Benicassim 2011

It's a rainy Bank Holiday Monday, more than a month after I got back from Benicassim, and to cheer myself up from the sheer misery of August feeling like December and realising that festival season has, ultimately, nearly ended, I thought I'd recap with a blog of my time at Benicassim (which I promised ages ago!) so I can reminisce and forget how utterly miserable I am to currently be in Britain.

We flew from Liverpool John Lennon airport to Alicante - then hung around Alicante train station for about 4 hours waiting for our train connection to Benicassim, as you can't fly there directly. We had our luggage with us so couldn't go for a massive wander but in-between sticking to plastic chairs and going for several pisses to pass the time, we had a little wander around Alicante. In contrast to the chilly English morning before our flight departed, the sun in Alicante was so hot that it was painful to walk and I could only cope with about 10 minutes outside before I wanted to go back in the shade for fear that my skin would start to melt and I would collapse onto the floor in a pile of gooey, suncream-soaked skin and ginger hair. Thankfully this didn't actually happen. Due to my sheer idiocy at thinking Benicassim was in the middle of nowhere, I was frantically searching for a shop selling alcohol and festival supplies in Alicante because I didn't realise that Benicassim was an actual town with actual shops. Alcohol is insanely cheap in Spain - as are cigarettes, and, well, pretty much everything else. You could easily get a 70cl bottle of vodka for 4 euros (about £3.50) and I'm pretty sure beer was cheaper than water in one shop...

Inside the train station there were asleep Beni-goers everywhere. The shop behind also sold a range of crazy things like lamps in the shape of Buddha heads - marvellous. What I've always needed to accompany me on a long train journey.

Once we caught our train the journey took about 3 hours which seems a long time after already flying but there was air-con and the journey was quite alright. There were allocated seats so if you were travelling with friends and didn't book your tickets together you'd more than likely be sat on your own, but this wasn't much of a problem as 95% of people on the train were going to Benicassim and the majority of them were from Preston. They played the horrendous film Burlesque on the TVs both for the journey there and the journey back - I'm not sure whether the Spanish train system has some kind of allegiance with Christina Aguilera but either way, you couldn't really watch it because it was in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Most people just had a nap or got drunk instead. Some annoying girls who wouldn't have been out of place on Skins got wasted and started flirting with a 50-year old Spanish man called José until they could convince him to shout "REEM" down the carriage - I don't watch The Only Way Is Essex but I believe this is some terrible catchphrase from it and frankly anyone using the word in a real-life setting should be burnt at the stake, á la Joan of Arc.

The train journey itself was quite scenic and when I wasn't asleep I was transfixed by all the graffiti everywhere - I don't think we went past an inch of wall that wasn't covered in it. It made for some light reading as we would go past an English word now and again, the main culprits being "BITCH" and "ARSE".

We walked from the train station to the festival (they had buses running but we couldn't be bothered waiting and it was only a 15 minute walk) and then had to lug our stuff for the half a mile of bloody metal fences to enclose the non-existent queue when we arrived - dragging a suitcase down the dustiest path ever in the heat was truly exhausting, at one point I thought my arm was going to fall off (*note for next time, don't bring anything on wheels). We met up with friends and set up our tent in Camp FIB which was about a 5 minute walk from the main arena. There was also a camp nearer to the beach but you had to pay extra to camp there (for the small luxury of separate shower cubicles etc). Bearing in mind the festival only started on the Thursday, by 6pm on Monday our campsite was close to full, causing many people to set up camp in the field next to us. It was completely swamped with water and you couldn't help but feel sorry for it's new inhabitants, as the look of complete misery swept over their faces and they lugged their belongings through the soggy field. It was like a scene from a sad war film apart from instead of weapons and war uniforms they were carrying lilos and wearing dickhead sunglasses.

Us about an hour after we got there and had met up with the comrades - woohoo! We made it etc!

 Lovely sunset on the first night. It made me all soppy and happy.

There were loads of trees around the campsite which was handy as you could hang stuff like towels and bikinis on them and they'd dry really quickly. It helped to keep an eye on these though - a few girls got their bikinis nicked by drunken boys. One night it was exceptionally windy causing the outside of our tent to blow off at 5am and a deckchair to blow into my head, to which I yelled "FUCK OFF YOU BASTARD!", shortly after realising that I was actually shouting at the wind. I nearly lost my bikini bottoms that night after they were firmly plucked from the tree branch upon which they were hanging by heavy winds, but i soon found them a bit further down the camp before some doped up boy came along and tried to put them on his head, or something of the like.

