ON THE ROAD WITH RUARRI JOSEPH August 10th to August 12th 2007 Ripcurl Unleashed Festival in Newquay Cornwall UK by mark von sound DAY ONE ... A KNEE IN THE BALLS AND A PUNCH TO THE NOSE This journal concerns another festival weekend adventure again down to Cornwall ... but this time we shall venture much deeper down into Cornishland ... our eventual destination will be the UK surf capital of Newquay ... but first I need to get there ... Today is Friday and today's sole task is to get my arse over to London ready for a very early start the following morning ... Before leaving I catch up on some current affairs ... I'm into my third week of no broadcast television in my home and I really don't miss it ... the radio tells me all the news I need to know ... thanks to the wonderful BBC who furnish me with this knowledge on a regular basis ... And today I learned that there had been an earthquake in the English Northern city of Manchester ... apparently only 2.5 on the Richter Scale ... this doesn't mean too much to me ... maybe just enough of a tremor to remove the froth form a large cappuccino ... Also on the news was mention of the Italian opera star Pavorotti who is now 71 years young ... he is in hospital suffering with a stomach complaint ... I've been told that at each show he has in his dressing room before his performance a whole leg of ham and a delicatessen electric meat slicer ... I guess it's true when they say you are what you eat ... Still very much a large news item is the continuing story of the recent Foot and Mouth animal disease outbreak in Surrey ... the newsreader spoke of a laboratory close to the farm where the outbreak started ... they have 10,000 litres of the exact same strain as the disease found in the cattle and then they deny it's anything to do with them? ... how stupid do they think we are? ... And if a vaccine is given to farms then it would be purchased from the very same laboratory ... what a coincidence ... The conspiracy theorists must be rubbing their hands together ... As a rule I'm not one for such theories but it is odd why they have got 10,000 litres ready to go ... just imagine in your mind just how much 10,000 litres looks like ... that's hell of a lot ... all very fishy ... I was amused whilst walking to the train station when I pass a truck for a local house restoration company ... they were honestly called Crumble Holme and Co ... how ironic ... my journey starts with me catching the 6pm train to London ... I should be getting in just before 9pm then get a train to Surbiton in South West London ... I sit down and get comfy ... All other sits are gone by the time I notice a seven inch diameter disc of head grease next to me on the window of the train ... I found this stomach churning ... I convinced myself it was on the outside ... I don't know what possessed me but to reassure myself I touched it ... it was on the inside ... eugh ... just typing this is freaking me out ... So many times I saw it out of the corner of my eye ... I'll change the subject now ... About twenty minutes into the journey I watched a woman sat across from me explode with a gigantic sneeze ... she produced spaghetti like streams of snot from her nasal passage which dangled like a chandelier ... A small child burst into tears ... I'm so glad I wasn't eating ... I have never seen anything like this before ... I wonder if she does it often? To help me relax and ignore my surroundings I reached for my Ipod ... I cruised through my lexicon of music ... my search ended when I pressed play for Pink Floyd's album Pulse disc 2 ... This is the classic Dark Side Of The Moon album performed live in order plus encores of Wish You Were Here ... Comfortably Numb ... finishing with Run Like Hell ... It's about as perfect as a record could be ... Akin to having your favourite dinner with your dream date and to top it off Mr.Guinness himself popping over from Dublin to deliver a pint of perfect Guinness poured specially for you by Bono ... And if you disagree then you are wrong ... Well I guess the Bono bit you can change ... maybe Geldoff? ... but the rest stays ... Also sat near me on the train were two scouts over from India ... Nice one chaps for having such an adventure but they had full beards ... I think it's time for them to put their Woggles down and enter the big scary world of the grownups ... Peter pan never had a beard ... so move on ... Unfortunately the train provided no buffet facility ... and as I had missed dinner I decided to nourish myself at my terminus of Waterloo Station before getting the Surbiton train ... My chosen eatery was a French deli bakery ... In the cabinet there were amazing looking treats ... The one I chose was the mouthwateringly titled Emmental