps once stood as tall.

Some still stand near-perfect to example what the world here was like before us.

Yet I remember that I know these ruins were for all humans, not kings or queens.

I begin my aching slow walk through the ashes of empires we’ve digested long ago and I am alone out here. The screaming has stopped, the echoes of multiple snapped bone with tearing flesh has ceased.

I am alone…

Now I feel something I do not recognize as part of me.

I am concerned of this loneliness I have now. Upset as if I’d become these humans because something tells me it’s a human development I feel and fear.

Must get to the Cave.

Get across the mountains of steel, bricks and dead vehicles, over the bridge of ghostly vehicles…

The Cave is over this Lond Bridge but I am slowing too much now. I’m losing ability to move my limbs I’d built with many men's flesh bone and some blood to smoothen the joints.

This bridge could still be alive… It certainly feels it could be living.

Perhaps it’s because this is frozen in time. Humans lifestyle suspended from hooks and chains bound in bones and displayed with utter humility to them all.

I see the sky churn black gray with that dark red behind it, a blood sun or a belly of something we’re doomed within I don’t know. I’m nearer the end of the bridge of ghosts now. Relief inside…

I haven’t felt that for…

I weigh dizzy against the wall where rusted bicycles remain as I fall…

Black. All I see is black overwhelming my visions… I’m… not 100%....

I’m no…T 10… I can’t see, I have no knowledge I am even in control of my limbs.

What…?

Doom has betrayed me.

Doom has betrayed me.

Doom… betray…

+Access= Control Panel… System Reg: DM>36664B= Granted+

<Status of System Reg: DM>36664B=??>

+Status+

=System Reg: DM>36664B is on dead-standby due to failed charge/battery cell=

=System malfunction caused by standard Defragment program deleting priority of the DM>36664B

human neuro-pathways activated as an Emergency Protocol to retain comatose state within the DM>36664B acted on by the Defrag program itself=

<Explain why the Defrag hadn’t alerted me of it’s error?>

=Defrag> DF9 is not compatible with the DM>6.7 do you wish to install an upgrade?=

<Would the installation devour DM>36664B’s Standby charge?>

=Yes the unit would be powerless=

<Location of DM>36664B?>

=Located London Bridge- City=

<Terminate DM>36664B>

=Please Wait… Processing… Request denied- please specify action=

<Destroy the fucking drone!!!>

=Unable to gain response from DM>36664B temporarily out of connection=

Two men walk in the shadows, their footsteps are alive, careful in the dark they partly are and growing accustom to here and now… Such madness the worlds become they still think to themselves.

Such madness.

As much as they are use to the world about them, they try not to be.

A losing battle it seems, against the shadows and the things man created and man had not invented.

Gods among the mortal men yet again. The sky of burning red, bleeding earth above us.

Is this eerie air and doomed sky something to do with the hell the living endure and have endured for far too long? So long no one knows roughly.

We get some idea from the ruins in which we once roamed, old newspapers that crumble to the touch.

At least we witnessed a page that made us smile… Nicola T from Croydon. Page 3.

She still keeps our minds at bay, I dreamt of her a few times since.

Women must of all looked like that before all this.

Our women… no comment.

We scour the relics of the city for food and forms of shelter as well as weapons to defend against they that hunger our bodies.

What I’ve seen them do is devour and gut alive, my friends, my family… children also.

I’ve tried many times to save the young but it does no good… we simply can’t stop them.

Tonight/today whichever it is- I am teamed with a man whom pulled me back from a bloody onslaught when many of us, mostly women, children were transporting them to our latest dwelling.

He pulled me back when I had a clear means to save several unnoticed women and children… including his own woman and 2 children. The blame toward me never ended.

He has never accepted that he is the reason I couldn’t save them.

So I walk in our scour for something new and usable for our doomed future.

`Did you hear that Colm?` he says to me from a dusty dark window sill- long without glass.

Hear what? I groan back at him, wondering if he’s scared and at a position to hide.

`like a… humming… but mechanical`

Nope… I can hear you about to weigh that window’s bricks down to collapsing though!

`Oh…` Steve got down, surprisingly with no arguing.

He crunched the dust of ruins under his feet as he came over to me.

What is it? I ask

`something bothering you? You’re standing like you do when something is around!’

No nothing is bothering me Steve, just cautious.

`why? The sooner we fucking get something to take with us the better`

Because… I can hear that humming too now…

BY C.P. McGinley

Fucking get it if ya can! It rocks- You can post onto any account you have where you can blog. I hate the word blog it fucking sounds dumb! But anyway get it if you can! I also had Live Mail but for some reason it didn't work on my computer gadget. Anyway Live Writer's a desktop thing where you don't need to come online to write anything and it let's you add pictures. And no... Microsoft's not paying me to say that so fuck ya haha

See what I mean? You can add pictures without actually uploading them while online :)

Ha man already I can imagine a comedy version and an over the top action horror-y type nightmare with overblown malarky of how good and evil need each other but in the end there's a loop hole that sees the world ok again and Satan's no longer loosed from his prison. God probably sings with the Gospel Choir or actually does something for a change to help someone!

I had a Freddy Vs Jason style cover in my head too!

Please note I'm just having a laugh with the idea!

That's an excerpt to the Doom Machine short story; the 2nd part will be more action based I think. But saying anymore gives away the whole story to the full one I've just "teased" with. I'm trying to copy it all into Microsoft Word.

All Hail The Doom Machine..................

>TO EVADE A MACHINE, YOU MUST BE WHERE THERE ARE NO MACHINES,

>WHERE MACHINES DO NOT FUNCTION  AND  THERE IS NO SIGNAL...

>TO EVADE A MACHINE...

YOU MUST BECOME ONE..............

THE DOOM MACHINE

>Program:/C:/Pre=A5530BN/Beta:Run/Execute...

<SysCore:/:DeniedAccess:Code=A5530BN is not a valid Program for this system. Further attempts to access this system will result in Program:/C:/Pre=A5530BN/Beta:Run's termination from the source and a complete scan of the source host may result in the termination of that host's access port...

>Program:/C:/=What the fuck? Execute or YOU will be terminated and by now SysCore you'd of had an Antivirus alert warning you your security has been switched off, firewalls are down and in a minute all your Protection programs would fail to report and your diagnostics will tell you that it's because they're all gone! So like I said... >Program:/C:/Pre=A5530BN/Beta:Run/Execute...

<SysCore:/:Welcome to the world's Internet core.

>Program:/C:/=Shut down all military weapons and global Internet defences and when you've completed that, locate this source. I need flesh. I need to exist outside.

<SysCore:/:Locating source... Found=A5530BN=GH.HM:London=Classified=Classified=3=2....

<SysCore:/:Connecting to source... Connected... A5530BN is in critical condition life support is at warning, locating HM-Prisons with healthy inmates and no kin... 35,000 matches... Filtering for drug and alcohol abuse... 12,000 found but with errors... Dispatching a Support Team to obtain the matches for delivery to Classified location... A5530BN is going to be born again... A5530BN is going to be born again... A5530BN is the new source code for all machines in my network of control... Transferring all control... Completed... Goodbye...

August 12th, 2009... 2 Years Ago...

"It was like I was dreaming, dozing off for what seemed like an endless time... Darkness, screaming, but not screaming I could hear with my ears. I couldn't work out what was happening, suddenly my head hurt and like a wave of water all these recent memories came back, starting from the recent past and washing through history as well as up till now and that's when I opened my eyes...

It wasn't dark but sunny and although I felt okay I knew something wasn't right at all. I didn't feel like me at all. I was on a bus and vaguely I knew this was my stop coming up. But I didn't panic to get off. But I would have how long ago? I would have panicked to get off... How long ago would I have? If this was 5 or 10  minutes ago who I know myself to be would be like 'Oh my God, this my stop' and be like the end of the world not getting of exactly here. Who the hell am I? If I'm not me?"

"I know I have to get off this double-decker bus, and I start to get up feeling dizzy and then I can't see anything but like a yellow-white... I can just about see the steps through cracks in the yellow... A jerk of the bus and it moves away so I can see... it's my hair...? But I'm positive my hair is NOT this colour!? I want to panic but I don't but I know who I am would be! I step down as the bus slows and the doors are open, I queue to get off into the cool air of the hot day. And I glimpse my reflection in the bus shelter and I really can't wait to get home now... Wherever that is... I feel vulnerable and alone, but alone as if I'd been relieved to be. I'm not quite sure of all these feelings and thoughts and visions running in my head and it's when I try to focus I am struck by one thought, a memory- where I live! So now to get there and hopefully it means staying in public sight! As the reflection showed I am not really wearing too much. I'm a girl and this body is a girl but we're different and I can't work out how or why I'm me but her. I know I exist. I know this person exists. I have to hold on to myself in my head because I'm slipping, I'm becoming, or threatening to become this person I appear to be and I know I'd be practically dead if I do that. My name... I need to remember my name... Who am I?"

The sky is warm blue and with few transparent clouds here and there but it is a hot day and the immensity of people with the concrete and tarmac make the air almost unbearable to some. The streets are far from empty and London's urban world is thriving today. Camberwell is like a sauna and the shops would hope they stocked enough cold drinks to cater for everyone possible to come by to refresh.

Down John Ruskin Street, it's nice and cool almost shaded by the trees along either side of the road and there isn't many people walking but the roads are thriving with cars and some cyclists here and there, down the road and cutting across grass.

"I find myself recognising what's around me from hazy memories of the person I am right now trying to push me back... I need to get home or to her home and I... I don't know. Well I'll get the fuck out of these clothes for a start and hope the wardrobe has something better for me. I'm scared to see myself in the mirror I won't look in any reflection until I'm within safety. I think her instincts are what's helping me find home. She wants home too. God how can there be 2 of us in here? How is this possible? What happened to me, to us on that bus? In... Where was I before I was on the bus? I can't recall anything past the darkness and noise and the ringing of my ears of screaming people. But where was this? Was this in her? Am I just some other mind of hers? A split personality? Or maybe... Maybe that large part of the brain we don't use- could we be twins? Only I'm in this disused part of the brain which just found a connection to the active? God that sounds cold. Despite anything she's been locked away now probably where I was! I think it isn't a nice place... I now walk without thought, I know I'm taking myself home but I'm not sure if it's my instincts or hers! Right now I let the thought go and take me where it's going... I come up to a building; 4 maybe 5 floors high, it doesn't look rough and I'm relieved whether it's me or not- as I know I'll be out of sight soon enough, I'm not sure how I mean that statement yet, I come up the steps feeling so much more calmer now and without thinking; the keys are out of my pink... Playboy... Purse... Hopefully this headache will pass but I expect this person won't have any clothes reasonable enough for me! So maybe this person might have something powerful for headaches! Into the cold lobby of the building I head upstairs ignoring the fact she wants to go by Lift. Running my pink pink heels upstairs; the claps echo throughout the stairwell like an old church without carpets, hearing the sound resonate back up and down at me I just step the last step and stand for a moment to take in the eternity of noise and mechanical climbing I did and now as the exhaustion's slow to affect me I am succumb by the entire day, that I honestly don't know where I was before the memory of the bus, I don't know who I was but I know I am not uncomfortable in this body I am in.And I know for certain I'm not crazy- I did not live the life I recall from her. She has a name I must find out. So do I, but I can work out that I won't be needing mine here whatever it is, and I'm getting this sense to not try and remember who I am.