It made sense to try and get a spot under the sheets because otherwise it was boiling and you'd roast like a chicken. The floor was rough as fuck - even through a roll mat and a pillow you could feel the stones and it was practically impossible to hammer your tent down because the ground was so hard. Most people just bought lilos or airbeds to sleep on but I just went with my flimsy roll-mat and was partly immobile by the end of the week. The views were amazing - the mountains in the background got most of the rain whenever clouds appeared and although on the first night there was a slight thunder storm - in fact some of the loudest thunder I've ever heard, thinking "Oh fuck why did I do this? This festival is going to be wank" it blew over in 10 minutes and was enjoyable more than anything.

We went down to the beach most days as it was only a 20-30 minute walk, depending on how hungover you were or how fast you could be bothered walking. It would also be wise to occasionally stop and fan yourself down or throw a bottle of water over yourself - I know I've said it already but it was BLOODY HOT! REALLY BOILING! There wasn't much to do in the campsite in the day so most people went for a wander either to the beach or the town. The beach was gorgeous and there were random bands playing most days. There were also arts & culture displays throughout the town to check out but we didn't catch any of these as we were too busy playing volleyball in the sea and having nosebleeds (well...that was just me). On the first night there was a beach party which looked like a lot of fun but we were too knackered to go and decided to catch up on sleep so we weren't fucked for the rest of the week. It's a long time if you're only used to 3-4 day festivals and considering the music was only on the last few days you had to be sensible to pace yourself, for the heat if nothing else. I didn't drink nearly as much as I thought I would because 1. it was so hot I don't think I could've been able to bear being hungover and 2. I seemed to get drunk really quickly, I'm guessing due to de-hydration and sweating out the alcohol. I must have drank about 3 litres of water a day but didn't piss any more than usual - sorry, TMI - which is why you have to drink loads of water or YOU'LL DIE! (not to sound like the nagging mother but really...come on people. Staying alive is quite important). Anyway back to the beach. It was really clean and the sand was great - this random American camping with us had been in Barcelona and kept going on about how shit the beach there was but this one was lovely. The sand was even a perfect consistency to bury our friends in and give them raging sand cock erections (see below).

Phwoar. Impressive.

LOOK AT THE NICE BEACH! I had to use factor 50 as my skin tone reflects that of Edward Cullen (unfortunately) but it meant that all of the sand stuck to me so whatever tan/burn I got was speckled. Also about 10 minutes in the sea was enough to leave me with shoulders burnt enough to look like an overcooked Yorkshire Pudding and so if I go back I might consider wearing some kind of sun protection suit to avoid the bother. If, however, you are less pale you'll still need to use loads of suncream because after an hour or two in the sun most of us resembled a smacked arse. I swear I had about 8 layers on every day and by the end of the week all of us half-pale, half-burnt gingers gave each other the "I feel your pain" nod as we waddled off to make our journey home with sunburnt bums and red noses.

One of the things I loved about the festival was that it felt like a proper holiday, with the added bonus of having music and being able to get away with "festival style" - basically walking around half naked and drunk, without brushing your hair all day. I actually think I had more fun slumming it in tents for a week than I would have done in a hotel, purely because camping's always a laugh but also because we had decent access to communal showers and the toilets weren't even that bad. They were pretty clean for festival loos, the only bad thing being they didn't have any hand gel anywhere and everyone eventually got the shits. Mmm. You could go for showers whenever, and unlike going for a shower at a UK festival no-one felt weird about it - in fact I could've walked around comfortably in my bikini because no one gave a shit about what anyone looked like. Most people showered in their bikinis although there were quite a lot of topless girls in the showers too *hears klaxons go off in most mens heads about how they need to go to Benicassim next year* and the only time you really saw naked people was at 4am when people were off their tits and decided to have a communal naked shower. However, this didn't stop me seeing a VERY naked Spanish man in the showers at 2pm with the most blatant erection I've ever seen. In fact, I don't know how he even maintained it because the showers were FREEZING, but let's just say that despite a ban on barbecues there was still plenty of sausage on-site.

Lovely.

We found a nice fountain and obviously had to jump in.

Nice looking building #395846 

"Oh I wonder what that word means in Spanish?" uttered my mum as I showed her my holiday photos...

So the town of Benicassim itself was really nice. I was slightly worried it'd be one of those tacky tourist resort towns but it wasn't at all, just a nice authentic Spanish town. There were enough stands around for tourists and the notorious Chinese shop selling EVERYTHING but also loads of traditional Spanish cafés and restaurants, all at decent prices. There were also lots of supermarket shops for food so if you didn't want to live off beans all week or try and keep food cool you could just buy something each day. Everything was madly cheap and we ended up living off bread, cheese and Allioli - it was impossible to keep things cool and even cool boxes were useless in the heat for anything other than sitting on. After going to the beach once, absolutely everything became covered in sand and dust for the rest of the week and I think most of the calories I consumed were actually from dust. Yum.

