Dear all,
Well the gigging resumed last Sunday and a good one it was too at Wimborne Folk Festival with the Pound. Damien O’Kane and Lunasa were fantabulous as well of course and all round it was a cracking night. Then on the Monday I was live on Stafford FM doing a live session which was really enjoyable. The podcast will be available soon and I’ll put a link to it on here.
Next up I was in Stourbridge to teach lessons at Elmfield School for a few days as well as an evening gig on the Wednesday with Pound, Dogan Mehmet, Matt Price and Andy Parr. It was excellent as ever and as always the Elmfield lot were a wonderful audience. Then I played at the Middle of Nowhere festival on Friday night on my lonesome which was really good fun and finally a busy week was completed with a Walsh and Pound set at the extremely muddy Big Session festival which was an absolute blast. Many thanks to everyone for coming to any of the above.
So coming up this week Walsh and Pound play Dartford Folk Club on Tuesday then it’s a triple solo gig weekend for me with Bath Banjo Festival on the Friday, Knighton Village Hall on the Saturday and Seahouses Festival on the Sunday. Very much looking forward to it.
Now, on a serious note the disgraceful treatment of the ‘volunteer stewards’ at the Jubilee for me is beyond appalling. I was going to blog in some depth about it but to be honest my good friend John Curran has written about it better than me so please visit http://leftcentral.org.uk/2012/06/07/london-calling-from-peoples-march-1981-to-workfare-labour-2012/. The fact that this has been swept under the carpet is unbelievable as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, on a lighter note I watched Euro 2012 highlights last night. Three things have come to mind from watching the tournament. Firstly, it’s a damn sight more exciting than the thin quilt of tedium that was the world cup two years ago. The football has been generally very good and even England actually had an entertaining game against Sweden…which I had to miss. Anyway, secondly the cameramen at this tournament are quite clearly on the perverted side of straight. Has anyone else noticed how often they’ve decided to zone in on quite attractive women in the crowd? I’ve actually found it quite entertaining to count how often they’ve done that although I do refer back to my previous blog where I explained that all the football fan want sfrom television coverage is the BLOODY FOOTBALL. Anyway, thirdly and most emphatically – what the bloody hell is the point in those ridiculous extra officials behind the goal? Has anyone known them make a single difference throughout the tournament? For god’s sake stop being so bloody stubborn and have technology. It takes us ten seconds to watch a replay so just watch the damn thing.