Trans Europa Express #2: Munich

In which we pass up the opportunity to try minced lung of veal and find someone from the Stevenage Tourist Board in the unlikeliest of locations...

* * * * *

Sunday 13th July

* Our tickets are in first class, by complete fortune. They mustn't have seen us coming.

* This is more like it - an unscheduled and enforced change of trains at Forbach on the border means we revert to rubbing shoulders with the peasants in cattle class and delays our arrival into Mannheim by just long enough that we miss our onward connection. Even then, though, we've only an hour to wait until the next train - enough time to grab a beer and a huge durum (like a doner kebab, but with crispy pork, so much, much better), while rejoicing at the discovery that not everywhere is as horrendously expensive as Paris (we can forget thoughts of auctioning off internal organs, then) and marvelling at the cans containing a magic elixir of beer, cola and energy drink.

* Is it an unwritten law of travelling that whichever direction you walk out of the train station in search of your accommodation will be the wrong (if not even the opposite) one? After more touristy bumbling, we come across Hotel Regent, barely a minute's walk from the station's main exit. 4* seems to mean a bedroom big enough to swing several cats in, each holding onto the other's ankles; bogroll that's like blotting paper; two basins, his and hers, side by side so any ablutions can be carried out in tandem rather than series. Everyone's catered for. Too lazy to towel-dry yourself? There's a fierce drying lamp set into the ceiling of the bathroom. Busy single man on the move? Something called a "Travel Pussy" is available from the vending machine in the toilets downstairs...

* After admiring the fountain in Karlsplatz and noting that in Germany Jesus's speciality is jewellery and watch-making rather than gherkins, we duck into the Augustinerhalle on Neuhauser Strasse. Our huge-headed beers and meals are slapped down by our waiter, an unhappy chappy who I'm disappointed to see isn't wearing lederhosen - perhaps that's the source of his own disgruntlement. Equally disappointing is the discovery that Currywurst, rather than being a curried sausage, is actually a normal sausage served with copious amounts of ketchup and curry powder, but it's quick at least, and has the virtue of not being the minced lung of veal which my rusty German could have landed us with.









* "A film packed full with hot animal lovin' directed by Laurent Charbonnier and set to a Philip Glass soundtrack? Yes please, we're Europeans!"



* Plain, unadorned and built of red brick, the city's cathedral the Frauenkirche is the ecclesiastical equivalent of a Barratt house. Apparently, it's late Gothic, but if you didn't know better you'd think it was all razed during WWII and subsequently rebuilt, not just the roof and one of the two 100m high towers.



* Another Augustiner pub, this time am Dom (that's "at the cathedral" to you). I enjoy another local brew, trying to get my head around the concept of a "dunkles Weissbier" (a "dark white beer") - this helps explain. Meanwhile, Jenni opts for what turns out to be extreme schnapps - apple and pear flavour, apparently, but all I can taste is the flames in the back of my throat. As in the Augustinerhalle, the menu stresses that the local Weisswurst must be eaten before noon. There's no explanation - perhaps they turn into pumpkins afterwards, and, by virtue of being vegetable rather than animal, are no longer considered edible by the locals?

* Arriving in a damp Marienplatz it's clear we've missed the party - a stage is being packed up and mobile bars are filing away. On one side is the Peterskirche and on another the Neues Rathaus, which, despite looking far more authentically (ie totally OTT) Gothic than the Frauenkirche, was actually only begun in 1867.





* Back to the Augustinerhalle for a final pint of the night. It being a Monday, it's pretty quiet - it seems my visions of witnessing a putsch can be forgotten...



* Our walk back to the hotel takes us past first a busker in a shop doorway, entertaining crowds with a mixture of stand-up comedy and Rolling Stones covers, and then a shop whose window display indicates it caters for nationalistic chefs while also suggesting that Germany condones child labour on building sites (provided they're suitably attired, of course).





Monday 14th July

* Stuffed with a sumptuous breakfast, we waddle out into the rain. It really is miserable, but at least the man in the shop that sells nothing but umbrellas is happy that we've brought the British summer with us.

* Either my ears are deceiving me, or Nottingham legend Xylophone Man faked his own death, and is actually alive and well. Certainly the haphazard plinking and plonking, devoid of any discernible tune, that rings out from the Neues Rathaus every day at 11am and noon, bears all the hallmarks of the great man. We don't stick it out until the end, though, keen for shelter from the elements but, more pressingly, the loud, clueless, guffawing American students who claim to pass as tour guides for the city.



* Midday glasses of wine in opulent and genuinely palatial surroundings? Well, we are first class and 4* these days, darling... Just try telling any of the well-to-do locals in the Pfalzer Residenz Weinstube that wine bars are so 80s.



* Given the German veneration of the man, we're rather disappointed to discover that the Hofgarten, round the back of the Residenz, isn't actually a tribute garden to David Hasselhoff. Quite nice if it's sunny, we imagine, scurrying onwards in search of dryness.



* Hofbrauhaus is the most famous of the beer halls, but it's also supposedly the least authentic, and the fact that the huge building houses not one but two tat shops to tourists seems to bear that out. Branded golf balls, anyone? But look around and it's evident many if not most of the drinkers on what is a wet Monday lunchtime are Germans in their 50s. Yes, this is Munich's equivalent of the Square Peg in Birmingham, just without the smell of beery carpet and stale sick. Having been served by the impeccably coiffed spit of Ferris Bueller's dad, we strike up a conversation with the retired local sharing our table (the sociable seating arrangements are all part of the charm), who, discovering we're English, tells us he's visited Stevenage and that it's "very nice". Perhaps that's only because, as a young man, he once slept a night under a bridge by the Royal Festival Hall in London and another in a police cell in Inverness when all the hostels were full - everything's relative, after all. But we've got a train to catch, and have to say our goodbyes hurriedly as the oompah band strikes up.





* * * * *

Next time: Mozart, Midge Ure and Gary Neville.

The story so far: Paris

Feel good hits of the 29th July

A specially extended edition, as I've been consuming a lot of music lately - hooray for new headphones which don't have the wire exposed, even if they are taking a little while to feel comfortable...

1. 'Sleeper Hold' - No Age
2. 'Royal Gregory' - Holy Fuck
3. 'Today's Lesson' - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4. 'Doesn't Matter Much' - Blood Red Shoes
5. 'Broke Up The Time' - The Futureheads
6. 'Clairaudients (Kill Or Be Killed)' - Bright Eyes
7. 'Jezebel' - The Drones
8. 'Videotape' - Radiohead
9. 'Total Belief' - Malcolm Middleton
10. 'You! Me! Dancing!' - Los Campesinos!
11. 'Covered In Hair' - Juno
12. 'With Portfolio' - Mogwai
13. 'The Go In The Go-For-It' - Grandaddy
14. 'Motion Pictures' - Neil Young
15. 'Sweet Girl' - Ringo Deathstarr

Footnotes:

1. Over the last week Nouns has really clicked - not quite sure why I didn't fall prostrate at its feet from the very beginning, but there you go. Just had to order one of these when I came across them this evening, too...