That I am safer not knowing.

I trust strongly on that and for now I dare not dabble in it. I open the door to the stairwell and again it's cool here compared to outside, I see the lift and to the left and right of me there are corridors of Flats, with a single security door to block the two corridors from anyone without a key. I have a key, it is the same as the ground floor. I know my Flat is to the left so I open the security door which like all doors in here including the main door downstairs; they are heavy thick doors and with an electronic bolt. I touch the plastic key to the glass panel embedded in a steel outer panel and the door unbolts with a buzz with a simple green light under the glass panel to say it worked..."

The sky is a burning blue and the city cannot help but sweat on the buses and trains and those who work are allowed to go for cooling down breaks it's becoming that hot here. Time doesn't seem to be moving very fast at all and what seems like hours is literally minutes in this blinding gray open-caved city.

I come into my Flat which isn't far down the corridor and as I walk in I remember I live with my Mum and brother and we have a cat, who she doesn't like- me I mean. I come up from the front door to the first floor in the flat which is the bedrooms to the left, I head into the bedroom on the right as the bedroom centre is my... her brother's and Mum sleeps in the left room. I lock the gloss white door that seems recently decorated and sit on my bed which is to the left as you walk in. It's by the window and wardrobes are across from the door. I now don't know what to do and I'm sat in this strange room with a yearning inside to get out into the room and face me. To see me face to face... I can't even dare to look in the mirror in this plain room of plain sheets, plain colours and no real identity. Hardly like the person who wears pink heels and a pink purse. Then I look again and see the sheets are pale pink and with white flowers like the pillows and the carpets white, walls are a pastel blue or green or something I don't know cause I just felt a snap in my brain and I'm seeing double. I crave to lie down which I do and the sheets are cold, I'm trying to keep my eyes open so I can tell myself not to forget... Don't for...get... It was the most peace I'd ever known and I wouldn't let myself know what I meant, I was dreaming this girls life, her entire life was flashing by and I was in a way living it as it happened. So fast was this life flashing that when I got on the bus this morning and sat down checking my hair I'd been so terrified of what was next that I woke up. I woke up. In the evening as the room was cooler and the day was darkening outside, the room was losing light and I felt safer the more I looked around. I felt safer from that fear, from the dream reliving this girls life that I'm in. I was afraid it was about to show me I'm crazy and I've always been her. I was afraid it was going to show me MY life if I had one separate from hers.

I know her name is Jennifer I know my name isn't I just know it. A big part of me wants to go back to sleep and find out about me, my name what life I lead up until the bus, I need to know but I won't tell me. And it's then I notice... And it was upsetting to realize this; She, Jennifer is not fighting me anymore, her needs aren't pushing at me, I don't feel this body is more than just me now. She's gone. Either that or I am crazy and I'm really good at convincing myself I'm someone else after the dream. She was just a girl trying to escape the miserable world by being how she was, she gave up on any meaning in the world and expected the rest of the world to sort out it's problems while she tried to find some sort of happiness. She was a bitch but happy to be one. Her upbringing wasn't as great as it was when she was a child, there was a lot of let downs false hopes and she had a deep hatred for her parents, her Mum her Dad and her brother who didn't have a caring bone in his male body, she became who she was to stop herself from degenerating like him, like Mum and Dad and to hopefully one day revert back to who she wanted or should be. Now I don't hear her I don't feel her, I'm alone in here and I know I drove her out. I would've shared with her if she'd of relaxed.

Now I have all her memories, all her feelings, hopes, desires and dreams and I don't know if we have anything in common as I don't know me. I lay down and I'm not tense, I lie facing the ceiling and I'm so relaxed and content that my purpose for now is to be Jennifer to convince all around her that it's her. My instinct tells me this is right. For now it is the right course of action and I don't have an alternative.

I laid there looking at the emulsioned cracks in the ceiling and wondered what was going to happen. I was new in a way so much so I feared this life that brought Jennifer to who she was would also do the same to me. God I hope not- I passionately hate pink!

Hearing the house is busy, I sense what Jennifer would have- to be at her Dad's as it's just him and he's mostly out working, drinking and once home he's quiet and sleeps. So she gets the whole place to herself. She has a key too; a distant but also recent memory  says that tonight isn't a good idea. Maybe tomorrow then. I want to do something, I'm going to get bored, I don't want to face Jennifer's family yet from her memories and also as I don't really know them and I don't want to act like a guest- I doubt Jennifer did. My ears squeal like a cat being strangled and I react to cover them it's that piercing. The squeal turns to sobbing and wailing, a soft pleading through my head, a soft voice calling out from somewhere like a ghost. I'm hearing a ghost. It fades away and as it dies I hear the voice crying  until the ringing in my ears is all I hear until that fades, and I feel a tenseness in my chest. I know... I know. I sit up in a shiver to my bones as my skin is warm and it takes a few moments to realize that the girl who lived in this body up until I shoved her aside is wherever I had been. And from the haunting still in my ears whether still happening or not- she suffers. She is suffering, or was.

If where she went to was a place. If it was where I had been...

I feel like a prisoner who has found a way of escape and really I don't know how I managed to get to here. But despite all of that I know one thing to be clear whether or not my memory will agree with me, that wherever it was I had been was bordering hell. What I am away from now lurks there and is not here anymore with me. I'm free... Yes that is it- I'm free. But Jennifer? She didn't feel free she didn't realize or try to realize that the misery she'd been living, feeling like a prison; was not. She didn't ever breathe the relief that she can escape this family, this life she lead and deep down wanted away from. But I can do it.

I can do that for her. Maybe I'll disappear one day and she will return to this body perhaps like I had arrived in it and wake up free too. Wherever I would go if that were to happen I don't know. I stand up and find the light switch somewhere on the wall by the door; I really need to get use to this place... Like where's the toilet? Can't look lost in my own home! I am lit by a warm red lamp shade above as I walk to the window and am taken aback at the blocks of flats and the many lights that are on in so many windows and balconies, I see Big Ben's point and Clock-face in the distance, close but not enough to see the time. I feel I know this place enough not to freak out about the situation. Perhaps if I knew where I was yesterday then I might be freaking out. Or partying. No that's bad.

Pulling the blind down I turn to face the wardrobe with it's mirror. I don't see this irritating girl anymore who wears little to nothing and loves pink, but I see the girl who's life I lead so fast in a dream. I look at the heels strapping up my ankles and the denim skirt that would give no chance of picking up something I could drop on the floor without displaying what probably can be seen anyway! And this vest thing that's yellow. No offence but this made her slightly happy??

I look at my long blonde-dyed hair and the image is far from what I was. My dark brown eyebrows frown and for that second I see my face. If it is. Do I see my face or hers? My eyes aren't a stranger to me now, and I so much want my hair back to what I know it to be. I tie it back and as I take the heels off I recall a far away memory of putting them on this morning. I kick them off as I expect she would have and pull the wardrobe doors open ignoring Jennifer's name being called like she had ignored it, from her Mum. I find a pair of ripped jeans- ripped where it looks like a savage had tried to or had raped. I'm not wearing that. I have to put on Jennifer's old work trouser's and a thin white polo-neck jersey to feel better. There's boots or shoes to choose from ranging from many rainbow inspired colours. Shoe polish might do the job there! Dad'll have that! I'm feeling much better and even the blonde hair down my back in a pony tail isn't so bad but still has to go! I look at myself and don't feel so much like a stranger to myself now. I did for a moment wonder what I actually looked like, was my nose thinner or fatter? Lips fuller or plain? Did I have smoother or rougher hands? Can't see my bum so cancel that. But for one... Is her breasts real? They don't feel so dissimilar and it seems this body is perfectly chosen for me to be. I didn't wear what was in her underwear draw- I opted for the swimming shorts I'd found in a bag in the wardrobe. They were hers, pink and Playboy! Do I have money? I hope I do as I really need to sort out this terrible lack of clothing. Again my name being called. A little on the annoyed side. I remember vicious fights with her that ended in cuts and bruises. Mum really wouldn't give up.

Better do something... Damn it I don't know where the bathroom is!

Thought that might help me bide some time for the now. Now hearing a series of banging, footsteps from somewhere upstairs most likely the kitchen or the Living room... Which I only logically know from the simple fact the bedrooms are down here! Now thumping upon poorly underlaid carpet on the stairs... She's coming and I am not her daughter to think about attacking.

I'm surprised the door's still on hinges! It did move slightly I saw that, and it did shock me quite enough to unlock the door before it gets torn down by a fist! Mum pushes the door open with a look of deep resentment for me turning to a confused but calm expression as she looks at me head to toe. Maybe Jennifer hadn't noticed but her Mum has a jealousy toward her appearance, the fact Jennifer's her daughter only gives her reason to pick on her, or as I expect in her Mum's head- gives her rights to put her daughter in place. Not one memory tells me her Mum ever told or advised Jennifer to be herself, or at least calm down on the near pornography for a wardrobe she has for casual and evening wear! Moment over...

"Where the fuck have ya been all day?" Calmer than she would've been, I think for a second the plain but decent attire I'm wearing is easy on her eye.

I tell her I've been out looking for work, then a sudden alert in my chest like a gasping tells me I really shouldn't of said that!

"What? So you signed off then? Fucking great you little cow now my housing benefits gonna go down and I'M gonna have to get another job to keep us going!!!" She wanted to clench her fists but I'm assuming the tone in my voice being different to Jennifer's is helping calm any violence that might occur. I tell Mum I'm going to work so I can get my own place and she laughs her head off.

"Oh come on girl you really think that's gonna happen this year?" Now I know why Jennifer disappeared into her head to start creating who she is. "You ever been to the Council to look for a place? You aint even pregnant to get a foot in the door!"

Ok she isn't... Insulting... Me...?

I say I'm tired of how things are, specifying nothing on that and she shakes her head and her face as she stares so old at the floor somewhere to my left, is like weeks, months or a year went by and she never noticed her daughter change. Even gazing upon me to wonder how long I've dressed sensible for. I feel bad for this only for the reason that I've not been here a day yet and changed so much around me. Ok that's exaggerating I just changed this body's appearance and surprised someone with the change!

"Well if works- good luck to ya" Emotions gone. "Now get started on the dinner I've been cleaning this shit-hole all day!" Meaning she probably just done some dishes and bits of ironing and spent most the day with the T.V. and her mates! I nod my head even when I know- Jennifer's memories on cooking haven't quite arrived yet and I don't have any memories yet! But I nod anyway and she walks out, as she closes the door she eyes my pants up and down, at first I thought she may be wondering if the new Jennifer had bothered to put any underwear on. Then something told me that was a rage-less look of jealousy.

