Cameron might torpedo Glastonbury houses

There's a shortage of affordable homes in the country. So it's brilliant that Michael Eavis is going to release a parcel of land in Pilton for a number of small homes-to-rent in the corner of the village.

Except now he might not. These new homes, and a number that have been built previously, are threatened by Tory right-to-buy policy:

[There is] a proposal to name 10 new cottages in Pilton after Margaret Bondfield, a trade unionist and Labour MP who in 1929 became the nation’s first woman Cabinet Minister.

Except the cottages may never be built, victims of the ­pernicious Tory plan to nationalise housing association properties and flog them at discounts of up to £77,000 or £102,700 in London.

I’m told Eavis isn’t prepared to release land if it could end up in private hands a few years later at a fat profit.

Understandably so. I say "understandably", although it's not clear that the government really understands.

Glastonbury 2013: It's all over bar the abandoned tents making a mockery of the festival's attempts to be green

From a long, long way away, that looked like the best Glastonbury in quite a while - especially if you put a hand over one eye and ignore the over-freighted Rolling Stones bit.

Sure, it edged ever closer into the belly of the establishment:

Delivering his regular Sunday morning press conference at 11am today (June 30), Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis confirmed that Prince Harry attended the festival on Saturday.

The 77-year-old farmer and festival organiser revealed that he told the royal he should stay up all night to get the best of the event: "I recommended that he should go through the night, because the nightlife is really what Glastonbury is all about," said Eavis.

Well, no, Michael; visits from heirs to the throne seem to be closer to what Glastonbury is all about these days.

Mind you, you've got love Eavis' apparent unawareness about Harry's reputation:

"At three in the afternoon, you won’t get it, will you? So I told him to get his taxi driver to come back at five in the morning and, you know what, he lasted until four in the morning, so he saw all the best stuff," he said.

Michael Eavis is the only person left alive who'd be surprised that Harry held his end up until the small hours of the morning.

Harry left eventually, though, mumbling that he didn't want to be around when Mumford And Sons turned up as "they make me feel common."

I'm not sure that Uli Jon Roth out the Scorpions coming on stage during the Smashing Pumpkins set made anything better, but it was probably the most inspired collaboration of the weekend. Except for that bit when it wasn't entirely clear if Kenny Rogers had just hallucinated having Sheena Easton on stage.

But I think we can agree that The XX won Glastonbury this year, yes?

Glastonbury 2013: Kill the badgers

Here's something cheery to think of as you see all the environmental pledges scattered across the Glastonbury site: Michael Eavis wants to kill badgers.

He supports the Tory coalition's badger cull:

"As a dairy farmer I am not on the side of the badger," he told the Guardian, in his first public comments on the controversy over badgers' role in causing bovine TB in cattle. "They've also uprooted all the orchids, and killed or eaten all the hedgehogs. They're still treated like a protected species, but they're actually quite a damaging animal."

Eaten all the hedgehogs, eh?

Hugh Warwick, a hedgehog ecologist, said that Eavis was mistaken in believing that badgers were responsible for the loss of hedgehogs in the countryside.

"Hedgehogs and badgers have coexisted for millennia. When there is plenty of food for both, these animals can live together," said Warwick. "The reason we're seeing a decline in hedgehogs cannot be wholly blamed on badgers although badgers have some part to play in it."

Badgers and hedgehogs compete for the same food – worms – but when food is scarce, badgers will turn on hedgehogs. Hedgehogs do suffer if badger populations reach a certain density but they are also rapidly declining in areas where there are no badgers.

And badgers uprooting orchids? Perhaps they do - although the government's cost-benefit analysis of a badger cull repeatedly makes clear that sending people into habitats to cull badgers actually puts orchids at risk through having flat-footed gun-wranglers trampling across the landscape.

And as the EU discovered last year, the main culprit in the spread of TB amongst cattle is dairy farmers being sloppy about following guidelines:

Cattle in England must be regularly tested for TB, and those found to have the disease must be quickly isolated and then removed. But the EC report, based on inspections made in September 2011, found numerous "shortcomings", including missed targets on both the rapid removal of cattle with TB and the follow-up of missed tests, and "weaknesses in cleaning and disinfection at farm, vehicle, market and slaughterhouse levels, exacerbated by lack of adequate supervision". All these problems increase the risk of TB spreading between cattle.

