Glastonbury 2005

OK, here we go:

Wednesday 22nd June:

A beautiful day. Boosted off in the afternoon from London Victoria to Castle Cary in a swiped first class carriage to beat the rush. It didn't work. Hordes of us had decided that Wednesday was the day to go, so cue queues at both stations and the site entrance. Never known it so busy on a Wednesday.

Still, enjoyed a nice trip on the train nattering with fellow passengers - a couple from Bournemouth University (who told me all about the Eastbourne campus - who knew there was a cool underground scene in Eastbourne?) and a chap who just finished PPE at Oxford University (who was worried he wouldn't be able to get a decent job. Eh?)

Picked the usual spot up in the Woodsies nearish the Cinema and camped.
Then I put up my tent.
Joined later by mates from Keele, friends of friends etc.
Had a good wander around the site, did a bit of of exploring and sampled some local "cuisine". Much lazing in the sun.

Thursday 23rd June:

A glorious day. Joined by members of the Wolstanton Cultural Quarter (friends of a mate from uni) to complete the set. Even more lazing in the sun ensued.

Met up with Lady C and we wandered around together, sat by the Stone Circle, made tentative plans for band action and drank huge amounts of pear cider from the Brothers Bar.

Friday 24th June:

Tom Vek. Loved the album and he certainly lived up to it on stage. He's a lot shorter than you think...

Stewart Lee. Very funny - nice, dry, laconic delivery with quality jokes and mournful look.

M83. Caught the tail-end of this; wished I'd been around for the full set.

M.I.A. She's brilliant. Fantastic live act, great stage presence and v. sexy to boot.

Willy Mason. Incredible stuff. Massachusetts singer-songwriter with a gorgeous line in intimate beautiful music.

The Tears. Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler (formerly of Suede) gave a surprisingly good performance belting out the tunes with the swagger of a Pyramid Stage band.
They didn't do any Suede covers. And nobody asked for them.

The night ended with a violent electrical thunderstorm and torrential rain. It was beautiful.

Saturday 25th June:

After being kept awake most of the night by thunder and rain, I was disturbed throughout the next few days by inane text messages asking me if I was wet / swimming in mud / half-drowned / washed away.
Well, my shoes got muddy but that was it. My cagoule kept me dry and I pitched my tent in an elevated spot with good drainage cos that's what normal people do.
This did not stop all media outlets present exclusively filming and photographing those few unfortunate / stupid people whose tents got flooded and insisted on paddling about in pools of muddy water, courting dysentery.

Hayseed Dixie. U.S. Deep South band giving covers of classic rock tunes on banjos and the like. Really pretty good.

Goldie Lookin' Chain. Good stuff - funny, anarchic with ace tunes (including "Yer Missus is a Nutter".)
Quotes: "We know you're just waiting for Snowplay and Cold Patrol", "Sir Bob Marley will be Making Poverty History at 4 o'clock" and "Just like Windsor Davies in Never The Twain."

A brief burst of Chas 'n' Dave. "With your incessant talking, you're becoming a pest..."

Rilo Kiley. A nice set of seductive indie-pop-rock - think Carina Round and...(oh, lordy, I'm turning into Melody Maker again.)

Interpol. Probable comparisons to Joy Division and much better than I expected. Not much in the way of chit-chat between tunes but a clean, crisp perfomance.

New Order. A storming set with a couple of Joy Division numbers and Keith Allen doing the John Barnes rap for 'World In Motion'. "Ing-ger-land!"

A few tunes of Razorlight. Nice.

A bit of The Go! Team. Again, should have caught the whole bouncy, funky set.

Sunday 26th June:

Brendan Benson. Lovely set, both folky and rocky. Played 'Metarie', one of my favourite tunes.

Tried to see Hard-Fi at the John Peel Stage - but no sign of them. Floated off to the Dance Village and sat in the sun drinking and nattering with Lady C.
Essayed my best compliment to her of the relationship so far; "You're like Highlander. There can be only one." Hmmm. Should have stayed off the cider.

Brian Wilson. Incredible. Despite a bit of dodginess from the Pyramid Stage's soundsystem, the man's still got it.

Rufus Wainwright. Never heard his stuff before and was astounded by his camp brilliance. And his attempts to strip off on stage.

LCD Soundsystem. Amazing. Check 'em out.

Ian Brown. Mostly good stuff - nice mix of his tunes and Stone Roses. I was half-hoping for a finale of "I Am The Resurrection" but he just sloped off the stage and that was that. Ho-hum.

Bade farewell to Lady C and headed back to the tent. In an act of sheer lunacy, I stayed up, drank the rest of my bottle of vodka, packed up and caught the 5 a.m. train from Castle Cary to London Victoria to beat the rush. I still had to queue for the coach and at the station. Bah.

Now I have to buy all these albums for a compilation CD for Lady C. Sigh. No rest for the obsessively musical and anally retentive..

So, was there a Glastonbury moment? Why does there have to be? Damn thing lasted three days and it was all good.
Mind you, standing in a packed field shouting "Yer Mother's Got A Penis" with the GLC was pretty memorable.
Brendan Benson with "Metarie" was beautiful. Warbling along with Ian Brown was great fun.