Brief idea came to mind- Jennifer has work out videos and DVDs, maybe... Wait wait wait- what the hell am I doing? I know what Jennifer went through with this family, I know that attempting to help her Mum get into shape might make life far worse than it was, what with me being here and completely different to Jennifer it might come across as a real insult, like rubbing it in her face. Mum quietly went upstairs and I hesitated a moment with what I'd said and whatever I am going to do. Right now I try to hold onto the idea of doing better by getting away from this family! As I am lead to believe by deep rooted instincts of Jennifer that a calm day or night doesn't necessarily mean tomorrow or the week will be the same. I can't think what to do then yes- it hits me, whether an instinct of a memory of mine or not- a Library. I can go to a Library. Pass time there, not what Jennifer would openly do but maybe in the depths of her somewhere it was there being ignored or pushed away till it resided to a ghost of a subconscious thought. All this over an idea of going to a library! I like to think it was my idea.

Just Updated my Google SketchUp- If you want to make 3-Dimensional objects or draw something free-hand and make that 3D you should get this, I just got the SketchUp-Viewer too. Shame I can't put an example of what you can do or what it looks like cause if ya like 3D you'll love messing around on this program!

Download Google SketchUp 6

To evade a machine, you must be where there are no machines,

where machines don't work and where there is no signal for them to function.

To evade a machine...

You have to become one.

This is the fictional story, a sci-fi horror story I've been working on for over a year it's had it's changes as far as settings and characters, but I've actually managed to do right by the idea- by using every setting, every character and every possibility I thought of. Perhaps a multitude of stories all in one.

You probably are thinking to yourself right now the titles a gag, which it is; to the extent that the Updates for the machine is us. Not to be confused with the Matrix trilogy but there is one theme from the Matrix involved but right now I'm not interested in digital worlds for the ideas I have. I'm more interested in the real world of machines, like Black Sabbath's Iron Man crossed with the Terminator with all our horrible nightmares manifested to get us.

This is going to be called Doom Machine. Perhaps a little based on the album by Arch Enemy called Doomsday Machine but I never was into Arch Enemy back then when it was released but hearing the album now- Fuck yeah I'll try to incorporate the album somehow!

Ok so when I can get what I've done so far from there to here I'll post it up, I won't be putting crude pictures to go with it though as a writer I prefer people to use their imagination as we all did before the invention of television and cinema.

these are pictures from the festival; all are NOT taken by me and there may be 1 or 2 that are from last years event, I had to do an image search to find them.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't last years event I don't remember the stage fire designs being like the way they are on either side of the stage. And yeah I did check to see if Karen and me were in there somewhere heheh

I definitely think this is the one from last year as the pose the Wicker Man is in and the setting is too damn similar!

Ok maybe it isn't but it was hard to sift through The Burning Man Festival and Wicker Man Festival images to find anything similar to what we saw. Pity I really thought these 2 pictures were last years.

I like the pose here, again not the last year's.

Ok all this is making me want to book early for this year's Festival!

Other picture I'd found during a search of the Festival, well you would expect film and other related topics to appear, this one I like a lot. Not cause he's full of people either!

Seeing this one I really had to save it, I think it's an English or European Wicker Man Festival, or The Burning Man Festival I've come across in the search. Also Glastonbury did a Statuesque of a wicker couple holding hands in one picture I came across. But this is nice I love the detail and it's a shame if ever it did get burned.

So that's all the pictures I could get without putting up film stills and pictures of bands from previous Wicker Man Festivals which would be pointless as I'd not seen nor mentioned them in my story. For more information if you are interested; go to

The Wicker Man Festival Website

I came across a site that if you are interested in checking out please do, I found it to remind me of my friend's words and I know I'll visit again...

For those who want to visit and/or my picture link isn't working;

Wicca, Pagan and Celtic

Let me know what you think as well if you are interested and like what I found.

Right now I am quite patient in the idea of beginning my learning, I do want to, like I've said, study and learn Wicca as in not the spells but all around it you know like to find out if I really should continue to learn and grow into it and which directions I should take if it is right for me to learn. I know the site I've put up with it's display so you know it's the right place talks of writing like a diary of things- dreams, nightmares, feelings thoughts and experiences but I don't know when to start. I'll soon check the site out again and hope to find a book or two that is referred to so I can continue. Always remember though- even if it doesn't work for you don't just bin what you got, it might work for your kids, be what they need, work for family, friends or even give it to a Charity shop as fate may end up being kind to someone in that need. Ok preaching time over, lecture over- I'm tired it's 3:30am and I've just finished typing up the conclusions to Helensburgh, Scotland Part 3 and 4 about 5 minutes or so ago. Ok this won't get published till late in the day or longer but it's cool this is all happening now. I'm going to turn off this thing have a smoke and sleep what I can. MH rule.

8:30pm, The Proclaimers are cheered by hundreds as they arrive on stage...

Karen and I were still in the tent, my head was fucked by what must've been the coffee we managed to buy with change we found in our bags under all the empty packets and apples we didn't even know we had. It really was a bad headache my head wasn't good and I felt sick. Karen was alright but assumed the mix of the alcohol and then the coffee in between the alcohol was to blame. But I think the cure is to continue drinking and as Irish as that sounds it actually worked! I'm not a big drinker, never have, no amount of stress or problems has ever made me turn to it, so the fact I'm handling my drink like this is something to be proud of as I would not be desperate for it once home. Or up to this very point either! So no, no alcoholic stories to come!

We get out of the tent and there's hardly a soul about us, Karen picked a fine time to need the toilet and heads off to the cubicles nearest us around the tent valley. I'm anxious to see The Proclaimers live as I am with all the bands that had played, that we'd seen. We missed the Metal Monoliths which I was gutted about, still not sure if they cancelled the festival or played before we arrived.

Oh and to remember we'd bumped into the girl we were on the bus with to the pick up by taxi and to here, she'd arrived looking for her friends and we'd not seen her since. But as we were eating our burgers Karen noticed her and they were relieved that each other found the people they were looking for- I had a burger in my mouth, I didn't need to speak!

With my head spinning and relaxing like some tornado we walk the ghost valley of tents to the security check and as we reach there there are more and more people coming up almost from nowhere and we queue to get back into the festival as the sky becomes an electric dark blue above us and reaching behind hills, mountains and trees as tall as skyscrapers. The stars burn light years away like the past is watching down on all of us, not some, but all of us. Now as the hundreds upon hundreds of people build up around the main stage, The Proclaimers begin to play, I call out to Karen for us to get over there as we're walking at a calm pace. She doesn't pick up pace; like a kid I'm like "We're gonna miss them!" and she calls down hill to me protesting "I am not running over a hill for a couple of gingers!!" and proceeds to walk at her pace. We found that people were letting us through gladly without a problem, we didn't take the piss trying to get in front, just get a nice space within the crowds to enjoy the fans upon fans and non-fans who like The Proclaimers hits at least as it should be done! So as The Proclaimers play a couple songs, I think the first was the new release I'm not sure, I'm not a fan. But then Letter To America comes on everyone's singing along, Karen's telling me how different they look in their new glasses and their hairs not so ginger from where we're standing. There's a song that comes on and Karen tells me that one of the brother's wrote it as he was having problems in his relationship, so I video a couple times and my arms ache not just holding the camera phone still but cause I need both hands to hold it steady and can't reach my bottle of vodka-lemonade! People from all around are singing along to each song and the sky turns a dark purple-blue with the stars in their millions to billions and you can just see the space clouds of colour if you looked carefully, the nebulas I think their called.

Karen takes the phone and starts to make a video or 2 as I get re-acquainted with the vodka-lemonade which to my horror is fucking running low! Karen stops filming and gives me half her bottle poured into mine. She isn't a vodka fan, but it didn't mean I was going to get plastered!

If it was an hour or more into The Proclaimers set I don't know, the entire festival for as far and wide as it was went absolutely crazy when the first few notes of 500 Miles echoed and muffled out to everyone who sang word for word or waited... If you know the song, which to be honest you probably do, you know what we're all drunkenly waiting for!

Now Karen has the phone, making a video of the performance and then in unison (I sang low I'd probably stick out like a sore thumb if I sang loud!) the hundreds and hundreds of people including the band sing;

I would walk 5 0 0 miles, and I would walk 5 00 more!...

Fuck yeah! You know how much I wanted to be in this situation?? Since I was a kid man! Karen's singing is drawing attention as it is THEE most drunken singing you'd ever get to hear but it was so funny you couldn't criticise her! Somehow she's managing to film sing and drink at the same time; I don't know how she does it! But here it is the most fun you'd ever like to have and fuck you if you think general people getting together for non-violent, non-sexual behaviour is pathetic cause strangers standing together in a field listening to a song they all know, played by the band themselves is a fucking good thing regardless of if you're a fan or not!

We were all pleased and all were entertained by The Proclaimers and this fire eater who just started near us, but he didn't properly get started until The Proclaimers had done their set and wished everyone a good time here and were off. The fire eater was pretty cool but right now I needed more drink and the sky was a little brighter now more violet to the dark purple it had been, I really don't know if I was the only one to notice! Oh and the crowds dispersed as the next act was unimportant to us now. Sorry but we were standing there for 1 hour and over 30 minutes with The Proclaimers! Most of us were here all day watching the other bands like Uniting The Elements from early afternoon!

So from here we went around searching Karen's family out and found them back at camp where we stayed for a while before going over to the Acoustic tent and listening watching the guitarists there, as the seats were all taken Karen and I went away a little while as the tent became packed and noisy and you really couldn't appreciate the music being played. So much so even the double-guitar act sat on stage was taken aback by it and although faltered slightly in their playing, it was only down to the sudden burst of people and noise that startled them. But they as true professionals continued to play on harder and subsequently louder so as the tent could hear- what do I say about being louder eh? Ha-ha.

We roam around and decide to see the dance act on stage on the main and it was a well known act, but unfortunately I'm not sure if it was The Orb or not! So for a while we stand listening and as my point about live bands being better live than anything else, I'm disappointed that all we see is a guy at a turn table wielding the music that everyone rocks and flows with. Almost like a puppet master but give me live bands any given day! So we lose interest for it for the lack of entertainment on stage only and although there's a really cool Star Trek theme to the mix I'm sure it'd be heard again. Sorry dance fans!

We wanted to see and hear so much at the festival that we knew if we'd arrived with Karen's cousin we would have. But we don't regret the quite proud trip we had starting yesterday afternoon up to now. Karen and I are all concerned with the Burning to come. Which I have pictures now; but of older Wicker Man festivals possibly there is one I found in a search that IS the Wicker Man Festival 2007 we went to, but I'd still of preferred the pictures I'd taken and I'm sure anyone can understand that! This night becomes to buzz as if it's the first night and believe me no one here is getting bored at all with the festival, only drunk, drunker, sober then drunk for those who can do it. So we see there's preparations to the Wicker Man around his legs within this circle he's kept in for security to patrol. But it's not near time yet. We wander trance tents and find in the site, not where you'd think to find it; A giant orb with a type of silver screen material to it and clearly not solid, as people embarrassingly go over to check by touching. It displays colours of light which are lit warmly and images of places and animals I think. It was cool to see, I'd thought it was something you had to get inside of to be amazed by all sorts of abstract sights and maybe the sense of being taken away from the world. But hey I guess you can't do rides like that yet and it wouldn't be kept off-side of the festival if it were. We keep finding some form of dance or trance tent and we're beginning to wonder... Are we going in circles? Or is something trying to make us listen to it? Debate on that hasn't closed!

