h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm off today to the Electric Picnic, a weekend of music, food and other stuff, including demonstrations of ecological awareness, cookery, poetry, and art.

The big bands this year are Pulp, The Chemical Brothers, Arcade Fire and Mogwai. Bob Geldof is making an appearance, as are the Trinity Orchestra playing Daft Punk. My daughter played with them at their last Daft Punk gig, although she won't be playing this time.

I hope to have plenty of photos to show to you next week.

Looking forward to the pics, mate! Have a fabulous time and drive safe.

You must let Pinniped know - a huge Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) fan.

Have a great time!

I keep meaning to go and see Focus play at my local pop festival (they're back for a second year), but I never seem to get around to it.

Haven't even left home yet and already somebody has run into the back of my car. I now can't open the boot, so we won't be able to go in that car. (The guy was crazy - he hit me quite hard from behind while I was doing 100kph (63mph) along with all the other traffic on the motorway. I know I was going at exactly 100 because the car was on cruise control. When I looked in the mirror, he looked as if he was going at at least 160 straight up behind me.)

Still, we have the other car, although it will be a tight squeeze.

How horrible. I'm glad it's only the car that's bruised, though.
Have a great weekend.

So sorry to hear about that, Gnomon. Thank goodness you're OK.

Oh bummer Gnomon. Really sorry to hear that. Eejits everywhere

The garage has had a look at it, and they're going to e-mail a quote later today. The insurance (his insurance) should pay for it.

I would think his insurance would do. If you can see something in front of you, and you hit it, it becomes your fault here for not having care and control.

Being hit any anyone or anything else, it is out there ...

OK, it's €5,000 worth of damage.

5000 euros? Ye gods and little fishes

Yes, that what's he said. Or some other word beginning with f.

A couple of my workmates are down there. Sounds like fun.

TRiG.

Yes, it was fun, but it's finished now, for another year.

I'll try and give some sort of a description of the Festival tomorrow.

Friday - arrived quite late, at about 8:30. Got food straight away from one of the many high-quality food stalls, then went to see Interpol. Not very impressed. Eventually quit after about an hour and wandered down to see the end of DJ Shadow's show, which was a real class act.

Saturday started at 1:00, with the Trinity Orchestra playing Daft Punk. This was on the main stage and had a good audience - daughter El actually played with them at their last gig (because some of the cellos were on holidays) so she was interested to hear them. It was very popular with the crowd.

The Theatre of Food had demonstrations of cookery, talks on food and debates about food. We attended:

The end of a demonstration by Paul Flynn of the Tannery restaurant in Waterford. (Got to eat the food he'd prepared)
A talk on gathering and cooking seaweed, with sample meals of two different types of seaweed - absolutely delicious, and how to make skincare products out of seaweed.
How to make good coffee, by Karl Purdy, the Coffee Angel, Ireland's top Barista (and one of the best in the world)
Cooking food gathered from the forest, by two guys from Harry's restaurant in Inishowen.

After some lunch, we went on to the Body and Soul area, where there are lots of sculptures and gardens laid out, mainly using woven wickerwork, herbs, recycled materials and other crafty things. Then it was time for OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) in one of the tents. They sounded just like they did in the 80s and were great performers. Lykke Li wasn't to my taste - the bass was overamped on the huge main stage, and you couldn't really hear much else except the bass guitar. Then we had Arcade Fire, who were very popular, but there were so many people in the crowd (I'd say about 15,000) that we had to stand very far back to avoid being crushed, and as a result we couldn't see much. The sound was great.

Some of our group stayed for The Chemical Brothers but Mrs G and I were exhausted from being on our feet for 12 hours, so we skipped them. It was apparently very spectacular.

On Sunday, it was raining, so we didn't bother heading into the festival until about 3. We started with the Unthanks, Rachel and Betty Unthank, two English folk singers; then I took a trip to the CD Sales tent and bought an ancient King Crimson CD. Then we went back to the Food Tent where there was a talk about herbal medicine and a debate on the use of unpasteurised milk in cheese making.

Next on the agenda was Sharon Shannon, a brilliant young traditional accordion player. She and her band amused us with some hectic traditional tunes. Then we stopped for some food and coffee.

The final three acts of the night were Bob Geldof, Pulp and Mogwai. Geldof used to be an angry young man, now he's an angry old man, but still a great performer. Pulp were good, but the lead singer tends to talk a little bit too much - they still attracted the biggest crowd of the evening, probably about 10,000. And Mogwai were a Scottish rock band of the style described by one of us as "Epic Rock of Doom". Good, but not a lot happening, and very loud.

The show finished at midnight, and we were at home and in our beds by 2am Monday morning.

Thanks Gnomon - it sounds like it was a lot of fun. My daughter would have anjoyed all the rock bands.

King Crimson, eh? I never progressed beyond their "In the court of..." debut album. I think they got a bit too experimental for me. Do you recommend any others?

My older brother used to listen to them, but I never really liked them much, except for one album called "Islands".

The Unthanks, a pair of English folk-singing sisters, sang one of King Crimson's songs in their set, a lovely number which included the line "Starless and Bible Black". Later that day, I saw the King Crimson album of that name, with a track of that name on it, and bought it.

It turns out, that track is nothing to do with the song. The song appears on another of their albums, and is called "Starless" apparently "to avoid confusion".

Still, I got a reasonably interesting album out of it.

I saw the Unthanks briefly on TV this year (maybe last) on the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, I think.

I've got a soft spot for good folk music. I also enjoy the Fleet Foxes and their brand of progressive-folk-rock. They write intereting lyrics, too.