Wowee. I’m back from Glasto and I’m snotting for Britain. My hayfever is the worst it’s been for years. Goodness me.
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Glastonbury was great, you guys! I’m extraordinarily badly designed for festivals, but the weather was perfect, and it was lovely having my wife there to see bands with. I sacked off the Rolling Stones to watch Nas and Public Enemy back-to-back. If you think about it, that is a pretty amazing line-up, especially for Glastonbury, a festival at which, just a few years ago, it was considered a controversial choice to invite Jay-Z. I’ve now seen Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, the Wu-Tang Clan, Pharcyde, Nas and Public Enemy all at Glasto. Difficult to complain! Nas and Public Enemy were both brilliant, by the way – PE particularly. Oh, and our performances as Aisle16 in the Cabaret Tent were as weird and rewarding as ever. Never an easy gig, but that just makes it all the sweeter when it goes well.
This week, I have gigs in Ledbury.
On Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th, I’m doing a poetry takeaway at Ledbury Poetry Festival, writing free poems to order on any subject, with a couple of other poets.
On Sunday 7th, you can see my new show, Pub Stuntman, at Ledbury. It’s free!
This Week, I Have Mostly Been Reading
Edge Of Infinity, an anthology of space-based, mostly hardish SF. This is normally not my cup of tea. I like Fantasy, Space Opera, cyberpunk, steampunk – books that put character and story front and centre. I’m not that interested in literature as a delivery system for someone’s hypothetical meteorite mining vehicle, although I’m not completely dead to the cool factor of weird, interesting stuff.
For the most part, Edge Of Infinity is very charming, though, and I’ve found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed it. Pat Cardigan’s The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi and Elizabeth Bear’s The Deeps Of The Sky are both nice pieces, and while I felt slightly uncomfortable at ‘beauty-queen-genius-yet-rugged-and-just-one-of-the-lads’ titular ‘Girl-Thing’ in the former story (I realise it’s partially justified by the themes of body modification, but still – feels a bit fanservicey), overall this is a collection of, if not mind-blowing, certainly engaging, readable SF stories.