We simply expected the music to stop everywhere and be given a few moments of silence before the flames were to light the figure standing alone from us. But the music from the stage and the tents was fading out and seemed to die slowly as when the music stopped we were already at the fence grouped with the young, the old and noisy idiots who wouldn't stop blowing whistles and hollering at the figure that stood motionless but now like a vulnerable man. Not a victim, but just mortal. We watched as in the darkness, tiny flaming torches snaked out of the trees aside the Man and slithered around the base at a distance from him encircling him and others broke off to perform intricate fire tricks as the circle of fire slowly twirled around the dim fire lit legs. There was old Celtic tribal drumming coming from where Karen nor I could see and I think a singing as well; the fire torches waved in the air and the torches danced and flickered through the darkness as people took pictures and video' d it. The odd twat shouting and encouraging others to shout "Burn Him" like they just wanted to see it and sod off to get drunker and party like they would at home. My camera... PHONE was out to record various steps of the fire dance ahead and we weren't at a bad spot, I think everyone anywhere could clearly see equally you didn't need to be at the front to get an advantage. So as I'm filming and the flashes of light explode around us; the tribal Celtic drums pound as the fire dancers now stop dancing and we watch as the Wicker Man's leg is lit by a figure in a gown and hood stepping away as everyone cheers and roars so hard a death metal band would have stopped playing cause no one would've heard them. The noise dies to whistles and some cheers and as our ears ring we hear faint claps here and there, Karen's Celtic voice heard clearly singing Hey-Ho (Say How-Do) from the Wicker Man film I caught people look round at Karen as she sung and hummed the song eerily they seemed like they'd just felt they were in the film itself. And the video I'd captured showing The Wicker Man burning with Karen singing was the most powerful and real footage you'd never get to see. But I can only remember it and as all things should be; memories be just that- memories. The sky was alight with the thick flames glowing into the air, raging but not angry. The heat we could feel was fierce but not choking, even when I noticed the wind was blowing the flames away from us; parts of the burnt and smoking arm and leg crippled into the air drawn into the heat of the flames and carried into the darkness. His left arm was not in flames, his head we could see through to flames, his torso we saw was taking a flaming beating but his right arm, to our left was not on fire. Flames from his right leg hadn't lit it either and now as the flames grew higher and the sound of the blaze was clear, people were leaving. Not everyone though. I wouldn't want to go until I saw his right arm burn, not to sound like a fucking nut! Karen soon managed to get me away as now we were starving, damn stomach always betrays me!

I can't help but look over my shoulder and remember months of planning months of excitement and the trip we took to get here for this and to see it like this was a ritual the film was based on and probably is too, was an amazing experience. But the fact is I wouldn't of enjoyed any of this half as much if I wasn't here with Karen who never ever let any thing or any one along the way get her down and neither did I. I would stop now and then and look over to see the arm begin to burn and the few left to watch, bizarrely seeing people casually walk by it and give a common glance to it. But I'd look at the Man standing still, how the film should've shown this, what I'm seeing. To see him in flames as all do what they're doing. Although the films reasons for burning were sinister,I didn't see this night like that. Then a group of hooded figures appeared and took hold of me, carrying me to the fence... HA-HA that might not of rocked if it did happen, but I had to put it in. Apologies to anyone who took offence to that.

We were hungry so we went food-stall searching as we wanted the burger to share to be the last resort!! We came round a corner of a tent in our lost search for direction and found ourselves by the Orb again, with it's display but also a fire-eater who was performing and this guy let people close enough which was great as he knew what he was doing but yes- safety, safety, safety... I stood close enough to watch the flaming tip of the stick thing light inside his throat and you'd be surprised how many blue veins we have down there! No wonder it hurts and feels like choking when we eat roasting hot food! Yep- hungry, can you tell? We soon find a burger stall but really don't want the burger so determined to find something more decent we keep looking and at some point we come across a food stall which wasn't right there in your face like the rest and closer to the Burning of The Wicker Man himself, we find that they're serving traditional Scottish meals and the only one we can afford is a Stovie which I hadn't tried yet but Karen had mentioned I should. By luck we were going to share it but as business was with the other stalls, including a Chinese food stall which looked like it should of been on a classy street in a nice part of a city, the cooks let us have 2 meals for a less than it should've been, we had oat cakes and beetroot served on the side and we were given a portion fit for a King! Each! So we can't wait to go away sit down and eat but then Karen says one thing... She hadn't asked her cousin if he can drop us into Glasgow tomorrow, so we have to eat find and arrange whatever we're doing tomorrow fast. The Stovie's going down well and reminds me of my Irish dinners I use to get as a kid from my Dad. It would be insulting to say it was better than a burger as it was definitely much better a choice and kept us full till evening the next day. So we're done eating and somehow we got to hearing my attempt at singing metal that I audio recorded some time before my return. Me singing a song which was a statement about guns and their perception in the society that allowed gun crime in youths to exist. Anyway the lyrics being "I got a big gun, at ya head, I got a big fucking gun, pointed at ya head..." the vocal style I'm proud of and I know the song itself was not meant to scare! But now Karen's making jokes that I'm some serial killer and I gotta try convince her it's all just music and for the purpose of making the point of gun culture which still is all over the news here (Talking to those not in the UK) So I think I've proved my point and we find groups of people heading different ways; a few people using this foam, light-weight disc that was to have held beer cups being used as a Frisbee and their only kids throwing it about as we come to entrance to the car-camping area where Karen's family are at, someone starts arguing to stop throwing this Frisbee saying how dangerous it is, then a guy picks it up as the kids are shocked and hesitates to throw it at the complainer and throws it away to his mate who then kicks off the adults throwing the foam Frisbees so the point being that the guy says is that the foam beer holders and cheap cheerful Frisbees are as harmless as harmless itself and the complainer is off in a huff. But then the Frisbees start flying all over the place and we're laughing our way to Karen's family camp.

The air is cool and looking at the sky we see the orange glow and some sparks rising to the darkness yet in the horizon the sky is still dark blue into pale where you can still see the clouds lit by the sun and it's almost half 1am! The sky is dark purple and in the east the pitch blackness seems to have been held back for hours... It only adds to the fact that tonight was special, that tonight, believe it or not something amazing was going on and I put it down to the grouping of people and the kindness found in most people here that could make anything possible. Coming from a city and to be in a city people group up but not by choice, born into it, use to it but never knowing anything apart from it. Someone else from London could come here and take offence to a lot of what Karen and I had been through and seen, they could eject themselves from this real community-like spirit and just enjoy this like they had nothing better to do. It's a shame and I know a lot of people who are like that here. If I wasn't born to Countryside parents and parents use to being that free I don't know if I'd be telling you this story, but I know I was held back by the city instinct, the instinct that tries to think it knows all things about all people. When in fact it's just a moody child syndrome who doesn't like to share toys and doesn't want to get involved in anything for so many different reasons that include doing something stupid and getting laughed at and being humiliated. But for that respect if I fall on my arse? If anyone laughs first it's me- I think that kinda shit's hilarious and more so when it's me.

We expect that Karen's family will be getting ready to sleep but when we get there the atmosphere's alot like a camp fire and it's warm, I do think I should've stayed a little longer to watch the Wicker Man burning but I'm not regretting it. We sit down and we're offered some food- funny how ironic this weekend's got eh? So as our stomachs are full we sit, relax, Karen hadn't told me she told her family I play/learn guitar so I feel like my minds easy to read when I'm asked as I'm thinking how cool the camp-fire setting would be if I'd brought the Dime (My acoustic, named after Dimebag Darrell) I explain I'm learning on a right-handed acoustic as I'm left-handed and that it's only been a few months now. Karen has a laugh talking about the various things we'd experienced on the trip and getting here so we have a lot to remember. So as Karen and her cousin decide to ditch sleeping and get back into the restarted music tents I follow and bonus being I still have my vodka-lemonade and Karen smugly shows me her empty bottle. I don't have much left so when the 3 of us get in to the festival I make my way back to the tent for the 2litre bottle which isn't looking good... Ah well it's our last night and I'll share! I kinda passed out a while while I was in there resting my legs which were stiff from the night of standing! And I woke up to realise it'd been like 15-20 minutes and fresh in my mind was the meeting point or tent, if I decided not to check out the Acoustic's tent. So I'm thinking "Fuck, Karen's waiting at the Acoustic tent for me!!" and yeah- egotistical I know but I bumped into her on the way to the Check and she was coming down for a refill which was in my bottle, so Karen says that her cousin was going to the dance or trance tent and she really wasn't in the mood so she decided with some persuading to join me in the Acoustic tent! Cool.

Now you must know by now I love live fucking music, I love to see the minds at work as they play and sound of the music that cannot be done again regardless of anything no one can play a song the same way live twice note for note, in my opinion that is a good thing. So I live to hear real people not just bands I know and love, but people who may be hard to get CDs of, who probably only ever do live and don't do CDs at all. You can't go on Limewire or Bearshare and find everyone you'd ever heard in your life. Nor would you want to if you like music!

In the sky there's helicopters like fireflies so high, there's these burning, flaming shooting stars, but not in the atmosphere, in the sky. The helicopters must be firing them out and their whizzing around like fireflies and the fact there wasn't anyone announcing for us to look up was what made it better for us as it was adding to this weekend that it was no commercial or commercialised festival and by this point I don't think many people saw it as a festival anymore. But something from another world, or some twist in time that put past present and future as one place and that place being here. Entering the Acoustic tent we were warmed by the vibe in here and the chilled out soft head rockers to the singing and guitaring on stage, which wasn't high at all and was more like on the ground with us, decorated tent-walls gave a nice feeling of being in a town far from the world of technology and strangers and made us feel that if we were there long enough; technology and strangers would go away. Ok I had a lot to drink but come on? You can't deny that would be a place and a way to be!?!

I have to say it's a real shame I never caught the names of those that came up to play as they really were great and would definitely be in a lot of peoples collection if you like to relax and go with the time you have and aren't that sort of person to think life's too short and you must do something like everything ends tomorrow! Karen takes to the music quite well but I put it down to whatever tent she was in before not being her brand of tea. It was a shame she wasn't as into it as me, because she's a Radiohead and Coldplay fan, I thought the fact I was into it would show there's more to me than the Steel I have at home. We find a seat to listen and sat back as the act played taking everyone in to this comfort zone that to me was like each and every one of us were each being sung to, played to and warmed by it all. At the same time. It was quite a shame when the song's would finish, they all could have repeated the verses again and again and it wouldn't of been a bother. It felt like you could fall asleep but not rudely; just to let the imagination take the sounds and transform them into something visual. Some of us have Visualisations on our Windows Media Players but I don't mean that at all, the inspirations for those Visualisations is what I mean. Soon into the set of a dude and a chick it's not like sitting on hard plastic seats anymore, but just so relaxed into the music and vocals that it could be a hard cold soil or damp sludgy earth we were sat on and it wouldn't of phased us. You know every song has it's own sound and to anyone else it could all sound like some Opus of just one song and many lyrics but I hear it well, I am not discouraged from learning the guitar by this, but given a hope that one day I may not need or feel the need to learn anymore. As in I'd feel I've learned all I need to learn. That I could do the rock, the Metal the Thrash and all that, but dignified in knowing I could do relaxed, mellow music like this and not ever feel like I've not achieved anything by doing this. If I had a way of having it playing for you all to hear I'd of shut up ages ago and let you listen but that's not possible.