cheese and mushroom country crispy slice ... Yay I thought as I scurried to me second train to sit down ready for my supper ... When I took it out of the bag I couldn't believe how small it had become ... I then realized there glass cabinet must've had a magnifying glass front to deceive the customer ... It also amazed me how they must use a syringe to inject the filling into this crumb sized snack ... Unfortunately they omitted to include any flavour whatsoever ... not impressed at all ... never again ... True to form when I arrive at Surbiton to wait for the van ... its late ... As I stand waiting I wish I'd got a later train up from Weymouth ... but I wasn't to know ... So I have to hang about on the street corner ... Then I think where the hell is Surbiton? sounds posh ... I like being in posh places lowering the tone ... I know I'm a snob even they don't ... Little do they know of my love of the finer things in life ... It was here I witnessed a guy meeting his girlfriend ... he got caught doing the involuntary act of checking out another girl walking nearby ... He didn't know he was caught so as he puckered his lips ready for his greeting kiss ... instead he became victim to a wonderful combination of A KNEE IN THE BALLS AND A PUNCH TO THE NOSE ... the latter immediately became a fountain of blood ... Then as he dropped to the ground she wind-milled round her large handbag to the back of his head ... stupidly he whimpered "what did you do that for" ... she replied with the classic ender of all conversations ... "if you don't know I'm not going to tell you" ... utterly priceless ... and guys ... when you hear this one liner you have lost ... They left in separate directions ... As per usual with my waiting I do some people watching to learn the local behavior traits of different areas ... And in Surbiton I notice people like to tuck everything possible into their trousers ... shirts and t-shirts and hoodies and sweaters and even jackets ... thankfully it is unique for this area ... After waiting around outside the train station for an hour and a half bass player Pete Cherry shows up after getting off a plane from Los Angeles going home changing his socks then coming straight out to get to Surbiton to meet me ... within minutes the van shows up with manager Matt driving and drummer Guillaume his co-pilot ... with all four of us in the van we disappeared off to a birthday party in an area of London humorously called Ham ... I expected to see Pavorotti there ... but not dice ... We were there to pick up some Ruarri Joseph surf boards with an amusing shark bite taken out ... it's what we call in the business as a promotional item ... cue the Bronx Cheer ... The reason for the shark bite shape cut from the board was due to a Great White Killer Shark being spotted in Newquay ... or was it? ... news reports are now saying it's a hoax ... with only a 5 hours before we had to drive from London to Cornwall we finished our beverages and split the celebrations ... we head back to stay at Matt's house ... all the people he shares with are away so everyone gets a bed ... Here's is a thought for you ... when was the last time you sat on your own on a complete strangers bed and looked around the room and see photographs of people you've never met ... there is selection of some very odd hats ... I am sat in the middle of someone else's inner sanctum ... such an odd scenario ... That was my day on August 10th 2007 DAY TWO ... YES HE SHIT HIS PANTS So after 4 hours sleep at 5am I awake in a strange girls bedroom ... I was utterly confused for the first 2 minutes of the day until I remembered how I'd got there ... And there was no girl involved either !! We hit the road to leave London as dawn was breaking ... with the roads nearly empty it's easily the best time of the day to drive in the English capital ... we head in a South Westerly direction across Salisbury plain ... for much of the first few hours we drove through a carpet of early morning fog ... as we progressed down the A303 from out of nowhere like from a scene from a horror movie peeping through the mist Stonehenge appeared ... soon after that the fog cleared to give us a crisp bright morning ... The halfway point of the journey is Exeter services ... we stop for coffee ... It was 8am in the morning and the place was full of happy people all on their way to have a fun day in the sun ... I didn't need this ... too many people and they all wanted coffee too ... I did a 180 degree turn to walk straight back to the van ... a car pulls up ... the tinted black window descends and a suited gentlemen asks me ... if I'm interested in buying anything ... this was a very dodgy scenario ... so I reply ... "Nope ... but please tell me what it is I'm