The Idler is coming to three festivals this summer.
1. Ledbury Poetry Festival
TOM HODGKINSON speaks on poetry, idleness and radical thought.
Sunday 5 July, 3.45pm, Burgage Hall
Click here for the festival website
2. Camp Bestival, Dorset
TOM HODGKINSON on merriment and ukuleles.
Saturday 20 July, 3.45pm
Also appearing are GAVIN PRETOR-PINNEY and MICHAEL SMITH.
Click here for the festival website
3. Secret Garden Party, near Huntingdon
Thursday 24 — Sunday 27 July 2008
THIS YEAR at the Secret Garden Party, we present our very own grove: a debating space with adjoining medieval garden. We have organised a programme of dialogues, during which our favourite poets, philosophers and writers will ponder the big philosophical issue: how to live. Appearing over the four days will be Crass co-founder, poet, essayist and artist PENNY RIMBAUD, New Economics Foundation director ANDREW SIMMS, NEF associate and medievalist DAVID BOYLE, QI writer JOHN MITCHINSON, author DAN KIERAN (I Fought The Law) and JAY GRIFFITHS (Pip Pip and Wild), brand-burner NEIL BOORMAN, plus poet and playwright CLARE POLLARD, radical historian JOHN NICHOLSON, and actor, musician and publisher DAVID BRAMWELL. Plus lunchtime poetry in KIRSTY KNIGHT-BRUCE’s medieval herber and music in the evenings from LOUIS ELIOT and JOHN MOORE.
Click here for the festival website
I’m pleased to announce the line-up of this year’s Lynton and Lynmouth Music Festival. Headlining this year is KEITH ALLEN’S ten piece party band GROW UP. The festival is free and takes place in the lovely North Devon towns of Lynton and Lynmouth.
The dates are 13th June to 15th June. For camping enquiries call:
Sunny Lyn, 01598 753384
Cloud Farm, 01598 741234 (featured in Cool Camping)
Oaremead Farm, 01598 741267
Channel View, 01598 753349
Caffyn’s Cross, 01598 752379
Millslade, 01598 741322
Southernwood, 01598 741174
And here is the complete line-up:
FRIDAY 13th JUNE
Lynton Town Hall, 8pm-2am
£12.50 a ticket (this is the only paying event)
Kaya Natty & EZPZ
Fajita Funk
The Yum Yums
SATURDAY 14th
Manor Green, Lynmouth
12pm till 6.30pm
Justin Welch’s Amazing Drummers
Candy Thief
Treasure Tones
Moon Music Orchestra
Judy Dyble & the Conspirators
KEITH ALLEN’S GROW UP
Woody Bay Station, Martinhoe Cross
1pm till 6pm
Tabloid Press
Dan Arborise
Dr Butler’s Hatstand Medicine Band
Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip
Beth Jeans Houghton
Jodie Jones
St Mary’s Church, Lynton
1pm
Charles Hazlewood presents a lunchtime classical concert
St Mary’s Church, Lynton
4pm till 9pm
musicatstbarnabas presents:
UK States
Off Ground Touch
Melody, Melodica and Me
Tallulah Rendall
Kerry Leatham
Fiona Bevan
Anthony Elvin
Sam Beer
Cosmicorus
Little Ray
The Crown, Lynton
From 7.30pm
Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip
Beep Seals
Superimposers
Gotham City Gangsters
Twinkranes
The Queens, Lynton
From 7.30pm
Dan Arborise
Balao
Beth Jeans Houghton
Juxtaposed
Chris Millington
Andy Votel
SUNDAY 15th June
Manor Green, Lynmouth
12.30pm till 6pm
The Guerilla Marching Band
Wolf People
Beep Seals
Booger Red
Indigo Moss
Pete Molinari
BABYHEAD
Woody Bay Station, Martinhoe Cross
12pm till 5pm
Balao
Music, Melodica and Me
Jane Weaver
Erland Cooper
Babelfish
Cosmo D Hines
Second World War
THE ALAN METHOD for successful chicken keeping has been a great success. Since moving the feed bins out of the henhouse, and locking them in till one o’clock, and disturbing any other stray nests, we have been averaging six eggs a day. Arthur is already salivating at the extra income this could give him. If we produce 42 eggs each week, and eat twelve of those ourselves, and he sells each box at the top of the lane for one pound, then he could make five pounds a week.