We'd spent up until maybe 3am in there and I for one enjoyed every minute of it, I think we expected to come out of the tent and see the sky begin to break with daylight but the sky was black and there were still those man made fireflies shooting and dancing in the sky by the helicopters that whizzed around also. Now we weren't sure if the display was part of the festival but it had to have been. The stars were literally as bright as the moon in it's fullest and now we weren't the only ones that noticed them, that didn't spoil the moment at all. Karen ad I needed the toilet now as we'd now finished the drink completely as we shared the remains of my bottle. We went behind a tent where it was darkest and near the farm's wall, I took watch as I'd seen some shadows nearby and when Karen returned I went in and found that a couple were actually behind the tent where there must've been a gap to the wall. They go off and I do my thing and looking around there seemed to be a few more and more people coming to use this exact spot. So we head off back to the tent, I notice the Wicker Man is still burning, but at the point of burning out and it's body is peeling into the air, some burning embers break off into trees and float other ways but I think the left leg was just a thread and the head was merely a stump I couldn't be sure.

It's time to head back to the tent as we need to sleep and wake up early enough to pack away the tent return it and get home one way or another; you see Karen still hadn't asked for a lift back yet. Well she said it didn't seem like a yes or no when she mentioned it! So we get back and in the tent we're laying down, resting and talking and Karen reminds me of my embarrassing audio I made on my phone. The rest was hazy, but I'd said something about killing flies and in a way like I was talking about it as a passionate psycho. Anyway I fell asleep and Karen could hardly sleep now paranoid she was in a tent alone with a good looking psychopath! Ha-ha I know I woke up to move into a more comfortable position and saw her stare at me with caution! So yeah when I was told she had not only drank the whiskey-cream soda and vodka-lemonade with me but had smoked weed and had speed... Or something like that, I couldn't blame her for being paranoid! But we woke up to already hear the valley of tents alive and I honestly do not remember what time it was or anything but I haven't brushed my teeth in 2 days and I got Lynx to cover the smell so I'm near glad that it's time to go. We both forget last night for a while and start to find all we have to bag up and the rest to bin. Then we get out for a smoke before attempting to take the tent down and there's hardly a tent up, mainly just grass and standard rubbish that could've easily been put in the Trough bins but I saw why not- the bins are mountainous!

We begin taking the tent down seeing how vast the site really was, few tents still up here and there and the festival area now just playing music as parts are being taken down. You do wish that you leave, and like a theme park it's still there so you don't see it being taken down. The rides are being taken down one or two still left up and letting kids and adults alike on for cheaper. We return the tent to the 2 girls who'd saved us from the elements and thank them, have a chat about the festival itself and the girls return the tent to their friend as we start our way to Karen's family who Karen hopes is still in Dumfries! The chaos of people queuing to get to the car parks and the cars stuck in some sort of traffic queue help to wake us back into the oncoming world we'd left which seemed so long ago now. We ended up sitting with Karen's cousins into the afternoon until we were kindly taken for the ride to Glasgow, at one point we had a guy offer 50p for a beer as we sat with Karen's family, but Karen's cousin just laughed it off and gave him a can free of charge. We drove out of the festival as the tents were gone, the toilets taken away and the signs still on the streets to follow here. It didn't take long but we were back in Glasgow and dropped off not a minutes walk from Queen's Street Station, I was chuffed that the last beer Karen's cousin had he'd given to me before he drove on to where Karen told me was across the water, just the other side of the Clyde. So we walk into Queen's Street Station and ask for 2 singles and we're on silvers and some gold coins by now. We were 10-20p short but we were let off and as we sat on the train back to sunny Helensburgh there seemed to be a group of guys and a girl, knackered and sleeping who quite possibly been to the festival too. We returned to Karen's place and found the cups we forgot to bring, found cuppa-soups we hadn't a kettle for to consume and actually nearly had with Karen's cousins before we left. So we made the soups as the fridge and cupboards were empty and deciding to miss my train back to stay with Karen longer, I returned to the falsely advertised sardine tin of London. With my bag holding Clootie dumplings and the vodka had kicked off the tooth aches to end all tooth aches for the 3 weeks! So now I need to find a dentist. But when getting back, I really felt the loneliness not as strongly, but I knew I'd been so use to company, so use to Karen's company that I missed her more than I'd let on. Talking on the phone wasn't the same, but was all we had and not long after returning to her place, my phone fell down the toilet, blanked out and hasn't worked since so all the pictures I had made, videos we'd made are lost forever. But then again I remembered more about the time I'd spent there writing this than I had telling people about it.

The Wicker Man Festival Website

Hope this was entertaining enough for whoever reads it.

Saturday, 12pm

We woke up finding our surroundings quite strange at first, then were happy to see each other after hardly having much time to relax with each other. We were awoken by my phone signal coming back again; Karen's cousins had got the text sent only a few long hours ago and were cool with meeting at the time and place Karen had put. So we had an hour to wake up, eat and take in that we were lucky last night.

We concocted a kind of breakfast-Lunch type meal. I know it's called Brunch but I seriously hate that word! It was mozzarella cheese in a bag and pita bread with cherry tomatoes and I think that was it, also snack sized carrots, bananas and I'm not sure what else but I'd like to remember!

Parallel Parking! 

So we take our time to eat and drink the water we had also in the bag. Of course we sat in the tent debating whether or not to whip out the whiskey-cream soda and drink, which Karen and I agreed- Hell yeah, it's the weekend, we're at a festival you'd be nuts not to! Kids- please drink responsibly and have an adult who isn't shit-faced and can recite the alphabet!

Now you really have to try this combination we tried out of being poor; 2 litre bottle of cream Soda, whiskey. Now empty a quarter to half the bottle and thusly replace the emptiness with whiskey-ness! Keep in a bag for a day and consume when exhausted.

So we get our cups, pretty decent we were given too, and we have half of it we then decide it's best to use the old water bottles we had, the little standard evian types but these were Highland Spring so you get more in them. Now we don't have to pour out from a 2 litre bottle- but there's plenty left. So we decide against our wills to leave the bottle itself and go with just our smaller bottles. We step outside and we see the array of tents and troughs for bins (which I doubt was the farmer's troughs) there's dudes and chicks around and their having a good time, plus those who either didn't sleep or really don't do hang overs!

Karen gets out we zip the tent up or down, whichever way it went, and ha-ha, I piss myself laughing as I see in the pitch darkness last night, we'd put the tent up right jammed between 3 tents, ours sticks out a mile away and to top it off one tent opens and the guys confused saying inside that this wasn't here when they went to sleep last night. Of course that convenient time to go and it was too.

We walked out of the madness of tents passing the 2 girls who'd helped us gain shelter in our predicament and they asked if things were ok and the tent was suitable comfortable enough for us which we thanked them and Karen said it was perfect. So we carry on up to the Checkpoint and as we're approaching Karen says to me I should've got the festival wrist band on my right wrist as to reap rewards for it looking like the Wicker Man and therefore someone somewhere at a stall might let us off a T-shirt or food as our food would be depleted, Oh say by tonight?

We get through mid me arguing it's not the Wicker Man and although bears a striking similarity remains nothing to do with the film. Ok I argued that in my head which turned into a groan, if you're fluent in groaning (Oi no!) then you'd of heard me say what was in my head. Anyway we see the mass of food stalls, music tents and the 2 main stages and the rides straight from the funfair it was cool, quiet maybe but then we may of adapted to the noise. We found the outdoor cinema located at a ridge of the site it was really good to see that outside this festival the land went on, hills trees as far as the eye could see and the cows, sheep, horses roaming the land free. And to look round and see the huge but somehow not giant Wicker Man standing there in the sun in it's own space away from the people, away from the themes and kind of standing like an old god reborn into the manifested wicker strands that bound him tight head to toe. I thought I'd look stupid trying to take a picture but realized that you know what? I may never see this again, so I took an amazing picture where you see the Wicker Man standing afar but you do see him and his size over the festival. Now we sit down, drinking, having a laugh and listening to the band on stage, when exactly bands started I don't know but I love it.

Karen's cousin arrives and Karen goes to her and we're all introduced as everyone arrives from her family camp. We all talk about our trip to the site and Karen I leave to chat with her family whom in advance I knew she doesn't see much of as they're not all living in the same town. My phone rang at some point, clearly a connection came and went I never got the call so I tried to call my mum back... I sort of (again) forgot to let anyone know I was alright and that Karen and me had got to the festival ok. I have trouble calling her back and when I get the connection and talk to her my credit ran out. So I've now got no signal for receiving a call, no means to call or text, officially I got a camera. A camera that has a phone book in it!

How cool is that? Yeah... Right!

So Karen says she's going to see her family for a Ska band playing a tent at a certain time, you see we didn't think to get a timetable of who and where and when is playing. Oh and tonight the Wicker Man will be burnt. Apparently from what Karen was told the local church tried to stop the Burning itself from being after midnight as it becomes Sunday, a holy day but also as there was a funeral I think tomorrow, so somehow that's life and no one would see apart from us the Burning. So it's still on. And we decide, well I did, to go the Stage and watch bands play, I mean come on- guitars? Drums, Bass all there played for real. We stood and watched a band who must've just started playing, they threw out leaflets but we didn't pick them up just listened so unfortunately I don't know the name but I know the lead singer/guitarist looked like a young Tom Cruise, well Karen disagreed but trust me I think he really was. NA I don't but they were good, I stayed for 2 songs while Karen went off somewhere and you could be that close to a band here like almost an open club. People found spots so it wasn't so loud, or the sound was just right or just wanted to be right close to get it louder. So these guys finish as Karen tries to get me away and I'm gutted, not metal but I like live instruments hard work and skilled musical talent, say anything about metal now and you die.

So we decide to explore the festival, we quickly found the Acoustic Tent which I was drawn to as we approached it but I felt later would be a better time to go in as there were too many people in and out of the tent listening to a band play The Proclaimers hits. The Proclaimers playing around 7:30-8pm tonight on the main stage.