The EC gave the UK €23m in 2011 for bovine TB control measures. Its inspectors found that the removal of cattle with TB was below the target of 90% in 10 days, and that in the first half of 2011 more than 1,000 cattle had not been removed after 30 days. They found that there were 3,300 overdue TB tests as of May 2011 and that "many" calf passports – used to track movements – were incomplete. They also found that only 56% disease report forms had been completed on time, with the authorities blaming lack of resources. Funding cuts were cited as the reason for the failure of local authorities to update central databases systematically.

The EC report stated: "Local authority surveys provided evidence that some cattle farmers may have been illegally swapping cattle ear tags, ie retaining TB-positive animals in their herds and sending less productive animals to slaughter in their place." There are 8.5 million cattle in Great Britain on 81,000 holdings, with 2.4m movements a year. In 2011, about 7% of herds were under restriction due to TB and 26,000 cattle were destroyed.

It should be stressed that, nevertheless, nobody is suggesting a cull of dairy farmers.

Glastonbury 2012: What is Michael Eavis up to?

Without a festival to organise, and no cars to drag from a sodden parking field, Michael Eavis had enough time on his hands to guest edit the Western Daily Press.

Given how Eavis always trots out an upbeat tale of success, no matter what went wrong, I was half-expecting him to announce that there's a brilliant festival going on in Pilton, in blazing sunshine.

He doesn't actually do that.

Instead, he paints a lovely image of festival values:

The Festival cares and the people who come here do, too; I once saw someone who didn’t quite have enough money to buy bread at a stall at the Festival. The fella next to him broke his bread in two and gave the other chap half and walked off.

It was brilliant. It was so impressive – he hadn’t done it to be applauded, he had just done it. It would be wonderful if actions like that could be replicated more often.

It's true, you do meet a lot of lovely people at the festival. But there is a lingering sense of how the idea of a place where people share their bread with the poor squares with a £200 entry fee.

Glastonbury 2011: Quick morning press round-up

There was a strange moment yesterday, following the discovery of Christopher Shale's body in the Glastonbury toilets, that showbiz reporters were forced into covering a political story. So we tended to hear about how close he was to the Wayne Rooney caravan when he died, rather than his links to the Prime Minister.

Now the papers have had a chance to catch up. But if showbiz reporters had taken on strange roles yesterday, they weren't alone. The Daily Mail reports that Michael Eavis had appointed himself coroner:

At a news conference, Mr Eavis said: ‘I’m told it was a suicide situation in the early hours of the morning … It is a personal situation, but it looks like suicide.’

To be honest, even if Shale had taken his own life - perhaps especially if Shale had taken his own life - was it really appropriate for Eavis to be giving pronouncements on how he came to die?

Back with the music, over in The Sun, Gordon struggles to think of something to say about Laura Marling:

LAURA MARLING brought a welcome touch of normality to Worthy Farm.

With so many questionably-dressed people - both on stages and in the fields - it was refreshing to see somebody wearing their usual clobber.

Apparently so "refreshing" it demanded a sneering headline:

Laura Marling’s boring Laudrobe

Now, there's a load of Glastonbury coverage on The Sun's website, but I've yet to discover any of the bloke bands who turned up in work shirts and jeans be called "boring" for failing to have worn a lion costume. Funny that.

To give Rachel at 3AM in the Mirror her due, she did attempt to review the music. A bit:

During my bum breaks, I caught Jamie Woon's set and it was fantastic. I've heard a lot about this chap, but haven't listened to his stuff before. Sitting in the middle of a field with a pounding head and cider was the perfect way to be introduced to Jamie's chilled but strong, powerful tunes.

I spent a while sitting outside the dance tent and enjoyed watching the sweaty ravers from a purely visual perspective with my Vimto lolly (three pounds! Three. Pounds).

Hang on, she's already starting to file her expense claims.

Neil McCormick in the Telegraph isn't the sort to fall back on writing about ice lollies. He's noticed that - hey - there's something funny about a big US star being on a dairy farm:

Beyonce brought the sunshine to Glastonbury. Somehow the very idea of the urban pop queen strutting her stuff in mud-spattered wellies and pac-a-mac seems wrong, illustrating the disparity between her glamorous image and the down and dirty dairy farm festivities.

