As I was writing this post's title, this is who popped into my head at the mention of 'fame'. Yes, Lady Gaga. I think she's probably the epitome of what happens when fame goes wrong. Yeah, alright, I'll admit, she has catchy songs -
Bad Romance and
Alejandro spend days going round and round my head on some sort of loop - but she's a mess. I think fame definitely affects different people in different ways.
Frank Turner is definitely one of the
goodies. I can personally verify this, because I MET HIM. Yeah, I can attribute the slight break in posts to the fact that I went hooome! Oh, England -
la terra dei miei sogni (fine, I don't
actually dream about England. Maybe). :D Okay, so my mother would beg to differ with this mention of 'home', but Frank Turner was never gonna play Salt village hall, so needs must, and all that. It was a 600-strong solo acoustic gig at Academy2 in Birmingham and it was amaaazing. The support band weren't all that great - the lead vocalist looked like he should be rocking out to McFly in the privacy of his room, not actually performing - but Frank was! I don't really know what to say without sounding like a fangirl, but I will mention that when I sneakily spotted that he'd come back out onto the stage as the venue was starting to empty (there was no merchandise!) and jumped down behind the security barriers, I yanked The Boyfriend* across the room and he got a photograph, I got an autograph and got to see his beautiful new tattoo ('freedom' in sanskrit, or something) in the flesh! He was lovely, and seemed to geniunally have time for his fans.
To stop after discussing Frank Turner would not be doing this night justice, however. There was another person there who was the perfect example of what happens when power and responsibility goes crazy. I don't remember her name, but she reminded me of a Yoga instructor, so Yoga it is. Yoga started out being amicable enough. She appeared because the nice bouncers on the door asked if I could manage steps. Er, yes, I can, but going in the lift is easier and I'm lazy. So elevator it was. Yoga was then radio'd and dutifully appeared several minutes later to escort us through the venue (God forbid we run amok!). Upon arriving at the lift, she informed us not to touch the walls. Um, okay. We all shuffled a bit closer together. I'll admit right now that I have the most awful sense of direction known to (wo)man, but even I was beginning to realise that the venue was not
this high up. The woman just told us to "wait and see, instead of [her] explaining." I was right. We arrived on to what I can only describe as a rather large balcony. Yoga then went on to explain that she was head of security (we needed to know this why, exactly?) and that we weren't allowed downstairs unaccompanied to get drinks from the bar (total rip-off, anyway, but that's a story for a different time) - that she'd have to come up and get us if we wanted any, or to go to the toilet, or to in any way move from our balcony-esque prison. She didn't just explain it in a matter-of-fact way, though - it was as if she took glee in explaining all of these things to us, and was generally rather patronising. Needless to say, we didn't stay there. Power fail, Yoga.
I was pretty impressed at having met one famous person in Birmingham, so imagine my surprise when The Boyfriend started staring at some really tall person.
"That's the one-liner guy off
Mock the Week, Jessi." Unfortunately, I was unable to run fast enough to get in front of this guy to see his face, but I was assured it was, in fact, Stewart Francis. He was just totally
unassuming and falls into the
apathetically famous group, in my opinion.
I punctuated my stay in Birmingham with a trip to the
BigChurchDayOut in Leicestershire, with my friend Spongebob and her sister, Flute**. The headliners were
Switchfoot, and while I didn't meet Jon Foreman (I honestly probably would've cried), I'm impressed by the way they use their fame - and their new album (
Hello, Hurricane) isn't half-bad, either! Although (and, okay, Flute and Spongebob are gonna be the only people who appreciate this), I did get rather sick of the continual guilt tripping by anti-poverty charities. I just wanted to see
Jon Foreman Switchfoot!
The fun and frolics didn't last very long, though, sadly. All too soon, I was boarding Ryanair flight FR1702 from East Midlands to Milan Bergamo. Or, I was
trying to board said flight, at least. Due to Ryanair's ridiculous money-making ways - the ways which involve having a stupidly cheap basic fare, and then adding obscene amounts of money for any passenger wanting to carry check-in luggage - my trusty purple suitcase was positively bulging with shorts, tee shirts and DVDs. There was no way this little baby was gonna hit sub-twenty kilos (just like the way I'm never gonna be a size8 model - damn you, cheddar cheese...). This posed two problems:
i) how on earth do I lug this thing up the 'plane's steps?
ii) how on earth do I make it to the 'plane's steps in the first place without having an oversized baggage charge slapped on me at some point in my East Midlands airport experience?
The answer was deceptively simple. Assistance. You know how I mentioned earlier that I like taking lifts because they're easier? It also gives you much more help. (Case in point: During my recent trip to Turin to see the Shroud, I plonked myself in a wheelchair to avoid the massive queues. I'm sorry, but there really aren't many perks. (Okay, maybe apart from the queue jumps at theme parks, and the new car that I have on order...))