As usual it's important to see where the locals are eating - there will be nice places to eat and truly rank places. We ate at a nice little café but had a problem with the bill every time, so if you do eat out you definitely need to check these things. Also you may end up with a lasagne that looks like this:

You could get a better lasagne in Iceland for 50p, probably. (Be warned).

Em and I chilling back at camp. We ended up buying chairs and sitting in them for most of the week because it was too hot to move.

Now to talk about the music - finally. Due to the heat in the day the bands started at about 6pm and went on until 4am, with DJ sets going on until 6-7am. Although unconventional compared to UK festivals, I thought it was quite good as you could do whatever you wanted to do in the day and then staying up to watch the bands wasn't so hard because it was just like a couple of nights out in a row. By the time the sun set it was a really comfortable temperature considering we would've been sweating buckets if the bands were on in the day. Another good thing is that despite it being an alright temperature the crowd wasn't squashed together - even towards the front everyone had their own space so you weren't sweating like a pig in a woolly jumper and also had room to dance however you wished. I saw some shocking dance moves that will probably never leave my memory.

The lads we were camping with ended up with Royal Mail high-vis jackets to which I kept making puns like "that's quite a large package you've got there" and "I think your package is too big to fit through my letterbox". I'd then laugh at myself because I'm so bloody hilarious.

Going into the venue lads get frisked and girls generally didn't. I managed to sneak alcohol in with me every day either in the front of my shorts (apparently large pubic bulges on girls aren't a strange thing in Spain) or concealed under a scarf. You can only buy drinks with tokens in the arena (2.50 euros each) which will buy you a beer or a bottle of water. For a spirit and a mixer it's 3 tokens (7.50 euros - not cheap!) but apparently they don't do it in measures, simply "say when" so you could probably get a whole cup of vodka if you wanted. So not that bad for the money, but even better if you can sneak your own in. Tee hee.

Thursday: The Streets, Chase & Status, Jack Beats

Hahahaha

We only ended up going down to the music for about 1am as we thought we'd drink a bit first and then go down. I thought I didn't like The Streets but they were amazing live, plus considering it was one of their last shows ever it was amazing to see them. People were really getting into it and everyone went mental for "Fit But Don't You Know It". I think they sound ten times better live than they do on their albums too, so it's a shame they're stopping touring! We caught the end of Chase & Status who were full of energy as usual and then went to watch Jack Beats. Considering I was somewhat sober by 2am when Jack Beats came on and everyone around me was either wasted or pilled up I could have probably enjoyed it a bit more if I had more to drink but it was still a laugh. It wasn't so much people watching the stage as a load of people just dancing in their own space on a dusty bit of ground, surrounded by a border of arty-looking French boys eyeing up all of the girls (and boys) bums.


Friday: Elbow, The Stranglers, James Murphy, Friendly Fires


We saw Elbow who were really good but it was strange seeing them at 11pm at night as they're very much a "sunset band". Started a bit slow with The Birds - I'm not a massive fan of the new album though - and then did the usual hits. They went out on One Day Like This as expected which was probably one of my highlights of the weekend. After Elbow came The Strokes but considering I think The Strokes are a boring, over-hyped, pile of wanky crap we stayed for the intro of one song and then thought "nah fuck it" and went for a wander instead. I've seen them before and they lacked any energy and you're either a Strokes fan or you're not, and if you're not mad about them you'd probably be disappointed by seeing them live. Plus a girl in front of us puked just as they started playing (either out of excitement or boredom) so more the reason to leave. The rest of the arenas were empty in comparison (everyone was at The Strokes, the nutters) and we caught the end of The Stranglers with an unbelievably small crowd. Then came James Murphy who I recognised as being "that guy from LCD Soundsystem" but otherwise you wouldn't have had a clue who he was. Regardless, he was excellent and people were having a right old dance next to the portaloos. We also found a little garden thing with deckchairs and a pool - the water of which was of a questionable murky colour, but it didn't stop everyone jumping in.

Then came Friendly Fires. My mate Jazz had a power-nap in the queue for them considering they were playing from 3-4am and we were tired as hell but they're such an energetic band that once they came on everyone perked up, especially as they started with "Lovesick". We stayed for most of the set until I had to leave because I thought I was going to faint - really, DRINK WATER! OR YOU WILL DIE! (or feel a bit shitty).

Saturday: Mumford & Sons, Beirut, Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream


Mumford & Sons - good, did a little jig, can't remember anything else, haha. Beirut were really good, we stayed for a couple of songs and they were a lot better live than I thought they'd be - kind of thought the mish-mash of instruments might just sound like a load of old noise but it wasn't. 

We laughed at the WC sign on this pole as there wasn't a toilet anywhere near. I was tempted to have a piss on it just to make a statement, but I was wearing a playsuit and everyone knows you can't piss easily in a playsuit.


