No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Your black leather wardrobe and your Brando boy frown

The Daily Mail has got shots from Kate and Pete's first joint photo session. According to the Mail, Moss takes on the role of "Cleopatra" (albeit one with a jeep wearing jodhpurs) while Doherty, they're not so sure about:

A young Marlon Brando, or ageing addict?

Unlike the Mail to experience a moment of uncertainty.

Pete's modeling one and a half grand Roberto Cavalli jackets now. He's, like, such a bloke of the people.

This time, la luna?

It's good to see that the concert in memory of Diana is set to be a dignified affair, with Simon LeBon setting the tone - apparently, Duran respect the life and work of the woman in return for her respect for LeBon's arse:

"She and I used to go to the same fitness club - Chelsea Harbour in London.

"One day I was on the running machine. I jumped off because one of my shoelaces had come undone, and she wolf-whistled at me across the room, and yelled, like a brickie, 'Nice legs! I'd recognise that bum anywhere!'

"I was quite taken aback, actually, and quietly got back on the machine with a red face."

It's lucky that his shorts' underpant lining hadn't perished, otherwise the course of history could have been bery different indeed.

I'm bringing phlegmyback

Trouble for Justin Timberlake at the Gothenburg Hard Rock Cafe, reports the Mirror. Justin got upset:

A gaggle of teenagers were hounding him for pictures, but when he refused, one boy screamed "fuckface" at him.

It's claimed that Justin, 25, then shot back with: "Are you calling me fuckface? Go fuck yourself."

But is there so much difference between having a sexyback and a fuckface?

Anyway, Justin and Jessica Biel were then followed back to their hotel:

After a while, Justin appeared on the hotel rooftop with a woman - presumably Jessica - by his side. Sources claim that he then, bizarrely, started throwing a weird assortment of objects at his tormentors.

Says an onlooker: "First a load of ping-pong balls came raining down. Then came a plastic bottle of water. After that, there was strawberries and other fruit.

"And then came the phlegm."

Nino Antonio El-Khoury was pictured with spit on the back of his clothes, which he claims came straight from the superstar's mouth.

The 17-year-old said: "Justin spat on me."

It's a story that reflects poorly on Justin - not the spitting, but the discovery that, in a new town, he chooses to go to the bloody Hard Rock Cafe for his tea. No wonder he has a problem with flatulence.

It's not nice to taunt the 3AM Girls, Alex

It's all fun and games making things up and enjoying seeing the 3AM Girls write them down, but now everyone is going to be awaiting the Arctic Monkey/Klaxon/Lily Allen/Dizee Rascal supergroup Alex Turner has promised:

Alex told us backstage at Glastonbury: "It's definitely happening. We're recording an album. It will be out before you know it."

Alex worked with Dizzee on his fab album Maths And English. And Dizzee teamed up with Lily on his hit Wannabe. The three roped in James [Righton] during a fancy-dress do in the VIP bar.

An insider tells us: "Their fans won't know what's hit them."

You have to love that "insider" comment - it's only one step away from an insider said "with eight legs between them, that's forty toes." An insider inside what? A non-existent record? Did they have to phone up a studio that hasn't been built and keep asking to speak to someone who hasn't been employed yet?

Victoria Newton loves Geri Halliwell

What a turn around, eh? After a long period where Geri Halliwell had been cast as some sort of hapless pratfall artist, with stories about dogs getting her thrown out of gyms and running photos of her arse, all of a sudden, Bizarre has decided that she's one of the nation's treasures.

For example, back when her single Desire struggled, Newton flapped out crowing:

Geri: It's all over, dear

GERI HALLIWELL's next job could be flipping burgers after her new single bombed in the midweek charts.

If the former SPICE GIRL was drinking in the last chance saloon before, the barman has just called time — her track Desire is a feeble No18.

But this morning, it turns out that she's sexy and amazing:

Ginger has Geri good pins

SPICE curl GERI HALLIWELL steps out last night — and shows fans why she’s a showbiz leg-end.

Ginger, 34, hit the town for her good friend GEORGE MICHAEL’s 45th birthday party.

And she looked a million dollars with a shock of corkscrew locks — and a sexy black dress slashed to the thigh for the bash at the Berkeley Hotel, Knightsbridge, central London.

Goodness, that's positively gushing. It's almost as if Newton is worried that Geri might be involved in a big event soon and doesn't want to be shut out of the exclusive backstage coverage, isn't it?

It's notable that, in the box where The Sun usually links to its older stories about the subject of the one you're reading, rather than stacking up previous stories about Geri, there's just one link to the Spice Girls reunion story.

Timberlake controls the gas

There are some things, you'd have thought, it would be better to leave off your rider to avoid the inevitable leaking. As an example, Justin Timberlake could have saved the image of him as an unhappy bubble of anal wind popping and winking in the mortal bath had he not tried to save a few dollars by putting Beanos on his list of demands. (We're talking about the pills you guzzle before a meal which stop your belly making gas, not the comics, obviously.)

He could have saved his embarrassment, and saved us from Victoria Newton's "funny" list of songs that could be about breaking wind - Pump it up, and so on. She gives up after four, by the way, and rounds off with "Anything by *NSTINK". Perhaps she should try writing for Ronni Ancona.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Global warming gig under threat of cold reception

Live Earth might need a benefit gig of its own, at least in South Africa: they've moved the Joss Stone/UB40 leg of the gig closer to Johannesburg after ticket sales were doing poorly at the original venue. If the fans still refuse to go to the gig, it's rumoured they're thinking of making Stone bellow through their letterboxes.