Y'know, Brian Wilson singing "God Only Knows" was very... special.

Must be getting soft in my old age.

Update 06.07.2005: Private Eye has a little note on the Chas 'n' Dave gig. "While "all performances were simultaneously stopped", over in the Acoustic Tent Chas and Dave were whipping up a storm. No one was going to interrupt a rollicking live rendition of Snooker Loopy to beat chests and hold hands - so the pre-planned moment simply did not happen."

Cobblers. The moment was announced from the stage and though we didn't hold hands, a great roar went up form the crowd. Then we had Snooker Loopy. Get your facts right, Lord Gnome.

This year's holiday

In lieu of anything further afield, I'm heading off to a field tomorrow afternoon.

Yes, Glastonbury Festival is my holiday for this year (barring sudden and unexpected pay-rises.)

Music galore. I will not be doing this, this or this.

Full(ish) report next week...

Flowered up weekend

Over to Lady C's for dinner on Saturday. Lovely grub and a few bottles of wine. Recommended grape for this summer: Viognier.

I was wondering whether to take flowers or not - couldn't locate a florist in the Archway area that was open and the local Co-Op only had a rather limp and pathetic selection of posies on offer by the potatoes and carrots.
I stared at a wilting carnation, thoughtfully.
Too soon to bring flowers? Does she like flowers? Does she think they're pretty, a piece of advanced evolution to attract pollen-transferrers or a symbol of male chauvinistic domination? All of the above?

I decided against floral action.

That didn't stop me from telling her I almost bought flowers. (I do have to suss her out for possible future bouquet activity, y'know.)

It's like that Wendy Cope poem, she said; the flowers that you never bought me have lasted all this time.

Have found the poem on t'internet:


Flowers

Some men never think of it.
You did. You'd come along
And say you'd nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts -
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.

Wendy Cope (from Serious Concerns, 1992


Damn. She's good...

Formula 1 - U.S. Grand Prix (or not...)

What a f**king shambles.

All the details would take too long to go into here but the 'race' was run by the six Bridgestone runners only (Ferrari, Jordan, Minardi) with all the Michelin-shod cars going back to their garages after the formation lap. Michelin could not guarantee the safety of the tyres after a series of failures in the run-up to the race - the left rear giving out on the banking on Turn 13.

The finest minds in the sport could not come up with a solution that would result in a decent race for us to watch. The whole thing went down to the wire with the entire grid still lining up. The Guardian sums it up for us, here. Grandprix.com's race report, here. There's background on both sites for the sordid details.

ITV-F1's coverage was sober but the presenters rose to the task. Martin Brundle and James Allen commentated on the farce well (here) and gave us detailed background on what was happening, with Ted Kravitz and Louise Goodman giving team, driver and fan reactions. Mark Blundell's misery and embarrassment at the situation were very clear as he spoke to Jim Rosenthal.
Angry fans were interviewed who had come from all over the U.S. and beyond (people from Panama, Mexico and the U.K. were giving their views). One guy had saved two months salary for tickets and travel expenses. He'll just be getting the refund on the race ticket. Spectators were throwing cans and bottles onto the race-track (although I'd imagine they were entitled to do a lot worse given the way they'd been treated.)

That F1's image in the difficult U.S. market is damaged, is not in doubt.
The origins of the specific tyre problem aside, the fact remains that Formula 1 was unable - or unwilling - to search, negotiate or compromise for a solution that would ensure the fans saw a decent race.
And that is a f**king insult. To all the sport's fans and especially those spectators at Indianapolis.

I think Formula 1 should be booted out of the United States for what they collectively did yesterday - preferably for at least three years. The United States has a strong and worthy tradition of open-wheel racing and does not deserve to have the world of F1 sticking an up-raised middle digit at them.
Three years out would hit the self-important and over-weening egos involved right where it hurts. In the wallet. The massive constructors and sponsors who are part of F1 (a lot of them American) would make their feelings felt about being denied most of the North American market - they would put the bite on or desert in droves.

One fan interviewed asked "NASCAR wouldn't do this. Champcar wouldn't do this. Why would Formula 1?"

Oh, that's an easy one, mate. In NASCAR and Champcar the fans come first. In Formula 1, we don't.

Update (21.06.2005): James Allen tells it like it is. All salient points covered.

Weekend afar...

Friday:
Took Lady C to one of my favourite restaurants; 43 South Molton, nr Bond Street. Had booked a table but downstairs was hired out for a private party and we got shunted upstairs. Very nice and all but munching off a tiny Moroccan-style excuse for a table does not lend itself to three courses. We drank a lot of wine to make up for it...

