Sunday 27th August 2006 saw the day that I would finally see Pete Doherty in concert. Despite him being my idle for near enough the last 2 years I had never got round to going to see him but this was my chance, not only that but to see a whole load of other good bands at this great mini festival.

Me and my sister got to Clapham common tube station by about 11ish and followed the crowds down to the area where the gig was to be held. Of course the whole area was surrounded by 8ft high fences to ensure no free loaders could get in. We had to wait there until about 12 before the gates opened and we walked inside. Woo we had just waited the best part of an hour to get into a field. It was no ordinary field though it was a field.. of dreams.

For the first half an hour or so we scouted round the field to see where everything was and we also made a plan of who we really wanted to see and who we could live without seeing. Also we managed to pick up as many freebies as possible. From the 3 phone company van we managed to blag a sun hat, a draw string bag and two boxes of jellybeans, we got some free hair gel and some other stuff that I cant remember. So that was that and then we moved onto the acts.

The first thing we went to see was a set put on by the comedy store in the guilty pleasures tent, it was reasonably funny, there was 2 acts and a compare who were all quite good but could have been better. Nevertheless it was quite an easy start to the day.

We then made our way to the second stage as it was so cleverly called to see the 'grindie' star that is lethal bizzle. Of course I have been floolwing 'da bizzle' for many a year now.. ok so i'm not his biggest fan but I liked that one song of his that I knew where he did a rap remix of a rakes song. And despite it basically being a set of rap music I quite enjoyed it, very lively and lots of crowd participation shouting things like OI, brilliant.

We stayed in the Second Stage tent for the next act. Yes Kid Harpoon wooo, one of the must see acts of the day, he was amazing. Despite just being a man with a guitar he has a real stage presence and is brilliant. I definately recommend people listen to his stuff.

We then moved out to the main stage to see Lily Allen, my sister hates Lily Allen with a vengence but I decided that she had to be seen, she maybe a complete chav but her songs are quite good. The chav persona wasnt helped by her coming out on stage wearing a hood and huge loopy gold earrings but she still managed to put on a good set which I thoroughly enjoyed, and to you who are familiar with her work, she has a song called Alfie about her little brother and when singing it she dragged him onto the stage.. he was worse then her, he was about 12, wearing a hood and smoking. He looked like a right wanker. Also during this set some stoner and a drunk woman were having a great time in front of me pouring alcohol over each other whcih provided quite an interesting spectical.

Back to the second stage tent we went to listen to the pipettes who too were great and out of all the bands we saw the nicest to look at, for those who dont know the pipettes their lead singers are 3 women who wear 60s clothes and dance around looking nice and they actually have pretty decent songs aswell.

Now we came to a part of the day where there was nothing much good on.. we had a choice between some shitty emo band or Bez.. so yes we sat down and had some lunch/dinner type thing. It was horribly overpriced and not particularly tasty but we were quite hungry and needed a sit down after standing for the last 4 or so hours.

The next thing we saw was the young knives and we only went to see them because we had nothing else to see, I still believe that they are pretty rubbish, apart from one song which is alright they are a boring band.. but we used this opportunity to start making our way as close to the front of the crowd as possible.. also we managed to bag ourselves a get loaded beach ball which was nice.

Then there was a quick DJ set as there was between all the acts on the main stage and it was during this me and my sister decided that we would sacrifice going to see British Sea Power and the Guillemots in order to get as close as possible for Babyshambles. And so we did.

Buzzcocks were the next act to come on and already by this point the crowd was getting quite rowdy at least as much as the milburn gig and I knew that this was only going to get worse as the night progressed yet I stayed there and tried to enjoy the 30 yr old punk sound brought to us by very middle-aged looking performers.

Another DJ set followed before Graham Coxon came on stage with his band, by this time I couldn't actually move at all, I was just one with the crowd and despite the elbows being locked into my side and the sweat pouring off my whole body i was still quite enjoying the show. I would have preffered Graham Coxon to have been on earlier for me to really enjoyed it properly.