The Istanbul leg of Live Earth was cancelled, fairly quietly, last week, after it failed to attract support of either government or business.

Touting: the evidence

In preparation for tomorrow's Department of Media, Culture and Sport hearing into the selling on of tickets, interested parties have submitted evidence to the committee, in which those who want bans on people being able to sell tickets they have legitimately purchsed on in the same way they can sell on unwanted CDs, or their old fridge when they get a new one, have to demonstrate that it's a Bad Thing.

Ticketmaster, for example, are good on the apocalyptic vision:

We believe that our clients, who have invested in the event, should be able to control where and how their tickets are sold, and at what price, not the unauthorised secondary market. Ticket touting is bad for our business, but it is also bad for consumers, fans, tourists, and UK plc as a whole. We fully accept our responsibility to self-regulate our business and to achieve fair distribution of tickets on behalf of our clients to the benefit of their consumers. However we firmly believe that the scale of the emerging unauthorised secondary market requires urgent legislation to support the entertainment sector if we are to be successful in responding to this issue.

(and don't you hate people who refer to this country as "UK PLC"? Reducing a nation and its citizens and history and culture to some sort of small business.)

Ticketmaster are also clear on what they want:

We would therefore urge the Committee to recommend strongly that the Government act to make the unauthorised resale of all event tickets, at higher than face value, a criminal offence through primary legislation.

Got that? If you sell any ticket for more than face value, you'll be committing a criminal offence if Ticketmaster has its way. (Presumably you could always try arguing that the mark-up is, in fact, a booking fee, or to cover your administrative costs - it works for Ticketmaster, after all.) So, they're not just going after people flogging on three dozen Bon Jovi tickets - this is people just selling spares. Something, I'd guess, we've all done at some point. Criminalising a two quid mark-up alongside the five hundred quid profiteers.

So, what is the serious problem for which that this new crime is being proposed to stop? On that, Ticketmaster are a little less clear:

The unauthorised resale of tickets for profit does not promote fair and equitable distribution of tickets, and drains tickets away from the primary market, thus restricting the opportunity for genuine fans to purchase them legitimately.

Well, yes. Although to be honest, loading up all the tickets onto a system, and then allowing them all to go in a burst of "first to get through without the server falling over on them" enthusiasm doesn't do much to guarantee an "equitable distribution of tickets" either, does it?

Event promoters and stakeholders make enormous investments in producing their event, and the unauthorised market benefits from that and the popularity of the event, despite having made no investment themselves. The opportunity cost of touting is also great, as the touts are receiving income that could otherwise have gone to the entertainment or sports industries. The damage this does to event owners’ reputations with consumers and fans, as well as the tourism industry and the economy as a whole, has been well documented in the broader submissions, which the Committee will be receiving.

This sounds a little odd to us. Yes, people selling on tickets make money - but they have made an investment, when they bought the original ticket, and that cash goes to the promoter. Presumably the promoters have set the ticket price at a levelwhich would guarantee them a profit they felt worthwhile? So while, yes, a third party is making a profit on the backs of their event, it's not at their expense.

Likewise, the eyewash about opportunity cost is just bad economics - it's the same sleight of hand employed by the RIAA when they paint every quid spent on a pirate CD as a quid lost to the music industry, assuming that money spent on an unauthorised product would otherwise have been spent on an official one. This is even weaker when it's applied to sold-on gig tickets - if you buy a Prince ticket for 100 pounds off eBay, and they officially retailed for 25 quid, it's erroneous to assume that the 75 quid difference would have gone straight to the entertainment industry. Since it would be unlikely the purchaser would have bought four tickets instead of one, that can't account for this strange "opportunity cost"; perhaps, our theoritical figure would decide not to buy a tshirt, and a programme, and a hotdog while at the gig because they had spent over the odds on the ticket. But equally, they're just as likely to have redirected the cash from money they might have spent on computer games, or put into national savings, or donated to help sick donkeys.

Ticketmaster love the equality of access of the internet, but, ooh, it's a worry:

The rapid growth of the internet has affected the market in two ways. It has expedited the purchase of tickets, and the efficient service Ticketmaster offers means that whole arenas can sell out in a matter of minutes. This is of great advantage to the consumer who benefits from such efficient, fast and effective systems. It also allows greater equality of access to tickets for those in society who may not have the physical capacity or lifestyle to access tickets through traditional methods, such as queuing for a long time on a working day.

...although, of course, selling all the tickets online in a single burst disqualifies those who don't have access to the internet, or credit cards, or the ability to log on at precisely 9.00am on day of sale.

Ticketmaster go on to curse the gift of the internet for offering a way in for people like getmetickets to buy in bulk, and for individuals to buy up extra tickets to flog on for some spare cash.

Which is true, but surely Ticketmaster could do something about this without the need for legislation? They do admit in their submission they need to look to doing something about it; and they could try to work with outlets like eBay to come up with an effective solution instead of demanding a massive catch-all law.

The Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers have been debating new rules with the Office of Fair Trading; their evidence shows they're not happy that the OFT appears to have changed its mind and only wants a ban for business-based reselling:

The OFT have previously suggested support for STAR’s draft term which precludes a ticket holder from reselling tickets without the authority of the event organiser. This position has since changed. It is agreed that the clause can stand in respect of business to business transactions but the OFT is questioning whether or not a ticket seller can remove the right of individual consumers to resell tickets. The OFT have asked STAR to specify events for which resale could be prevented for ‘special reasons’ and have not accepted our argument that this is unduly burdensome. In addition, this term has the potential to allow event organisers and the primary market to take action to help police the unauthorised resales market and to send a clear message to the marketplace.

So, if we understand that right, the OFT offered to allow the ticket agencies to draw up a list of events on which secondary sales could be forbidden - a kind of blacklist to protect the most popular events - but STAR say it would be, oh, too difficult. What an onerous task it would be, when adding details of a new event, to spend thirty seconds weighing up if it should be restricted.

But, of course, if you have a voluntary scheme, there wouldn't been need for legislation, and the ticket industry couldn't have a law of its own to play with.

STAR do make a strong point, though, that if you buy a twenty quid ticket for forty, and the event goes down, you're only going to get face value back. Perhaps, if there must be legislation, that's where it should be focused: protecting the consumer, rather than criminalising the reseller.

Pop's sloppy shop shock

We wouldn't take it from Jo O'Meara, and we won't take it from Iggy Pop: During part of the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, Pop started to throw the word "paki" around:

Referring to the time he appeared on music show The White Room in 1997 in a pair of see through, skin-tight trousers and without underwear, the 60-year-old used the phrase [paki shop] while impersonating a imaginary English person reacting his attire, according to the BBC spokesman.

The BBC have apologised - apparently they had three complaints, even at 1.20am on a Sunday morning - but it's really Iggy who needs to be explaining himself.

It's official: Victoria Beckham isn't a bitch

Star magazine - Richard Desmond's low-heat Heat - has apologised to Victoria Beckham for calling her a grade-a bitch, after running a piece which quoted ay unflattering length complaints about her from the crew of her US TV reality series.

Unfortunately, as the series hadn't started taping at this point, there wasn't much to defend the story with:

[Beckham's Lawyer Gerrard Tyrrell] said Star magazine had agreed to pay substantial damages and Beckham's legal costs and undertaken not to repeat the defamation.

Lawyer Salayha Hussein, acting for Northern & Shell, told the high court that her client accepted that all the allegations to which Mr Tyrrell referred were untrue.

Ms Hussein added: "The defendant apologises to Ms Beckham for the distress and embarrassment caused to her and are happy to give the undertaking referred to above."

Planet's needs, Al Gore's needs, whatever

We're a little puzzled by the claims that The Cribs have been "forced" to apologise for making a mild joke onstage at Glastonbury.

The joke - actually, mild might be over-stating it a bit - was this:

"They want us to speak out about global warming, but the biggest problem is the attitude of some indie bands. Isn't that a bigger problem?"

Since then, Ryan Jarman has issued a clarification:

At no point was I meaning to criticise the festival's climate campaign, I was just making a flippant remark about, how in my opinion, the mainstream mindset of most "indie" bands these days is the real scourge we should be against."

But as far as we can tell, nobody even noticed the original remark, much less took it seriously; certainly, the only reason we can think of for Jarman making this semi-retraction would be an Uncle Ken moment. Everyone has an Uncle Ken, who makes lame puns at family gatherings and - mistaking people pretending not to have heard for people who didn't hear - will repeat the joke, with worse timing and the wrong inflection.

Doubts resurface

Over the weekend, theotheronesfromnodoubt joined Gwen Steffani on stage for one of their songs, and to remake their remake of Talk Talk. It's up on YouTube; it was the first time they'd been together since 2004.

Weller in a jam

Now, we've no particular beef with the new no-smoking laws slowling clambering over the nations, one country at a time. But we could do without the associated "education" campaigns and flogging of nicotine gum off the back of the ban. And we're lost as to how it can really be worth the time of Welsh officials to watch video footage of a Paul Weller gig in Newport, in already smoke-free Wales, to see if he sparked up on stage or not. Surely the investigation will outspend the £200 maximum fine, and the conviction of Weller won't send a 'don't smoke' message as much as an 'it's cool to flout the ban' one. If they really wanted to make a point, couldn't they have just issued a tutting press-release?

And this is your Black Eyed Pea on drugs

One thing we'll say for Fergie: she doesn't believe in holding back, does she? Now she's admitted she's had a meth problem, she's unstoppable on her drug experiences:

One time she was so paranoid on the drug that she talked to her hamper for eight hours straight. "I remember thinking somebody was inside of it, going to come and get me, so I was talking to the person who was crawling in the hamper," she admits.

Although if you were that paranoid, why would you just not open the basket?

Brown "beaten and robbed" by sex workers

The facts are harder to tease out than the hair extensions in the story of Foxy Brown, the ex-boyfriend and the women he pimps.

It seems, from what the New York Daily News has been able to gather, that Brown discovered her boyfriend was a pimp on Saturday, promptly dumped him, causing him to turn round and set three of his women on her. In the ensuing ding-dong, Brown lost her hearing aid, chunks of her hair extensions, her credit cards and five hundred bucks.

The police were called, charges were laid, but, oddly, Brown seems to have realised that even though this time she was the victim of a crime, it might not actually be a good move, career-wise:

Brown, who stopped cooperating with cops soon after the incident, dispatched a bodyguard from her Brooklyn brownstone to tell reporters yesterday that "the story is falsified."

