Extreme Bestival

All I can say is: What’s the point?!

How NOT to interview at Sainsbury’s

Nasty’s little brother decides to get a job at a supermarket to save up for a gap-year stint in the United States.

He got to the interview and was asked:




“Why do you want to work at Sainsbury’s?”




No one knows what he was thinking, whether he was joking or serious. We only know that he was serious about getting the job.




“Waitrose sucks!”




I guess we can conclude that dissing a rival supermarket doesn’t help.


It probably runs in the family though, since Nasty failed his Sainsbury’s interview the first time as well (he learnt his lesson and passed the second time).  Smart arses.

It’s about the beer, the chatter – and the cold

Nasty says he finds it strange that sometimes I don’t want to socialise.

I say I find it strange that people would want to stand on a street corner, outside a pub, in the cold, holding onto a beer from the corner-shop next door, talking non-meaningful things to people you don’t know.

I was more amused munching on my roll of After Eights, and watching as a black cab gets a flat tire from running smack right over a beer bottle.

Can we at least sit inside?

An involuntary slide show of random memories

Sometimes, I would be sitting at my desk in the office, writing up my To-Do list for the week.

Then I would have a flash of an image through my head. The sights and sounds of me walking through a street corner near the Prince Edward MTR station in Hong Kong; it was night-time, but the streets were very busy as usual, all the neon lights are on – exactly how it was when I would walk through the same street corner after hockey practice for many many nights.

This vivid image comes on for a second or two, and then it’s gone. I have no idea what triggered it, or where it came from. It’s like having dream, only you’re wide awake.

I could be making dinner at home, I could be shopping at Sainsbury’s, or I could be looking at a tiny tea shop in central London, and then I would be hit with a random but vivid image of the city or the people I call home.

I would have an image of me sitting in a fast food restaurant with my mom during a visit to Shenzhen, China for a cousin’s wedding.

Or it could be a steaming hot plate of barbecued pork belly on rice.

Or it could be the inside of a Chinese greasy spoon near my office I sometimes went to for lunch.

They only come on momentarily, and like waking up from a dream, I only remembered the ones above because I made the effort to write them down.

Interestingly, unlike dreams, it is usually when my brain is supposedly busy, engaged in a task, or not thinking of home at all, that the images come on.

They have no sound, no smell, nor taste. But they are clear, colourful, moving and alive, as if, for one split second, I have dunk my head into one of my repertoire of memories, or someone flipped a switch on and then off suddenly.

It’s happened for a while now, but I never really thought about it – until I am doing real work and that street corner comes up in my face.

I wonder if other people experience anything similar…

Bestival Part III: Roaming about doing nothing is good

Apparently, each year, Bestival has a fancy dress theme, and for 2009, it is Outer Space.

There were quite a few families at the festival.

I was walking through the camp grounds on the last day when I saw a dad trying to pack up the tent, the mom packing up supplies, one of their toddlers trying to climb up a lamp post, and the other toddler tugging at the dad’s trousers.

Not only am I impressed that these parents have the energy to go camping with toddlers in tow; nappies, warm milk, no toilets and all; but they were actually fussed enough to have them all dressed together in space-themed outfits! (In case the photo isn’t clear, the babies are dressed in silvery suits.)

Some people wonder what I did for those few days in one place, and I don’t blame them, because unless I went, I wouldn’t comprehend it too.

We did random things like…

…painting a few squares behind the giant I *heart* Bestival sign…

…gawk at other people’s fancy dress costumes because we didn’t have any…

…be impressed by this guy’s costume – until we realise that thing is so heavy he has to kneel down and rest every so often! Plus, he couldn’t really dance or go anywhere in the crowds because of it and it became a burden for 15 mins of fame…so I mocked him (and not the fact that we were too lame to have a costume…)

…sat in front of the Bollywood Bar and people-watched….

…ran around the maze and then looked down from a bridge and laugh at everyone else below walking into deadends (as if we hadn’t)…

…look for food when we’re hungry…

…trying to decide what to eat because of the many delicious (read: expensive) choices…

…gawk at about 200 people standing around in their underpants breaking the world record for most people gathered in one place in their pants…

….queue for toilets. Luckily this was still early so no queues are to be seen. But nearer to the camp sites, or as the crowds come out and the bigger the band is playing, the longer the queues…

…gawk at people waiting for a shower. About 10 shower stalls for 40,000+ people. Needless to say, we made do with wet wipes…

…get a mum tattoo for free…

…admire the expensive pay-in-advance erect-for-you type fancy tents…

…and the more mushroomy tents…

…look like a Smurf by having your face painted for free at the Oxfam tent as part of their campaign against climate change…

…stroll in front of the main stage at 2am and watch the workers pick up the day’s worth of plastic cups and beer cans – behind them the field is sparkly clean, and in front of them dotted with litter…

…walk back to the tent when tired, along this giant tulips-lined path…

…and admire the sunset.

Bestival was amazing. And I’ve been told by people that it was the first dry festival they’ve been to. We were extremely lucky to experience blue skies and warm days. I can’t promise I’ll say the same if everything was wet and muddy. But hey, come next year, I’ll take my chances. :)