Hey - did you know Neil knows Bono? Out of U2?

Removed from the comfort zone of their usual sci-fi staging, U2 were forced to rely on road warrior skills, and proved consummate crowd-pleasers whose greatest strengths lie with heart and art, not space-age showbiz. At the end of the set, Bono pulled an Irish and a Union flag from the crowd to drape over amplifiers but that was about as political as it got, if you discount the limp balloon of a tax protest.

Hmm. I know he's your big chum, Neil, but it wasn't a "limp balloon" until security thugs went in and started to push the protestors about.

Interesting, by the way, that there were other political banners which didn't have security sicced on them - for example, the Don't Buy The Sun flag held aloft in front of the Pyramid stage - which does make it look even more like Glastonbury was just closing down anti-Bono protest.

Alexis Petridis, for the Guardian, saw the set of the other controversial act from this year's line-up:

Whether or not you agree with Michael Eavis's assessment that it was a "mistake" to book the Wombles for Glastonbury, it's hard not to feel at least a little impressed by them before they even play a note of music. On its final day, Glastonbury is being blasted by pitiless sun: it's a brave person who chooses to take to the stage dressed in a giant furry costume. Equally it's hard not to be a little puzzled by their decision to open their set with their best-known hit, Remember You're A Womble: when it finishes, alas, quite a lot of their audience chose to Womble off elsewhere.

Over at NME.com, freed from the deadlines and constraints of a print edition, the Glastonbury blog is the first place to turn for the latest from the field, right? Oh, Rebecca Shiller has filed. What did she make of Beyonce?

Last night, Coldplay headlined Glastonbury for the first time since 2005.

Oh. It turns out nobody has posted anything since lunchtime on Sunday, and that was about bloody Coldplay.

To be fair, there are a couple of news posts from later in the day, but 'Beyonce played' and 'Paul Simon played' hardly feels like you're getting much in the way of special insight.

Mind you, the coverage by sponsors Q makes NME seem like Reuters. A couple of news items - most recent is "here are the highlights that you might like to see today" - and a lazy Twitter box which seems to have relied on the GlastonburyFestivals.co.uk website to do all the work - and that's it. Was that worth the sponsorship money?

[Part of Glastonbury full coverage]

Glastonbury 2011: No drug test run-off

Dr John Ramsey is a disappointed man this weekend. No, he didn't buy tickets for the festival thinking it was some sort of Prince gig; he's a scientist from ULU and wanted to do some analysis on sewage from the site to see if there were any traces of drugs:

"It would have been a golden opportunity to test the technology and find out the actual levels of the use of 'legal highs' and new psychoactive compounds," he said.

He said that Glastonbury, with its ethos that "British law applies, but the rules of society are a little bit different, a little bit freer" provided the ideal demographic.

Seems fair enough, right? But Eavis has said no.

Festival's founder Michael Eavis said in a statement: "The drug culture these days has changed beyond belief. What a cheek to even suggest there's a problem."

Erm, Michael: police had made 34 drug arrests by Wednesday.

But even if people didn't take drugs at Glastonbury, why would you not let Dr Ramsey have a bit of poo? If you're convinced the place is cleaner than Emily Bishop's conscience, surely you'd welcome the chance for a university-endorsed report saying that there's not so much as a hint of LemSip in the portaloos?

[Part of Glastonbury 2011 full coverage]

Glastonbury 2011: Closing the gate after the cows have bolted

Michael Eavis is a bit worried:

Michael Eavis is reportedly worried that Glastonbury is becoming too middle class and elitist.

The festival's founder has allegedly blamed the cause on the regular A list attendees, which include Kate Moss, and has vowed to prevent perceptions of the event becoming too elitist.

Yes, this is a story that's been published this week, and not in the early 1990s. In 2013, it's possible that Eavis might notice that Glastonbury is a bit muddy.

So, Eavis blames Kate Moss for this:

"Michael feels Glastonbury has already become too middle class and gentrified, and is adamant that the festival continues to attract a range of ages, ethnicites and classes," a source told The Mirror.

"Not just showbiz wannabes. Kate has been a great patron of the festival over the years but Michael believes the last couple of festivals have become too much about the Kate Moss show - and not enough about grass-roots music."