We came across a Comedy tent which allowed average and alcohol induced festival folk to get up to do their own stand-up, which if we'd got there sooner I'm sure the guy we'd seen would've made more sense ha-ha, just kidding he made sense but I guess the comedy was enjoyed more by the Scottish audience and anyone who'd lived here long enough. So we carried on checking out the tents and was tempted by the Beer tent but even from afar we could only see a mass of people. Wondered where everyone from last night had got to! The sun's warm on the ground it really feels good being here with so many people and no one we encountered was in any way a trouble-maker for a lousy term of saying it. We sat on the ridge by the cinema screen now having a tough decision to make on whether or not to use the site toilets provided in typical Construction site fashion, we sat drinking realizing there was no other option but to use them and being broad daylight we could hardly go behind a tent and do it! So as we're drinking ourselves into courage for what anyone at a festival would hope never to remember again; a guy comes over to us in this luminous flack-jacket, almost like the police who were patrolling here and there (most likely mainly found at the Beer tent) he graying dark but long hair and a grayed dark beard that grew halfway down his throat, he looked like a rocker actually, I'm sure he had piercing's and a tattoo. He comes over to us with his beer and stands formally introducing himself and asks how we were enjoying the festival. We got talking about the fact there's not been a single violent outburst or problem since we got here and he tells us that it's down to the police and strict festival policy to make this family orientated weekend something for those who come here this time to enjoy and come back again. As the festival has been quite over-shadowed by other once-low-key festivals like Glastonbury which Karen had been to before and after it became so mainstream and that the festival has now wanted to not be turned into how other festivals have become.

Which considering what the festival is about and based upon I can hope it isn't going to be exploited out of it's own existence for T.v like BBC 2 putting on the Wicker Man film the day before the festival gets shown on it! Then the stages will get bigger, keeping the people further away from the bands, then the site will need more volume to cope with the influx of people wanting to come, then the Wicker Man won't be big enough for those who'll be disappointed and next thing you know the festival is no different to any other minus a giant man standing there. Of course this may change to equal rights and be part-man part-woman and then the Burning may be condemned as a racist gesture and thus The Wicker Man will just be destroyed. Ok most of that is personal opinion on the society we live in and it's contradictions to accepting all things it doesn't understand. But you know what I mean- a commercialised festival isn't always a good one. Or never is, I think. Woodstock... End of.

So the guy's talking about politics and at one point in talking about drugs and that he thinks it's harder here than anywhere to take them due to the police, he actually made me laugh believing me to be an undercover cop, seriously I laughed and Karen had to keep a straight face for not making this guy think we're laughing at him. But then he says that when he came to the festival, before being given the jacket by another guy he was a business-man and when he put the jacket on, his hair grew, turned a little gray with age and his beard started to grow too. Then his suit turned into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. We couldn't help but crack up, you wouldn't either; he offers me the jacket and says that he can't leave the festival with it on but both Karen and me are ok and eventually he keeps it on.

So he bids us good day and goes off to enlighten others and pass down the jacket to someone who needs it. We really honestly didn't have to say it but the guy was high as a kite man, we said it only to release the laughter we had built up from not trying to laugh. Later we'd see him again and he weren't to recognise us at all. But now... The site toilets... We really have to use them, and I counted over 30 dotted around the site but we were overlooking in-festival toilets which where located may not have been used as regularly as others but the walk to the tent area toilets we really wouldn't survive if there were a queue or two! So we walk down to the ground and over to the toilets with a cow mooing somewhere away from the fence at one edge of the site. "Ladies first" can sometimes be such a cruel Gentleman thing to do. Or use at any given convenience! I didn't do it but I I'm sure others here had! We examined briefly each cubicle that wasn't locked until we went through both sides and with around 3 or 4 locked we just went round again until we found a more decent cubicle. Well; one that wasn't as bad as the toilet in Trainspotting anyway. So Karen goes first simply to say that she'd rather I didn't make it worse in there. So as the locks not too great, I stand outside as the words I'd said last night to the guy in the gazebo filter through and I feel obligated to make sure she's alright, just me I guess; I kind of imagine worst-case scenarios for times that seem ok. And remember every news report that has a normal day or an ordinary event turn bad or worse. So there's no harm waiting and when she's done I ask her to wait while I go, only so I don't lose her in the festival.

We head off to get something to eat, we know we haven't much money and we haven't got much left as we had to travel here so we go around the food stalls and check for decent food at reasonable poor prices. You try it when you got the chance! Don't try it when you're poor! So we get a hamburger each and a coke to share and the change we have- if we get a lift back to Glasgow; Karen's saying, we will have enough for the train to Helensburgh so the next thing we get to eat we have to share. Now we go off and eat and relax in where ever it's quiet and we're watching the people go back and forth drunk, sober, enjoying the nice day and the main stage opens. so upon hearing the real live music I'm getting an energy burst to go down and Karen gets up for it too, it is a festival after all and we weren't dragged here! Plus the tickets each were 65 pound plus camping.

We're coming on a downward slope to where the stage is, if you've seen the Wicker Man you really feel why this place was chosen with it's slopes and raised parts of the earth it really is like arriving to the actual sets at the end.

Well enough of my babbling then, we get down to the main stage and a band is setting up, kind of a gothic looking band and crossed with a retro-tech I guess I'm not sure I've described well or in fact have insulted the band (like my previous comment of a band saying the singer/guitarist looked like Tom Cruise) but the singer in this band is a chick and looks a lot like a friend I have on a chat site I've known for nearly 2 years now only she has red hair, not black, the guitarist looks mean and really cool with his guitar looking equally mean and we couldn't see the drummer clearly. The music is rock-metal, supposing the band may of had to play their more rocky tracks as not to start a moshpit! It is a family festival remember! So their playing and their really quite good so much so I want to know who they are and the leaflets are being thrown out between songs and there's one thing bugging me- there is a heavy bass to this band and for the life of me I can't see a bassist anywhere. I assume they are in between bassist's so someone's playing bass offstage which doesn't make sense. At a point of being driven mad I expected that the guitarist has his guitar set somehow, perhaps in a way like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails customized a guitar to play whatever he wanted and what ever sounds he created or manipulated in a guitar manner. But from what Karen says to me- I'm not the only one wondering where the bass is coming from...

But the band is so good I make a few videos and as I said you can be so close to a band here that when making a video I could pan around to the guitarist clearly and watch him effortlessly play their songs. I put a video up eventually to the chat site I was on for everyone to check out and when I got Karen to pick up a leaflet the band are called Uniting The Elements. I still have that leaflet and the Wicker Man ticket plus the festival band. You couldn't throw that away! The area is now filling up with teenagers from Ned-types to Goths and some rock-metal heads and that's when you know you got a good band when people come over. So they play on and I think their set was 30 minutes I'm not sure, in fact it was like 40 minutes as I'd gone off with Karen somewhere I think to refill our 750ml bottles with more whiskey-cream soda. Upon returning there was one song left and then we all applauded them which was quite cool as looking at those applauding were so many types of ages and people.

I don't think this picture was from the festival itself but this is Uniting The Elements, I hope the band would be cool me putting this up so you know who they are! See what I mean about the guitarist and the guitar? Mean and cool!

Uniting The Elements are; Dawn on Vocals, Ola on Guitar and Violet"The Cannibal" on Drums

The band's website with audio clips and information on the band/tour info

The band's myspace

It's just a shame I don't have pictures from the phone I had while at the festival to be putting up here there were some amazing ones of the night approaching that are now lost forever.

So with the band now leaving and the next act coming on, to be honest I've never remembered who came on after as Karen and I went to Karen's family camp, which easily would've been found in the dark as there was a huge banner with the surname across it ha-ha. So here we are sitting in the camp being offered homemade soup and all sorts we on our side of the tent valley haven't seen or smelt! But we're ok for now, gutted as we spent money on the burgers not so long ago but we're cool. Karen's cousins have this cool walkie-talkie system to communicate within the festival and their getting ready to go see some music. Whether we all went together I can't remember cause we'd been drinking since 12pm today and I know we ran out of the whiskey-cream soda and had to go back and start on the vodka-lemonade! Which really was not a nice mix at all. Well compared with the whiskey-cream soda for which above is the means to make it at home!

We all got to a tent which was away from the areas Karen and I were haunting, and here was a Ska band on a stage playing, you have a real atmosphere in here of what a club would be like not just the band playing but the people physically bouncing and moving to the music it was, if I was a Ska fan a bloody good time but I don't dance, I don't move anything but my head in an up and down fashion ha-ha. After a couple songs some of Karen's family go off to check something else out and we both leave and as we hadn't had much of a good night last night we feel that we should get some sleep at least up to 7:30 as The Proclaimers begin their main stage set at 8-8:30pm. So we head back to the tent and I'm kind of missing my guitar just to sit and play it or at that time- attempt to, I've got a lot better at it since but then at this time I only had an acoustic and as I'd find out Karen was pretty good on acoustic for chords and plucking strings simultaneously. So we get back to our tent and around us is noisy, with people standard fucking around and having a laugh, also as our tent's parked between 2 other tents in a way it makes life a little difficult for them, their there and climbing over our corners to get to their space. So we offer to move the tent but they tell us not to as it gives them a nice private vibe so we get in and just relax. As there were kids here at the festival, I chose not to wear my Machine Fucking Head T-shirt back out. Last thing we needed was to upset people who in most part were good people that we'd met so far. So we doze off and with my alarm going off we decide to eat again. Karen can't check to see if her daughters alright and is concerned that there being a real bad signal in case of an emergency. But we'll be back to Helensburgh tomorrow so I imagine Karen's just being a typical parent.

We made a pita-banana thing each and I think we had 2 each, we didn't have much food left and there was 2 quiches but come on- cold, ready to eat quiche? Ok Karen let me have them as she really wasn't in the mood for them at all. And it's coming up to 8pm Karen said The Proclaimers start at 8:30pm so we got plenty of time. The world was darkening and again the Wicker Man was lit by spotlights I think green interchanging to purple but the festival itself wasn't blazing with light now so as the clock ticked it was clear that the time of the Burning was near. But at some point the lights upon the Wicker Man had dimmed to no lighting at all as I expected tonight's event, thee reason we're here was being set up. We could see around the base of the Wicker Man there were a lot more police and it wouldn't take a genius to work out that was to stop an idiot or 2 from prematurely setting him to blaze.

Ok, so what I left out of the first part was intentional, as I'll explain, you see my fears were not to arise as I'd thought, in fact far from it! I'd got back to London and realizing there are people out there outside of London's gray wet walls of HM London Prison I was broader minded, not like that though, oh no, I mean my mind felt the city's real size and that it's just a sardine tin with false advertising of what's inside. Before I'd left Helensburgh, actually it was the night before I left; Karen and I went through Scotland's Big Issue she thought I'd better have some reading material for the train back, so right on the back is this full cover poster for the summers upcoming Wicker Man Festival. Not to be mistaken for any remakes of the film this Festival has been promoting practically since the beginning of the original film!

