Summer festival dilemma resolved

The tickets for Cambridge Folk Festival went on sale today. Like hundreds (or maybe thousands) of others who wanted to camp on the main site, I was on the phone on the dot of 10 when the box office telephone lines opened.

Despite ringing simultaneously on both the house phone and my mobile, I started to enter the zen zone of: hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial - hear engaged tone - hang up - hit redial...

After an hour and a half of this, I was snapped out of my telephone trance when my mobile rang in between "hang up" and "hit redial". It was my mate Chris to tell me he had got through and was on hold on his home line. Did I want him to order our tickets when he spoke to the box office?

YES!

He rang me back about 10 minutes later to let me know that we have two weekend festival tickets and a camping ticket for Cherry Hinton.

More good news came after lunch with a text message from Mel to say that she had got through and would be spending her 30th birthday weekend at Cambridge. All we need now is for Helen and Phil to get their Saturday ticket sorted.

Not your typical Godfrey wedding

It's spring so it must be time for another family wedding...



Graham and Ros finally tied the knot after being together for 22 years. It was a quiet do (for a Godfrey wedding) near Bedford. Wedding at the Registry office followed by a reception at Wyboston lakes.



We were all asked to get to the Reception so that we could welcome the bride and groom as they arrived. As we stood around drinking the champagne and wondering where they had got to (Had the S type Jag broken down? Had they stopped off for a pint on the way?), one of the Best Men appeared and asked us to step outside to welcome them. But we weren't to go to the car park, we were to go out on to the landing stage outside the bar.

While some of us looked around for a boat, the younger ones with good hearing were wondering what the strange noise was...then we saw the source. A helicopter flew in over the lake and hovered so we could see the passengers - Graham and Ros in full wedding outfits waving like mad out of the window.



After they had landed, we got on with the business of listening to speeches, eating great food, drinking lots of beer, and dancing to family wedding tunes. We really enjoyed ourselves, and it was good to have so many relatives together with a bar and a dance floor. Sonia and I wandered off back to the hotel for a nightcap (and game of pool against my Dad - who won) before hitting the hay. The next morning we met the survivors at the breakfast table and after plenty of coffee I drove us back to Nottingham.

Summer festival dilemmas...

It's that time of year when you start looking at the list of festivals and dream about sunny days listening to good music with a couple of beers inside you. I've not volunteered for the Workers Beer Company for a good few years, so that rules out the likes of Glastonbury (if it was going ahead) or Reading. Looks like I'll have to pay.

The middle weekend of July sees the TUC festival at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival. We've been for the past 3 years and it used to be a small gathering but has grown so that there were an estimated 10,000 trying to get into the village for the Sunday procession of the banners last year. You can download a photographic report (in pdf) of last year by clicking here. Don't look too closely at the couple hiding from the sun under the umbrella on page 3 between the photos of Billy Bragg, Tony Benn and Elanor McEvoy. Not our best ever picture and you can only see Sonia's sun hat and her shoulder but interesting company to keep.

But the last weekend of July is The Cambridge Folk Festival. I've seen the line up and Sonia is excited by the possibility of seeing Richard Thompson, Cerys Matthews, Eddi Reader, Seth Lakeman and Nizlopi (the JCB song people). I'm up for them plus Capercaillie, Chumbawamba, John Tams & Barry Coope and the general Cambridge experience. But it does require a dedicated morning on the phone when the tickets go on sale and could depend on how good I am with the autoredial.

So you can see my dilemma...where to spend a long weekend in July sitting in a field drinking beer and listening to music? Cambridge has an internet cafe so I could blog from there, whereas Tolpuddle is very rural - no shop in the village, just the pub and the Martyrs' Museum where the festival takes place. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

The Lonesome Death Of Rachel Corrie (Another Free Billy Bragg Download)

Billy's song about Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Gaza trying to help Palestinians, is available as a free download from his site.

A play created from her words due to be performed in a New York Theatre was cancelled. This was condemned by Alan Rickman who co-directed the London shows of the play.

The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie was written on Billy's recent tour of the USA, and recorded at Big Sky Recordings, Ann Arbor, on 22 March. It was first released as a download on The Guardian web site, and the tune is borrowed from Bob Dylan's The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.

Lyrics

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An Israeli bulldozer killed poor Rachel Corrie
As she stood in its path in the town of Rafah
She lost her young life in an act of compassion
Trying to protect the poor people of Gaza
Whose homes are destroyed by tank shells and bulldozers
And whose plight is exploited by suicide bombers
Who kill in the name of the people of Gaza
But Rachel Corrie believed in non-violent resistance
Put herself in harm's way as a shield of the people
And paid with her life in a manner most brutal

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

Rachel Corrie had 23 years
She was born in the town of Olympia, Washington
A skinny, messy, list-making chain-smoker
Who volunteered to protect the Palestinian people
Who had become non-persons in the eyes of the media
So that people were suffering and no one was seeing
Or hearing or talking or caring or acting
And the horrible math of the awful equation
That brought Rachel Corrie into this confrontation
Is that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

The artistic director of a New York theatre
Cancelled a play based on Rachel's writings
But she wasn't a bomber or a killer or fighter
But one who acted in the spirit of the Freedom Riders
Is there no place for a voice in America
That doesn't conform to the Fox News agenda?
Who believes in non-violence instead of brute force
Who is willing to confront the might of an army
Whose passionate beliefs were matched by her bravery
The question she asked rings out round the world
If America is truly the beacon of freedom
Then how can it stand by while they bring down the curtain
And turn Rachel Corrie into a non-person?

Oh, but you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.

---

Download The Lonesome Death Of Rachel Corrie

Bush War Blues (Free Billy Bragg song download)

Billy Bragg has released a new song - Bush War Blues - for free download.

He recorded the song at a radio interview in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during his US tour at the suggestion of his new American record label, ANTI, who really liked it when he played it at the South By South West hootenanny.

'Bush War Blues' was recorded at Big Sky Recording in Ann Arbor by Geoff Michael, Gregg Leonard and Chris Duross on 22 March 2006.

Download it, share it. Go do that voodoo that you do so well.