Yes, it's the presence of Kate Moss in the VIP area. Not the massive ticket pricehikes; or the presence of shops selling mobile phones on site or the booking of dinner party headliners like U2 and Coldplay. It's all Kate Moss.

It's taken him over a decade to notice the problem. It's going to take a while longer for him to work out the causes. It might be too late to even fix.

[Part of Glastonbury 2011 full coverage]

Glastonbury 2011: SeeTickets still isn't up to the job

Although less of a nightmare than in previous years, it still seems from Twitter that the Glastonbury ticket process is still a rotten, tumbling mess:

@Jack_Dent:

# Wasted a Sunday morning trying to book my lad a Glastonbury ticket. Think he may have just got 1 via a mate. The booking system is shite.

@glastofest oh great thanks, the bloody See tickets website is still not working #glastonburysucks 10 minutes ago via web in reply to glastofest

@glastofest errrno, it times out. it's a useless, frustrating system. No worries though, you'll sell all the tickets!! about 3 hours ago via web in reply to glastofest

@JackHCarter:

trying get a glastonbury ticket takes the PISS

@newmusicdave:

Sold out! Never even got on the website. That's 2 yrs in a row now. Waste of time #Glastonbury

How many years now have they been selling exclusively online, and they still can't get the system to work properly?

What's interesting, though, this year is that it's not just the fans taking to Twitter to attack Seetickets for being useless:
@MichaelEavis:

See tickets have indeed let us down today I'm sorry but there will be another sale of cancelled tickets in 2011. Still some left now though

If even Michael Eavis, a man who can't see a mudbath without pointing out the rejuvenating properties of Somerset clay, is saying Seetickets isn't up to the job, why are Glastonbury still using them?

[UPDATE: Oh. That turns out not to be an actual Michael Eavis account. Sorry; thanks to the comments which pointed that out.]

Glastonbury 2010: It was the best ever

I was away doing other stuff this weekend, so it was nice to return and discover that some things are still as you expect them, even in a world where you can't trust Vince Cable any more.

Michael Eavis issued his traditional 'it was the best ever' statement at the end of Glastonbury:

Speaking at a press conference today, Eavis, 74, said he had experienced the best six hours of his life last night.

"I've never enjoyed myself so much," he said. "I hope you enjoyed yourselves too. It has been the best party for me, it really has been the best – the weather, the full moon and last night in a crowd of 100,000 people there was not one drunk person, isn't that extraordinary?"

Hmm. It does sound almost unbelievable, yes.

The biggest discovery of the festival seems to have been that people who have nothing much invested in the experience prefer the idea of Gorillaz to actually seeing them.

Gordon in the morning: Get orf my land

On the front of the Bizarre pages this morning, there's an interesting-sounding headline:

Kylie Glasto Blow

- which suggests a rather tightly targeted celebrity-endorsed product being prepared for next weekend.

The story, though - or 'something Gordon read in a magazine' - is rather more what you'd expect. Kylie won't be invited to play Glastonbury:

She was due to play the festival in 2005 but had to pull out after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

And now dairy farmer Michael doesn't want her on the bill.

He tells Recognise magazine: "She was going to do it years ago but then she was ill.

"We've all moved on. We've moved on to different things now."

What does that actually mean? Is Eavis suggesting that Kylie has no place on a bill which can find space for Shakira, U2 and Damon Albarn's Comedy Monkey Band? You find pop-snobbery in the oddest places, but I can't think of such a tightly-directed piece of pop snobbery in recent years.

Gordon in the morning: U2 in a field

Pssst... Gordon... You're talking about this like it's a good thing:

MICHAEL EAVIS promised something special for Glastonbury's 40th birthday next year - and boy has he delivered.

U2 will headline on Friday night - the first time the Irish rockers have ever played the festival.

Well, at least it's good news for whoever's headlining the second stage at the time.

There's an unsourced source:

A source said: "Everyone is over the moon that the deal has been done.

"Michael really wanted a huge name for the 40th anniversary and the fact U2 have never played Glastonbury in their 32-year career only adds to the mystique."

"Only adds to the mystique"? What does that actually mean? What "mystique"?

Earlier this year Bono said of Glasto: "I know lots of people want us to play.

"It's something we're working up our whole life to do. We really, really want to do this."