Some poor sod in a courtroom somewhere is going to have to try and sort that one out.

Broadsheet round-up: The last knockings

This is an emergency message: Christopher Howse, are you alright? The Telegraph's virgin-in-a-tie last posted just after lunch yesterday, and hasn't been heard of since. We fear he may have been sacrificed in a distant corner of Worthy Farm. Or, worse, succumbed to the spirit and is, even now, heading onto the next festival in a camper van, naked except for daubings. And his tie.

In the Telegraph proper, Tom Horan suggests that Babyshambles were "compelling" (perhaps you had to be there), the Klaxons "all outfits and no content was about the sum of it".

It's a measure of how much stuff goes on at Glastonbury that even with the breadth of the internet, you still miss stuff. Horan, for example, tells us that Lily Allen sprung a surprise:

Her bright and breezy ska sound and acerbic delivery were a treat, and to top it all she produced Terry Hall and Lynval Golding, two of the founder members of Coventry band the Specials, who had not played together since the 1980s. They did their timeless first single Gangsters and the hillside was transformed into a riot of silly dancing.

Good lord, bringing on the Specials? It's like Ronald McDonald giving a job in the kitchens to Mrs Beeton.

Is the spirit of the festival fighting back against the 2007 wheel-heeled attendees? The Times reports that the people who splashed over a thousand pounds to hire a teepee for the weekend ended up getting splashed themselves, as the teepees peed:

Unlike traditional tepees, which have a fire in the middle to keep the damp out, Glaston-bury’s tepee village is banned from lighting fires for safety reasons. The problem is usually overcome by placing a “rain cap” over the hole, but families who thought they had paid for a premium service were told that there were only a handful to go around the 300 tents.

Kevin Stockton, 49, a water maintenance consultant, also found that most tents were not fitted with waterproof groundsheets, so he was soaked not only from above but from the soggy ground beneath. “We’ve been flooded out every time it has rained,” he told The Times. “About 5 or 10 per cent of tepees have rain caps. When we asked reception why they couldn’t give us one, they said that they didn’t predict the weather was going to be so bad.”

It's hard to feel sympathy for someone who would pay so much for a posh tent. The irony is that a thirty quid job from Millets would probably have kept everyone nice and dry.

Over in the Guardian, Alexis Petridis weighs the weekend's peformances:

Saturday night's headliners offer an intriguing study in opposites. The Killers offer pyrotechnics, ruthlessly efficient mainstream indie rock hits and the steely, unwavering professionalism of a band abundantly aware of how a successful Glastonbury headlining slot can affect album sales in the next financial quarter.

Over on the Other Stage, meanwhile, havoc reigns. Whether or not Iggy And The Stooges really fit with the Glastonbury ethos is a matter of some debate. The reconstituted punk pioneers are rightly legendary, but the violence and glowering negativity of their music seems at odds with the Glastonbury vibe of bucolic togetherness and abundant good cheer.

Tabloid round-up: The last knockings

Someone - oddly, there's no byline - seems to have spent Glastonbury following Kate Moss and Pete Doherty around, detailing their doings - being blocked from going to watch the Arctic Monkeys at the side of the stage (the paper suggests this was 'keeping out the riff-raff', but they let The View get a good view); checking their faces were "straight"; locking Babyshambles out their bus so they could have what the paper is too coy to call sex; and having some sort of falling-out with the Klaxons.

Apparently, Jacqui Doherty was there to watch - the band, rather than the sex and fighting, we presume, and she was pressed for her views on her son:

“Pete’s not ready to give up yet. He will have to hit rock bottom before he can rise up again.”

Ooh, that's good news, Jacqui - it sounds like you might get a second book out of him.

Still, that's not the big news from Somerset, it seems. Oh no, it's apparently that it was the year of the catsuit. There were a whole two of them:

WHAT kind of idiot wears a catsuit to Glasto? Well, PIXIE GELDOF and LOVEFOXXX of CSS, it seems.

Pixie is young enough to get away with her skintight togs, but how she managed to go to the muddy loos in that thing is beyond me.

Meanwhile, trendy Brazilian singer Lovefoxxx’s get-up was even more complex.

We love that slightly sneery "trendy Brazilian singer", as if someone running a non-story as an excuse to run a photo of Bob Geldof's daughter in a one-piece is able to take moral high ground.

Trouble is, Geldof wasn't even wearing a catsuit - all catsuits are one-pieces, but not all one-pieces are catsuits.

Oddly, the Sun misses the biggest story of the weekend. As the Mirror reports, Shirley Bassey's appearance was nearly her last, as her helicopter home was forced to make an emergency landing in Surrey as it lost power:

It touched down at 8pm amid howling winds and rain in the grounds of Collingwood College in Camberley, Surrey.

The shaken pilot emerged to ask locals: "Where am I?"

"He apologised for scaring them before admitting: "That was terrifying.

"I was losing power and the mist was so thick I couldn't see where I was going.

"I've got a special passenger. We have had an almighty let off. Thank God."

Locals then watched gobsmacked as Dame Shirley Bassey clambered from the chopper in wellingtons.

She said: "We are so sorry to have bothered you. May I please use someone's toilet? And a cup of tea would go down a treat."

Can someone be double-dame'ed?

