Some Summer!

The summer has quickly turned into a fevered blur of festival madness. The season is a little different this year with lots of one and two nighters and the festivals themselves have been much more varied: ranging from huge rock gigs to medieval pageants. No time to get bored.
My record in the recent Guinness show was repeated in the 'best of'season finale which meant that I'm getting a lot of "aren't you that bloke on the telly?" which I guess means it did what it was supposed to do. I'm being asked for more autographs after the shows too, which is weird because it really brings home how a few minutes on the magic box can change an audience's expectations when they see the show live.

"So who's that bird in the photo?" I hear you wonder. She's one of the stars of the Merelli family falconry show, and I do mean stars: all the birds are beautifully trained and performed with power, grace and breath-taking accuracy. The level of skill was higher than I've ever seen and as I watched them perform at dusk in a little medieval town perched on a scraggy Italian hilltop, and saw the timeless bond between the falconers and their birds, all seemed right with the world.

A few days later I was at a Glastonbury-type rock gig which was... ...uhm, different.