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Belated thoughts on Glastonbury 2010

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What a belter. The sun I prayed for shone brightly, solidly, for three days, apologising profusely for its previous absences. We arrived on site on Thursday afternoon without a hitch, set ourselves up and began our exploration. The good weather and the prospect of World Cup delight lifted spirits sky high, despite the sheer number of punters and the inevitable toilet stenches made worse by the blistering heat.

So to the music. As usual so much, so varied, so much missed. But what I did see what pretty damn good, including some surprises. Steel Harmony pummelled out some Beyoncé to an overjoyed late Friday morning Park audience, Phoenix put on a mediocre show on the Other Stage which I had to leave because my neck felt like it was on fire, Mumford & Sons packed out the John Peel stage like never before; Dizzee Rascal let rip and electrified the crowd with Bonkers (and of course, Florence got in on the act and chirped up a bit of You’ve Got The Love).

Gorillaz were the high point of Friday for me. The lukewarm reception from the crowd underlined my inkling that they were a controversial choice for headliners, but I knew their barrage of awesome beats and basslines (especially from the album Plastic Beach) would have me dancing like an eejit. It was an incredibly impressive show.

Saturday was spent mostly hiding from the sun around Circus, Avalon, and a fair bit of time in Poetry and Words, were Jon Hegley pulled in an impressive crowd and got us all singing about a bungalow in Luton. Scissor Sisters woefully underused Kylie (one song?! come on!) but at least Jake Shears got to show off his sinewy, Iggy-Pop-In-training body. And we did bump into Del Marquis later on at NYC Downlow club. Pet Shop Boys blew my socks off – after years of being my least favourite band on the planet (after U2), they put on a corking show and reminded me how many of their songs have become earworms I shall never dislodge from my cerebellum.

Obviously Stevie Wonder was some pretty funky icing on the cake on Sunday night, introducing little Stevie and even bringing Michael Eavis to do a duet of Happy Birthday to 40-year-old Glastonbury Festival (though let’s just say Eavis should stick to signing the bands up to perform, and milking cows).

And the rest? Crystal Castles you can keep, 100% Beefcock and the Titsbursters at DogFacedGeisha sure were memorable (with a name like that, you can’t help but remember), the human jukebox, the accidental tear-inducing viewing of Toy Story 3, and all the random late-night / dawn wanderings around Block 9 and Shangri-la were just amazing. That whole area is so much better than I remember it being in previous years.

All-in-all a brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime festival, and my first Glastonbury without having to resort to the hot spiced cider. If only festivals were all so universally warm, dry and fun!

Chocolate iPad, anyone?

posted in Computing, Food

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Kay had one for her birthday:

Read the full story at Stef’s blog

How likely is rain at Glastonbury Festival?

posted in Music

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This year will mark my third visit to Glastonbury Festival, where Bono’s pain will be my pleasure as U2 make way for Gorillaz to headline on Friday night. Hooray! I’m very excited about Glastonbury because, as ever, I’m sure the music, comedy, arts, crafts and booze will be outstanding.

There is, however, the inevitable and slightly upsetting prospect of bucketload after bucketload of teeming, inglorious, skin-wrinkling rain. In 2004 and 2007 I shivered in the drizzle, hot spiced cider in hand, and boogied in the muddy bog. Augustus Gloop: eat your heart out. Last year at Glade was no exception – once again I brought the clouds.

This year I’m praying I won’t be the bad weather omen and we’ll have at least one day of good old-fashioned sunshine and a chance to shed the kagoul for once.

Is that too much to ask?

Well. I’ve done a bit of digging and looked up the historical weather data from nearby Bristol airport around the time of Glastonbury festivals going back to 1997. The results are in the table below:

Data kindly provided by Bristol Airport via Weather Underground

So the data seems to suggest that your average day at Glastonbury will be about 19°, cloudy, and you’re very likely to see Basement Jaxx or The Prodigy. And as for rain, here’s the conclusion:

• Chance of rain on any single day of the festival: 24%
• Chance of rain on any festival as a whole: 88%

Compare that with my experience so far:

• Chance of rain on any single day of the festival if Simon is there: 66%
• Chance of rain on any festival as a whole if Simon is going: 100%

So you see I feel entitled, even owed, a dry festival. Please, let it be this year!

