Well I'm back from Minehead, and back from the dead in some respects, as this is the first post in nearly a year and a half.  Not bad going for someone who said he would do this once a week.  Still, not sure if anyone wants to read my ramblings here (as apart from my novels which are paid ramblings) but here we go.

Minehead was fun. In case you don't know, All Tomorrow's Parties, the brilliant indier than thou music festival, takes place at Butlins there.  It now sprawls over two weekends, with The Breeders curating next weekend's stuff.  I was on last weekend, Sunday afternoon to be precise as part of the spoken word events curated by my old mate Lydia Lunch.  And a cracking line up it was too - poet John Tottenham, the brilliant Cathi Unsworth, ex-Warhol superstar and film-maker Bibbe Hanssen, Jake Arnott, Lydia and me.  John, Lydia and Bibbe had flown in from the States to take part, three of us from less exotic climes.  But we put on a great show.  Even if I say so myself.  There was a very sizeable crowd in the Crazy Horse bar (named, I assumed, after the legendary Native American chief rather than the even more legendarily cack-handed backing band of Neil Young's) a venue as authentically Midwestern as I am.  We all read different stuff but it somehow seemed to be thematically linked in some way.  Probably because we'd all had the same instruction from Lydia - read the nastiest fuckin' shit you got.  I obliged.

I read my award-nominated short story 'Love' which originally appeared in the London Noir anthology.  It's quite an uncompromising piece, being about a young BNP skinhead in Dagenham, but very prescient given the upcoming elections.  Still, I hope I did my bit to put people off voting for them.

Afterwards I posed for photos and signed an autograph for a fan of mine.  Hi Chris, if you're reading.  It was a real pleasure to meet you.  I hope you didn't come down from Barnard Castle just for me though.  There were plenty of other distractions over the weekend.  Not that I saw many of them, though.  I seemed to time it wrong for arriving when the bands I wanted to see were on, but I did manage to catch The Acorn who I had seen supporting Fleet Foxes at the Roundhouse earlier this year and was well impressed by.  They didn't disappoint and played a blinder.  The only other band I managed to see were The Jesus Lizard who were headlining on Saturday night.  I must admit, atonal thrash from metalised noise merchants isn't really my thing and I missed out on them first time round and doubt I'll ever buy any of their records, but they were a great live band.  David Yow, their hugely charismatic frontman, is touching fifty and recovering from a collapsed lung last year but stage-dived and crowd-surfed stripped to the waist in a manner that would shame anyone half his age.  Beat that, Jonas Brothers.

As for the rest of the weekend . . . most of it was spent in the swimming pool going very fast down various slides.  Or sending inedible food back to the kitchens in Butlins restaurants.  Or telling pissed up wankers to fuck off for knocking on my window at four in the morning.  Or complaining about the state of the toilet in the chalet.  But apart from that . . . Yeah.  I'd go back if they asked me.   Good fun.

Next weekend I'm going down the Tyne with Val McDermid.  I'll keep you posted.    

This week Martyn read The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns (I think this one will be around for a few weeks) and listened to Kingdom of Rust by Doves and Glory Hope Mountain by The Acorn.