2. Jenni in the wake of Glastonbury: "Holy Fuck? They sound awful! Are they death metal?" Jenni in the car on Saturday: "This is good. Who is it? Holy Fuck? OK, I like Holy Fuck." Knew she would, too, given her love for their friends and associates !!!.

3. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is a filthy album all round, isn't it?

8. This is currently soundtracking Film4's trailer to its Ingmar Bergman season. See what they've done there.

10. If that doesn't sound like a typical Malcolm Middleton song, that would be because the full chorus refers to "my total belief in the depth of my unworthiness". And how's this for lyrics: "I know you're with me / I know you felt the same / I know this 'cos I've never had an original thought in my brain".

11. A conversation about Fugazi in the pub on Friday night prompted me to dig Juno's A Future Lived In Past Tense. Much more glossy and stadium rock than I remember. Still good, though.

12. Revisiting this one was inspired by Ian's tale of the memories it conjures up for him, as detailed in his excellent review of the remastered / repackaged edition of Young Team for Pop Matters.

End of the pier

In the wake of the fire that destroyed Weston Super Mare Grand Pier yesterday morning, GMTV have been urging viewers to write in with their tales of summer holidays spent there. Somehow I don't think these are quite what they had in mind - even if one of Betty's recollections might be said to touch on the subject of salad days...

Know Your Enemy

"When Ledger isn't on screen, 'The Dark Knight' goes on for so long, it should be called 'The Long Dark Knight Of The Soul'. It has no sense of fun, no spirit of joy or play. Instead, it offers up a lot of moralistic waffle about how we must hug a terrorist."

Cosmo Landesman in the Sunday Times. There was always going to be at least one dissenting voice. Can't pass comment myself, as I haven't seen it yet.

Quote of the day

"A haircut. I tried to go for the Bobby Brown slant and people said I looked more like Grace Jones".

Dizzee Rascal, in answer to the question "If you could edit your past, what would you change?" Presumably it's only since he's got rid of said haircut that he's had sex "two or three times a day, if I can get away with it"...

Trans Europa Express #1: Paris

The first installment of a typically scattershot travel diary of our recent nine day trip by train to Slovenia and back, in which we contemplate the thought of having to auction off our internal organs and discover that our Lord Jesus Christ takes after his father...

* * * * *

Saturday 12th July

* 350 euros for £318, an exchange rate of about 1.1? Er, this isn't going to be cheap. Oh well, it's all booked now. Onto the Eurostar - adventure here we come!

* So, what's different about Paris since last time I was here, two years ago, during the riots? Fewer broken windows and "evil cricketers" patrolling the stations. More hairdressers' salons on rue Strasbourg and automated bike hire stations everywhere. The driving's as bad as it was - we're barely two minutes out of Gare du Nord when we witness a driver nudge another car along with his bumper to squeeze into a parking space. There may still be a man dressed as a penis in the Place de la Bastille - we're not about to take a detour to find out.

* Hotel Beaune is in the Antiques Quarter on the Left Bank - apparently. Bumbling around puzzling over our two different maps without much of a clue, we swallow our pride and ask directions to the rue de Beaune. The polite smile at my hesitant French and response in English is certainly familiar from my last visit. It's like an initiation test - once you've proved yourself prepared to make the effort, you're deemed to have earned the right not to suffer any more embarrassment.

* Our bumbling continues even when we've found the hotel, though - unable to open the troublesome lock, we call the receptionist for whom it opens first time. Sod's law.

* We drop our bags and, being cultured types, immediately head out to the Louvre. It'd be rude not to - it's almost directly opposite the hotel across the Seine, after all. We don't actually go in, though - it's early evening and we're hungry. Man may not be able to live by bread alone, but he can certainly live by bread alone easier than by a hasty glimpse of a sixteenth-century portrait of some woman with a weird mouth.







* Where to eat, though? There's too much choice, even if not everything on the menus we pass appeals - the horse steaks, the boiled calf's head, the snails I watch one woman pushing around her plate.

* We eventually settle on Bistro d'Eustache, by the Forum des Halles gardens and in sight of the St Eustache Church, enticed in by a formule menu of starter and main course for a very reasonable 18 euros. Our aperitif looks like blended blackberries, but I'm glad I don't mistake them as such - they're roe eggs and a mouthful is very salty on its own (that would be why there's fresh bread provided too, then...). We may not be quite ready for boiled calf's head, but we do at least go native in choosing French onion soup and terrine for hors d'oeuvres. My main course of steak au poivre with gratin dauphinois is absolutely superb, eaten under the watchful gaze of a scruffy sparrow waiting expectantly under our pavement table. Our mistake is to not realise that the fact the drinks menu comprises only wines is actually for the wellbeing of our wallets - the decision to go off-piste and order two pints of wheat beer comes back to bite us in the arse when the bill arrives to reveal they're 8 euros each. I've heard of things costing an arm and a leg, and I'm seriously thinking I may need to sell off a kidney. Here, it'd probably get bought and promptly served up in a garlic sauce as a local delicacy.

* At Le Garde-Robe, a boutique wine bar where the air is so thick with the smell of fromage you could cut it with a cheese knife, our delicious hand-selected bottle of white comes in an improvised ice bucket fashioned out of an industrial-sized catering tin can. I knew God moved in mysterious ways, but had no idea that his son was a gherkin magnate.





* Perhaps we should have got our vin a emporter. The pedestrian-only Pont des Arts, spanning the Seine between the Louvre and the Left Bank, is clearly the place to be on a Saturday night. Random music, a throng of friendly revellers swigging out of wine bottles and a man selling beer from a polystyrene crate - it's like being back at Glastonbury...





* A tramp pauses to peer in the window of a particularly glitzy antiques shop around the corner from our hotel. Whether his expression is of wonderment, incomprehension or disgust I can't tell, and he shuffles off on his own into the night.



* * * * *

Next time: the lap of luxury, animal love and Munich's answer to Xylophone Man.

No more heroes anymore

The problem with having heroes is that someday, somehow, they'll let you down. I'm not sure Sonic Youth ever have - A Thousand Leaves was a bit underwhelming, sure, and with hindsight Kim Gordon wrestling squawks and parps out of a trumpet during the encore of their headlining set at the Mogwai-curated ATP in April 2000 (and that after they'd played a set of wholly new material kicked off with a 30-minute-long song) was definitely trespassing on the realms of pointless self-indulgence, but there haven't been any heinous crimes as far as I'm concerned. Until now, that is.

You see, my absolute favouritest band in the whole wide world have only gone and released a greatest hits album through Starbucks.

Never mind that the tracklisting for Hits Are For Squares - with songs selected by everyone from The Flaming Lips ('Expressway To Yr Skull'), Radiohead ('Kool Thing') and Flea ('Rain On Tin') to Dave Eggers ('Tuff Gnarl'), Gus Van Sant ('Tom Violence') and Chloe Sevigny ('World Looks Red'), as well as an exclusive new track, 'Slow Revolution' - is very good indeed, because IT'S BEEN RELEASED THROUGH STARBUCKS.

Never mind, either, that Geffen/Universal aren't exactly an indie label, because THEY'RE NOT AN ANODYNE HIGH STREET CAPITALIST CLUSTER BOMB THAT SERVES REALLY BAD COFFEE.