Couldn't be arsed with Arctic Monkeys so we sat it out but sang along to them from a distance. By this point I was quite drunk and a bit *whatever* so I maybe should have gone to see them but I frankly couldn't be arsed. Then Primal Scream! Bobby came on in a silver jumpsuit thing turning his penis into a giant glitterball and they were very, very good. There was a lad in front of us dancing like it was the 1990s. It was all very odd, like going back in time. Or maybe that was just the rum. We left just before the end because we were tired but the good thing about having a tent so near to the arena was that even if you weren't actually watching the bands you could hear them perfectly, causing me to sing "GET YOUR ROCKS OFF GET YOUR ROCKS OFF HONEY" lying down in my tent whilst wiggling around, much to the annoyance of probably everyone around. I'm glad no one smothered me in my sleep.


Sunday: Noah & The Whale, Professor Green, Portishead, Arcade Fire, Roska


Noah & The Whale = superb! Professor Green = alriiiiight.

During Portishead. I can only assume this photo was taken by a 9 foot tall man.

Portishead! I think seeing Roads live was my highlight of the festival if not the best performance I've ever seen. Never felt that way watching a band...ever. The graphics on the screen were really good too, especially during the slower songs when it was probably easier to nod off. 

Arcade Fire! So so good.

Then we saw Roska for a bit but again we were too tired and wanted some food. We went to buy slices of pizzas bigger than our heads and then went to bed and nodded off straight away. A brilliant end to a seriously amazing week.


Costs - for flights we paid around £180 return but that was pretty late and you could get them a lot cheaper far in advance. For a return train ticket it came to just under £60. The actual ticket itself cost around £180 for 4 days of music and 7 days camping which is excellent value compared to the cost of UK festivals - plus you get a holiday and a festival in one. AND EVERYTHING IS SO BLOODY CHEAP OVER THERE! I can't recommend it enough. Plus it had the best festival atmosphere I've encountered so far. I'd definitely go back, I actually think it was the most fun I've ever had in a week. I LOVE YOU BENI!


(p.s. thank you Jazz and Patrick for some of the photos which my shitty disposable cameras could not capture, god damn you Kodak)

Girly Gadgets

Hello blog. I'm a tad annoyed tonight.

In the word's of Caitlin Moran: "HANG ON I'VE HAD SOME SEXISM AT ME! THAT WAS SOME SEXISM!"

I'm watching Stephen Fry's 100 Greatest Gadgets on Channel 4. I like Stephen Fry - in fact he's one of my favourite TV personalities. What angered me? Watching the programme, I found everything to be very male-orientated and "macho" in the words of Jon Snow. Not to mention that most of the people talking about the gadgets were indeed men, with a few women in the middle to talk about how great teas maids are because they save women the job of making so many darned cups of tea. Because that's all women do these days! Make tea!

In the middle of the countdown they lumped in a segment called, ahem, "Girl Gadgets". This name was implemented over a background of Katie Price, wearing pink, holding some pink straighteners. The gadgets involved in the "Girl Gadgets" segment were hair straighteners (pink), a pregnancy test, and swivel-tube lipstick. I suppose us silly women have to have our own section because as a woman I can't possibly also enjoy that satisfaction you get when you press the button on a tape measure and it snaps back, or appreciate the brilliance of a spirit level, because I haven't got a penis. I suppose I'm also not allowed to like Gameboys and cannot assemble a bike, because the whole having breasts thing doesn't allow for it. These "girl gadgets" weren't even included in the main gadget countdown, merely a side-note shoved into the space of two minutes, with poor Jo Brand explaining what hair straighteners are for and how pregnancy tests work. I suppose just to keep that minority of poor women who were forced to watch the programme with their husbands happy, because no woman could ever have an interest in gadgets of her own will. Gadgets are like, totally not for girls. For fucks sake, channel 4.

1. I know as many, if not more, men who use hair straighteners as opposed to women.

2. I like gadgets and can appreciate gadgets that aren't pink (shocking, I know!) and that have a function other than making my hair and face look all pretty (again, SHOCKING!)

