The Fairs?
It's difficult to know what to say about 'the Fairs',
mostly because ones faculties are so wrecked for the
majority of time one spends at them. There's
something complacent about them, but that
complacency helped initially to force INCUBUS
into discovering characters like The Beggar,
Mistress Crabbyquim, Black Bart, etc, up to Psycho
the Clown and the Goblins. And of course there's
something extremely tolerant and even self-critical
about them, which allows the above characters to go
around insulting everybody.
Is this coherent so far?
Probably not, but then 'The Fairs' never are. A
mixture of good and had, giving rise to a love-hate
relationship, the best kind of relationship anyway.
Lets get specific:
LOVE: All the Barshams we went to, even the last
one when it pissed down, which was probably the
best of all.
HATE: The ones we went to which merged with
more established institutions; i.e. riding on the
dodgems with a gutful of brown rice.
LOVE: Arriving and leaving.
HATE: The bogs.
LOVE: The tent next to mine which always
organises a bonfire, late at night.
HATE: The ice-cream vans, the people who sell fags
for 1.50 a packet and the site dealer who you can
never find when you want him.
LOVE: A lot of friends made over the years.
HATE: People who turn up and spend the whole
time moaning, (apart from other performers, who
have a right to moan, being artists and therefore
more sensitive than ordinary people.)
LOVE: Having a moan with another artist (or even
ordinary people come to that).
HATE: Plastic glasses.
LOVE: Remembering to collect the deposit on a real
`glass' glass.
HATE: 'Theme' fairs, because nobody ever bothers
to stick to the theme, so why bother?
LOVE.: The hilarious attempts made by performers
to relate their acts to the 'theme'.
HATE: The readiness of audiences to accept any old
crap, even though that's helped us out on a couple of
bum nights.
LOVE: Too many more to mention and that goes for
the hates too, but all in all:
NO CONTEST.
And here's to next year (without plastic glasses)
love,
Paddy.
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