Yes, colour me not impressed.

(I do like the comments on the Drowned In Sound story, particularly tohereknowswhen wondering "The only way to be punk rock these days is to do the least punk rock thing you can think of?", and Alex-in-Ciderland offering the exclusive revelation that "Little Chef are releasing a Campag Velocet retrospective"...)

How's about I slip in a few more bits of music news here? OK, thanks...

No sooner has he been left in peace than Michael Eavis is looking forward to next year's Glastonbury, announcing that on 5th October 100,000 tickets will be available to reserve for a deposit of £50. So, the solution to slow ticket sales is to effectively make them available for longer - presumably the registration process will still apply, though. If Eavis really wants to arrest the slump, and prove that "people are coming back", he needs to ensure the line-up's better. Those of us who were there this year know it was brilliant, as ever, but more in spite of than because of the musical entertainment on offer.

Rather unusually for an avid music fan, I suspect, I've got very little to worry about when it comes to today's news that six ISPs have signed up to the BPI's efforts to combat music piracy online - even if all it might amount to (at present) is receiving a strongly worded letter. Filesharing networks are perhaps a bit of a different case, but sharing between individuals is surely the same as lending someone a CD, and where would your record collection and tastes be without that? I only hope that MP3 blogs aren't affected - it would be extremely short-sighted of the music industry to declare all-out war on sites which offer samples to spread the word and essentially do their marketing work for them. Either way, rest assured the SWSL Best Of 2008 mixtape will definitely be happening.

Full marks to Mogwai, whose new album The Hawk Is Howling features such marvellous songtitles as 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead', 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' and 'I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School'. Still, even they're outshone by one of the tracks on the Batcat EP whose release precedes that of the album by a couple of weeks: 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police And Loses His Slut Girlfriend'...

And finally, back to coffee. Ever drunk a cup wondering whether Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine would approve of your choice of blend? I know I have. Which is why I'm delighted to discover, via the excellent Stool Pigeon, Dave Mustaine's Monthly Coffee Crew, where he reveals what he drinks "to prepare for another day of shredding". Nice to see him keeping up the heavy metal credentials by having his coffee "bubbling in the cauldron" - none of that soft-rock cafetiere shit for Dave...

Quote of the day

"The 68-year-old says his life has been devastated by the News of the World story and the posting of the video footage on its website.

He told the court that the publicity had been "totally devastating" for his wife of 48 years, and he could think of "nothing more undignified or humiliating" for his two sons to experience."

Max Mosley, speaking in the wake of his legal victory over the News Of The World, shows concern for his nearest and dearest by implying that the devastation and humiliation is all the paper's fault. Yes, of course it is. What a lovely man.

Field reports

My review of Glastonbury is now finally be all wrapped up, a mere three weeks after the cows got their fields back, but it's only right that I should point you in the direction of those who posted their thoughts before the festival became a distant memory. So...

The Quiz Blogger, now worrying what he might say to Blood Red Shoes guitarist Laura-Mary if he sees her out and about in Brighton, did a good job of conjuring up the atmosphere of Glastonbury for those who've never been: "Look out at the dots of golden light pitting the valley from on top of Flagtopia. See how they shine at the end of it all and forget the awful disgusting nuclear-strength peepee and poopoo whiff that circulated round many a thoroughfare and the appalling need or more truthfully, burning desire to live like an 18th century Cheapside ruffian, which is what most men do and did. Except without the gin and knives."

Swiss Toni's report came in the form of a list of yays and boos - the rain and mess among the latter, and mojitos, Elbow and his Santa hat among the former. The hat seems to have had a particularly potent effect on people, one chap in the urinals asking "if for Christmas I could make his knob bigger when he was on drugs so that he would be better able to find it (he said he hadn't been a very good boy this year so far, so I told him he had six months to try and turn things around)". Damn Shaky for not playing 'Merry Christmas Everyone'.

And, for thoughts on loads of bands and artists I didn't see and am effing glad I didn't (The Hoosiers, The Feeling, Will Young) and completely different perspectives on a handful I did (Black Mountain: "a bit waily and boring"), as well as LB's tale of coming face-to-face with one of his musical heroes, head over to Don't Go To Vegas for write-ups of each day: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Andy's largely pictorial diary is brilliant for anyone like me, who spent all their time rushing between the major music stages and only ventured into the Green Fields and Shangri-La when in such a state I was unable to take any of it in...

And last but not least, Del has been even more tardy than me with his review - it's still in construction - but the photo he posted upon his return sums up the Glastonbury feeling better than any words could anyway.

Heads in the sand

No sooner had I commented on Ofcom's verdict on C4's 'The Great Climate Change Swindle' than I came across this quote from the Guardian, via a post on Assistant:

"David Cameron has failed to convince many of his MPs that man-made global warming is a serious problem, according to a poll that finds widespread sceptisicm across parliament about the issue.

A third of Tory MPs who responded to the survey questioned the existence of climate change and its link to human activity. Two-thirds said tackling climate change should not be a priority for local councils.

A significant number of MPs from other parties also told the survey they had doubts on the issue. Overall, the results suggest that up to a fifth of the MPs who have been debating the UK's climate change bill do not understand, or choose to ignore, the science on which it is based."

Ofcom's verdict that the documentary wasn't controversial because the existence of man-made climate change had been proven and settled prior to the programme being screened looks rather ridiculous when you consider that even those who should be the best informed are sceptical.

Still, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by politicians' thickheadedness. Only today was it announced that the government's Change4Life campaign to counter obesity will be supported by ... Coca-Cola, Nestle and Mars. On Channel 4 News Jon Snow was temporarily possessed with the spirit of Paxman and Humphries, asking the Chief Executive of the Advertising Association, a flustered Baroness Peta Luscombe, whether Mars Bars make you thin or fat...

Feel good hits of the 23rd July

1. 'This Is Not For You' - Blood Red Shoes
2. 'Bright Tomorrow' - Fuck Buttons
3. 'Take Your Time' - Spiritualized
4. 'Sale Of The Century' - The Futureheads
5. 'Make A Plan To Love Me' - Bright Eyes
6. 'Alice Practice' - Crystal Castles
7. 'Fernando' - Abba
8. 'Fake Empire'- The National
9. 'Lovely Allen' - Holy Fuck
10. 'Sovereign' - The Duke Spirit

See if you can guess which one of those was played at the wedding reception we were at on Friday night?

Quote of the day

"There was no stickiness of any significance."

An interesting way of putting it, but then it's not every day that Downing Street spokesmen have to comment on protestors' attempts to superglue themselves to Gordon Brown. It sounds like something Bill Clinton might have said about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky...

SWSL Glastonbury 2008 Diary

Sunday 29th June

(Thanks to Del and Sarah for the photos.)

10am
That's it - it's too hot to stay in the tent. I crawl out and under the gazebo and remember to be grateful to the gods of weather.

11.30am
Lounging around recovering from the evening's excesses would be so much more pleasant if we weren't being subjected to the Redbridge Brass Band's take on 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?' from the Park Stage. I flick through the programme to discover the band we're missing open the Avalon Stage are the delightfully named Prison Love.