3. I bet they don't include Rampant Rabbits (or any vibrators) on that list.

Synaesthesia: Blue Monday

A while ago I asked on Twitter if anyone else saw things as I did - for example numbers on a squiggly line moving upwards in a kind of stepping stone pattern. Also, I explained how I imagine days of the week as Sunday being in a dip lower than Monday and Wednesday being on a hill and slightly green. I got a couple of people saying that they saw things similar to me, a few people telling me it sounded like synaesthesia, but the majority of people going "Eh?! You're mad!" as they hastily rang up the men in white coats to cart me away for finally giving in to insanity. Well...not quite. After a quick Google I stumbled across a few things on the internet by people experiencing similar things to me (here, here and here) which somewhat confirmed that I probably do have synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory of cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. In other words, triggering one sense automatically triggers another sense which would not normally have an associated reaction. This can lead to people seeing numbers and letters as having their own colours; one word or sound triggering a taste response; or imagining or "seeing" periods of time or numbers as spatial 3D map. Someone told me of a programme they saw where every time a man touched a £5 note he tasted bacon and many people can distinctly say that the number five is yellow, Z is white etc. It's a strange and fascinating thing but something I'm very interested in because I'm pretty sure I have spatial-sequence and number form synaesthesia. Not as fun as tasting bacon every time I touch a fiver but still pretty handy and something I can't imagine not having.

How the year might look to someone with synaesthesia

"If you are a synaesthate with a red A, your A has always been red and will always be red. And it's so intrinsic, that many synaesthetes never question whether this is unusual". It's important to note that although often similar, the forms/colours people associate with different months/numbers etc are exclusive to each person, therefore the information available about each type varies widely.

How numbers may look to someone with grapheme-colour synaesthesia (by Angela Hill) 

I have thought this way for as long as I can remember, but it was very prominent when I was in primary school, especially learning numbers and times tables. I get this effect of "mind-mapping" with every kind of sequence possible. Days of the week, times of the day (a bit less unusual as I simply visualise the clock-face), months of the year, years throughout history...and I still use it constantly today.

It's quite difficult to draw on paper how I visualise things as instead of a set 2D form it's more of a dynamic 3D map, kind of like a computer simulation, which I "fly over" in my mind. For example smaller numbers (1-10) are in a kind of valley and higher numbers - into the thousands - are at the top of a mountain. If I'm thinking of a number such as 15 I'll place in my mind being at the bottom of a mountain, looking up towards the higher numbers which are sitting on the outline of the mountain slope. Not a literal mountain, but the shape and the contours are similar.

I rarely see the full set of months at a time, only the months which are important to me at moment I'm having to think about them. For example if it's January and I'm thinking towards the coming September, I'll only see the names of January and September and September will be significantly further away and lower down than January. Therefore once I put all the months together on a drawing like below, it doesn't look much like how I'd actually imagine it, but I don't think there's a way I could accurately depict how it looks. It's like asking someone to explain a dream vividly from start to end or to draw it - some bits are blurrier than others and other parts are missing, with some parts just not making any sense in reality. Although I know how I imagine some months very vividly, other months like August are a bit wishy-washy. I'd describe it as a kind of mental calendar or diary where I can see each week in a month laid out, including the things I have planned on each day. I rarely use actual calendars/diaries as my mental calendar is so accurate I don't need to - the money I don't spend on diaries I can spend on vodka - hooray!

I don't predominately see the months in colours although I've always visualised June as a kind of sky blue, and July as a deeper blue. As opposed to a repetitive circular sequence, my months are on a seemingly never-ending squiggly line. In my head I distinguish the months from year to year, hence the non circular form - October 2009 won't be the same as October 2010 so after one year ends it flows on to another sequence of months from January-December instead of repeating back on itself in a circle like the coloured example at the top of this post.

In terms of visualising numbers, I've always imagined them as if they are on a kind of hill. For example if I'm doing maths and I'm adding or subtracting I visualise myself hopping up or down a hill, however many units I need to add/subtract by. I'll visualise myself at the bottom of the "hill" at 0 and look up to see 20, 30, 40 etc, the bigger the number the further up it seems. 100 is always at the top of the hill, and then after that the "hill" repeats so that 100-200 is just another hill, on top of the first original hill. (Does this make any sense? I think I'm lost too...) Higher numbers continue infinitely upwards to the right, and lower numbers infinitely downwards to the left. 

I really struggled to draw how I visualise the week, because although many existing diagrams have expressed the week in a sort of circular repeating form (same as the months), my days continue on a timeline considering both the days of the past week (e.g. last Monday) and those in the near future (next Wednesday, a week on Thursday, etc). I've never really seen colours with the days apart from Wednesday which has always been a grass-green hill. Not sure why! I've also always seen Pancake Tuesday as being a pale sky blue but that's about the only specific day of the year which I see in colour. 

As I said, I don't visualise what I've actually drawn below as it is, in the same way that you'd think of a banana and see a banana. It's not a 2D drawing in my mind, it's more a constantly changing dynamic - the steepness of the slope with the days on is determined by what day of the week it is. Also, whether I imagine myself looking at the days straight on and "flat", or if I'm doing the whole "on top of a mountain looking down" thing is determined by whether I'm thinking about the days in context of the past, present or future. The not-so-long-ago past would appear steeper than an event a few months ago which would be on a smoother line and seem a lot further away. Sunday has always been in a trough next to Monday and Monday and Tuesday along with Thursday and Friday have always been quite flat, with Wednesday as a "hump" in the middle. The weekdays are visibly separate from the weekends although Friday, Saturday and Sunday come together as a separate group, even though I also visualise Friday as a component in the weekdays, therefore there is some overlap in it.