Update (June 21, 2010)

The weather forecasts from Accuweather and Weather.com are pointing to, astonishingly, a dry, sunny festival. Let it be true, ye Gods!

Update (July 2010)

I’ve added the data from 2010′s amazing, sunny, dry, hot festival.

Some thoughts on the iPad

posted in Computing, Web

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Over the last few days I’ve been lucky enough to read about the hype of the UK iPad launch from my own iPad, which arrived about a month ago.

After seeing a friend’s iPad at a wedding a couple of weeks before that, and seeing him proudly draw a giant penis on it, I had my reservations – aside from having a beautiful screen there were no killer apps, no super connectivity and the keyboard was not up to serious typing.

Now I’ve had my own for a few weeks, here’s why I love it:

• It is the perfect browse the web / read feeds / reply to emails device from the sofa / bed. It is small enough to be ultra-portable but big enough to be a joy to use.
• It’s a brilliant recipe companion. There are a few recipe finder apps already (epicurious in particular is outstanding), and the relatively small footprint makes it more convenient to have an iPad in the kitchen than a laptop.
• Apps like Guardian Eyewitness are beautiful and there are doubtless many more to come.
• Generally – the screen is brilliant and the device is super responsive. The email client is light and sensible and great for catching up. When I go back to my iPhone after using the iPad it feels like someone dipped it in treacle
• Flight Control HD. I’ve written about Flight Control before, but my goodness. Playing it large is super smashing awesome good.

And the dislikes:

• Given that the screen is so good, why is there no camera?
• The array of applications out there right now isn’t too inspiring. There are a million and one piano applications for iPad. Unless you have tiny fingers or are happy with playing chopsticks in a 2-octave range don’t bother. They are universally rubbish (but I am a piano snob)
• Why are eBooks so expensive? For me reading on a screen will always be a downgrade from having a real book, so it makes no sense to me that eBooks are priced more highly than their superior print counterparts. Lots of analysis on this out there: “eBooks must not be devalued as this will depress the true value of the entire market in the future.” [Stephan Butscher, Simon-Kucher & Partners], but I wonder what will happen once Google Editions gets going.

So all in all I feel the iPad is absolutely not a necessity device – it takes tasks which are easily achieved on the iPhone and on your laptop and makes a few of them much, much easier. It is not a replacement for anything per se.

Cory Doctorow posted a few weeks ago on his frustrations with the iPad, Apple’s skewed monopoly on innovation, on what he calls the infantalisation of hardware, on closed vs open.

The points he makes are valid but I feel he quickly dismisses the vast market for whom a closed platform is perfectly fine. A large group of people out there (and I count myself as one of them, most of the time) don’t want to tinker or take their devices apart (perhaps burnt by previous failed attempts at fixing VHS machines or 90s PCs). They just want things to work really well, be beautiful and easy to use. Is that so bad?

Funk it up with free Mr Scruff

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I was lucky enough to do a little funky dancing over at Koko in Camden last Saturday where the potato-enthused, tea-drinkin Mr Scruff was doing a marathon six-hour DJ set. An mp3 of the entire set is available for the next week from his site using download code Bs97kw.

And if that wasn’t enough there are a bunch of folk on Mr Scruff’s Soundcloud page tagging up the songs in previous mixes too.

On surviving the 2010 London Marathon

posted in London Marathon 2010

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After a week of eating copious amounts of rice, pasta, potatoes and sweet things, it is done. I finished my first marathon in one piece.

Arriving in Greenwich Park at 8:30am in sideways rain is not the way I normally like to start my Sundays, but I did pray (despite my atheism) for rain on race day and down it came, soaking the many thousands of runners standing anxiously in the portaloo queues waiting for the all-important pre-race relief.