1.30pm
If Friday was Oxford-flavoured, and Saturday belonged to Cardiff (you could add performances by Duffy and Cerys Matthews to those by Los Campesinos!, Neon Neon and Shakin' Stevens), then today is Canada Day, upon us a few days early. BLACK MOUNTAIN (Other Stage) not only fit the bill by having "black" in their name, but also by hailing from British Columbia (Vancouver, to be precise). Suffice it to say they're not how you imagine a former Coldplay support act to sound (even if the tour in question was called Twisted Logic). Their slow, somnolent and occasionally pastoral approach to Black Sabbath's legacy, perfectly suited to a Sunday lunchtime, must inevitably earn them comparisons with Dead Meadow, but the arresting (though rather underused) vocals of Amber Webber mean they also call to mind a less psych Bardo Pond. I'm entranced long before their set comes to an end with a 25-minute-long swansong.

2.15pm
The swelling crowds make trying to escape the Other Stage an infuriatingly complicated business. "I didn't think I could hate Newton Faulkner any more than I already did", says a companion. At least there's the consolation that, like the stagehands who were irritatedly gesturing at their watches, they've had to enjoy Black Mountain at their most obtuse.

2.45pm
Anyone who's seen 'DiG!' will appreciate that, like the decision to give Mark E Smith the opportunity to read out the classified football results live on a Saturday, the decision to give Anton Newcombe of access to a microphone on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury is tantamount to handing a terrorist a hand grenade in a very public place. Danger lurks every time the self-styled genius opens his mouth to speak. To his credit, though, he seems as baffled by it all as anyone, moved to comment: "I can't say we [THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE] deserve to be here, but thank you". Having missed Winohouse last night, I'm in the mood for a chaotic and tempestuous set, but surprisingly it doesn't quite pan out like that. Like Jason Pierce, Newcombe stands side on to the audience, keeping a watchful eye on his band as they knock out their unremarkable Kinks-influenced psych-garage, while maraca-shaking loon Joel Gion is remarkably reserved. With every song much like the one before, they manage to be the last thing I'd have expected: a bit boring.

3pm
The only thing better than Burrow Hill cider at Glastonbury? FREE Burrow Hill cider at Glastonbury! It's all about who you know...



3.15pm
A man dressed as a milk carton walks past. I'm guessing it's either a homage to the video for Blur's 'Coffee & TV' or he works for the Milk Marketing Board.

3.45pm
Believe me, I don't say this lightly, but JOHN MAYER (Pyramid Stage) may just be the worst thing I've ever seen at Glastonbury - and I've seen Jools Holland. I’d honestly rather be scuba-diving in a long-drop tank. You see Jennifer Aniston's current squeeze deals in that nauseatingly awful and typically American brand of white boy's blues funk with horribly mannered vocals that mercifully never normally makes it across the Atlantic. How exactly can one so young (well, he's less than two months older than me – so yes, young) want to play the sort of music that makes Eric Clapton erect a tent in his trousers? Three songs in and he’s already moved onto a cover, George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’. Sweet Jesus indeed. Perhaps this is someone upstairs having a good laugh at us for giving the shitfest that is the afternoon line-up on the Other Stage (Jack Penate and Scouting For Girls following hot on the heels of Newton Faulkner) as wide a berth as possible?

4.15pm
It really is saying something when lame Christian emo-pop is a significant improvement. Does anyone in the tiny crowd inside the John Peel Tent know anything at all about THE ROCKET SUMMER? If that makes me sound like I'm interested, I'm not. If only the buzzing powerlines overhead were a little bit louder they might drown it out.

5.15pm
Barely a month since seeing Amy Millan and Evan Cranley perform as part of Broken Social Scene, here's an opportunity to catch them doing their day jobs in STARS (John Peel Tent). Not one I'm about to pass up, having received an excellent introduction to them in the form of 'Elevator Love Song', which featured on the first Shuffleathon CD I got, nearly two years ago. So personally speaking it's a bit of a blow that it's 'Elevator Love Song' that kicks the set off, and one from which they (or rather I) never quite recover. Dressed up in their gladrags and preferring a stage bedecked with flowers rather than the Black Lips' pigs' heads, they entertain without ever, well, truly shining, and certainly never come close to replicating the rapture of a BSS gig.

6.30pm
Regular readers may be aware that, having seen them three times in the last year and a half, I have quite a thing for BLOOD RED SHOES (John Peel Tent). The circumstances might not be ideal - they're late replacements for The Long Blondes, whose guitarist Dorian Cox is suffering from serious illness, and the set is dedicated to him - but then, as those present at the Cardiac in April can testify, the more-of-the-punk-than-the-art art-punk whirlwinds are not unaccustomed to triumphing in the face of adversity. Neither bandmate Laura-Mary Carter's pre-gig warning nor any sense of shame at embracing rock star cliche can prevent drummer Steven Ansell from fulfilling the teenage dream of uttering the words "Hello Glastonbury!", but otherwise it's business as usual - a blistering grunge racket with enough clout to kick some serious hippy arse, bookended by 'It's Getting Boring By The Sea' and 'I Wish I Was Someone Better' with 'Forgive Nothing', 'Doesn't Matter Much' and 'Try Harder' the highlights. That isn't to say it's all visceral thrills, mind; Steven's dedication of 'Say Something, Say Anything' - key line "How long can you miss someone?" - to his late dad, "who should be here, and isn't", is a powerchord on the heartstrings and brings a lump the size of a tennis ball to my throat.



7.30pm
A messy fajita + alcohol-induced clumsiness = redecoration of shoes with an array of various sauces.

7.45pm
Canada Day continues after that brief Brighton blip with another duo, one who seem to have made a habit of polarising opinions. Geniuses according to Del and Phill, talentless and shameless plagiarists according to piqued members of the "chiptune" community, Alice Glass and Ethan Kath aka CRYSTAL CASTLES (John Peel Tent) make brutal electro-pop that sounds like a malfunctioning amusement arcade. To say the red-stockinged Glass is a livewire would be an understatement, her scaling of the speaker stack during 'Alice Practice' leading to nervous stage staff temporarily pulling the plug on them. Ordinarily I might approve, but on this occasion the mood just isn't right.



8.30pm
No, when the sun's making its way gracefully down on a Sunday evening at Glastonbury, only a certain kind of artist will do - and this year that artist is LEONARD COHEN (Pyramid Stage). He may be getting on in years - no longer resembling a morose Adam Sandler, but instead a dapper Mafiosi pensioner in his Sunday best, clutching his grey trilby to his chest and beaming a thankful smile at the end of every song - but there's no doubting the old magic is still there. The cameramen focus on the backing singers, but more remarkable is the way Cohen turns sideways and, adopting a stooped, hunchback pose, seems to sing directly to his seated flamenco guitarist as though performing a very public serenade. Opener 'Dance Me To The End Of Love' - a song inspired by "just hearing or reading or knowing that, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet was pressed into performance while this horror was going on", lest we forget - is as compelling as anything I witness all weekend.