As you can see with the last couple of Acts I have mentioned more about the crowd then the music, this is unfortunately because this is how i remember it, by the time Pete and Babyshambles came on the crowd was one big mush of people, if people jumped in front of you, you jumped too because you were so tightly pressed against them, this is ok if your pushed up against some gorgeous girl (some of the time) but not so much when your pushed up against some sweaty ginger bloke (the rest of the time). For a short time I was really able to embrace the fact that Pete was singing less than 10 meters away from me but then I soon remembered again that I couldnt actually breathe properly, I was in a lot of pain and within 5 minutes or so of the set starting I was on the floor with a huge crowd of raging fans peering over me. I dont think I am exagerating when I say that was one of the scariest moments of my life.. the thought did cross my mind that I was about to be trampled to death by a large crowd. I managed to haul myself up to my great relief but I didnt want to stay there any longer.. So i tried my hardest to push through the crowd grab my sister and bring us back to the less crowded areas. My sister will probably never forgive me for doing that but I really dont care, I was shitting myself in that crowd and so had to get out. I had had my time up close to pete but I knew I wouldnt really be able to enjoy the music whilst in that crowd.

We left soon after the Babyshambles set was finished and made our way home by 10:30ish

The moral of this story is I have realised that I have a fear of being trampled to death by large crowds.. until the next time bye bye

This is quite late really considering he left on Monday but better late than never as they always say. Basically this blog will first reminice over the years of Ant and Ross, including some lovely photos I have dug up from the archives. Then it will move onto the activities of the last weekend.SO..

I have known Mr. Ross Savill for a very long time, longer than I can really remember in fact as this footage from my 5th Birthday will show. Me at front centre and Ross behind the little girl (for those who are interested that little girl is Janine, you know the one). Another early picture, this time at my house on those old yellow sofa things we used to have. And I must say that even then my hair was stunning, I know this blog is meant to focus on Ross but really that hair is fantastic.

The years moved on and here is another birthday party of mine. I have nothing much to say about this one that would be any different from the first birthday one. I suppose it shows birthdays through the ages but the main reason I include it is because it shows a young Daniel Stevens. I have already exposed myself to embarrasment from youth photo so I might aswell bring others down with me.

Here slightly older, I picked this out because I felt it showed quite accutely Ross' poor fashion sense and point out that it hasn't got much better. Although my shirt too is not brilliant, Im not sure what this was, probably one of our parents birthdays and if I am not horribly mistaken this is what GJs looked like before it was GJs.

Now to embarras more people. Again we are slightly older and it probably is on one of my birthdays, that sad phase where I just invited people round to play computer games.. what sort of a birthday is that. Apart from young Ant and Ross, in this picture you can see a young Liam Morgan and Dominic Anson, how fun it is to drag you down with me.

We then move into the 2000s and Ant and Ross are growing into horrible greasy teenagers, of all the pictures I am putting up this by far the worst due to its horrible chavvyness. Just look at it, Im glad that phase ended quickly.

And so we move into the modern era and finally my hair is looking lovely. Again focusing on me. Anyway here we are at my 18th. How we have grown up from the days of our youth and with that I move onto my final picture of this section. A picture taken at Ross' leaving party. Only 6 months or so between the last two pictures and hence not that much difference apart from it does show my newly cut hair. I talk about my hair a lot.

So onto the second half of this blog and to the usual narrative type thing you have all been used to on my normal blogs.

On friday we all went along to Thorpe Park for a day of thrills. Of course it was wet and horrible weather, you've just got to love the British Summertime. Anyway we went on a number of rides from Nemesis Inferno to Tidal Wave where we got soaked and horriblly uncomfortable, from Colossus to Detonator.. had to wait about an hour for a 2 second drop, stupid bloody ride although it was scarier than it looked. It was overall a good day even if more than half of I was walking around in horrible wet clothes.

In the evening we had his going away party which was nice, good food and all that and of course it coincided with the final of big brother and so I missed Pete coming out. Very annoying that was.

As you may be able to see I am rushing this bit because this is already very long and you are probably getting bored but dont go just yet the saturday is good. We started by watching my sister perform a little gig type thing with a few of her mates which was pretty good really, she is annoyingly talented. Then me and Ross went to Kingston to get a nice shakeaway milkshake and I finally bought the new Razorlight album which I find is horribly overrated. Then we came back to Colliers Wood to prepare for the evenings go to the pub. Ooh I had a curry aswell somewhere in there.

