Robbie chaos predicted

The amazingly untalented Robbie Williams is in Leeds this weekend, playing two gigs in Roundhay Park tonight and tomorrow, they've sold 90,000 tickets for the event in the natural open air amphitheatre (think Hollywood Bowl but much bigger).

(No not the ten pin bowling arcade, the proper Hollywood Bowl, open air concert venue.....oh never mind)

The local radio and TV stations love events like this as they can confidently predict "Robbie chaos" on the roads and send out reporters to the scene to interview the disgruntled residents of Roundhay who didn't realise that the huge city park that is on their doorstep, the same huge city park that they love to use for 362 days of the year, the same huge city park that increases their house valuations by £200,000, is occasionally used by the city fathers for open air summer concert venues like the one that Mr Williams is presenting this weekend - no radio interviewer ever asks the question of a disgruntled resident "well why don't you just fekk off somewhere else for the weekend ?"

But this event seems to have captured the media attention for another reason - schools have had to close because of Mr Williams its a disgrace, the BBC say its a disgrace so it must be.

Fortunately I will be out of town this weekend, back up to Newcastle for two rugby games so I'll miss the whole Robbie schmozzal, not that it would have affected me anyway as Leeds is a big enough city for the screaming Robbie pant-wetters to keep well away from my neck of the woods, but even if I was staying home this weekend I'd be able to rely on the BBC Radio Leeds "Robbie-Watch" quarter-hourly travel bulletins to alert me to road blockages of fainted young females or their similarly excited mothers.

The suprising thing is that the diminuative self-proclaimed warbler can manage to sell so many tickets for two successive events, its very likely that most of the purchasers will be going for both nights, and the aforementioned Radio Leeds was telling the story yesterday of one poor girl who's sister had paid over £400 for two tickets in the VIP area which hadn't turned up in the post and would not be replaced by the promoter - presumably on the grounds that the two sisters were obviously mentally unstable for having handed over the money on a promise in the first place.

Last month when on holiday in Menorca I was unfortunate enough to be trapped in a bar with some beer in my hand (it was an awful experience, honest) while a Robbie Williams "tribute act" tried to generate some interest from a totally uninterested audience.

To be fair to him he was as good as the real thing.
But thats not really saying much is it ?

So at 3pm this afternoon I'm heading two hours north, to sanity and a Robbie-less town, two rugby matches this weekend to watch and some beer to drink.

Thats Life.