The Greatest Place on Earth

This weekend saw the ATP (all tomorrows parties....NOT adenisinetriphosphate....cos I know thats what ye were all thinking) invade Butlins in Minehead England. And it were great. Take it from me, I was there. And am still recovering. Unlike your traditional music festival, the fans picked the bands and providing they were available,they played. Also it was set on a family orientated holiday park, not the normal damp field. And this is what made it really REALLY special.....shower and bed. On a mattress. At least 2 feet off the ground and not in a puddle of rain water. And no one stepped on your head, even by accident.

And I feel that I, Tonto should share with you some of my experiences. If only to make Juanine(even though she be in Russia) a little bit much jealous

We were dubbed the Lost Soulers which was a more apt name for the return journeyers. We left Dublin at 930am Friday. Arrived Bristol bout 1045. Hopped on a bus organised for us Lost Soulers by Daddy Darren.

The journey was long and Cointreau fueled. We needed to pee bad but no one dared used to chemical toilet (except me when everyone else was off the bus).

Butlins was a rather large place but they provided us with a map and a train.

Unfortunately, the doors wouldn't open til 4 and the bar was only around the corner so we hopped off and dashed round the corner.

Like in Bruges, the pints in Butlins were HUGE!!! After 2 of them it was 4o'clock and we could go find our chalet, 101 Barracuda Place Oyster Bay. The train had since departed and so we had to walk.....

and got lost. Lovepanda was on hand to point us in the right direction.

There were loads of famous people knocking about. Including Vicki Pollard, pretending to be a security guard!

And one of the guys from the 11811 ads!!! Jean LOVES those ads!

This is one of the very bands I did see but for the life of me I cannot remember who it is. I must've liked.....

However some people were none too impressed.

We made quite a few new friends. Meet Pingo....a very distant very cheap realtion of Pingu. Him and Jean met as she wandered around lost trying to find her way home.

But things quickly soured when he made a comment, a not very nice comment about Orkevil River. Something about them being crap. I can't quite remember. Anyways....don't slag Orkkevril(?) River.

Another great band which I can remember( I am now thinking that the last photo was Yo la Tengo) was Les Savy Fav. The guy is nuts. He was zooming round that stage so fast, which is why the photo is so blurry....and i think he may have been in the crowd or in camoglage. He was an indian, then a viking, then black, then a cow, then robbed a t shirt off some guy then I don't know then himself. And it all started with a haircut.

Like I mentioned there were loads of things to do at ATP, besides the music, like swimming (which is fantastic for hangovers) and bowling ( apparently you have to aim for the arrows but I couldn't see them). Our favourite pastime was trying to win teddies on that grabber maching. And we were pretty dam good!

Between us we had one the cast of Spongebob at least twice over (between 4 of us trying) with some casualties along the way. They were quite the rowdy bunch!! I did make it home with 2 Sandy's and a Squidworth.

But like any kind of gambling, we got hooked, spending more than we earned on the grabber machines.

Jean disappeared for about 3 hours at one stage and when I found her was grasping her winnings, hugging them like children, growlin when I came near. We had a problem and fell to our knees crying.

We saw the Butlins counsellor who recommended a trip to the shop where we picked up a spiffy Butlins raincoat and some walkie talkies.

The walkie talkie did though have some practical use. Phones were bad. Real bad. And then when they got good the credit was gone. All gone. So walkie talkies were the way forward we reckoned.

The walkie talkies were great fun, useless but alas short lived. Greg tried to ring home at half six one morning and was concequently fund with his pants round his ankles in someone chalet. He is now known as Poopis O'brien and did not have Jeans walkie talkie at the time but we are still going to blame him for its loss. And not Jean.

When the music ended on night 2 we went to the Lost Soulers favourite pub....CRAZY HORSE, where things inevitably got a little CRAZY.....some examples...

Britney Spear impressions....

crazy patrick st patrick

Crazy dancing

boozing...

And it wouldn't be a trip to England with a reminder of what exactly our feelings are towards the Engerlish. All of this and more resulted in this...

and this....
until this.....

Modest MOuse!!!! Tontos personal favourite band EVER!! And while i didn't get to meet them...and probably wouldn't go omeet them cos they look a bit grumpy (in need of a hug and a herbal tea kinda grumpy....maybe I could do that for them?), I did find out what they like to eat, and maybe also how they got sooooo good....THEY EAT GUITAR!! Note to all budding musicians, start eatng your guitars!!

And after them I don't know cos they were all that mattered on the Sunday. And also having stayed up til 9 the previous morning I was pretty wrecked :( I did see Daniel Johnson again, went swimming, Why? more slots....then bed at a reasonable hour. CALL ME WHAT YOU WILL! Roll on December!!