not going to buy?" ... he explained ... "for ever Mercedes sports car he garage sells they get Mercedes watch" ... a tissue of lies ... I walk on ... As we drive through Devon Matt spots a bird of prey sat on a post at the side of the road ... I then explain to him that in Dorset where I now live there are so many eagles that they have to fly round in circles like aeroplanes stacking to land at a busy airport ... as we have more eagles than posts ... more lies ... There are stories told that in England hundreds of years previous to today there were so many trees that a squirrel could travel from one side of the country to the other without touching the ground ... Unfortunately this feat has not been achieved for many generations ... Until now ... instead of leaping from tree to tree the noble squirrel can jump from caravan to caravan as we were handicapped for the hundred miles of our journey by a constant stream of these white boxes of shit on wheels ... grrrrrrrr ... But we still make good time arriving at the festival site around 10:30am ... Ruarri is already there ... and to my surprise so was my friend Pete from Nottingham ... I mentioned him last in my journals at the Oxford show with 36 Crazyfists earlier this year ... he was working for another band ... one of my favourite parts of the festival experience is bumping into pals you didn't know were going to be there ... with all passes sorted I walk around the festival site with Pete ... For a healthy breakfast I purchase from a van a huge double cone double scoop ice cream with a flake in each ... it looked more like a Viking helmet than an item of confectionary ... I battled hard to eat all of it ... with ice cream running down my fingers I managed to win and devour it's dairy goodness ... however I did feel quite sick ... The location of this location festival is such a picture ... set on a big green hill close to the sea ... from the stage you can see for miles out into the Atlantic Ocean ... the water was a rich blue and so was the sky which contained not a single cloud ... As we were in Cornwall logically lunch was the local dish ... a pasty ... like pie but different shape ... if it was a haircut it would be a side parting ... it was here I learned that taking a pasty on a boat or ship was very unlucky as it is traditionally a meal for miners ... which is an underground job ... and for reasons known to themselves Cornish sailors deem this an unlucky lunch to have ... But I was on top of the big green hill so all was OK ... I got a text and hooked up with the ace Sara another friend from Nottingham ... was great to see her but unfortunately didn't get to hang out enough during the day ... All my band and crew were present apart from guitarist Chris Haddon ... he lives in Cornwall and so was making his own way to the festival ... he was starting to become late ... just when I was going to call him he appeared at our backstage gazebo ... He was a little vague to why he was late then admitted the real reason ... he'd nearly got to the festival then drank a whole bottle of apple juice in one go which resulted in him farting then following through making a dirty protest appear in his underwear ... YES HE SHIT HIS PANTS ...Oh my god ... I couldn't believe my ears ... what a tragic accident ... and then to admit to it when it's easy to never mention it to anyone ... but the icing on the cake was Ruarri telling the many thousands watching the show during the set ... he accepted the ridicule in good humour ... a great set from Ruarri playing to his hometown crowd who treated him as their favourite son ... and from the stage he could look across the bay and actually see his house ... how often does that happen to someone in their life? ... After the show myself and Matt leave the band socialising back stage while we drive off to locate and check into the hotel ... It takes some finding but eventually we get there ... so all good until wanting to get back to the site ... we needed a cab ... but every single taxi company is so busy ... there was a waiting time of well over an hour ... We gave up on the cabs and got Matt's friend Truen to come from the festival and pick us up in his car ... so much much later we returned to the site ... enough time for a beer and a couple of shots before having to leave again ... the other guys had gone onto a club but I was far too shattered after minimal sleep the night before ... so my pillow beckoned ... That was my day on August 11th 2007 DAY THREE ... X53 After scrambled eggs and hash browns we hit the road ... rather than going all the way back to London I got dropped in Exeter to get the X53 bus back to Weymouth on the 3 hour bone rattling double-decker ... That was my day on August 12th 2007