IN HALF TERM, we drove up to the Hay literary festival where I gave a talk with Big Issue founder John Bird and New Economics Foundation director Andrew Simms. We sang “The Bear Necessities”, “Seventeen” by the Sex Pistols and “Sunny Afternoon”, all chosen for their anti-work sentiments, to my ukulele accompaniment. Bird is a great man and a true radical and I hope to work with him on future Idlers and other system-smashing projects. Two days later I met up with my friend the writer Jay Griffiths and Penny Rimbaud. Jay was giving a talk. She banned Penny from coming as she was afraid he might cause a rumpus by attacking Jay’s fellow panel members. So instead Penny and I sat in the beer garden and chatted. We discussed the appalling corporatisation of the festival: it is covered in sponsorship banners of unspeakable vulgarity. There are Barclays Wealth banners, United Emirates airlines banners, Sky TV leaflets everywhere. One wonders where all this money is going: certainly the writers do not get paid. Penny was fuming about all this and then went to the bar to get drinks. On his return he reported that the bar staff were doing fourteen hour shifts at minimum wage, and were lucky if they took home £50, after an exhausting day of being abused by middle class Hay punters. Penny said the whole thing made him feel very uneasy and that he felt like slashing a banner. I said, “well, I’ve got my penknife here.” Penny said: “Shall we do it?” I said, “yes”. So Penny slowly strolled up to a United Emirates banner, and elegantly made a diagonal cut in it from top left to bottom right. Hardly had he put the penknife away when two very young Hay employees came up to him and said, “what are you doing?” “I’m protesting against this sponsor.” A minute later, three security guards came and hovered over our picnic table. One said, “we’re going to have you arrested for criminal damage.” He called the police who came over and questioned us. We remained pleasant and co-operative. Penny was arrested. I had my knife confiscated, and we were all escorted from the premises. I was told to stay out of the festival site, and Penny was driven off to the police station. He was released with a caution. He said that the police had treated him with the utmost courtesy and respect, and even suggested that they approved of his stance. What’s more, when he was wandering around Hay later, a family came up to him. They’d seen the slashing incident, and the Dad said: “We thought what you did in there was wonderful,”
BACK HOME life springs everywhere. In the hedgerows the blackthorn blossom is coming out. There are dozens of foxgloves (digitalis purparae) everywhere. There is red campion, herb robert (geranium robertianum), creeping buttercup (rununculus repens) and germander speedwell (veronica chamaedrys), a nice little four-petalled blue thing. It would be nice to look into the medicinal properties of these flowers. Everyone knows that digitalis has some uses. Back in the medieval days, of course, food and medicine were almost the same thing. Modern medicine has its roots in herbal remedies, of course, but these days—alas!—the potions are controlled and regulated and produced by vast profit-making drugs companies. Surely it is time for some revolutionary actions? I’ve been reading Mark Ames’ book Going Postal, which describes the various rage murders in the States over the last twenty years or so, and argues that the modern American workplace is a savage and inhumane place to be. And so no wonder that oppressed workers unleash their rage. In the vegetable patch there is camomile popping up everywhere, as well as mint, and self-seeded nasturtiums are all over the place. I transplanted several tiny nasturtiums to the side bed. The veg garden is looking even better since I weeded and tidied the paths. I have also covered them with sand and stones. The sand came from a local beach, and the stones are all just lying around. It’s starting to turn into a pleasant place to be, and I now plan to carve my diggers’ motto into a piece of wood. The motto is: IN TERRA LIBERTATEM QUAERIMUS, which means, as if I need to tell you, “we seek freedom in the earth”.
ENDS
"The answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live."