Observations from this year’s Reading Festival

1. You will inevitably miss at least five bands you really want to see.
2. Carling is the dullest beer in the world.
3. This year’s look for girls – flowery wellies and denim short shorts. Nice.
4. Admire this year’s look for girls too closely and you will get a slap from your wife.
5. If you dress as a superhero, you will be in good company. This year I spotted a Batman, a Flash, a Spidergirl, a couple of Supermen, and a Green Lantern. And that was without looking too hard.
6. If, however, you’re dressed as a squeezy bottle of mustard, you’re on your own. And that’s probably the point.
7. The Fall appear to have turned into a krautrock group fronted by a komodo dragon. This is not a bad thing.
8. Gogol Bordello will rise up and take over in 2007. Mind you, I said that about the Arcade Fire last year, and where the fuck were they?
9. Broken Social Scene are a poor substitute for the Arcade Fire.
10. Apparantly, you’re not allowed to get your genitals pierced at the Reading Festival. You can merrily have a bolt shoved through anything else you fancy, mind.
11. Rain is no impediment to rocking.
12. Sore feet, however, are.
13. The worst time to get a major technical hitch is two songs into your set in front of the biggest audience you’ve ever seen. It’s OK, we still love you, Brian.
14. A major technical hitch is a great time to zoom the jumbotron cameras around in search of girls willing to take their tops off in front of 25, 000 people.
15. There are a lot of girls prepared to take their tops off in front of 25,000 people.
16. What do foxes know?
17. There appear to have been a lot of bloggers there.
18. Screw the smartass music crits. Pearl Jam were the band of the festival.

Some very good news!

This landed in my inbox today…

“Hi Rob

This is just a quick note from SFX to let you know that your story was chosen as one of the runners-up in our writing competition.

The standard of entries was very high but the judges at Gollancz chose your tale, “Wolves at the Door”, as one of the final stories (the overall winner was a chap called Colin Harvey, who’s story “The Stinker” will be the lead story in the book).

We have printed your story, alongside other runners-up, in that book. It’s being given away with the next issue of SFX, which hits the news-stand next week, from Wednesday 30 August.

Thanks again for entering the competition, and well done for the quality of your story. You can see your name on our website (www.sfx.co.uk) later on today.”

I’m utterly gobsmacked. Happy, freaked out, frankly still shaking a little. It’s the kind of vindication of the fact that I can put a meaningful narrative down on paper that I’ve never had before. This, in the week when Snatching Time gets a full West End screening as part of Frightfest.
I think I might just explode with joy. Or maybe that’s just wind.

The Sweetest Of Agonies

The Television Has Disintegrated. All That’s Left Is the Viewer. – New York Times

Ok, so I’ve done the research, agonised over the screen size, vacillated, back-tracked, rethought, agonised some more and generally wallowed in the sweet torture of which HD telly I should spunk the best part of a grand on. Verlyn Klinkenborg (crazy name, crazy guy/girl/whatever) writing in the NY Times, absolutely nails the process. Oh, this is what I think we’ve settled on.
For the record, TLC’s mum gets our old widescreen box. We are nothing if not green.

FODDERBLOG – If pig heads are the trip you’re on, it’s really hard to get off the bus

Zac Pelaccio – an American Heston Blumenthal?

Probably not, mostly due to the ingredient bloat. This is not simple stuff. That being said, the pickled watermelon and pork belly salad featured here does sound bizarrely tasty.
No, really, it does.