The sequence which is the most definite for me is years. For whatever reason I've always been able to strongly imagine how different decades "look" e.g. the 1970s is on a smoother curve whereas the 1990s is quite irregular - possibly because I was born in 1992 and so associate that decade with rapid change. 2000 has always marked a significant change in the line - to approach the new century - and therefore anything after 2000 slopes considerably down to the left as it's categorised as "last century". The decade from 2000-2010 is fairly straight but 2011 is in a dip (this is always related to whatever year it is at the time) and then the years of the future rapidly increase to the right in quite a regular formation (probably because they haven't happened yet, therefore nothing distinctive has happened to influence their shape). Again, before the 1900s there is another vertical drop to the 1800s which gradually levels out into a straight line as we approach the 1700s, then the 1600s etc, moving further back in time.

One thing I also thought was quite significant when I did a bit of reading up about this was the claims that many synaesthates have photographic memories. I always thought this might be the case for me, an example being before an exam I could glimpse at a page for about ten seconds and then re-visualise the page in my mind during the exam, being able to read the words I had simply *seen* and not actually read before. I'm very good at remembering dates - birthdays in particular - and can recall insignificant memories in amazing detail such as remembering what the buttons looked like on the dress I wore for my 5th birthday party without having seen any photos of it since the day I wore it. I'm also really good at remembering things people have said to me which often surprises and freaks people out how I remember them once telling me about something completely trivial which they hadn't even remembered saying themselves.

All in all it's a very unusual but useful thing to have, and to people who don't have synaesthesia it probably does sound a bit "crazy" but I can't imagine how I'd cope without it. A few things I read presented it negatively as a "condition" and similar to autism which it's not, it's not an illness just a different way of programming information. I've always known I was a very visual person but now I think about it, I'm not sure if that was just the synaesthesia. Does every other visual learner have this? I certainly think it helps me to remember and understand things. I guess I was just interested if anyone else has synaesthesia and what kind of types you have? If anyone sees the spatial/number forms like me or gets the colour/taste associations? I think there's a lot of mystery about it because so many people probably have it and don't realise, so I'd be interested to see if anyone I know experiences similar things!

10 tips for your room at university (the realistic version)

So I saw people talking on Twitter about a guide to university on the Telegraph website that had been deemed hilariously awful by many. Following the spirit of A-levels results day and remembering how I was pissing my pants this time last year in excitement/nerves about going to university, I myself half wondered if this was a complete piss-take or just a really tragically misinformed load of bollocks. My mind was left bursting with questions: Who is this woman? Is she deluded? Has she ever been to university? Is she REAL? 

Some of the things you may need in your university room, according to Rosie Millard.

Before I start to tear apart her piece whilst offering my own sensible (well, realistic) words of advice, I think one of the main mistakes I made before going to university was forgetting that instead of moving into my own penthouse suite, decorated with Cath Kidston tablecloths, fresh flowers and bottles of fine wine, I was actually moving into university accommodation which I also refer affectionately to as my "breeze-block shoebox". 

After going to IKEA last week with some of my friends who'd taken a year out (I refuse to call it a "gap year" for fear of summoning images of trekking through Cambodian jungles and getting absolutely lashed on the beaches of Thailand when all it was just working for a year in St Helens - slightly less glamorous), I took a look at one of my friend's shopping lists. It consisted of the usual - glasses, plates, etc but was also followed by coasters, teaspoons and salad tossers?! I think one of the worst mistakes I made was going to IKEA just before I went to university and buying a load of shit I didn't need, just for the novelty of it. You'll use biro pens as drink mixers, drink vodka out of jugs and use one of the thousands flyers you'll be handed out in fresher's week as a drinks mat, that's if you can be bothered.

So here we go:

1. Pack a trunk

Who the hell owns a trunk? Are we all starting first year at Hogwarts? Freshers should take a tip from boarding school veterans. Oh dear, it is immediately evident that this piece was probably not written for me. Fill it with nick nacks and antiques. If you bring antique anything you'll be laughed out of the place, or at the worst have your art nouveau vase shoved up your arse while you're sleeping.

A trunk can also be used as an impromptu chair or table, for when all the new chums descend for drinking games. - Chums? Impromptu chair? Just sit on the floor, it's not that hard. I doubt you'll end up drinking in your room anyway, unless you really hate your flatmates and your friends won't leave your uni room for fear they might have to come in contact with "the posh twats".