Once over the start line (between a womble, some fairies, a polystyrene wall and a dinasour), the first six miles passed in a flash, steaming past a variety of wonderful seldom-seen south-east London treats: a Woolwich pub turned into a pirate ship; a priest throwing holy water on passing runners; a mini brass-band squeezed into a front yard; a myriad of brave late-April street side barbecues; and morris-dancing ladies. Seeing friends at 6 and 11 miles was fantastic. And suddenly I was at Tower Bridge, and the crowds were immense and roary.

Me, sweaty and beaming, at mile 22, courtesy of Andy Patterson

Things got a lot tougher between about 14 and 20 miles – having run around the Isle of Dogs during training I was ready for it to be tricky, but the humidity and the sense of shared dread among the runners, combined with the dwindling crowds, made it really hard going. At about 17 miles I bumped into a friend J, and then the t’other J met me at 21 for a sip of tea which I think powered me on past mile 22 and a gaggle of amazing, cacophonous Uni friends onwards to the finish, where the hundreds of people shouting my name – My Name – and grinning madly when I made eye contact – spurred me on towards the finish.

Crossing the finish line was followed by wave after wave of relief, rather than immediate euphoria, which has slowly, quietly grown over the last day or so as the enormity of this achievement, the focus of last four months, has sunk in. I started training in November, and since then I’ve since skidded around Hyde Park in sub-zero temperatures with the amazing Howard, grappled with achilles tendonitis, suffered a pretty aggravating metacarpal fracture, dodged the coast road traffic at rush hour in Cape Town, and been locked in two of London’s parks after running around them too late. Despite all this, I managed to finish my first marathon in five hours and one minute. And my legs are feeling every second of it.

The main and best thing though is that with your help I smashed my Shelter fundraising target of £1600 to raise well over £2000 – and there’s still time to sponsor me if you haven’t already. Thanks so much for your support.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be down the pub…

• Number of tears shed: a fair few
• Litres of water drunk: 4
• Number of jelly babies eaten: many
• Days to go until the next one: we’ll see

Sweet sweet tapering

posted in London Marathon 2010

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After a few weeks of doing 15/17/19 mile long runs in addition to shorter ones in the week, tapering feels good. With only one week to go until the race, it was a treat to head out for a leisurely 8-miler around Hyde Park, under perfect blue, plane-free skies with Howard. Seeing folk having picnics under trees in full blossom was a big change from the slip-slidey run we did back in January.

With only two more short training runs to go, this week is all about the pasta and giving my legs a relative rest before the big day. The nerves are starting to kick in, as I thought they would. Nothing I do now can improve my readiness for the gruelling task ahead, but it’s tempting to think that just adding a mile on here or there will help. It won’t, so from here in it’s all about summoning the mental strength to get through.

My legs will get a huge boost from knowing I’ve raised over £1200 towards my £1600 fundraising target for Shelter, with over £500 coming from deep-pocketed friends who piled round last Friday to be fed a world of carbohydrates (think Come Dine With Me, but with more pasta). If you’d like to help me get a little further towards my target, please donate over at my justgiving page.

I’ve started running with RunMeter, a neat little app which tracks route progress and plots it on a map. The neatest features about it is its ability to tweet location / pace updates and read out replies. If you’re a tweeter you can follow me at @simonruns to check how I’m progressing around the course, and you can send me messages of encouragement to be fed into my ear.

Will you be watching the race? Let me know if you are, and where, and I’ll try and look out for you. I reckon I’ll be finishing between 4h30m and 5h. And then having a very long sit down.

• Days to go: 6
• Calories per day: at least 3000
• Money left to raise: £392
• Volume of ash in lungs: increasing
• Likelihood of winning marathon due to elite athletes being stranded by ash: also increasing

Pink Velcro

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Now, I don’t recommend picking up a fracture of any description whilst training for a marathon – it’s a pain. Most of my long runs in the last 6 weeks or so have involved swelling and pain, so I was very relieved to hear today, on my latest hand therapist check-up, that I’m healing up very nicely indeed. I was even rewarded by having a length of neon-pink velcro to accessorise my new, less restrictive splint. I’m not allowed to do any weight training for another 6 weeks or so but I can live with that.