9.30pm
There's still time for the festival scheduling to claim another victim: SPIRITUALIZED (John Peel Tent). As anyone who's read a recent interview with Jason Pierce will know, though, that they're here at all - and in support of a new album, the characteristically wryly named Songs In A&E - is a minor miracle, Death's breath having tickled his neck rather too closely for comfort in 2005. I can't think of another band whose back catalogue I've explored and embraced so enthusiastically in recent years (except perhaps Yo La Tengo). The fire started smouldering with the purchase of Amazing Grace on something of a whim in 2003 but turned into a fully fledged inferno when I saw them live early the following year. Tonight's truncated set means that disappointingly few of the tracks from Songs In A&E are given the opportunity to prove themselves in the exalted company of their earlier material, but the blazing triumvirate of 'She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)', 'Come Together' and 'Take Your Time' are the best twenty minutes of my festival. "C'mon people, get yourselves out of it", sings Pierce in the latter - we've been doing it without any encouragement all weekend, Jase, but thanks for helping to ensure an out-of-body experience even when things are supposedly winding down.



10pm
The John Peel Tent compere announces he's run out of beer and asks if anyone would be so kind as to pass some up - "or wine, or drugs".

10.30pm
THE NATIONAL (John Peel Tent) were always destined to be an anti-climax, and sure enough their crescendos, which to these uninitiated ears at least seem to swell at exactly the same place in every song, pale in comparison to Spiritualized's imperious haze of sound. But even still I can't deny there's something strangely magnetic and alluring about their darkly dramatic rock which has Elbow, The Walkmen and Interpol as touchstones. No knockout punch from the band whose latest album is called Boxer, then, but instead a gradual wearing-down over the course of ten rounds and an eventual points victory over me.



11.30pm
A late-running headline set from MY MORNING JACKET (Park Stage)? No such luck - we roll up and right on cue Jim James and company wrap up, leaving me to lament the fact that their evil urges didn't extend to fucking the curfew.

Bands or performers I would have liked to have seen in an ideal world but missed due to clashes / rearranged running orders / the elements / my own sheer laziness or stupidity: My Morning Jacket (more than just the last 30 seconds...), Martina Topley Bird, The Whip, Friendly Fires, White Denim, Caribou, Vetiver, Threatmantics, Sky Larkin, Congregation, Tony Benn, Billy Bragg, The Shortwave Set, Robin Ince, Andy Parsons, Josie Long.

Monday 30th June

(Thanks to Dan for the photo.)

10am
The music may be over for another year, but it's a glorious day and we're in no hurry to leave. Strange to think that I end up with more of a tan from a weekend in Somerset than from a fortnight in Australia, but there you go.

12noon
My remaining finances stretch to just two (admittedly excellent) bacon and egg sandwiches. And what have I got to show for all that expenditure? A sore head and a disgruntled liver.

2.30pm
We're packed up and almost ready to go, but climbing up the hill to the perimeter fence for one last look down on the emptying site proves irresistible. Same time next year?

Know Your Enemy

"It's very disappointing that Ofcom hasn't come up with a stronger statement about being misled ... I know hundreds of people, literally hundreds, who were misled by it - they saw it, it was a well-produced programme and they imagined it had some truth behind it, so they were misled and it seems Ofcom didn't care about that ... They said it's completely settled, so why worry - so they can just broadcast any old rubbish."

It's Ofcom rather than Channel 4 who have got it in the neck from Sir John Houghton, "a former head of the UK Met Office and chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessment", in the wake of today's ruling about the documentary 'The Great Climate Change Swindle', aired in March last year.

Fair point, but there's also scope for a few choice words about Hamish Mykura, C4's Head of Documentaries, who on their own news report on the story suggested they had been vindicated for the decision to screen something which "challenged orthodoxies, which is kind of what Channel 4 is there to do"...

The traveller's rest

Well, that was quite a nine days. Since leaving Blighty a week yesterday, we've had at least one night in Paris, Munich, Vienna, Ljubljana and Lake Bled, visiting the first two again for short periods on our way back.

As anticipated (I know myself only too well), some form of travel diary is on the cards, so over the next week or so you can expect ramblings about everything from the delights of Stevenage and Mozart-themed embroidered oven gloves to inappropriately named Slovenian biscuits and our Lord Jesus Christ's multiple European business ventures.

First, though, there's the final part of the Glastonbury review, to be wrapped up and posted tomorrow night...

Coffee, scrambled egg and smoked salmon - and spam

One of the many joys of coming back from holiday is discovering you've got a wealth of spam to plough through, both in your email inbox and (in my case) blog comments.

One such comment awaiting approval today concerned a series of five secret gigs sponsored by a well-known beer company (two of which have already taken place), and constituted a plea for coverage in return for free tickets and booze. This kind of offer is something influential taste-making bloggers have to get used to, so needless to say it's a bit of a novelty to me.

Now, I'm not about to give free publicity to the gigs or beer company in question, let alone reveal the secret line-ups for the remaining three gigs (as has been expressly forbidden upon pain of a Chinese burn, or something), but I will divulge a bit of the email.

The first of the five events was held at the Soho Revue Bar in London, "which is an amazing venue actually", and the second at Joshua Brooks in Manchester, which boasts "big leather sofas". At the latter, "The Glimmers smashed it, Unabombers smashed it, and [The] Grandmaster Flash definitely smashed it". As if you weren't already picturing the PR plugger behind all this as one of Nathan Barley's bezzie mates, then you certainly will when I add that his name is Rupert.

Apparently, the information on line-ups for the forthcoming events has only been provided to give "you something to work with when you write your epic post". A bit presumptuous of you, Rupert, don't you think? Toddle off back to Shoreditch now, there's a good chap.

Dereliction of duty

A very poor show, I know, but I'm going to have to leave the Glasto diary unfinished for a week or so. Not the plan, honest, but that stealthy beast time has crept up on me unawares again and I could really do with going to bed before 3am for a change. But then I shouldn't be complaining given that I'm about to embark on my third holiday in the space of a month and a half...

Tomorrow we head to London, and thence to Paris, Munich, Vienna and Ljubljana, ending up at Lake Bled on Thursday in time for a wedding on Friday. I'd like to think I won't feel the compulsion to keep a travel diary to write up on our return, but best not make any promises, eh?

Toodle-pip, au revoir and auf Wiedersehen. And whatever "goodbye" is in Slovenian.

SWSL Glastonbury 2008 Diary

Saturday 28th June

(Thanks to Dan, Mel and Del for the photos.)

9.30am
"Woke up this morning / Feeling fine / Good night's sleep / Hot sunshine..." God, I'd make a rubbish bluesman.

11.15am
Where else but Glastonbury would the main stage be headlined by arguably the world's biggest rap star and opened by SHAKIN' STEVENS (Pyramid Stage)? The Pop Star Otherwise Known As Michael Barratt has warned us in the festival programme to "expect the unexpected" and, true enough, no one expected him to leave out 'Green Door', but couldn't he and his backing band (including, it seems, former Newcastle striker Antoine Sibierski, back in gainful employment following his release by Wigan) have not followed Brian Wilson's lead three years ago and played his own Christmas song 'Merry Christmas Everyone' in the summer sunshine? As it is, we get the entirely predictable declaration "We're going to play some songs from the new album" (greeted with an entirely predictable groan) and the sight of a jowly, nervous and patently drunk (you can take the boy out of Ely...) Shaky dad-dancing his way through his cover of Pink's 'Trouble'. It's as unedifying a spectacle as they come.