After waving mamma off, I sat myself in the special pink seats. Y'know, the seats that scream, 'This girl is a retaaard!' (I was sorta bemused when some Italians came and sat next to me - I turned around and told them that they were sat in cripple seats and, boy, did they soon move! :D) So, yeah, I was whisked through security with A List'er efficiency by a very nice man, and plonked in more pink seats by my departure gate.
Given that I was feeling emotional in a way that only a woman can at this point (and that I wanted to make the most of my final opportunity to use my Orange Magic Number), I called The Boyfriend. We had a very nice conversation (so nice, in fact, that I geniunally can't remember any of what we discussed!), but out of the corner of my peripheral vision I saw a woman in a hi-viz jacket plonk herself down in one of the pink seats opposite me. Ah well, I still had another good forty minutes before my 'plane was due to board so I wasn't too fussed. But she just kept staring. Honestly, I'm sorta used to it, so I stared back. Normally that's enough to make the staring stop, but all she did was eyeball me back. Finally, after about another twenty minutes of terse staring, she loudly and obnoxiously announced that she was going to MOVE ME TO THE GATE. Like I was a retard, or something. (Oh, wait...) I took this as a cue to end my 'phonecall, and she just stood there, staring at me, long after I'd ended the call. "Are you done?" was the only conversation she made. I nodded. At this point, I feel like she should have a name. I fear the politically correct police will shoot me if I call her Hitler. And she beared a rather unfortunate resemblance to someone I used to know in relation to my school days, so let's call her J. J. wheeled me over to the correct departure gate (after shoving my suitcase between my ankles, and precariously balancing my crutch on top) and, well, left me. Why this simple manoeuvre required me to end my conversation I'll never know. After what seemed like an eternity, she took me out onto the tarmac ("SWITCH YOUR 'PHONE OFF." I dimmed the screen and put it onto standby, given that there were other passengers openly walking past still mid-conversation. Bitch.) and across to the 'plane (I did nearly kill her when she asked the staff at the departure gate if my baggage needed to be checked. Luckily for me, they said no). "Get out of the wheelchair." I obliged, feeling suspiciously like a certain character from
Little Britain. She took my luggage and I started to make my way up the rickety stairs. It seemed the man in front of me was having problems boarding, so I stopped. "Please move up those steps so that I can put your bag down." God forbid you have to hold my bag for a milisecond long than is required, woman. She took my bag into the cabin and then didn't hestitate to do a runner. Fortunately for me, some nice airhostess took pity on me and helped me to stow my stuff away. Oh, and all of the quoted speech was literally the extent of our 'conversation'.
Luckily, I made it back to Italy in one piece, even if I had to be escorted across the tarmac at the other side because the bus half went without me. I did feel famous, though.
* I don't think The Boyfriend has ever made an appearance on the blog (he definitely wouldn't have appeared in the post about cheddar cheese. Random fact#1: HE HATES CHEESE?! No, I don't understand how this is possible, either), but after his admission that he follows me and my blogging adventures (I'm not sure this whether this counts as a slightly stalkerish trait?), I realised that he maybe merits a mention since it's his fault I had the opportunity to go to the show and therefore turn into a pool of fangirly mess in front of one of my favourite musicians; and also because he looks after me when I go to the homeland, and buys me sausage and egg McMuffins (with an extra hash brown and barbecue sauce, obviously) at 6:30am. I'm giggling at the fact that his first appearance is on a post about music. Random fact#2: The Boyfriend is a complete music geek (read: Frank Turner fanboy).
** While I'm sure Spongebob and Flute wouldn't mind being identified, I quite like thinking up psuedonyms.
This is what Pizza Hut would be like if it was actually good. It has the tastiest pizza EVER, and the freshest chips I've ever tasted (yes, I'm looking at you, McDonald's - take note!). The guy in there is an absolute sweetheart, and I should really know his name by now given the amount of times I've been there this year.
What can I say? This place has made my year abroad indimenticabile. It has, hands down, the best gelato I've EVER had. And it's cheap. And, best of all, it's just down the street from me. Honestly, just writing this post makes me wanna go out and get some gianduja ghiacciata (semi-frozen Nutella) and dulche de leche (boiled condensed milk, basically, like the stuff you put in banoffee pie) RIGHT NOW. I sense a slight pattern forming here because, once again, the oh-so-lovely Francesco has been the provider of many a banterous conversation and free icecream cup. :D (And then there was the famous friends-with-benefits situation... not with me, I hasten to add) I'm geniunally gonna miss this place - the thought of getting a pot of Ben&Jerry's Cookie Dough out of the library foyer vending machine doesn't hold quite the same allure as it once did.
Oh, the piadina. It's like a cross between a panino and a wrap, but better! Literally half of my student loan must've gone to this place this year...
