Professor Green

Isle of Wight > Hackney > Magaluf

Posted June 28, 2012

This is not a complaint, I’m just stating a fact; when you work in the entertainment industry the concept of ‘weekend’ becomes rather skewed. It’s no longer 3 nights of rest and recuperation, in fact Friday night often starts with ‘Right, time to go to work…’. And while we may, at times, consume similar amounts of alcohol to those who are not at work, that doesn’t mean we’re letting off steam. Generally it’s not a problem, but from time to time an itinerary pops into the inbox that makes you want to hide on the sofa and drown your sorrows and your phone in a glass of whiskey.

Last weekend was one of these. We started off with the Isle of Wight festival. Thankfully the mud deluge had abated by Saturday afternoon. We arrived to a relatively calm island – no traffic jams, a bit of mud but nothing too serious. PG headlined the biggest tent, playing to one of the biggest, most responsive festival crowds I’ve seen. A bit of voice strain for him, too much JD for Keyboard Carl, but nothing anyone hadn’t seen before. So around midnight we set off for London, a bit of sleep and the Radio One Hackney Weekend. And that’s when things took a turn for the worse.

We arrived at the ferry in torrential rain and discovered we were two hours early. Now trust me, there’s not a whole lot to do on the Isle of Man in the early hours of the morning. So we sat in the car, listened to the rain and those who weren’t in the kiddy seats did their best to sleep.

Onto the ferry. Cue DJ IQ suddenly being the life and soul of the party while everyone else is fading fast. Off the ferry and it’s 3 hours back to London. Check into a beautiful hotel at 5am, sleep on the sofa of someone’s room. Get up and out by 10am. Off to Hackney for the Radio One weekend. First slot on the main stage. Gig done. Off-stage… and then Stephen says ‘You’re coming to Spain….’ ‘O…..K…..’ Now at this point I was planning a night that was rather more ’2 pints at the football, bottle of red wine and a pizza’ while Green was suggesting ‘get to Spain for a 3am club gig in Magaluf’. I can’t lie, I’ve been to Magaluf and I didn’t like it. Now if you’re 18 and from a small town then the idea of going to a place that seems like one massive Spanish-themed bar populated by youngsters who give the cast of Geordie Shore a run for their money in the ‘let’s get mortal’ stakes, may well appeal. But for me, it’s just a shit hole with a load of bollocks bars.

That said, if anyone ever offers you a free flight anywhere and you decline then you’re a douchebag in my books. Central line home, shower, shave, swap the leather trousers for something more Eurotrash, find passport, don’t pack bag (we’re only there for 18 hours). Central line, Liverpool Street, Stansted, make the plane, find seat, try to make polite small talk with neighbour.

Neighbour is some grumpy dude. It seems he was partying on a ferry the night before and is all out of the milk of human kindness.

We landed in Mallorca around 11pm. Now I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Spain in the last few years and I can’t help thinking this is why they’ve gone bust:

Everything’s so damn well made, so expensive, but there’s just no-one there.

You know one of those ones when you’re so tired that everything just seems funny.

You should be crying but you just start laughing at the ridiculousness of your life.

We all retired to our rooms – not enough time for a sleep but too long to sit in the bar. I read a couple of chapters of Bond and took his advice: a cold shower and then order some alcohol.

When Green emerged I could see that he’d chosen sleep over booze but he too, was in a sleep-deprived state of I couldn’t give a fuck. I remember asking him what was going on with the haircut and his reply “I don’t give a fuck, that’s what’s going on with my haircut.”

What was good about this gig was there was none of the usual waiting around. He got out of bed at quarter to, we walked down to the club, through the back door and straight onto stage. And then shit got buck wild.

I’ve seen it before and you know what, when Stephen doesn’t give a fuck, you get some of his best performances. I won’t go into too much detail because I want to edit the footage into something good but people got sucked into the crowd, members of the public got Jack Daniels in places they didn’t want it, explosions went off that no-one knew about, and for once we all got to see Trevor do something other than stand around looking hard. Magaluf went mortal.

IQ at work. No that’s not a mic in his hand. That’s a whiskey and coke.

Now I wouldn’t want to say that it was one of the best gigs that BCM have had this year but that’s what one of their senior employees said.

