The Sting Of Disappointment

If there's one thing that annoys the crap out of me, it's adverts for festivals exaggerating the days events so that mugs like me can travel across London expecting something mind blowing and getting something a bit pants instead.

Take Waterloo Carnival for example. Now I'm not knocking it. It was a lovely procession. Schoolkids were involved. That's really nice. But it's the kind of thing that is really only worth it if you are a local with a few hours spare. Now the reason I set aside an entire day, and travelled 45 minutes on the tube is because the flyer said:

Waterloo Carnival, Wizard Of Oz Theme

12 - 6pm - Munchkinland, (now I envisaged proper munchkins, munchkinning about doing munchkin type stuff but there was nothing like it.) special market stalls (there were four market stalls which were anything but special), street performers (you mean the gorilla costumed folk handing out flyers? Yeh ok, one of them did a cartwheel) and Mini Munchkin museums (A big fat lie. Or were they so mini that they were not actually visible to the naked eye?).

1.30 - 2pm - Carnival Procession featuring over 300 performers (now, I wasn't counting but I'm pretty sure it wasn't more than 150 and they were all schoolkids, as in kids that go to school and have had a day to skive off, generally not known as performers).

1pm - 5pm - Witches & Munchkins Family Friendly Zone, (the odd word out here is zone. There were kids and schoolteachers in witches and munchkins costumes, there were familes, some were undoubtedly friendly, but don't call it a zone), mini Munchkins play area (do you mean the small marquee filled with nothing more than a few blankets and some paper windmills planted alongside it?) Witches Tea Party (stall selling flapjacks), kids disco and music performances (they did play a few tunes for the kids and there was one band that played a few tunes).

I remember last year, going all the way to Spitalfields for some fair extravaganza, dragging some friends along the way, which turned out to be an un-extravaganza that was not in the least bit fair. The "kids fun zone" turned out to be a bouncy castle slide at £2 a go and when I read "Lots of clowning mayhem and fun!" I approached two fat old gits in half hearted clowning costumes who happened to be sunbathing at the time, and naively asked them when the performance would be. Well I don't know about clowning, but they could hardly muster the energy to speak as one replied "Weeell, it's not so much a performance really. We've just been walking about doing a bit of juggling and that." I had to try bloody hard not to be bowled over by their enthusiasm I can tell you.

Don't get me wrong, we did have fun today. Ky loved the procession and despite the lack of entertainment at the 'kids zone' he managed to amuse himself by chasing pigeons. Then something happened. Something I have been trying to avoid for most of my life.

I got stung by a bee.

It got trapped in my hair, I removed it (thinking it was a leaf) then I saw the little git insert his sting into my little finger. I panicked and ran over to the nearest person asking him if I could borrow his tweezers. Not, did he have any, but if I could borrow the ones that surely he could not have left home without. He pointed me towards the St. John's crew and I legged it over, seeing their concerned faces as they observed my panic turn into little smirks. If I was looking for sympathy it would not be from them OR my sister who I spoke to immediately after who had only sarcasm to offer me but loads of sympathy to for the poor little bee who is now dead, and I'm sure will be sorely missed by all his friends and family who are all exactly the same as him and don't even know who he is. Anyway, I think it's kind of cured my phobia of getting stung by a bee. Because it didn't even hurt that much. It definitely was no worse than stubbing my toe or treading on a bit of lego which I do several times a day. It was more the emotional trauma, the fact that this creature left his sting in me, without my permission, it just felt so invasive. I felt I had, in a way, been raped by this bee. All that and not even an "I've been brave" sticker from St. Johns.

We then went to the Southbank and watched the skateboarders. Outside the National Theatre there were deckchairs on pretend grass, and we sat about, well I sat, Ky just ran around, chasing thin air this time. Then I got talking to a friendly couple, getting on really well with them and then when the DJ played "Raindrops are falling on my head" they sang at the top of their voices so I thought I'd be up for the laugh and join in. Shortly after, they revealed that this was their first day out on their own after four months on a psychiatric ward.

The journey home involved me trying to keep Ky awake by talking about the one thing that would stop him from falling asleep too early; trains. 45 minutes of train talk. That's even harder than it sounds. In fact, I think I would rather be stung by a bee.