What an utter politician Bono is. You've been working your whole life up to playing Glastonbury, have you? Your entire career trajectory has been designed to achieve a slot on the Worthy Farm stage? So what exactly has been stopping you hitherto? Did you have to harvest Golden apples and change the flow of a river before you could play? Or is it just you couldn't be arsed to do it for the money before?

Glastonbury 2009: The traditional close

You know, you never can consider the Glastonbury festival closed until... ah yes, until this happens:

Glastonbury hailed as 'best ever' by Michael Eavis closes

Time to take down the tents, then.

Glastonbury 2009: Bruce costs Eavis

6Music news has just reported that the over-run of the Springsteen set has landed Glastonbury with a £3000 fine, which Michael Eavis is going to pay out of his own farmer's pocket.

Glastonbury 2009: Eavis denies own interview

Just before the music news and the proper news collided heavily yesterday evening, 6Music News at 8.30 had a report where Michael Eavis described reports that he was going to retire after 2011 as "rubbish."

Yeah, total rubbish. Where did anyone get such a crazy idea in the first place?

Oh, that's right - it was when Michael Eavis said he was going in 2011 in an interview with The Guardian, who sponsor the festival. Why would anyone trust such a flaky source?

Glastonbury 2009: Eavis looks to the future

It's one of the traditions of Glastonbury that, as we get nearer and nearer to the event, Michael Eavis pops up with a "I won't be around forever" comment. This year, he's even brought forward the date of his swansong: he's going to step aside in favour of Emily after the 2011 festival.

In his chat with his sponsors at The Guardian, he puts some background on last year's Jay-Z headlining. As often happens with Eavis, the story he was selling at the time turns out to not be the same as the one you get after a period of reflection.

So it was less about bringing in a new audience to the festival, not really anything to do with trying to attract teenagers and shift the median age back down. Oh no:

Eavis said he only agreed to his daughter's pleas to bring Jay-Z to the farm because his preferred act – Radiohead – fell through. "It was either that or cancel the show," he said. "I knew she had sensible ideas so I had to go with that. It was the last throw of the dice for me. We either throw the dice or abandon the festival."

It fell to Eavis to call that rapper's agent. "I had to ask how you pronounce it. 'Is it Jaze? Is it Jacy?'"

Eavis' easy ability to spin a line to the press has been a huge help in managing to take Glastonbury from a music festival to whatever it is now, without losing too much of the goodwill (or, at least, harming the mystique). He will be missed, and it's likely that without him, Glastonbury will start to look more and more like what it actually is. He really will be missed.

Also: with talk of 2010 and 2011, are we to assume that the 'fallow' year - when there is no festival - has been abandoned?

Gordon in the morning: Telling porkies

Gordon chills the blood of juggling-and-mud fans everywhere this morning, claiming that swine flu has put "Glastonbury at risk":

GLASTO chief MICHAEL EAVIS fears his famous festival could face the chop this year over the swine flu outbreak.

The bearded dairy farmer called worried organisers to an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the prospect of cancelling the event amid fears of a pandemic.

Really? Eavis really believes the event is under threat? Or is it just one of those things that you put on the list of things to be aware of in planning?

What did Michael tell you, Gordon?

Nothing at all, as it turns out. But there was a "source":

A source said: “So many people gathered in one place is a risk and if the Government wanted to pull public events, like they have done in Mexico, we’d be one of the first to go."

Well, Glastonbury would be one of the first to go if the government happened to start canceling events the weekend that the ban came in. If swine flu did suddenly become a real problem, but it happened in the next couple of weeks, the FA Cup Final might be the first to go.

But it won't be, because it isn't likely. Even Gordon's "source" says so:

“It would be crazy not to put a plan in place. Right now, though, it is still full steam ahead.”

So, Gordon's "exclusive" is if - if - swine flu gets a lot more serious, and the government bans large public gatherings, then a large public gathering won't happen.

But Gordon isn't content with one large-gig/health-related non-story. Oh, no. There's scrawny old Michael Jackson, too:

MEDICS have warned MICHAEL JACKSON that he needs to beef up before his mammoth O2 residency.

They say the star is 20lb underweight and urgently needs to pile on the pounds ahead of the 50 live shows, from July 8 to February 24.

In other words: doctors are advising someone to make sure they're in the best of health before embarking on a job which requires them to be physically fit.