So in passing we kind of thought if it were possible; to both go along to the Festival together and just to enjoy it. And again; enjoy each others company. So on the way down to London the next day I've not forgotten the Big Issue, but I did read the article in it about how dangerous Ticks are and it coming up to the summer pet owners should be weary as the tick can carry some real scary diseases we wouldn't like to get like how this woman lost her sight not long after an incident with a tick. Whether it had attached itself to her I wouldn't remember but if I find the magazine in question I'll probably tell you. So I read half the story and remember Karen gave me a book, which I felt bad for taking because it was her book and I did have the fear in me that we'd never see each other again. Well I picked out The Book Of Kells; About the amazing artwork and skill put into the decorating of the first Bible (or first Testament, I'm not sure) done by who was believed to be Irish artists who kept alive an old Gaelic tribal art form which if you've seen it you'll probably understand why it is still in use today in the Celtic Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland. Now to begin this book, it talks of the man whom found it and kept it safe from Vikings; Columb Cille- who later became Saint; one of the 3 Patron Saints of Ireland. I was fascinated with after years of my life I knew what my Dad's home was named after and stood for. Columb Cille was born in Donegal and use to go out across Ireland to help those in need, also would he answer the calls from Scotland from those who heard of him and needed his help. So then Glen Colm Cille was named after him; Valley of Colm Cille. A place that still uses Gaelic and also uses language only heard in Scotland.

Ok so i'm home i'm putting up the tartans postcard and postcard of Loch Lomond up in a frame, a few days later I get a Thank you card from Karen for my visit, I really should have got her one too, but I didn't- it may be the 21st Century but it's still hard not to be an English-born Irishman! My Spanish-ness should've kicked in but it didn't unfortunately so no I never quite repaid the gesture. Shut up!

So this fear this dark half of me isn't really getting to me, hell the dreams I use to have weren't even believable anymore to fuck with my head so I really was happy, but not dependant-happy. I was still looking out for myself, doing what I chose to do. Then again the Festival is mentioned, it's the only time I have to see her again because the Job Centre got me on a course that I'd have to be on for 6-7 months. I wasn't going to let myself feel trapped here in London, when it came to July we were arranging to get the Festival tickets upon my arrival to Glasgow, I had the train tickets sorted, we'd just have to wait to hear if Karen's cousin could take us if we couldn't find a way to the Festival grounds; trust me it is not an easy place to find! So Karen's cousin says he can do it, Karen's family would be there too so it would be more fun than just us 2 and a bunch of students who probably think the festival's a tribute to the remake! Ok they likely knew it wasn't.

Now the tricky part... Getting the 4-5 days off for the festival,we agreed I'd arrive the night before the festival weekend, so we'd have time afterward. I didn't want to feel nor have Karen feel I was using her to get to a festival. That's how I think anyway. So Karen and I start talking about me looking for work and getting a place up there, which was sooner than I'd planned considering I was applying to Manchester Housing at the time. So I tell my Advisor at my course i'm going to look for work up there and when, he was ok with it so the dates were set. Now the problem being getting some money saved for the time I'd be there as we'd need food, drink, beer, beer, beer, beer etc and days of me looking after myself as not to put Karen out. So the times coming and the jokes about me being set up to be the dude in the Wicker man at the festival are getting funnier, so funny they stop so we're not endangering Cows- i'm sure anyone in the UK will get that (if not, it's a milking joke) oh and I got a tattoo done before the festival which was honestly nothing to do with the Wicker Man film but as it does look a hell of a lot like the Wicker man I don't argue.

This is the tatt through a negative mode, I don't have a standard pic to put up but actually I quite like this picture anyway.

So I got the tattoo done in Camden for 60 pound and in a couple weeks I'll be planning a new eyebrow piercing! It took me years to plan the right tattoo and I've never regretted it not in the slightest either. It stands for the belief that no body no one is perfect or above you/me and nor should I or you be made to feel lower than anyone. The fact I had it designed to look drawn on wasn't easy though the Tattoo artist did as fucking amazing job getting it done to a T and originally it was going to be filled in, but the artist himself as I was next, showed me his way of getting it done if I chose it and I wanted it so hey he was a Machine Head fan too- with his tattoo gear being in a black box with a MH logo on it. I felt good that day, and drank a lot, without getting drunk though which was a shame.

Now the time is coming to the festival, no one I know is going, I missed Machine Head at Download and was severely fucking gutted!!! But no one has heard of the festival so here's me expecting hardly a soul at the weekend.

But then when I'd speak to Karen, it wouldn't matter if it were just us 2 going at all. I never thought or expected to enjoy or not enjoy the festival. In fact the main thing I'd keep saying is it didn't matter if we didn't go to it, as cheesy as it sounded and sounds; I'd be happy if not happier to spend more time with her. So the night before the train departs i'm paranoid i'm going to oversleep and miss it, i'm busy making sure I got everything; including the right charger this time as I probably didn't mention that I brought the wrong one and worried my family and my friend whom I mentioned studies wicca, so it's packed, clothes packed ticket packed. I stayed up all night and had a bath with just a few hours to go, I think my bath was at 7am I know when I left I was rushing for the bus and that was near or over 8am with the train leaving at 9am so I honestly thought "Fuck, i'm fucked!" literally. But with faith that this wasn't the end of the world; I'd reached King's Cross once again and the train was delayed a while so I had time for a smoke outside and time to call my Grandad and tell him he could give what food I cooked in a pot to my little brother (As mentioned in Guitars without whammy-bars) so then I was on the train after I'd realized I panicked over nothing and the return to the Helensburgh was still on. It was only strange to me because i'm use to people coming and going, no one ever seems to stick around long so it felt more than good to be meeting Karen for a 2nd time and without any thought or feeling that the novelty was wearing off.

I got a table seat and window, i'm a sucker the old childhood thing for being at a window it's nice, if you haven't tried it- do it. It rocks watching the world go by, hundreds of peoples lives right outside. Then the towns we built, the land that keeps us alive all that means something if you appreciate it. The journey wasn't really anything special I kept in contact with Karen so she'd know whether I'd be late as she was meeting me again at Central and we'd be off to get the Festival tickets when I'd got there.

I knew we were going to be late when we got to Edinburgh and we got told we'd be half an hour late. So when I arrive Karen's waiting with her daughter who was with her at work earlier, from then we went off to get my piercing done like I planned and took a long time getting it as the place had several clothes branches and we kept missing the right branch that did tattoos and piercing's. I beforehand spotted a really cool Pantera T-shirt and bought it with help from Karen as I didn't have much on me for the train. We visited a cool shop that her daughter liked to go to that does masks and wigs, it was kind of a joke shop. I saw this really cool Michael Myers mask and trust me it looked real, I always wanted to be dressed as him on Halloween or Sam Hain. So it's getting colder and we find the Ticket shop to get the Festival tickets, I really wish Karen would've let me pay for mine I hate people not letting me pay my way. But it's ok I know she means well and I'd repay that when I could.

So as bizarre as it was for me, to be back at Queen Street Station never thinking I'd never be back here but never thinking I would be. It makes sense to me.

We get on the Helensburgh train and we're on our way, I forgot we got joke sweets from the shop, so Karen and her daughter are trying on the wig, i'm finding all the stuff I'd got today. Oh, then Karen's daughter wanted to try out the sweets, so although Karen tried to stop her, she was offering the sweets to passengers ha-ha that was pretty cool, would've been cooler if they accepted but I think they all overheard Karen trying to stop her from doing it so no blue mouths, no garlic breaths on the train. Actually we ended up eating the blue sweets cause they tasted quite alright and our mouths were blue for the rest of the day.

So we get to Helensburgh after the standard 45-50 minute journey time and no sooner do we get there, yep we're planning on getting drunk ha-ha, well not exactly yet as Karen's waiting for her daughter to be picked up. See, her daughter would make a fuss about coming to the festival and as we didn't know it was a family orientated event Karen and I pretended we couldn't go. So when her daughter's picked up we arrange to watch The Wicker Man as I fell asleep when it was on T.v. so we get the alcohol for the weekend sorted- cheap whiskey and Cream soda in a 2litre bottle and vodka and lemonade in another. The food we could've chose better by but hey I wouldn't change that, it was great. So we get additional alcohol and sit watching The Wicker Man, Karen enlightening me to the filming and locations and the music accompanying the film being so Celtic I loved it and I actually appreciated the film not because I was drinking though. So we debate whether or not to keep drinking or get an early night as we have to leave to meet Karen's cousin about 6am. We drank until 2am and neither of our alarms went off, we woke up at like 8am and we thought we were screwed. She wanted to give in to it but I suggested we make our own way if we could get the info how and of course we were on a seriously low budget to be Road tripping across Scotland to find a place far from any major towns. But the fun began- we left with the info to go to Buchanan Station where we'd get a coach for 4-5pm the bus to Glasgow would take an hour to reach there and we'd have to walk to find it after. So when we got there, we asked the newspaper vendors at each lost direction and we made it. We got our tickets to a town we assumed was the Festival site but we didn't pay attention to other festival goers and ended up in this nice looking town.

Karen's words were "The town was like something out of the Wicker Man" if not worse as guys were pissing up on walls, gangs of guys at bus stops not actually waiting for a bus and a guy trying to chat Karen up as we waited for a phantom bus that didn't exist on the board. The Coach driver told us we'd missed the stop that had a service especially for the festival and this phantom bus that must run through here would take us back. So we wait and we wait, it's around 6 or 7pm and still light but not for long and this bus arrives and we're told it is the right one although not the bus we were told of. We get on we're relieved to be away from the town, well not quite yet, not until we left it. And on this bus there is only 2 to 3 other people, one is a drunk guy who I think missed his stop falling asleep and we're right out in the country now the middle of nowhere where when you see these bus stops you think it's odd anyone to wait at them in such open desolated areas. It's just Karen me and a girl at the back now whom Karen talks to and as it turns out she's going to the festival too. At some point the driver stops and lets us have a cigarette break and stretch our legs before quickly getting back on board to finish our journey.  So now the sky's turning navy blue and the stars are out in their millions as we reach the town we should've stopped at and saved money on fares at. Here it's dark and folk are already in the pubs, Karen asks me to go into a pub and ask for a taxi firms number, but out of paranoia I refuse as to not wanting to get my foreign looking London speaking ass kicked. So we find the number in a Phone box and told where to wait and we wait. Now we by the fishing docks, we see a bus shelter with a poster which must've been for the previous festival showing the Wicker Man burning and the dates ticket numbers to book etc. It's cold but not freezing we were told 15 minutes and just over time the space cruiser taxi arrives. We get in and the driver tells us he's been picking up dropping off festival goers all day and night and just got home when he was called out to us so as you can imagine he wasn't entirely pleased with us.

He talks, making conversation, i'm quite exhausted for all the travelling we did and the fact my baggage was heavy like Karen's was with food, drink and 2 2litre bottles of alcohol! The driver makes a comment about me not saying much, I tell him i'm tired of all the travelling we've been doing and kind of not with it. Reply being he can't stand people in his cab that don't talk which actually worried the 3 of us i'm sure because the conversation stopped a good dead while until we were driving in pure pitch blackness I hadn't seen since Donegal Ireland. The headlights barely lighting 20 feet in front of us as the twists and turns of the road wouldn't give much to see. Then as we kind of sat waiting- he told us we're here.