Less successfully, the 3AM Girls abandon gossip-hounding for reviewing:

KAISER Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson took the Glasto crowd to a whole new high with his energetic performance.

The loveable rocker karate kicked and strutted through hits including I Predict A Riot. The highlight was Oh My God when the crowd was jumping with him.

Top marks!

Bless them; this is the sort of thing you read in thank-you letters stuck on Tesco walls after they've hosted a school trip: "We saw the men making the bread. My favourite bit was when they sliced the loaf. It was exciting!"

There's a special section on the festival on the Mirror website, where you can still read their cast-iron prediction of a Libertines reunion:

We can exclusively reveal that the turbulent couple will be playing a momentous acoustic set on the Saturday.

Perhaps it was just very, very secret.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

GlastOn TV

Sweeping The Nation has been watching Glastonbury on the BBC:

[A] lot of message boards seem to be bellyaching about the standard of the presenting but we see no real difference from any other year, and this afternoon Lauren was on rare form like we haven't seen her on prime-time telly for years.

We've also seen a lot of people suggesting that the event is "missing John Peel", but to be honest, we never felt comfortable watching Peel presenting Glastonbury in the past; as he himself would admit, live TV wasn't really his thing and most of his links have off the air of a man who'd much rather have been stood quietly at the back of a tent watching music than throwing to the Stereo MCs set on BBC2.

Back in the present, the Manics turn up and show a hint of what the future might hold for Pete Doherty; the fire in the belly long since replaced with something more showbizzy, working the crowd instead of rousing the rabble. On those terms, the band are right on form at the moment, although watching middle-aged men performing in front of a massive picture of teenage girls in hotpants is a bit of a queasy moment; like some of the reactions to Jonathan in Big Brother, although it's an innocent gesture, it has enough of a creepy air to it to make you wonder if they thought it through.

The Rakes are doing 22 Grand Job, but there's an air of a band whose moment has passed about them. Maybe if there'd been a festival last year, they'd have managed to keep some momentum to build upon; even they seem to have know this is probably a wake.

Oh, look... here come people dressed as animals. It's Mika's set, and alongside the contents of a badly stocked Fancy Dress Store and the inflatable ladies, Mika is bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. He's trying very, very hard. But all the effort is visible, like whatever the opposite of a swan paddling under the water would be - a fish struggling in a net? He's trying to sell a sizzle, but can't disguise there's no steak there.

The Kaiser Chiefs fans seem to perk up the wetter and wetter their heroes get, although that might be because they get wetter as the set goes on, and the longer they play, the closer they get to their decent songs.

Surprisingly, Mark Ronson turns out to be much more fun to watch being interviewed than playing music. As he's talking to Zane Lowe and Edith Bowman (who's wearing her Ermintrude hat right up to the last), you find yourself thinking "this guy is really funny, and charming, and warm. Why don't we like his music?" Then, you swap to a stream where he's murdering The Zutons' Valerie, and you remember.

Back in space and time: Glasto 97

Another slice from the field from 1997. The Prodigy doing Firestarter, admittedly five years or so after they were at their peak.

Full list of Glastonbury 97 clips

Blog round-up: Press red for disappointment

Good lord, it's a sprawling site this year, isn't it? In a bid to test the theory that there might be more to Glastonbury than any one person could see, the BBC's Ian Youngs attempted to visit every stage in a day:

It is a place to see up-and-coming indie starlets, while in the Chill 'n' Charge Tent there is yet another stage set up beside hundreds of people who are recharging their mobile phones.

In the end, he manages to trot past 44 venues, but admits that he might "have missed some" and only managed it by sticking to music sites.

Still, at least he could get around. Charlotte from Still Life With Plaster had planned on going, but then something snapped. Her leg:

I must admit to longing to be able to slip something of the sort on myself instead of this boring old plaster, & Alice can second that emotion - these things were designed by bloody sadists! Watching the festival coverage, & the prevailing conditions, we're both actually glad we didn't make the effort to attend after all - the plasters would have been disasters, I think, what with attempting to crutch up & down muddy hills , stand in sodden, muddy fields, slopping & sloshing around, etc, it would probably have all been too distressing & physically demanding if not impossible. I read yesterday that around 1000 people had been injured, slipping around, mostly minor but still: I dread to think how it might have been possible to cope with a full leg plaster, even in clement weather conditions (which, from experience, occasionally do prevail!).

Still, they're able to enjoy the BBC coverage. Baria's blog is impressed with the choice, if not all the presentation:

Four channels with interactive screens and choices of genres and bands and who knows what else. Totally stunning use of the new media that is unsurpassed anywhere on the globe. If you don't live in the UK you really should come for a visit just to see it.

But there are some elements that make me really tetchy. The main one being that once the presenters - like Phil Jupitous and Mark Radcliffe - get some mud on their Drizabones they suddenly end up doing crap imitations of John Peel.

There are lots of "errrms and right that was... ermmmm where are we?" and so on.

It is a bitter disappointment when their radio shows are so much better. Jupitus spent the last broadcast complaining about his back ache. Loose weight large person and all will be resolved say I.

But watching all this leads me to think that perhaps the revellers at Glastonbury are the same people I met in Camden a few months ago. A bunch of late boomers (sic) who will not give up the cause.

Rock n Roll isn't a youth movement anymore. It is a middle aged lifestyle and whilst it makes me sad it also frees the possibilities for the future.