It's a classic day for stating the bleedin' obvious, experts say.

Glastonbury 2009: Slight overstatement

Even by the standards of meaningless lists, the Time magazine 100 Most Influential People list's inclusion of Michael Eavis seems a little extravagant.

Now, Eavis is a nice enough guy; his festival is successful and although he might sometimes neglect fact in favour of a sunny précis, his intentions are usually well-meant.

But one of the 100 most influential people on the planet? Really? How would you see his influence? Men proud to have their heads on upside-down? A few dozen me-too festivals around the globe? But if it was the latter, would you not expect to see a few more of the Glastonbury-clones being run on a not-for-profit basis at the very least.

Tell us, how did Time choose Eavis?

Coldplay singer Chris Martin paid tribute to Mr Eavis in an article for Time...

Oh, really? Could it be, do you think, that Time asked Chris to write about someone, and then slotted that someone into the run down?

Still, Chris: one of the most influential people on the planet. How does that stack up, then?

Coldplay singer Chris Martin paid tribute to Mr Eavis in an article for Time, writing that Glastonbury was "the biggest rock cathedral in the world".

"Michael is one of the people to whom I owe my life and career," he wrote, explaining how the offer of a headline slot in 2002 had "changed everything".

"We've headlined other festivals, but Glastonbury is the only one that feels like - and is - a family event. It's also the only one where we received some handmade cheese as a thank you," Martin added.

So: he gave you a cheese and helped make Coldplay famous - which you suggest is a good thing? And that's influential, is it? On Martin's life, perhaps, but on the world?

Come on, Time: this is meant to be a serious endeavour, isn't it? You're seriously suggesting Eavis belongs here? Isn't this for statespeople and scientists and...

He is one of 100 people listed, along with US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown...

You see?

... teen actor Zac Efron and TV host Oprah Winfrey.

Oh. That's the calibration, is it? As you were, then.

The Boss on the farm

So, that's who's this year's super-secret-surprise for Glastonbury: It's Jay-Z again.

Alright, it's not.

In one of those about-faces we've come to expect from Worthy Farm, last year's plan of bringing in younger, edgier acts to attract back the teenagers has been abandoned as this year Bruce Springsteen is headlining Saturday.

The Eavises, though, are excited:

"He's one of the all-time rock legends and I'm confident that this will be one of our best shows ever," festival founder Michael Eavis said.

... and even if it isn't, we'll still issue releases saying that it was.

Co-organiser Emily Eavis said: "I'm knocked out that we've managed to get Bruce to play. It's the icing on the cake of this year's bill, which I'm sure will take everyone's breath away when we announce the full details."

"...it might put the cat amongst the pigeons, but we thought you only live once, and as this is the first day of the rest of our lives, we ran the idea up the flagpole..."

The world is now waiting to see if Noel Gallagher will approve or disapprove.

Eavis: Hostage to fortune

Were I a voter in Mendip District, or, indeed, a councilor, I might take a very dim view indeed of Michael Eavis claiming that there was no way Glastonbury would ever not get a licence:

"The local economy gets £100m a year", he told Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

"So there's no discussion about not allowing the festival a licence any more. They won't stop it now."

Interesting that Glastonbury has come so far from its roots that Eavis can apparently only conceive that a planning decision would be taken on financial grounds alone. If nothing else, there might be a risk to the festival of local people keen to send a message that their decisions can't simply be bought by a large cheque.

Glastonbury zero

Although the official line is that Glastonbury didn't make a profit, the charities the festivals support still got their million quid, which would seem to be the main thing. The lack of any surplus for reinvestment, though, would surely be something of a worry- right, Michael Eavis?

"Glastonbury costs £22m now, it's a huge cost," Eavis recently told BBC 6 Music. "The infrastructure, the fencing, the roads, the water and the loos, the marquees, the management, the security and the police, it goes on and on so we do have to sell out in order to make it work."

"Costing had gone through the roof and the diesel costs had gone up by about 200,000 pounds," he said. "All the other costs had gone up as well."
[...]
"It's the first year in 39 years that we didn't make anything out of it," he said, "so it's not bad really is it?"

That would depend, Michael, on where the money underpinning next year's festival comes from. It does make the decision to offer tickets for sale earlier on - with a deposit up front - seem a little more understandable, though.