Fledgeling
It’s been very quiet round these parts. Our prolific junior correspondent has flown the nest. You’ll find him over at HampshireBirder’s Blog.
It’s been very quiet round these parts. Our prolific junior correspondent has flown the nest. You’ll find him over at HampshireBirder’s Blog.
For the last few days we’ve had a blackcap visiting our garden. Here it is sharing the feeder with a couple from our troupe of long-tailed tits.
This year our summer tour took in Beautiful Days for the first time. This festival has been widely described as “like festivals used to be”. I think that phrase is meant to distinguish Beautiful Days from the sort of festival that’s sponsored by makers of lager and mobile ‘phone networks, but it must have been created by a twenty-something marketing director. I remember how festivals used to be, and they weren’t like this.
If you’ve ever seen the film of Woodstock, the archetype for later festivals, you’ll remember no food, no toilets, no information, a sea of mud, bands turning up a day late or not at all, playing on a single stage with terrible PA, interminable waits between acts, and some nasty thuggery. Contrast this with Beautiful Days:
In the festivals of my youth, you could either stand in an endless queue to be fleeced by the chicken ‘n’ chips vendor or the same for the hot dog vendor. At Beautiful Days there was a choice of tasty wholesome meals from some of the best festival caterers.
The Beatiful Days toilet fairies were constantly doing the rounds, keeping the facilities clean, fresh and well-stocked with paper.
At the festivals of old there were no children. Beautiful Days had a happy and mostly-free area dedicated to making sure the children had a good time too.
As a paid-up old fogey, I couldn’t allow that the music now is better. But there is just so much more of it. Beautiful Days offered two main stages and a dance tent, all of which ran more or less to time, and the turnarounds between the acts were effectively managed. And we did see some great performances, my highlights being Bellowhead, the Eliza Carthy Band, Billy Bragg with the acoustic Blokes (thanks for Levi Stubbs’ Tears), and my first experience of Jill Sobule.The nightly showing of Freeborn John, which allowed members of The Levellers to dress up as cavaliers, and involved the English Civil War Society in the gratuitous firing of muskets, was a “concept”, and thus unquestionably ’70s. And what a glorious show it was, too. Apparently a recording is promised. More throwbacks like this, please.
But yes, there were some reminders of how festivals used to be:
Although Glastonbury now knows how to get 120,000 people onto the site in the manner of a military landing, a mere 10,000 of us spent two hours stationary in a traffic queue waiting to reach the Beautiful Days gate. Very nostalgic.
We’d already half-erected our tent when a short bald muscly man in uniform with walkie-talkie zoomed up self-importantly on a quad-bike and told us in the choicest language to move on, because our chosen spot was reserved for the security team. Not a very nice man, but I suspect he might have been worse if I hadn’t managed to suppress the urge to giggle at his pompousness.
The rest of our Beautiful Days photos are here.
It’s not only the music that takes us out on the festival circuit every summer; we also go for the food. Here are some of our favourites:
The only concessions to outside catering on this stall are the disposable plates and cutlery, but never the food. Actually Leon has been known to go one step further towards the environmental goal and serve the food on edible (potato) plates.
Leon has tried a few sites at Glastonbury, but seems to have settled on the north side of the Jazz-World field, echoing his position to the side of the open-air stage at WOMAD Rivermead. Apparently he also has a devout following at Cropredy.
Manic Organic have an established site on the main path through the green fields, as it passes between the Avalon and Greenpeace fields. Also to be found at WOMAD, Beautiful Days, Big Green Gathering, …
We first tried Pizza Tabun at the Larmer Tree festival. We’ve also found them at Glastonbury (in the Avalon field just round the corner from the Tiny Tea Tent), Beautiful Days, and the Big Green Gathering.
The mondegreen was named for this mishearing of the Scottish ballad, “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and layd him on the green“. Everyone has their favourite mondegreens, the gems of innocent misunderstanding which stand out from the contrived or merely smutty. The confusions of my own childhood began at school with “forgive us our Christmasses”, and progressed to Hendrix’s classic “‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy”.
How much more fruitful for the modern child, whose parents listen to music in languages that I hadn’t even heard of at their age. The imagination can run wild when the lyrics are not in poorly enunciated English, but in Tamashek. Tinariwen’s “Got ash on my knees in Aldershot” is a car singalong favourite.
What a nice surprise to read some news that makes you proud. Apparently the British High Commission in Islamabad has a team of diplomats who rescue young British women held against their will in Pakistan. No equivocation, no mealy-mouthed excuses about culture or tradition. That stuff on the inside cover of your passport really works.
Now let’s she what she can do about a fair trial for David Hicks.
Yesterday we watched a squirrel move home with her three babies. Sharing our garden with two cats had proved too much for her. One by one she carried her babies, tiny mouse-sized creatures with thin tails, in her mouth to their new nest, racing as fast as she could. You may just be able to make one out in the blurry photo on the right. Job done, she returned for a tasty rosehip.
On your left, Tom and Clara starting school in September 1998, in their shiny new shoes and too-big uniforms. And on the right, the same scene in September 2005. Spot the differences.
The BBC Dorset site included this photo of Rob and Tom taking part in the djembe workshop at the Larmer Tree festival.
A couple of things I should make clear:
In Amsterdam, everybody rides a bicycle. They don’t make a big thing of it. You won’t see anybody racing by in shiny lycra, or even wearing a helmet. The bikes are all similar – large and heavy, with high handlebars, luggage racks and dynamo lighting. The riders come in various ages, sizes, and genders, but they all proceed at a uniform pace of around 10 mph, often chatting in small groups.
I liked Frank Lee’s photos of bikes in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam streets have separate bike lanes, and there’s a special bike lane phase at traffic lights. You can take your bike on the train, too. If you go by public transport in Amsterdam, a single ticket will allow you to travel from A to B by any combination of bus, tram and metro. John Prescott, eat your heart out!