Interestingly, Stuffem watches and also worries about the audience while enjoying the breadth of the coverage:

I think I’m all Glastonbury’d out from the massive Glastonbury coverage. With interweaving coverage on BBC2, BBC3,BBC4 and the Freeview interactive channels over the three days including today. It’s always hard to follow and filter it all. I think I had my ‘Tut tut , (rolls eyes)today’s generation’ moment last night whilst watching the Iggy and the Stooges footage after Iggy Pop encouraged the front rows onto the stage , causing self imposed anarchy to the proceedings and was watching a plethora of teenies and twenty somethings having to be coaxed into doing something faintly rebellious by a 60 year with more energy than all of them put together. So given their sudden stage sharing platform, what’s the most rebellious act I see? A banner held aloft by a small group keen to bring back the Cadbury Wispa chocolate bar!! Did I feel faintly superior that my own generation at their age would probably have seized the moment to proclaim ’say no to cruise’ (the missile, not the Scientology film celebrity).

Still, better that than Mika's stage dressing, as captured by Q. In tribute to his patronising song supposedly celebrating Big Girls, he had two big girls on stage. Giant, inflatable women. Do you see what he did there?

Some acts adapt to Glastonbury better than others - Ian McCulloch's fear of the mud is now legendary, for example - so it's a round of applause for Shirley Bassey, captured by a Guardian blogger as she strode fabulously across the site, with only mongrammed DSB wellies to protect her from the elements.

Music Every Single Day Of Lives remembers that last night's headliners were making a statement by taking the gig:

The Killers did not want to headline Glastonbury 2 years ago as they did not think having one album under their arm was enough to carry the weight of 170,000 people. This year they took the gamble. It paid off.

You could argue that by the middle of the festival, Archie's Educated Chickens could keep the pyramid stage happy - especially with some fireworks - and so it's not so much of a gamble. Has there ever been a headliner in the modern Glastonbury who hasn't been met by a positive response?

A sign that we're in the final stages...

The traditional signal that the home straight has been entered for the Glastonbury festival: Michael Eavis telling the BBC that the festival has been a success:

Festival-goers had complained of poor sound from the Pyramid Stage, with The Killers' set on Saturday being punctuated by cries of "turn it up" from some.

Mr Eavis said the speaker system had been changed for this year's festival.

"I'm sorry about the PA, it's not quite strong enough for us here, so I'm slightly disappointed by that. I think we're going to have to look at that again."

Mr Eavis also conceded that there were problems with the photo ID system used for festival tickets this year.

"The printing wasn't really good enough so we have to improve that," he said.

He revealed that 2008's headliners were already confirmed, but refused to reveal who they were.

"It's not Muse or U2," he added.

Well, at least that's a relief.

Apparently, Bjork went on for 20 minutes past the curfew time on Friday night/Saturday morning, but the council don't seem unduly bothered:

[T]he local council said that an over-run of Bjork's set on Friday night, breaking a 0030 curfew by 20 minutes, breached the festival's licence.

Mendip District Council's planning and environment manager Charles Uzzell said: "There could be a review of the licence, and the ultimate sanction is the removal of the licence but I don't see that as a possibility."

He added that the rest of the festival had been a "success".

And you have to praise Mendip's grown-up attitude - a lot of places would have sent the cops in to shut down the stage rather than adopting a "we'll talk about this later" approach.

Beck in space and time

Continuing our collection of Glasto from ten years back, here's Beck doing One Foot In The Grave. Not an Eric Idle cover, sadly:

Links to all the Glasto 97 stuff on the Ray Davies post

GlastOn TV: Cape, Killers, and a dodgy Cold War metaphor

Eventually, the BBC played out Babyshambles in full. With his busted voice, and ladyscarf dangling from his pocket, it was a bit like a 1970s Rod Stewart tribute act. We'd actually turned on to a different screen before Kate Moss turned up.

There was no Carl Barat on stage with Pete, and Pete didn't wander on during the Dirty Pretty Things set, either. It would be foolish to try and set the two performances up in some sort of competition with each other, but that's never stopped us. DPT were West Germany to Babyshamble's pre-unification East; you're always aware that, just as the West never lost the faith that one day Berlin would be restored at the seat of power, so Carl has a look in his eye that reunification might be a possibility, but for now, is reveling in the freedom, while Babysshambles feels like a grimmer place to be, where even the fun comes with a sense of predetermination. There is no negotiation; the party line is the only line.

Seriously: would you rather be bouncing up and down to You Fucking Love It, or hoping your smile looks genuine as Comrade Moss comes on to perform her part on La Belle?

Also, Pete: your penis looks horrible. Please, never go near TV cameras without putting underpants on, ever again. Thank you.

An even bigger fashion mistake was Patrick Wolf, who seemed to have come dressed like a Pinnochio doll from a pound shop.

And we're still not sure if the guy who was hanging round the front of the Get Cape Wear Cape Fly stage in a big red cape was a fan paying homage, a support crew member with a sense of humour, or simply enacting a Get Cape Wear Cape Steal Equipment plan. GCWCF was the highlight of yesterday evening, though - even incoporating a backdrop with a fairtrade message, which is the closest anyone's come to that much-touted "glastonbury radical spirit" we keep hearing so much about.

By contrast, The Killers had some sort of pile of dead antlers to balance their keyboards on. And, of course, they had fireworks at the end. Isn't it about time one of the headline acts could come up with a more interesting idea than just letting off a few small-scale explosions to mark the end of their set?