Gig done. 4am. To bed or not to bed, that is the question. I flopped and went for the former option – the pull of the pool and a day of sun after a month of English rain won out over free booze and flying back to England feeling like an emotional leper. And boy was that the right choice because 5 hours of sleep later some of us were sat here.

This is pretty much all I did all day:

Well a bit of lunch also. Not bad for a Monday. It beats doing spreadsheets. But that’s my point – Monday is often our Sunday. If we’ve been working all weekend on 4 hours sleep a night then I’m not going to feel Catholic guilt for taking time off on Monday for R&R&Rosé.

Magaluf… aah, what a strange place. Peep this picture. Now don’t look at Felix or his Puma garms… check the lady over his left shoulder. Yup, it’s 2pm on Monday in a fairly swanky restaurant, women are doing lunch, children are behaving themselves at the table when out of nowhere two strippers turn up and stand on podiums by the pool and go all MC Hammers Pumps In a Bump all up in this place.

Strange place. 7pm, time to fly home. And for once I wasn’t getting on the plane feeling like I’d been brain raped by a small Spanish island. The same couldn’t be said for everyone but hey, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

Settled into a bit more of this….

Only to be disturbed by this little monkey…

Wait, wrong picture… this little monkey…

Aaaah, yes I know, weak joke, and that’s all it is. I’ve got to say, for once, the flights were some of the best parts of the weekend. Luke, Pat, Felix and I put the world to rights. And we laughed a lot.

This means trouble.

So high five to a weekend that got progressively better. It started off muddy, cold and uncomfortable and ended with some peace and quiet, sunshine, swimming and a reminder that, when this job is good, it’s the fucking best job in the world, or should I say the best job I’ve ever done – and I’ve managed wrestlers and filled graves and they were both pretty awesome. Peace.

 

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From Rufus: Summer Holiday Number One

Posted May 29, 2012

I’ve just got back from five days in the south of Spain, sipping gin, eating ham and most of all riding dirt bikes through the mountains. Five of the best days of my life; I can’t explain how great these bikes are…. it’s like learning to tap dance while riding a horse, a bit like snowboarding but 10 times more fun. One of the few sports that’s way more fun going uphill. It’s tough as hell but if you like bikes you need to try this.

 

 

These things are indestructible, what they can do is just mind blowing, they’ll get up anything, just so long as you can hang on them. I flipped mine twice on the penultimate day but unfortunately my camera had run dry by then. I filmed this whole thing on a Go-Pro and the new Olympus Tough camera which is a pocket camera you can drop onto concrete from 2metres and film full HD while 10metres underwater. It’s awesome. The only problem with it is if you’ve had a few drinks you find yourself trying to test its capabilities in the stupidest of places.

I spent five days riding with the guys from Dust Devils. If you’re near Marbella or Porto Banus and you fancy a day’s riding I couldn’t rate these guys highly enough; brand new bikes and they know their stuff and will suit every day to your wishes and abilities. I couldn’t fault them. Well, actually having lunch with them was like breaking bread with Cannon & Ball, shite jokes galore but aside from that it was superb start to finish. Great guys. Anyhow, to Paul, Peter, James, my body armour and my buddy Tim for carrying my bags home because I bust my back, thank you very much, I hope to see you all soon…..

Oranges straight from the tree.

My friend Tim. He’s like my drug dealer. A free CBT here, an introduction to a Harley toting woman, now I’m a fully fledged junkie.

I read a lot of James Bond and drank a lot of gin. Bond has a great theory on what you can and can’t drink when and where. No G&Ts in Parisian cafes, only an Americano will do because the French don’t do spirit and mixers properly.  The Spaniards on the other hand know what they’re doing. Half and half, lots of ice and no mixer from a gun out here.

Jamon.

And with a good crianza at only 2 Euros a glass, let’s all hope that the Euro keeps tanking and then that way an extra bottle or two is our way of helping those poor Spaniards get back on track.

Honda Goldwings are massive but I’m huge so they look tiny under me.

So, go – make the most of the Euro taking a kicking; cheap holidays, cheap wine and the maddest, baddest biking you’ll ever do. Trust.

Rufus

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