So how’s the running going? Truth is after a difficult few weeks post-injury in February, things have been going well. I was lucky enough to spend a week in South Africa this month and whilst there managed to complete a few pretty long runs on hills in the heat, which was tough but great training. I’ve also been gorge walking a couple of times which I think has strengthened my achilles.

Last night I completed my longest run to date at 17.1 miles. I took it pretty steady and did a couple of laps around Hyde Park (though I did accidentally get locked in Kensington Gardens and nearly speared my thigh climbing out*), before heading up and looping around Regent’s Park, to make it home in about 2h45m.

I’ve started employing a couple of little mental tricks to keep me going on longer runs. One of these is to tell myself that I’ve only run four miles so far (regardless of the truth) and that I only really have to think about the next four. Weirdly that thought alone seems to give my legs more renewed energy than any number of jelly babies.

I just need to do one more 18/19 miler and then it’s three weeks of sweet, sweet tapering and pasta-eating. As exhilarating and exciting as completing such long distances is, I’m very much looking forward to getting my legs and my life back.

• Days to go: 27
• Miles in the last week: 29
• Thighs: disproportionately bulbous
• Sponsorship: Up to £305 – but a long way to go! Please please sponsor me!

* Getting stuck in parks has been a general theme of my training. Last week I ran around the Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town and accidentally got stuck in a not-yet-finished bit of landscape park in front of it…

Glutes loose about this hoose

posted in London Marathon 2010

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In my first ever physio rehab session this week, with the unforgiving Kelly, I noticed that one of my knees doesn’t point forwards like the other one. It points inwards slightly.

“It’s because you have a weak bum”, piped Kelly, cheerily, “especially on your right side”. This is the major cause of my achilles woes, which is having to work harder to deal with my foot landing the wrong way.

So, to my daily routine of pasta-a-go-go and finger clenches for my sore paw, I must now add clam stretches, one-legged squats, transversus amdominus engagement (a bit like pelvis floor tensing, which I can sneakily do in meetings).

If I reach the £300 mark this week in donations I will share pictures of humiliating butt stretches. Clothed, obviously. I must retain some dignity.

• Days to go: 57
• Money raised so far: £190. Thanks all! Keep it coming! There’s a long way to go. Sponsor my puny ass!
• Miles this week: 13
• Word of the week: clench

A few unexpected hurdles

posted in London Marathon 2010

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No running this week as I waited to see how bad the grumpy achilles & fractured hand are bearing up. The good news is that the achilles has got a lot better with some rest. The less good news is the hand is still pretty sore.

I’m all strapped up like Dennis The Menace in my fancy splint which was custom-made for me by a lovely hand therapist at UCLH. I even had a choice of blue, red or neon-pink velcro.

I’m going to attempt my first run with it tomorrow, I’m super-conscious that my balance won’t be what it was, and the jarring probably won’t do it much good.

Running impairment aside, these are some more fundamental things I’ve also found difficult this week:

1. Turning socks inside out
2. Putting socks on once you have made them the right way round
3. Doing up button-fly jeans (especially with my little mid-twenties paunch…)
4. Taking the lid off marmalade
5. Cracking open an egg in one piece
6. Eating porridge without spilling all over myself
7. Cutting up food (thanks to all who have helped in this matter this week!)

I’m still very much on for the marathon, and whilst it’s very unlikely I’ll be setting any speed records, it’ll be a huge achievement to get round.

As it’s been quite a mentally and physically tough week – more so than any other week so far, I’ve decided to try and boost my morale a bit by setting up my fundraising page.

Please, please sponsor me – I’m raising money for Shelter, whose good work for the homeless has always filled me with admiration. Hearing the stories of people they help only serves to put my minor injury into perspective and strengthen my resolve to complete the marathon and hit my fundraising target.