Iggy Pop's skin: it looks like it's made of the stuff that they used in the 1960s when fake leather technology had yet to advance to a point where it could manage to replicate the flexibility of cowhide.

Broadsheet round-up: Toilets and straw

With dispatches having been hitting the papers since Wednesday, the Sunday broadsheets are desperate to find something new to report from Glastonbury. The Sunday Telegraph finds inspiration with the bloke who runs the toilets, Ducan Wilbur:

At 8am I was stocktaking in our offices in Vauxhall, London. The list included 200 rubber gloves, 10 long-handled brooms, 20 buckets, 600 toilet rolls and 20 jerrycans for people to wash their hands in.

Last in the box was our giant Poo Suit. Each year a lucky volunteer walks around dressed as a poo, with a sign saying: "There's a million viruses in every gram".

Oddly, the same slogan was used by the last falafel store we visited back in 1998.

Meanwhile, The Observer reports that life is imitating Rumpelstiltskin, as people are spinning gold from straw:

'When the truck drove past this morning, I sent my colleague out three times in bare feet,' said Rachel Clements, 44, from Devizes, Wiltshire. 'If they leave it in a big pile there is bound to be a fight.'

Welcome to the Glastonbury straw-wars: eight lorries loaded with straw, 800 stall owners desperate to get hold of some. Rachel Clements was one of the lucky ones as she surveyed the Glastonbury scene yesterday. But many of her fellow stallholders were waiting nervously for the lorries to arrive with the next consignment. 'It gets political,' said Charlie, a 24-year-old lorry driver from Dorset. 'People pinch it. They come and fill their own boxes.'

Apparently, the police who will be overseeing security at the 2010 Ryder Cup are on site, picking up tips on how to manage the crowds there. If you see armed police guarding a haystack, while Tiger Woods gets his pants stolen, you'll know why.

Over in The Sunday Times, a brave, but not entirely successful attempt is made by David Cracknell, David Smith and Isabel Oakeshott (the 3AM Division Girls?) to hoik together the big political and cultural stories of the week:

Brown has promised a government of “all talents” and has already started to put up an even bigger “big tent” – to woo outsiders and opponents – than the one originally espoused by Blair.

The tent seems fitting on the weekend of the Glastonbury festival, and has already proved as muddy. Last week Brown invited Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, to join his government as Northern Ireland secretary. Though Ashdown rejected the offer, the move left David Cameron’s Tories, who have made their own approaches to the Lib Dems, reeling.

They've headlined this 'Welcome to Gordonbury'. Lets hope Gordon has got his chemical toilets in place.

Paris Hilton's revenge

It doesn't, of course, lessen Paris Hilton's offence any, but she might take a moment of pleasure from the discover that Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles' DA and the man responsible for her incarceration and re-incraceration, isn't any better a driver than she is:

We have watched with bemusement at first and now growing concern as early reports of Delgadillo's wife driving with a suspended license have deepened into a pattern of neglect, inattention and insincerity. Over the last two weeks, Times staff writers Patrick McGreevy and Matt Lait have reported that Delgadillo allowed his wife to misuse his city car, and that when she crashed it, he let the city pay $1,222 to repair the damage. He permitted his auto insurance to lapse, which he first denied and then admitted. And now comes the latest disclosure: He had subordinates baby-sit his children and do chores around his house. Throughout this gathering torrent of revelations, Delgadillo has alternately ducked questions, professed to coming clean and admitted to still more misstatements.

Of course, it's unlikely that any of this abuse of law would have come to light had Delgadillo not stepped so cleanly into the spotlight to pursue Hilton. In effect, it's a two-for-one deal.

Death comes to the festivals

The 26 year-old man who was taken to hospital in Yeovil after a suspected OD at Glastonbury has died, it has been reported.

Meanwhile, another 26 year-old man has died after collapsing at the Knowsley Hall festival on Merseyside.

Neither death is thought to be suspicious.

Meanwhile, police at Glastonbury are hailing the "slight drop" in crime this year:

The spokesman said this increase was due to the "proactive operation" of both police and security on site

By 0900 BST on Sunday there had been 236 reported crimes, down on the 267 incidents at this time in 2005.

Of these 158 were drug related, compared to 183 in 2005.

In other words, if you strip out the drug crimes - which, after all, tend to worry the police more than individual festival goers - the extra security measures have managed to reduce crime by five incidents.

Tabloid round-up: Rav's possibly gone to Glastonbury

What makes Rav Singh the "hottest showbusiness reporter" in Britain? Perhaps its because only he could come up with stuff like this:

IT was fitting that the sun popped out to shine brightly on a LILY who was blooming brilliant.

Looking pretty in pink, she used her magic to lift the crowd from out of the mud and get them all dancing and Smiling to her super ska tunes.

That's an exclusive the others won't have, then. Lily Allen wore a pink top and played Glastonbury.

To be fair, he also has a picture of Pete Doherty riding a bike, asking "who would ride a bike in the mud", for all the world like a man who hasn't heard of mountain biking.

Zoe, in the Sunday Mirror, actually seems to have taken the trouble to go to the festival, or at least sent someone who has reported back. She does make the surprising claim that Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil are treating the weekend 'like a honeymoon' because, erm, they're sleeping in a teepee. And she claims to have spotted a bust-up between Pete and Kate:

KATE Moss had a public row with boyfriend Pete Doherty in the backstage VIP bar.