What should you do? Bring enough belongings to make you feel at home without totally emptying out your bedroom back home. You don't want to come home for Easter and Christmas and find an empty shell for a bedroom, to then get all nostalgic about how nothing will ever feel the same again, and then sit and cry for hours because you miss "how good the old times were". Not that I ever did this.

Bring posters, cushions and anything else to cheer up the place. You'll end up collecting things throughout the year anyway so when it comes to leaving you'll probably have twice the amount of stuff you came with. Your university room may resemble a prison cell but once you cheer it up with posters/photographs and bits and bots it'll be like a home from home.

 2. Avoid obvious clichés

Leave behind anything to do with Che Guevara, or those French Art Nouveau Absinthe/Black Cat posters. Everyone has them.

No one gives a shit. If you like them, put them up. Rather that than a "FRESHERZZZZ 2011" poster plastered on your wall - even if you wouldn't class yourself as a grade A wanker you'll have one of these up at one point, much to your dismay when you look back and think "oh god, I was a dick". I'm not sure everyone has art nouveau posters in their bedrooms either, maybe that's just the über-cultured middle class.

 3. Don't wear your heart on your wall 

"...keep it to a couple of vaguely interesting pictures and a cork pinboard. And don’t forget a hammer and some picture hooks. "

Again, no one cares. Do whatever you want. Just don't bring a hammer and some hooks. If you hammer anything into your wall you'll get charged at the end of the year for damage costs. I just about got away with using blue tac on my walls and if I left any I had to pay £20 fine to get a cleaning team in to remove it. Remember - make it feel homely but t's only your room for the year - not your bedroom at home.

4. Gap-year conversation starters (my favourite)

Pack that lovely Mexican throw, the baseball glove from your summer in America and the cushions from Bulgaria. Ahh, the cushions from Bulgaria, can't forget those! If you own a Mexican throw don't bring it because you'll only end up vomiting on it, or using it as a fire blanket when you accidentally set fire to a whole chicken at 4am, as you come back from a night out and decide you are the next Gordon Ramsey - only without the adequate memory to remind yourself have something cooking in the oven.

...They will make your room look different, and encourage conversation on something you know about.  Something I noticed at uni was that I was one of the only people in my flat who wasn't upper-middle class, and hadn't been on a gap year. I had a lot of trouble bonding with my flatmates because compared to them, I seemed terribly normal. You once went on holiday to Pontins and it was AMAZING because you spent the first night drunk and singing karaoke, then went to Southport Pleasure Beach the next day and vomited on your best friend's brother's friend in the back of a red Fiat? It doesn't seem as great a story if you're telling it to a boy who helped a cow give birth in Tonga or saved some turtles in Barbados. No matter how fun you try and make it sound, you'll just sound boring and shit. And dead common. The horror of it!

 I also noticed that people talking about their gap year experiences didn't really give a shit about anyone else's stories, they just wanted to show off. If, however, you did have an exciting experience and your gap year isn't the only thing you talk about throughout the whole year you might want to talk about it but don't go on about it, please. And you don't need to bring photos from it either: chances are as soon as everyone adds you on Facebook they'll be stalking all of your photo albums anyway, to try and suss out whether or not you're a twat.

 5. Food

Arriving with just one plate, one fork, one knife, one spoon and one mug sends out the wrong message.  - but it also means you'll have less to wash up. Just bring a couple of each, you'll probably smash them at one point anyway. I got a cheap set of pans from IKEA and all the handles fell off within a few months so I borrowed my flatmate's. Chances are unless you live with incredibly antisocial people who get all aggy when you touch their stuff, you'll probably end up sharing things anyway.

A big teapot or an eight-cup cafetière is a good idea too. - it's not. You'll look like a dick.

It is also crucial to have a few recipes, to avoid existing entirely on Cheerios and alcopops  - it's inevitable that you'll eat shit at at least one point. Most people put on weight at uni due to excessive alcohol/takeaways consumption - [don't worry, if you're that bothered you can always burn a bit of it off at the gym or have a dance off against strangers in a club because you're too drunk to notice you're a terrible dancer]. If you can't/don't cook much now and you're off to uni in a month, don't expect to suddenly become Delia Smith. If you live with nice enough people you can probably do communal meals and save money on ingredients (and effort!) but if not don't bother. You'll probably get to uni and find you can't be arsed. As long as you can cook a few things - pasta, toasties, soups - and eat a bit of fruit & veg now and again to at least try and protect against the bugs you'll get when you first move in - I was permanently ill from September to February with about 10 different colds/throat infections - you'll be just dandy. If worst comes to worst you'll probably have someone in your flat who likes to cook and if not you'll find cheap places to eat out on a student budget. Check out your Student Union - at Manchester not only are drinks cheap but they do food - wedges, pizzas, curly fries etc and it's £1.50 for soup and a roll - my favourite just-finished-lectures-and-haven't-eaten-yet-so-do-you-wanna-get-some-food-before-I-collapse meal.

