Stones Roses tribute gig left me covered in beer – Zella Compton

It might not be the coolest thing to go with your mother, but on the other hand, if she’s paying, providing transport and also buying the coke (cola), that factor is fairly easy to get over.

But I honestly thought that there was no need to prep ourselves for beer-throwing. Isn’t that a thing of the past?

The only times you see it these days is surely the extreme few at festivals who are away from their parents for the first time, have chucked a roll of toilet roll (how they’ll regret that in the morning when they find out portable loos aren’t as well stocked as their home’s bathroom) and have a crazy notion to rebel by winging a plastic cup?

Seriously, I honestly believed that the world had moved on.

Perhaps it was because it was a tribute to the Stone Roses that some members of the audience thought they were back in 1989 when beer-chucking was all the rage.

I suppose back then it was a mating ritual as boys weren’t able to express their emotions with anything more than a grunt or an act of ‘comedic’ violence.

I’m trying not to think it was because they were idiots.

When bottled water and a buffet of drugs took over we all hoped it was the end of the lager-spraying louts for a while – well, for 30 years until The Total Stone Roses came to Portsmouth’s excellent Wedgewood Rooms and somehow the audience was incited into regressive action.

At one point I thought beer was actually being poured into the back of my boots. The lady next to me was about ready to punch someone if she’d found the perpetrators – and quite a few of those in my vicinity were going as her wing-women.

And as for the prat in front of me who thought he’d get a high-five for his beer-spraying finale, filmed by his mate?  You’re an 80s idiot.

Stupid Gilkicker arsonists are wasting precious resources  

It was all excitement in Gosport last weekend as it appeared, though Storm Gareth raged all around, that we might lose Gilkicker – the fort which is perpetually under development.

But development in this sense is nothing more than lopping down a few bushes and putting up a tin fence.

Seemingly the hut on the top of the fort was set alight which might have made for compelling viewing had it not been raining so much.

I don’t know the idiots who did it – at least I very much hope that I don’t – but come on … We’re all frustrated but there’s no excuse for setting Gilkicker on fire.

Go and find something more productive to do and stop wasting our precious firefighting resources.

Finally, some terrifically real and funny girls on the box

What a great time to be watching television with not only Derry Girls, but also Fleabag gracing our screens. 

Here we have two shows with girls and women getting on with their normal lives and doing their things and not giving a poop what anyone else thinks about them or their behaviour.

It’s magic to see, especially as – so far – there’s been no violence to women, and – can you believe it – they don’t all look effortlessly glamorous  all of the time. Plus, the humour in both is spot-on.

That said, it’s taking its time for my ears to tune into the Derry Girls’ glorious accents. I’m having to rewind bits to make sure that I’m hearing all those terrifically lewd comments correctly.