11.45am
Working our way through the thinning post-Shaky crowd in front of the mixing desk we come across a man more disappointed than most by the absence of 'Green Door' from the set: a man with a full-size green wooden door. On the other side it's painted white, but with a message for the headliner daubed in green: "Oi! Jay-Z! This is England. We don't want to know about your 99 problems, we want to know what's behind the green door!"



12noon
No pissed-up and forgetful bar staff today, so I actually get to see EMMY THE GREAT (John Peel Tent). "Nice knees" reckons my companion, while I reckon she's got a good set of pipes but is ultimately a bit fluffy and, with her tweely emotional and record-referencing lyrics, The KT Tunstall It's OK For The Indie Kids To Like. Not sure what the group of Where's Wallies in front of us think, though.

12.30pm
To Fresh Baguette (bugger those official meeting points!) to find Lord Bargain and Hen. (Of the other members of the Nottingham blogging cohort, photographer extraordinaire Sarah is elsewhere, while Swiss Toni's enjoying Martha Wainwright.) We quickly set about discussing who we've seen and who we're looking forward to, and LB explains to Hen that in the Venn diagram of our music tastes there would probably be the tiniest overlap, encompassing no one but the band we're about to see. (As it turns out, against the odds he felt much the same way about Shaky as me.) Before that, though, the Welsh oggie stall is calling - rude not to, on a day that Cardiff's taking over...

1pm
Watching LOS CAMPESINOS! (Other Stage), Spillers T-shirt on and oggie in hand, I imagine this is how parents must feel when they see little Johnny all grown up and playing Hamlet for the RSC when they remember him forgetting his lines as the donkey in the primary school nativity play: proud and just a little teary-eyed. The cover stars of the latest issue of Plan B have graduated from last year's slot on the Park Stage and celebrate by sharing with us the majority of their alternately sweet, clever, sharp, self-deprecating and explosive debut Hold On Now, Youngster, as well as non-album track 'The International Tweexcore Underground'. Gareth may not look like he's having that much fun, and commits the faux-pas of introducing 'Knee Deep At ATP' as being about "the best music festival in Britain", but he still launches himself into the thick of the crowd for 'Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks' before instructing us to go and see Jay-Z, "the best thing to happen to Glastonbury for years". One thing's for sure: with 'This Is How You Spell "Ha Ha Ha, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics"' they lay claim to the longest song title of the weekend.



1.30pm
Spotted: "How shit is this flag? Text me on ..."

1.45pm
OK, so I may not make a good bluesman, but here's someone who does. In fact, sat down and drawling to the crowd in his dungarees and green John Deere cap, SEASICK STEVE (Pyramid Stage) makes such a good bluesman that you'd be tempted to ask if he's for real. But he is, and this is the second of his three performances over the weekend, sandwiched between yesterday's headlining slot on the Acoustic Stage and tomorrow's short warm-up for Tony Benn in the Leftfield Tent. Thrilled to have been embraced so warmly by Britain, he suddenly found himself to be (in his words) "the cat's miaow" after playing the brilliant 'Dog House Boogie' (today's footstomping, guitar-shredding set-closer, in parts curiously like a redneck version of Depeche Mode's 'Personal Jesus') on his three-string guitar live on TV on New Year's Eve 2006. There's one reason for the existence of Jools Holland, at least.



2.45pm
HOLY FUCK (John Peel Tent)? Holy fuck indeed, for the Torontoians (I just made that up, but am sure Ian will set me straight) are really rather good. Though cut from a similar cloth to Foals, in the sense that they're a bit nerdy and a lot dancey, the foursome approach things from a different angle, retaining the bass and drums but doing away with all the guitars in favour of modified keyboards and DIY electronic equipment. Performing in a huddle in the middle of the stage, they whip themselves and the crowd into a frenzy with buzzing, twitching songs from second album LP, 'Lovely Allen' in particular going down a storm. Anyway, guys, if you're reading, I think you should club together with Fuck Buttons, Fucked Up, The Fucking Champs and Fuck and organise your very own summer shindig. You could call it Fuckfest. How's about it?

4pm
If Gruff Rhys likes Glastonbury (I think he played four times last year, once with Super Furry Animals and three times solo), then the feeling's mutual. Not many people could get away with lounging in a chair on stage, idly leafing through the programme, and every now and again singing on songs from an 80s influenced concept pop album about John DeLorean (Stainless Style), one of which concerns "working conditions in 1920s Detroit" - but he can, in his guise as one half of NEON NEON (Other Stage). He and his partner in crime, electro artist and producer Boom Bip, are aided and abetted by Har Mar Superstar, who performs half of one song in an extremely uncomfortable looking headstand, and Cate Le Bon (Rhys seems to have made it his personal mission to corrupt the erstwhile butter-wouldn't-melt folkie). While I'm not sure I'd enjoy the album now, beneath the bluest skies of the weekend and amidst a crowd of fervent Welsh types, the set's a definite highlight.



5pm
Accidentally snorting cava = not recommended.

6pm
Is there much more to say about THE RACONTEURS (Pyramid Stage) than that they're evidence of Jack White's desire to be in a band with someone who can play drums? Their big rock bluster huffs and puffs but never comes close to blowing me down, and I have to conclude that this collaboration between White and Brendan Benson is very definitely not the best of both worlds but, rather, significantly less than the sum of its parts.



7.15pm
My mission to see as many bands with "black" in their name as possible may already be dead in the water after I plumped for Holy Fuck over Black Kids (partly because of the former's allure but partly also because I suspect, 'I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You' aside, they may be a very pale imitation of Los Campesinos!), but here I am watching THE BLACK LIPS anyway. Last year it was The Horrors who upset the wizard-like old hippie who comperes this stage, by long outstaying their welcome, and this time around it seems to be the Atlantans. The reason isn't quite clear - it could be the guitarist spitting in the air; it could be the firecrackers let off from the other guitarist's mouth during set-closer 'Juvenile'; it could be the decorative array of real pigs' heads on sticks at the front of the stage, one of which is knocked off by an overenthusiastic Har Mar Superstar when he bounds on for 'Bad Kids'. Shame their shambolic garage take on Beatlesy power pop is nothing to write home about, though Del - whose blinding shirt and red hair would have made him easy to spot even if the tent hadn't been more than half empty - might say different.

8.30pm
Sadly, BAND OF HORSES (John Peel Tent) aren't a band of horses. (Actually, thinking about it, it'd be hard to play guitar with hooves.) There is however a band of horses in the crowd - well, fans with horses' heads, at least, here to nibble on the sugar cube of the beardos' check-shirted Americana, which reminds me of My Morning Jacket before they discovered Prince. Sure they push all the big buttons well, but every chord is telegraphed and I can't help seeing them as being genetically engineered to appeal to readers of Uncut. Anyway, the big question: did those fans alight on the idea of horses' heads because, with Foals having played yesterday, they knew they could get twice the use out of them? Makes you feel all the more sorry for the chap with the green door...

9.15pm
If there's one consolation for missing the hilarious car crash that is Wino staggering around and punching a punter, it's that the toilets by the Cinema Field are pristine and the Tolpuddle Bar deserted. Result!

