Excuses excuses excuses….

I see that the Fina World Championships (swimming for those who don’t know) are on at the moment and that those who should be tops are not and they are not happy.

Seemingly there is a new swimming suit on the block. It is a 100% polyurethane swimsuit which means that it offers a lot more buoyancy than a normal suit and because of that, more of the swimmers energy is used for propulsion rather than staying afloat.

The winner of yesterdays 200m Freestyle Final, Paul Biedermann, wore the suit in the final. He bet Michael Phelps (first major loss in 4 years) after leading from the second turn and finished in one minute 42.00 seconds beating Phelps' World Record by 0.96. Oh, he also won the 400m earlier in the week!

Now many out there are upset about this suit, they claim it is unfair and Fina seem to agree. The suit will be banned from 2010. Phelps looked disgusted with his performances. He had this to say about Biedermann and also seems to be hinting that the suit helped… “He's come down a lot in the last year and I think it's going to be fun next year when swimming's back to swimming” though he claims fatigue actually cost him the race.

Sounds like sour grapes to me. Had his swimming suit sponsor developed the suit, chances are that Phelps would have worn it for the championships. Unfortunately they didn’t so he couldn’t.

As for the fatigue…. Any chance that the fatigue could be brought on by stupid behaviour like this?  http://tinyurl.com/cdkcnk

Oxegen 2009…

Well Oxegen is over for another year. Thank god for that! I honestly don’t think I could have stood another day of wind, rain and mud. Am I getting too old for this shit? Am I fuck! It would be nice though if we had one Oxegen where the weather was good. I’m not looking for anything unreasonable, just temperatures in the late teens early 20’s, no wind and certainly no rain! Is that too much to ask? Well obviously it is as the weather this year was a disaster!

I have read many reports in the papers about the atmosphere at this years festival. Some reporters have portrayed it as been an unfriendly festival, one marred by trouble. Well.. I don’t know what festival they attended, but that was not my experience and certainly was not the experience of those I know.

I lost count of the people I met… To the girl I met at the toilets and sang to/with, its rare to meet an attractive red head with a good personality, you were her! To the wee thing from Northern Ireland, seriously, you were hot, damn hot and that boyfriend doesn’t know what he has.To that crowd from Roscommon, what can I say?? To the cute girl in the pixie hat from Roscommon, as a friend of mine once said, if you have to add a 1/2 to your age, your just too young, sorry. You should have lied and said you were 18!! To that strange girl from Mullingar that I got dumped with (thanks lads…), don’t tell me “I’m different to all the other girls you will meet”. Being different is not always a bad thing, but in your case… To the guy in his mid 50’s up the front for Janes Addiction, thanks for feeling my pain when the battery died in my camera. You do know your camera had an optical zoom didn’t you???

Musically, this was probably one of the best Oxegens so far. Janes Addiction rocked, what a show that was. It was their Irish debut, hopefully they will be back soon.

The Fun Lovin Criminals reignited my love for them.. smooth, cool and effortless on stage. Therapy?, I waited a long long time to see these guys. I really wish I had not waited!! Great show and nice guys too, thanks for the photos!

In 2008 the Ting Tings came and conquered one of the tents. This year they were on the O2 stage, a big step up. Last year, their singer Katie White was a relatively shy and covered up young lady. This year she stepped out on stage in a shiny green skin tight cat suit… I guess she found her inner sex kitten! They put on another great show.

Speaking of cat suits… Miss Katy Perry arrived in another skin tight outfit and I think she surprised most of her audience by proving that she was not just a pretty face with big boobs and a nice bum. The girl can actually sign live and puts a hell of a lot in to her performances.

The Killers came home for the weekend (has there been an Oxegen without them??) and had me dancing / flailing around like a lunatic for nearly 2 hours!

Other great acts over the weekend were Nick Cave (god like), Jerry Fish (what a crooner), Eagles of Death Metal (Rock n’ roll baby, ROCK N’ ROLL!) and finally 2 Many DJ’s. Legend has it that I only ended up in the tent watching them as it was on the way to the loo and whilst that is true, I did wait over an hour before I gave in to the ache in my balls and went for a pee!

Oh and last but certainly not least, The Saturdays. If ever a band was out of place at a festival, it was these 5 girls! Due to the fact that they are hot and that it was pissing down outside, the Heineken Green Spheres Tent was crammed to capacity (8000???) for these girls. They stepped up to the mark and soon had all the crowd singing along to their poptastic hits. It is a very strange sight watching a skin head with head and neck tattoos singing along to Up! Well done those girls!

A quick note to The Kings of Leon… Lads, we know you are good, you know you are good, but a bit of interaction with the crowd goes a long way. Your set was boring. Have a talk with Perry Farrell about crowd interaction. Oh and Lady Gaga… less talk and more singing. If I want to be preached to at a gig, I will go to see U2 (actually I am in a few weeks time!) Trust me on this, no one was there to hear your views on world peace! They were there to check out your ass and maybe dance a bit.

 

A final word of thanks goes to the lovely Red Bull girls who managed to keep me wired to the moon over the course of the 3 days. Without you girls, I would have struggled!

A Strange Year….

Cad-Monkey.net is coming up to its first birthday. What a difference a year makes… This time last year, I was just back from a nice holiday in the south of Spain, tanned and relaxed and had made it through Oxegen with a smile on my face. I had a good job and not many worries.

Today, I am neither tanned nor relaxed but I made it through Oxegen alright, still with a smile, though the mud didn’t help!

I lost a good friend in the last year to an illness I never knew he had. How does a friend not know these things? I still am stunned by his death. Two friends got married, I tried my best to put a halt to the proceedings, but sure they were determined to go ahead! One is now a daddy. How long before the other succumbs?

The face of modern day Ireland has changed dramatically… The building industry in in terminal decline.  This rapid decline in fortunes culminated with me losing my job 10 weeks ago. Not exactly the summer I had planned!

I know as I write this that there are many people out there worse off than me, and my thoughts are with them, but sometimes, just sometimes it all gets on top of me. When it does, I try not to let it show, why worry other family members or friends, they have their own problems. It would be nice to have someone to bounce these things off though, apart from anonymous readers (do I even have any, who knows…)

A year of highs and lows… Too many lows and not enough highs. Here is to year 2 of Cad-Monkey.net, hopefully it will be better!