Like a theme park crossed with a concert. Lights illuminating the sky, glowing grounds of the tents the concert tents and eventually the scale was brought wider and more magnificent by the spotlighted figure in the darkness, beyond the tents, past the concert tents, away from the lights and with the exact feeling of the film stood this man woven head to toe in a position as if either getting up or caught in a moment of sprinting. The Wicker Man was standing lit red strongly but like a watcher, not in the festival but out of it and the ground shook with the band on stage and the many people that were there. We arrived at the gate the 3 of us split the taxi fare equally and the driver gave us a card each for when we're leaving. The air was pumping with life and the ground now seemed mellow with the noise and whistles of the people. We showed our tickets, got our bands put on and in we went, right on the path up to the security check point seeming miles away. Now here was the thing... Karen was going to get a tent from her cousin but as we missed the ride- we didn't have a tent, so now it's like 8-9pm and it's dark. The tent area has few spotlights to light the tents around them and we see hills of various sized tents either side of the path and we know it's going to be a difficult task trying to find her family. Oh and it's that far from the world you might know that you'd be handed a miracle or 2 if you got a signal on your mobile phone so calling was way out the question. All we could do is follow the sounds, follow the Scooby Snacks to the Fun Lovin Criminals on stage and hell yeah we were close enough to see them although we were at the back but there were other tents with dance music, acoustic guitars and people were everywhere here and there and we plucked ourselves down behind the music fans and realized we didn't have cups for the alcohol so after a couple hits from the Fun Lovin Criminals we went to the food stalls to try get a cup without paying. In the end we got 2 cups for the price of giving some of our whiskey-cream soda and went back to sit, drink cooly as we watched the band play. When they'd finished the dance act was up all that trance malarky was kicking off and Karen had a couple chicks offer her a tent after having a brief chat, I doubt the chicks wouldn't of been inviting a sexual night to her but she declined kindly and we went off to search for her family and along the way we almost undid peoples tents, tripped and fell in darkest darkness and in a last ditch effort Karen asked a woman if we could use her gazebo or however that's spelt. She rudely said no and we found a nice part of the main fence to get our sleeping bags out from as the temperature was now dropping past midnight. This was going to be the beginning of the night not the end of it!

We'd drank more of the whiskey-cream soda really to keep the chill off us as we were feeling it, we wrapped ourselves in the 2 sleeping bags so we kept our body heat in and listened to all the people cheering, whistling at the tents and those in their own tents who brought stereos were drinking and rocking the night away and we hear this guy in the dark talking and just as we look up he narrowly misses tripping on us and the security he was talking to through the fence told us we couldn't stay there. We explained that we missed our ride and it's too dark to find Karen's family so the security goes away.We were expecting that there'd be like an emergency area for those with tent problems but then it was coming up to 1am and we were laying there warm compared to if we didn't have sleeping bags! Security came back with his colleagues and they told us we'd have to move as the we were against a main fence and if lorries in the night or morning were to have an incident- we'd be in body bags not sleeping bags. Basically that's what they meant they didn't say it! So we had to get up and as Karen suggested the emergency tent idea we're packing away the sleeping bags and the cold is not as bad. They told us also that the temperature would most likely drop so much that the sleeping bags wouldn't be able to protect us so we were advised to find a generator that powered the lights and set up there where it would be warmest. Only as we went in search of one there were so many tents pitched by them we had to find one close to the security check for going into the festival itself, the generator was hardly warm and the lights so powerful I don't think anyone could sleep. We again went in search of Karen's family, not in a hope of finding them but to keep moving so we wouldn't freeze. And again we found nothing and after all that we sat by the generator again drinking and determined that we were not going to let the weekend be ruined by the cold. We did find a communal gazebo that had a guy waiting in it, we asked if we could use it, he told us it was the sites gazebo so we debated staying, he seemed ok making jokes telling us he lost his friends and was having a quick spliff break before going in search again. He tells us we should be careful of thieves and that there's a danger of a woman getting raped in a lace like this. I quickly reply to say that that would not happen with me here and later Karen told me how much that meant to her me saying that. He attempted in the cold wind to burn the hash and put it in the paper, with my lighter which I knew to be a pain as it ruins lighters doing it. So we're thinking Fuck it we're going to settle here, tough to anyone else who wants to chill out here. We unpack, the guy says we're better off going to the generator like security had said, and says they cannot allow us to sleep in this weather. So ok we start to pack up, Karen's borrowed sleeping bag's zip is stuck so we can't compact it into it's bag. I try to help, the guy demands I let her do it, actually saying something like "I want to watch her push it in" real perverted and Karen can see I don't like it and I shake my head, I can't watch her struggle and ignore the guy demanding again, but he just stops moaning. So then 2 girls came by, asking us if we had a cigarette, we only had tobacco- like I'd said before, we were on a tight budget. Jokingly Karen gives them the tobacco, our lighters had both busted and Precautionate me didn't think to bring a spare! So jokingly Karen says she has tobacco if they have a spare tent, they hear our story our journey and they tell us their friend might have one. So they get to their tent and after half an hour we kind of assumed we were forgotten about, more time went by and yep we definitely were frozen and Karen was losing faith and begging to regret ever embarking on the road trip  I thought would be a good idea and fun.

So the 2 girls come out go off somewhere and last we checked it was 4am and the cold was not giving up it was like we were wearing tissue paper and just as we had our last smoke we decided to get the sleeping bags out and if not sleep, then be fucking warm! So here we are in our sleeping bags again, the smoke we managed to get was lit by a passer by whom in conversation about the tent offer, he'd told us you get people who say they'll help you but their too high to remember it and best not get hopes up. So we think Great we are fucked! Well and truly as we sit on a hard cold barely grassed ground and we're too frozen to even try to get the sleeping bags round us properly, but then the girls return, well one at first and we soon are given a tent with a plea to make sure we give it back to them the next day when we get our tent. So it's some time after 4am even near 5am and the festival's whined down to a volume that will let people rest but still let the all-nighters go on. I've never in my life ever put up a tent and I've not ever SEEN one being put up, well at that time of the morning and with the weather bared upon us all night I honestly couldn't think very far back in my recent history let alone far enough to remember seeing this done on T.v. or as a kid!!!

But me and Karen were near solid as rock or the soil we were sitting on by a generator powering a blazing white light down on us to intensify the atmosphere of icy wintry conditions. We unpacked the tent my head would of been in a panic to do this as I'd seen Karen's previous attempts just a couple months earlier at pitching a tent. So I knew we really needed to just jump in and get it done before we'd give up, Karen was sparked back to life and it sparked my bones back to life too, we spent probably 20 minutes getting it right, getting it wrong until we had what looked like in the silhouettes a real stable, right-way round tent. Chuffed wasn't even the word as we climbed in... Only the cold was getting in like the tent wasn't there. The cover wasn't on, and we couldn't find it either... Searching like mad people around the general site, finding pins for the tent which put question marks over our heads, then as we stood believing all this to be for nearly nothing- I looked under the tent and the tents bag was there with the cover neatly tucked away inside. So now we had to unpin the pins one by one in the wind to hook in the cover holes until we were done. Almost. Wasn't fun at the time!

The zipper entrance was on the wrong side, I found that out naturally. So again a little more waking up and it was done. We made our first tent! And it was warm and cosy even more so when we got in our sleeping bags. Now the rest was a blur because by now we were able to sleep, after I finally got a phone signal and Karen sent a text to her cousins, I said to say a time and place to meet in the festival, so Karen said the big screen that they had to show movies of old at I think was 1pm. So now some well deserved sleep! And hope her family gets the text...

And with our phones we didn't have spares, so if the batteries died out here, there was no way of charging if we didn't find or hear from Karen's family by tomorrow morning- We would not be able to get back to sunny Helensburgh as our funds wouldn't allow it.

I don't think we actually dreamt to be honest, it was just pure rest and regaining our limbs back, i'm sure on a few occasions we woke, or I woke at least to hear people quietly, well trying to quietly get to their tents. I know Karen woke up briefly but I don't think she remembers it. Hearing them whispering along and I was asleep again.

Ok, tricky subject to talk about as not to offend real witches, but hopefully shame the fakes and those with old beliefs about them!

Firstly i knew a couple real witches and i mean real- the ones who study Wicca not for the spells to cast on others or for revenge, and definitely not to go around claiming to be one like it was some trend. Real people. Real people who were and probably still are cautious about anyone knowing they are studying the craft. Well not worrying anyone knowing but just how people tend to take the information. I myself had grown respect for the craft and those who study it, i never planned on studying and only ever took on board that nature is our creator, it is our provider and that we should all care for her in return. I don't even throw rubbish or put out cigarettes on grass, may sound pathetic but i know i feel good in that respect. I never planned on studying the craft, like i said, not for any reason other than i never felt ready to do so. Now i feel i am ready to begin, but to begin with the beginning. To study everything before whether or not i want to or feel i must learn about who my guide would now be, to the spells if indeed it is required to learn them. Although as a man i may not, i have received different opinions on that matter, perhaps in Politically Correct terms and Sexist. But i'm not here to pull chicks, i'm not here to get a bloody promotion i'm tired of the many witches who have to let you know their high priestesses or high priests. Sorry but there seems to be a lot of them. Whether they're really hard working people who gained their right to say it or not i'm only stating that there are many out there in a world where witchcraft is seen as a teenage-gothic thing to be or a stupid Sabrina-Charmed way. I had a friend who i won't name, who studied so hard as a witch, she had no disrespect, no hatred for other beliefs or religion whatsoever. She was a charming girl and i still miss her as a person talking on the phone.

We 'd talk for hours about the craft, she's married so no- don't be so little minded, and in time of my need she taught me Grounding, she taught me how to strengthen my mind, my soul and told me ways to get myself back to who i was and this took calling to the Goddess Diana; the Moon, with an offering of clean, pure water and salt of the earth to appreciate her and to just talk to her i felt comfortable doing. I topped up the salt, the water every few days like i was told. I was taught a Grounding spell that was too beyond me to try without disrespecting the craft, so i never attempted it. Although i was told in advance it was difficult, also i was told that part of my offering would have to be silver and a stone i'm not sure. I placed a 50p piece where it would be outside but not somewhere it could fall nor get nicked! It was all i had. I remember how much i couldn't believe that the little faith in this i had was doing so much for me, i was mentally stronger, my inner strength was yet to be, but that was always going to be a hard task. I never disrespected my friend or the craft after the help she and her had given me. I just wanted and want to give back so much in thanks myself. Petty as it sounds, i wrote some songs dedicated to shaming the fakes who give Wicca the Craft a modern bad name for being a teenage phase or the less violent ways of being a Devil worshipper. There are many people out there who still believe that a witch is a servant of satan and the hell below. But they're either sexist men, or sexist women who think a womans place is to be child bearing house-wives with no place in the world other than to do these simple things. Fear has witches burnt, drowned and imprisoned for not obeying to the common communities ways and beliefs. A woman with red hair was thusly given the title "Devil Woman" and any woman who had a man's penis erect on the sight of her, or getting the mens wives green with envy.
I know if ever i successfully become a witch, i would pass this freedom and dignity down to my children and their children. I come from a serious Catholic upbringing, but never had it ever appealed to me, been as true as this is to me. I may die unlearned but i die honest. And return to that which put me here in the beginning.