I saw her drag him out of the bar at midnight on Friday, telling him to behave or he'd look stupid.

She took his drink, threw it over the floor and stormed to their trailer.

Warning Doherty he'll look stupid is a little like trying warning people not to go to Glastonbury because they'll get muddy, isn't it?

And, in something that actually approaches being interesting, Zoe reports on what big prima donnas the Killers are:

THE Killers had a strict no-photography rule during their Glasto appearance.

Snappers were left fuming when they were asked to leave the photo-pit but the crowd didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Unusual that - the crowd normally only turn out to see the photographers.

Zoe really has won the Sunday tabloid war this year - over at the People, Debbie Manley and Alice Walker are, like Rav, reduced to talking about the colour of Lily Allen's clothes to fill the space:

LILY Allen looked a bit blue as she wandered around Glastonbury in mud-stained pink wellies.

The glum singer, 22, wearing a bright blue coat, should have taken her own advice to Smile before her performance on the main stage.

Although, as even Rav managed to work out (by listening to what she said on stage) Lily was understandably a bit nervous about such a huge gig. Which might make anyone frown a little.

That's why Mum might spend less in Iceland

The continued pressure on Kerry Katona from the News of the World - they're only worried about the kiddies, obviously - has led to the re-entry of Brian McFadden into Cheshire's most horrible soap opera.

The NOTW has got in contact with Leighton Ogden, who claims to be Kerry's dealer:

Ogden told us: "Kerry cares more about drugs than anything in her life — her children included.

"When she's on one of her benders nothing matters except the gear. I've seen it, believe me. She just packs the kids off to bed so she can get wasted. All that family image stuff about her is rubbish."

There then follows a string of accusations similar to last week's. But hang about a minute - this is a drug dealer, a man who sells shit for money, selling a story to a Sunday newspaper. Doesn't that mean that we should at least approach his testimony with a degree of caution? And isn't it unusual that the NOTW, whose simplistic worldview would normally have a drug dealer dangling from its redtop gallows as soon as he set foot through the door, is not only handing him cash, but even portraying him as an extension of social services, suggesting what might be best for the kids:

"After what I've seen I reckon the girls would be better off with Brian. He seems a much more stable person and can give them the love and support they need."

Perhaps this signals a new policy at the NOTW - maybe we can expect a "what would a drug dealer do?" advice column.

Aware that they're on shaky ground, they try to cast Ogden as someone who is taking a brave move, perhaps after some sort of final-reel conversion:

Ogden, 20—who was Kerry's friend as well as one of her dealers — knows the implications of outing himself as a drug peddler.

"I've taken a personal risk talking about this—but Kerry needs a wake-up call to her get herself clean for the sake of the kids and herself," he said.

So, Ogden's prepared to put his head on the block because of the kiddies. But is that his only motivation?

After her birthday in September, Ogden had had enough. "She was nipping in and out of her bathroom, snorting. She kept asking me if I could get her more coke. I told her I couldn't.

"I never heard from Kerry after that. It was clear she had just used me to help her out but once I was no use I was dropped."

It's interesting that, during this long period of giving Katona more and more drugs, Ogden was so worried about the kiddies, but never actually seemed to think of doing anything until he was no longer selling Katona drugs. Strange that, eh?

The NOTW scooped this new evidence up and took it to Brian McFadden, to see what he would do:

After being informed of our latest revelations, the star told us: "Yes, it's true — I am seeking custody. I want my daughters back."

He has requested legal affidavits from a string of witnesses who told us about Kerry's past and current drug addiction. And he wants social services to launch an investigation into Kerry's fitness as a mother.

The most shocking thing about all this, though, is the discovery that Iceland pay Katona £170,000 a year. Surely her endorsement can't be so valuable as to make that back?

Craig David finds a new meaning for "pimping MySpace"

We're a little surprised that the News of the World would run a story this morning which claims that Craig David uses his MySpace profile as a way to meet girls - after all, it's hardly going to promote a sister company to suggest that if you join them, there's a risk that Craig David might pop round with a bottle of Blue Nun and a packet of pickled-onion flavoured condoms, is it?

Model Karina Holmes revealed how she was taken in by the highly-sexed R&B warbler. And now she is Walking Away....

She said: "I thought he was too good to be true. How right I was."

She was devastated when she discovered he was seeing a host of MySpace girls.

Karina added: "He would be trawling MySpace while I was in bed with him! He said he was just checking on his profile. It's obvious to me now that he was looking to pick up other girls."

Inevitably, we're going to hear what David is like in the bedroom - allegedly, of course:

But she made him wait two weeks before giving in. She said: "It was amazing when we finally did it. Craig slipped off my jeans, then pulled my top over my head and stared longingly at my body like it was a precious ornament."

Then they made love for hours.

"I whispered to him that he was a steam engine in bed," said Karina. But his motor-mouth really got on her nerves.

Like a steam engine? Constantly demanding that his coal hole gets filled, making a hell of a lot of noise, and letting off massive piles of waste gasses? Or merely in the sense that he attracts a lot of men in anoraks who write his number down in their small books?

And was Craig really "staring longingly" at her body "like it was a precious ornament", or it had been so long since he'd seen a naked woman he couldn't remember what he was supposed to do?