Saturday:
Had to haul my backside from Walworth (Zone 2, south) to Southgate (Zone 4, north) for an ex-flatmate's birthday party. Bah.
Ended up in an extended bus-hopping routine across London; Nº 40 from Walworth Rd to London Bridge, Nº 43 from there to Muswell Hill and thence the Nº 299 to Southgate.
You're fascinated, of course.
Given my dirty bus-fetish (check this), I vastly enjoyed it - that and my first glimpses of the leafy suburbs of Highgate and Muswell Hill. Very chic. Mus. Hill is especially dinky, if you like that sort of thing.
Party was OK - lent a hand at the barbecue, nuked a couple of sausages to the amusement of all, discussed pelvic floor exercises (good for both men and women), internet dating (am now evangelical on the subject), the history of Malta (complicated) and then toddled off early to catch three more buses back home.
Watched Woman of The Year starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, with a glass or four of wine and turned in.

Sunday:
Canadian Grand Prix and laundry.

Formula 1 - Canadian Grand Prix

It was a good one: Ferrari back on form, Button's early hopes dashed, both Renaults in trouble, Montoya punished, Williams-BMW nowhere, a massive attrition-rate and plucky Felipe Massa in the Sauber makes it to fourth.

Race report from grandprix.com, here.

Martin Brundle's quotes, here.

Post-race party, here.

Live H8

Much in the press regarding the "hideously white" line-up for the Live 8 concert in aid of Make Poverty History (Guardian article, here.)

Quote from Black Information Link; "Sir Bob Geldof picked a virtually all-white line-up to perform in a concert to highlight African poverty."

Right. So if the concert was in aid of Save The Children or UNICEF, the line-up would have to be child musicians, would it?

Another BlInk article on this, here, including the quote, "Critics said the choice of performers, including little-known rock bands Razorlight and Muse and aging rockers Elton John, U2 and Sting, would result in a mostly white audience."

Ah. So white people listen to white musicians and black people listen to black musicans and never the twain shall meet? I live and learn.

My feeling is that Geldof was pretty much random in his selection and simply 'phoned up a bunch of famous musicians who he knew and said - can you do it?
Doubt he was expecting this sort of response. Although, sacred cows do make the best hamburgers 8o)
It'll be interesting to see if and how he adds to the line-up.
Once he has, I will drop him a line, shout that there are Asian people in Africa as well, y'know and can I have MIA and Nitin Sawhney added to the roster? Anyway, is this concert and organisation about world poverty or just African poverty?
I shouldn't mock, really...

Worth noting: these types of accusations were not levelled at the Tsunami Relief Concert in Cardiff, or the Tsunami Relief Concert near Glasgow...
Mind you, I was just glad that people cared enough, whoever they were.

Watch...

A good little site this; Live Cameras.
None other than a links page set up by, of all outfits, the Las Lomitas School District in Menlo Park, CA, USA. (Menlo Park, eh? Good band.)

Look at the Earth from the Moon, check out Niagara Falls, look at seals in Canada, marvel at the falcons on 55 Water Street, New York (their address being the envy of many other birds of prey) and the sharks and other fishes at the London Aquarium. And the surface of Mars. Cool.

Listen again...

OK, despite raving about the show in a previous post, I neglected to mention to you that Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington are back for a limited run on Xfm 104.9FM (they're already two weeks in, out of six) from 1 - 3pm of a Saturday.

Read the previous post for the s.p.

Check out their homepage, including very nifty animations of their show by Matt Everitt. The viral marketing people seem to like it.

Such is their power and popularity, their adoring fans are springing up all over the internet: lauding the show and Steve and Karl (great site but try later as it's exceeded its monthly bandwith. I told you they were popular...)

Ricky has his own website, including footage of him firing a champagne cork at Karl's bald, Manc head.

Catch up on the shows you have missed: Week 1 and Week 2.

Also on the radio comedy front, try The Very World of Milton Jones. Awful puns but beautifully put together and very funny.
Go to BBC Radio, click on the BBC Radio Player, select Comedy & Quizzes and then the show.

Needless to say, there's a host of other contemporary and classic comedy on there. I am now sadly hooked on I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Steptoe & Son and, may the devil take me and use me for a hoofscraper, After Henry.

I cannot effing believe that last one. I used to be cool, y'know...

Another nice weekend...

Friday:

Fifth date with Lady C. Scooted out to the wilds of Crouch Hill and Stroud Green. Went for a drink in the Old Dairy - a nice cavernous pub that runs a number of nights including a Friday night indie-rock 'n' roll disco; the Cow Club. Cool.

Then to one of Lady C's favourite restaurants - The Triangle on Ferme Park Road. Fantastic food, lovely atmosphere. Tried harissa for the first time; I highly recommend it. Especially on lamb burgers.
We actually left before the restaurant closed which was something of a novelty...

Saturday:

Headed out to the Queen's Head & Artichoke (dinky website) for four o'clock to meet the gang (including Inane and Anglepoised) for a meet and greet which turned into a booze marathon of chit-chat and tapas. Nice.
Topics covered included: why is it received wisdom that a radio station's 'flagship' is its breakfast show (agreed to disagree), a pub called the Craic House (snigger), how have the Killers gotten so far on only one album (the La's only have one album, y'know), what's a good age to get married (34), how ethnicity affects aging (doesn't Karl Pilkington talk about this on Xfm?), Tom Stopppard and more.

Sunday:

Forgot to do the laundry. Bah.