This is where the night gets good. It was the Colliers Tup's one year anniversary and so they got in the first round which was nice. 1 pint on the house, then my mum bought me a couple and so on. It wasnt really going to be a get wasted kind of a night because the parents were there and Rossy isnt a get wasted kind of a fellow anyway, being a sportsman and all that he has to look after the body. But the drinks steadily flowed for me anyway and the music was getting louder. We all knew the night would end in dancing. So after we had treated Ross to his first ever shots we all made our way to the dance floor. By this time it was getting onto one o'clock and so only the hard-core partiers were there. Me, Ross, my mum, the MP and a few of her friends. The classic tunes were playing, from YMCA to Steps and S Club 7. but no macarena, every now and then I gave a shout of Macarena towards the DJ but to no avail. My Godmother having a lot of influence went up to the DJ herself and asked him to play, he said he would on one condition.. I led the dancing from ontop of the bar. So there it is the tale of the first and quite possibly last time I will ever dance on a pub bar. It was brilliant, I wasnt on my own a number of others were also on the bar including kerry mcgowan. Anyway I was the star and it was a great laugh.

Soon after we went home to bed at about 2. Sunday went by and then monday morning, the day of Ross' departure, I woke up stupidly early to go to his house to wave him off, then went back home to sleep.. and now he is in America.

END

Thursday 17th August 2006.. the day that my A-Level results come out.. so of course the first thing I did in the morning was go and get a whole lot of my hair chopped off, I mean what else does a boy do. I thought that I would treat you readers with the results of this hair surgery. It is a bit shorter than I had been expecting if I am honest but nevertheless I do like it.

After the hair cut I made my way to the school to pick up my results at about 11. At this point I was still not even nervous about it. I went in and picked up my envelope but I refused to open it until someone else I knew got there. Soon enough Matt Tate and Dave came in. We all opened together and BAM!! i had completely messed up, I got a B in politics when I had almost certified an A after 4 modules. I got a C in history which I was expecting really and finally an E in Physics after I had effectively failed the whole second year. But still I was upbeat. Tate was the only one of my mates who appeared to have done at least as well as he was hoping, unfortunately he was pretty much the only one who knew he wasnt going to university this year. All feeling a little bad we left for home quite quickly, most to try and get a universtiy place through the clearing system.

Walking around Wimbledon with Blondie and Matt Bond I was still relatively happy, it wasnt until I had to endure my own company that it really kicked in quite what had happened and how I didnt really know what I would be doing with myself. I got home, told my mum and thus got a bit of a speach of it might not be what you wanted but it is still quite good, well not in physics (little joke to lighten the somber mood). At this point I was quite miserable. As I didnt want to tell anyone mum got the delightful job of ringing round the good news.

My godmother who most of you now will know is the MP gave me a little motivational speech too, but this one wasnt sympathetic. The jist of it was basically you have to get off your arse and start thinking about what you are going to do. She told me to phone up the universities to make sure I couldnt get in and then if I didnt I should start looking for a job straight away even if not a permanent one. Of course after this I went straight back to sitting on the sofa and doing fuck all - excuse my language. But then soon she phoned back and gave me a number that I had to call for Essex and she said that she asked them and that they would let me in with the grades I got. So I called them not really expecting anything.

I talked to a man on the other end, an American, he asked me what I wanted to know and I explained that I hadnt done as well as I had hoped and I was wondering if I could still get a place. Now my biggest surprise came with his reply. "It says down here that you have been given unconditional offers by both Essex and Surrey (my insurance choice). My reaction was.. "really?" and he just replied yes. It was very confusing. After the phone call I went up to the computer and checked the UCAS website and it gave the same information as he did. I had been given unconditional offers.. I had been accepted.

 Unfortunately I havnt just accepted that and gone along with it. I still want my gap year, so I have to make my final decision on what I am doing in the next week or so.

The night that followed was not as big as we had been planning. No big dancy thing in Oceana but a little excursion down to Lloyds in Wimbledon. It was a nice way to end the day I thought. Most of my friends have got into a University through clearing if that is what they wanted and so we all celebrated with a few drinks. From what I saw no one got particularly drunk and we all went home at 12:30ish when it closed. THE END

The next blog will be a tearful and heartfelt goodbye to Ross who is leaving to spend a year in America tomorrow. Although sad it will include the partying before his departure which if I have not told you about already is something quite impressive!!