9.45pm
This must be a strange and potentially disspiriting experience for THE FUTUREHEADS (John Peel Tent). After thrusting themselves into my consciousness on this very stage in 2003, they had transformed themselves into "stadium rock showmen" for a triumphant Other Stage set in the sun two years later, and now they're back where they started, and with a not dissimilarly sized crowd. But if it IS disspiriting, then they're certainly not showing it. In fact, 'Decent Days And Nights' and 'The Beginning Of The Twist' suggest a renewed fire in their collective belly and set a pattern for the ferocity with which they attack material from both their self-titled debut and third self-released album This Is Not The World. By contrast, songs from second album News & Tributes - disappointing for a reason that no one, myself included, could quite put a finger on - are conspicuous by their absence, the single 'Skip To The End' aside (which for some reason suddenly strikes me as sounding like AC/DC). The set climaxes with 'Hounds Of Love', multi-vocalled gem 'Carnival Kids' and a particularly fast and furious 'Man Ray'. As a reminder of how good they really are, it's near faultless.

10.30pm
En route for the Park, I bump into an off-duty and very well oiled member of security who's got himself lost trying to meet his friends at the Silent Disco. Glastonbury being Glastonbury, there are two and unfortunately he picked the wrong one...

11pm
Are BATTLES (Park Stage) forever destined to be upstaged? At last year's Green Man it was by a temporarily reformed Fridge, and this time around it's by Alex "Arctic Monkeys" Turner's Last Shadow Puppets, who ambled into one of the Special Guest slots and royally buggered up the running order and timings. The band diplomatically refer to "scheduling issues", but given they only get to play three songs (even if they do take up half an hour) you'd have to imagine they're not best pleased. 'Atlas' is brilliant, of course, but there's just something, well, masturbatory about the whole thing - yes, it's like a math rock circle jerk, with John Stanier sat in the centre of it all. Not an image you wanted, I appreciate, but there you go.

11.45pm
Text from a friend at home: "Are you watching Jay-Z?" No I'm not - I had planned to dip into his set, but I'm half an hour's walk away and thanks to the Last fucking Shadow fucking Puppets I won't really be able to. "We're following on TV. He's putting on a pretty good show!" Grrrr...

12.30am
For me, only one single outshone 'Atlas' last year, and that was 'Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above' by CSS (Park Stage). The reason I was so reluctant to leave my post and head over to the Pyramid Stage was because I fell in love with the Brazilian electro-funk-punk-poppers last year and was desperate to see them do it all again. But when they finally come on, well after midnight what with the delays to the schedule and the amount of time it's taken to get the stage set up, it's evident I've made a big mistake. Not that they're bad, you understand - just not a patch on last time (or at least the rose-tinted memory of it) and, though 'Let's Make Love...', 'Off The Hook' and 'Alcohol' momentarily liven us up, there's no 'Pretend We're Alala' (the mash-up of their own 'Alala' with the L7 classic), the new songs from forthcoming second album Donkey fall a bit flat and the party never really gets started.

1.30pm
This time last year I was smug in the knowledge that I'd just witnessed the set for which the festival would be remembered. And now I've got to sit and listen to friends talking about this year's equivalent...

2.30am
We're herded one way right down to the end of the railway track before we can get into Shangri-La (the rebranded Lost Vagueness), but it being Saturday, the place is absolutely rammed full of jibbered punters indulging in extracurricular activities of all kinds. Making it back through to the other side is a significant challenge, particularly when the less with-it members of our group keep wandering off on tangents, but eventually we manage it, and head up to the relative sanity and sobriety of the Stone Circle (yes, really), where we lie back and drink amidst the flickering of fires, constant music and the whoosh and wooooh of miniature candle-powered hot air balloons disappearing off into the night sky.

4.30am
Daylight means it's time for bed.

Bands or performers I would have liked to have seen in an ideal world but missed due to clashes / rearranged running orders / the elements / my own sheer laziness or stupidity: Jay-Zed (dammit), Winohouse, Black Kids, The Handsome Family, Fanfarlo, Jonquil, Fight Like Apes, Elbow, Hot Chip, Team Waterpolo, British Sea Power, Metronomy, Simon Munnery, Jeremy Hardy, Phil Nichol.

* * * * *

Next time: a human timebomb, hating Newton Faulkner even more than before and the most mindblowing 15 minutes of the weekend.

SWSL Glastonbury 2008 Diary

Friday 27th June

(Thanks to Mel and Del for the photos.)

10am
I made it back to the tent, then...

11am
The joy at still being alive is soon tempered by the way I feel. And I look exactly how I feel - a man with an extremely tenuous grip on reality.



12noon
It's very difficult to make a bad bacon sandwich - particularly for someone who feels that only greasy fried pig can prevent Death's hand from reaching the doorknocker - but somehow the Fresh Baguette van at the Other Stage accomplishes it with aplomb. I resolve to use it as a meeting place for the rest of the festival, but never again as a source of sustenance.

1.30pm
Never let it be said I'm instantly and unfairly dismissive of bands. Oh well, OK then, but not in the case of GLASVEGAS (John Peel Stage). At the Jericho Tavern in February, I was left distinctly underwhelmed by a band who, in theory at least (The Jesus & Mary Chain do doo-wop), should have had me drowning in my own saliva - so here I am, giving them another chance to win me over, even if I'm unable to do much other than cling to the floor. Sadly, the performance corroborates rather than confounds that first impression - they're one-paced, and nowhere near as good as they should be. Still, with Columbia's clout behind them (which also translates into a bombardment of emails for anyone signed up to their mailing list, rereleased singles and the abbreviating of all songs on their MySpace to one minute), they're destined for bigger things - and all while The Raveonettes are shunned. Sob.

2.30pm
From one wildly hyped new band to another. Of the two New York outfits on the weekend's bill who claim to be influenced as much by Afrobeat as by The Strokes (the other being the frankly rubbish Yeasayer), VAMPIRE WEEKEND (Other Stage) might be annoyingly smug interviewees but at least they have a handful of decent pick-me-up songs, and frontman Ezra Koenig appreciates that Glastonbury is largely about being thankful for all the attention and encouraging audience participation ("Blake's got a new face", apparently - bully for him). All the same, you suspect that if they hailed from Chingford rather than the Big Apple they wouldn't be afforded quite such acclaim. Plus someone should have a word with drummer Chris Tomson to let him know that wearing a Maradona T-shirt isn't the done
thing if you're trying to win over the English.



3.45pm
Part of the beauty of where the tents are pitched this year is that the Park Stage is barely a five minute walk away, the acts on it clearly audible from beneath our gazebo. Not that one of our party is pleased to hear the opening bars of 'Darling', SONS & DAUGHTERS' stab at perky eyelash-fluttering pop. Only after it's finished is it deemed safe to venture out into the drizzle and discover that Adele Bethel is wearing a shiny gold dress she'd never have got away with in Arab Strap and that, actually, some of the new songs from This Gift (particularly 'Goodbye Service') do stand up to the old songs, even if 'Ramalama' is the best moment of the set.