(Also keep an eye out at the fresher's fair for freebies. At mine they were giving out free slices of Domino's as well as bags full of Vimto and chocolate. And colanders. You'll never realise how much you need a colander until 9 out of 10 of your evening meals are some kind of pasta dish.)

6. Bed moments

Invest in some proper blankets or Egyptian cotton sheets from John Lewis...a pair of decent curtains will brighten up your room and make it personal . Egyptian cotton sheets, ho ho. If you have a double bed at home don't bother spending loads on a single bed sheet for your uni bed as you might never use it again. They do one at IKEA at the moment in a lovely design - I got a double one for my house next term, and it was £4.99 for a double duvet cover and two pillowcase covers and I think £2.99 for the single one. Really pretty too. You'll probably end up spilling things on your bed/vomiting/leaking various bodily fluids...let's not go into too much detail. I had two covers so I didn't have to do my washing as soon as I changed my bed (you will want to change it from time to time though, even if it's only every few months. You don't want to be really smelly because no one will be friends with you). They were both from my single bed when I was about eight years old but they brightened up my room a lot. Bring your own curtains if you like but as I said earlier, it's not your room forever so don't go redecorating the whole place like you're on DIY SOS.  It's never going to look like your dream home - save that for when you're old and have a house of your own.

7. Practicalities  (the only sensible one)

Essentials include a corkscrew, extension plug, rubber bands, laundry baskets, a desk lamp and tea towels. - not too sure if you're going to be drinking corked wine but bring a bottle opener at the very least. You might get a notice board included so bring some pins (or just buy them when you're at uni, you aren't going to remember everything and you don't need to bring everything with you originally. *You aren't going to uni in the middle of nowhere and there will be enough cheap places around*). You might only get one or two plugs so I brought two extension leads - they aren't too keen on these in halls but no one need know. Everyone brings them anyway so I doubt they care. Laundry baskets - definitely. You can take your washing to the laundrette in this too. Then again mine got all mouldy and I used a Bag For Life for most of the year which was just as effective. You need to bring your own washing powder too (I used liquitabs because you just throw them in with your washing - dead easy) but many people get to the launderette and realise they haven't got any. If this happens though there will probably be a nice person around who will lend you some, unless you go to a uni full of cunts.

8. Games

With university fees darkening the horizon, you (and your parents’ banks) may not feel like spending a lot of money on going out - you have a trunk and a cafetiere and Egyptian bed sheets but you don't feel like spending money going out? Hmmm.

Pinch the family Scrabble or Monopoly, and also take some packs of playing cards - we aren't on a family holiday in Wales. You might end up playing a game of Monopoly when drunk but you won't stick to the rules and you'll end up losing all the Monopoly money and using the back of it to leave notes on the fridge like "WHOEVER IS LEAVING THE KITCHEN IN A MESS FUCKING CLEAN IT UP" or "Alicia <3 Willy". Playing cards are a good idea though because you'll probably spend a lot of your time playing drinking games. If you really want to gain a lot of male friends/lose a lot of female friends for being a creep you could also bring along a pack of Agent Provocateur playing cards. My flatmate Toby did this, and then spent the whole year complaining about why no girls wanted to sleep with him. Poor Toby.

9. Music

A portable instrument such as a ukulele or guitar is a brilliant accessory. I'd take the piss out of this one but I, myself, own a ukulele. If I brought it to uni however, everyone would want me to play it at every hour of the day so I didn't bother. If you're a budding musician don't leave your instruments at home, just be careful to keep an eye that no one runs off with it them (it happens).

10. Finally, things to avoid

Old school files will make you look sad. Giant pictures of a distant lover may put off a new or current lover. An exercise bike, or other fitness equipment are sure to only sit and gather dust. That's if you don't already look incredibly sad from having a trunk full of board games and antiques in your room. And who the fuck brings an exercise bike to uni? My ultimate advice would to be avoid basically everything in this article, that's if you haven't already died from laughing at the absurdity of this article.

This woman is off her trolley, truly. If you followed her advice you'd be laughed out of halls within a week. Half of the fun of living in halls is living on a shoestring and making do with what you've got. I may have made it sound a bit hellish but it's really not, in fairness I don't think I've ever had such fun in my life and I miss it already! 

 Also it was only right I added a photo of my room during exam period so you can get a real taste of what a room in halls looks like (complete with ghost foot at the bottom). Yours might be a bit less of a bombsite than mine though because I'm the messiest person alive.