"They Said I Should Go to Glasto, I Said 'No, No, No'"

Since my Mac's hard drive is bullocksed up, I'm blogging a couple of updates to previous posts.

Glasto A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned being excited about the Glastonbury Festival. Seems some people didn't share my enthusiasm. "Glasto" (because cool indie rockers are too cool to say "nbury") had more than its share of controversy. First, Noel Gallagher and Jay-Z traded barbs. The Oasis guitar player questioned the appropriateness of bringing hip-hop to the chilled-out concert. The rapper retorted by doing a tone-deaf version of "Wonderwall." But after seeing the performance itself, the Manchester native said that Jay-Z was "great."

This was amongst a huger-than-normal meltdown by Amy Winehouse. She's now a total mentalist. While she was on a brief reprieve from the London Clinic, she performed and had time to slug yet another fan. I've lost count of how many that make it, but she has to keep her hands to herself. She only weighs about 3 stone (1 stone = 14 pounds) not counting the beehive, and someone is going to hit her back.

Oh, and Lily Allen now has a new hair color.

The Beeb After the post about the BBC's annual report, I saw that BBC are experiencing a row over pay rises and bonuses. This is especially acute due a big scandal that I didn't know about until just this week. It seems that they have got themselves into several "phone-in" scandal. Among other things, it seemed that they rigged a contest to name a cat on the afternoon kids' show, Blue Peter. The viewers voted for Cookie, but he's called Socks. I'm not kidding.

Solstice happenings

I think it was Anglophile (he moved there, didn't he?) Henry James who said the most beautiful words in he English language are "summer afternoon."

Now that the longest day of the year has come, Wimbeldon is in full swing (but I know f**k all about tennis). And the Glastonbury Festival is coming!

I'd like to think that if I were in the United Kingdom, I'd attend, but to be honest about it, I never go to anything (the Clearwater Festival is walking distance from my house here in Croton and I didn't go this year.)

The line up for this weekend's shows are hard to quarrel with: Amy Winehouse, James Blunt, Crowded House, The Verve, Leonard Cohen, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Panic at the Disco, Ben Folds, Jimmy Cliff, Buddy Guy, Joan Armatrading, Sinead O’Connor, and about a million others. I guess Paul Weller can't play every year.

For those of you who have CablevisionHD, you should get a channel called Rave. They have great archival shows from the festival, and they play them often, so it's worth seeking them out for a vicarious taste of what's going on starting of Friday.

Frankly, I'd settle for just walking around the town, buying some crystals, and learning about Druids, Wicca, and Paganism. I hear it's a very cool place.