4.30pm
Now that I'm firmly back on terra firma, how appropriate that THE YOUNG KNIVES (John Peel Tent) should kick off a superabundance of material from Superabundance with a song of that very name. 'Up All Night', slyly stealing the chorus from Rocket From The Crypt's 'On A Rope', packs a punch and 'Current Of The River' is a powerful way to finish, but recent single 'Turn Tail', performed with live string section, feels like the trio trying on an ill-fitting hat, aiming for profundity but ending up with ponderousness - especially disappointing when it means that the likes of 'She's Attracted To' and 'Here Comes The Rumour Mill' are dropped to make way. Henry Dartnall refers to his brother, bassist The House Of Lords, as "a big fat loser" and later tells him to sing 'The Decision' properly and not to be "lazy". The talk may be sharp (if all in jest), but the Knives themselves are a little blunt.

5pm
There's entertainment everywhere you turn at Glastonbury - witness the group huddled under an umbrella and amusing themselves by watching people stumble and slide into a muddy pothole in the path. Certainly it's a lot more fun than trying to get over the narrow footbridge and up the hill through the Dance Village when the entire site seems intent on converging on the John Peel Tent to for a momentary glimpse of the hair of one of The Ting Tings. This festival doesn't have many flaws, but scheduling is one.



5.15pm
We walk past a group wearing matching spoof new rave T-shirts reading "Kings Of Neon". Here to see Neon Neon tomorrow, then.

6.15pm
The parallels are uncanny. Like Sons & Daughters earlier in the afternoon, THE DUKE SPIRIT are appearing on the Park Stage to promote material I wasn't totally convinced by on first listen back in November. Like Sons & Daughters with 'I Wanna Be Your Dog', they drop a short section of a punk classic into one of their own songs ('God Save The Queen' in their case). And like Sons & Daughters, their feisty and attractive frontwoman is wearing a gold dress. But all is not equal, Liela Moss and her boys triumphing over their peers by virtue of furious opener 'Send A Little Love Token' and alluring single 'My Sunken Treasure'. The chorus to 'The Step And The Walk' - "Without joy, joy, joy in the rain I could feel forever the same" - could have been written for Glastonbury, and moments like this.

7pm
We've had Vampire Weekend's 'Oxford Comma', we've had The Young Knives - Oxfordians via crisp capital Ashby-de-la-Zouch - and now we've got the latest locals with whom the good burghers of the city of dreaming spires are smitten. Math rock on this stage and at this time in proceedings might easily fall as flat on its arse as Winohouse after an all-day bender with Pete Doherty, but in the capable hands of FOALS (Other Stage) there's neigh danger of that. The late-running Duke Spirit set may mean we only see them when they're in the final furlong, but when even a song as lyrically sinister as 'Electric Bloom' can get a whole mass of strangers spasming in sync you know they're onto something.



7.45pm
The vendor by the John Peel Tent has earned my custom, I feel - if you want to buy a falafel, you want to buy it from a place called Just Falafs. Delicious it is, too, even with raita in place of houmus. Mind, the proprietor wants to be careful about the Trades Descriptions Act - those soups and smoothies on the side could bring about the downfall of the empire. Then who'll be falafing?

8.30pm
Over the last six months, no band has bemused me as much as MGMT (John Peel Tent). 'Time To Pretend' is a clear contender for single of the year (a bizarre amalgam of The Flaming Lips, Abba and the verse from The Bangles' 'Manic Monday', which even more bizarrely somehow works), and they've got the odd other passable moment, But tonight the malevolent synth of 'Time To Pretend' (the best thing about it) is bafflingly muzzled, and for every one of those passable moments (notably opener 'Weekend Wars' and 'Pieces Of What') there's half-baked Fleetwood Mac pastiche 'The Handshake' and the downright gruesome Scissors Sisters style funk-disco of 'Electric Feel'. I'm clearly in the minority, with everyone else singing the hook from 'Kids' as they leave the tent, but I can feel puzzlement has hardened into dislike.

9.15pm
Overheard on our way to the Park: "You're on acid, aw!", said as though the next word was going to be "Bless!" and the speaker was a pensioner talking to her five-year-old grandson.

9.30pm
No, I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to see a former member of The Velvet Underground in the flesh. And see JOHN CALE (Park Stage) I do, for all of about three minutes, which is enough to be struck by how strangely conventional the song he's playing is and decide to head barwards. Unfortunately, service turns out to be considerably slower than an intellectually challenged slug dragging an anvil, and by the time I emerge Cale is long gone.

10.15pm
"Surprise!" Hmm, I think not, Alex - the fact that FRANZ FERDINAND are the evening's special guests on the Park Stage was only a surprise for anyone who hadn't read the Q Daily, hadn't heard a single between-set announcement in the Park and hadn't had a flyer pressed into their hand by a member of the band worried there'd be no one there. One recipient of a flyer, refusing to believe Alex Kapranos was who he claimed to be, challenged him to name the area of Sheffield they're from, and it was to her that 'Take Me Out' was dedicated, dragged rather awkwardly into the middle of the set. As had been anticipated, the opportunity to blood some new songs is seized upon - the news being that while 'Kathryn Kiss Me', 'Ulysses', 'What She Came For' and 'Turn It On' are very recognisably them, Nick McCarthy does seem to have largely swapped guitar for keyboard. Quite how he and his band manage to concentrate through their short set culminating in 'This Fire' when there's a flag bearing the message "Fist me Jesus" fluttering right in front of them is beyond me.

11pm
The appearance of Jay-Z (or "Jay-Zed", as he's known to us all weekend) on the sacred Saturday night turf of the Pyramid Stage tomorrow night has sadly but inevitably overshadowed the fact that our very own homegrown rap superstar is also here to rinse it for the G-bury massive. I don't really know what that means, and I don't really know what he's saying - words must leave his mouth before they've even fully formed in his brain - but, together with DJ Semtex and a group of accomplices, DIZZEE RASCAL (Park Stage) is brilliant. He's probably never played to a field of white Glastonbury-reading welly-wearers before, but the aggression and relentlessness of his delivery can't fail to impress. A shame he has to wheel Calvin Harris out at the end for new single 'Dance Wiv Me', though, and during 'Bubbles' I can feel my inner Green Fields dwelling hippie tut-tutting disapprovingly: "Come on now Dizzee, you may jus' be a rascal, but less of this glorying in consumerism and machismo".

12midnight
Look, I was queuing for some food, OK? Blame it on the burrito. That's how I came to be present in the same field at the same time as PETE DOHERTY (Park Stage). Or maybe it's because I've developed a subconscious attraction to convicts since going to Australia... Either way, young Peter's been through a lot since last year's appearance fronting Babyshambles - a messy break-up with Kate Moss, time doing porridge - but sadly not singing classes. 'What A Waster'? 'Can't Stand Me Know'? You said it mate...

Bands or performers I would have liked to have seen in an ideal world but missed due to clashes / rearranged running orders / the elements / my own sheer laziness or stupidity: Be Your Own Pet, Candi Staton, Jimmy Cliff, The Gossip, Editors, We Are Scientists, The Kills, Santogold, Operator Please, Arthur Smith, Jeff Green.

* * * * *

Next time: Black Lips, blue skies and a green door.