Some DVDs I watched this week


The Squid And The Whale
This is going to be hard to beat. It's only 88 minutes long, but what a lot of life writer-and-first-time-director Noah Baumbach packs in: it's basically the divorce of his parents in 1986 Brooklyn, fictionalised. Jeff Daniels, with a beard you could keep books in, is the lugubrious, Dougal-like English teacher and past-his-peak author, Laura Linney is his wife whose writing career is about to take off (she's got a story published in the New Yorker!), which seems to be the catalyst for their long-time-coming split. Their two boys, Frank and Walt, take sides, the eldest going to live with his dad (he's the pseud who talks about The Metamorphosis as "Kafkaesque" even though he's never read it), the youngest staying with his mom while developing an unsavoury masturbation habit (he actually starts "marking" things with his seed - something I couldn't put in my Radio Times review). It's witty and smart, with bags of urban melancholy, even recalling Woody Allen. And the explanation of the title is incredibly moving. Highly recommended.


Shooting Dogs
If you've seen Hotel Rwanda, you sort of don't need to see this but do, as it takes the same subject - the 1994 genocide - and personalises it with a true story of courage and defiance. In this case, Don Cheadle's hotelier is replaced by John Hurt's Catholic missionary and the school where he and Hugh Dancy teach plays the part of the hotel. Both become sanctuaries for frightened Tutsis after the Hutu coup and are beseiged by machete-wielding militias. The same essential point is made - the UN are powerless to intervene as they are only there to monitor the fighting, and cannot fire a gun except in self-defence; hence, as white Europeans are escorted to safety, the Africans are left to sort it out for themselves. Result: 800,000 dead Tutsis. (Hmmm. UN sits on its hands while people kill each other? Thank God it couldn't happen again.) Michael Caton-Jones, the duality of whom as a director was encapsulated by his Basic Instinct 2 coming out on the same day as Shooting Dogs, does a fine job of recreating the situation, using authentic locations (although does that matter?) and many of those who survived the massacres as extras and technicians, each one of whom gets a caption in the end credits, perhaps the most moving sequence of the whole film. Again, it's Africa as seen through the eyes of the white man, but I guess in a film that's making a point about Western non-intervention, that's justified.


Pierrepoint
This isn't out on DVD until September, but it's well worth looking out for if you like your entertainment dour and grey. The adult life story of Britain's last hangman, played with the dignity and depth you expect from Timothy Spall, it gives an illuminating insight into the job itself and makes a very quiet plea against capital punishment without tub-thumping. Directed by Adrian Shergold, who won his spurs on the telly (Births, Marriages and Deaths, The Second Coming), it's told with economy and much period detail. Great to see Eddie Marsan as Tish, one of my favourite British character players who's always cropping up in Hollywood films (he's in Miami Vice, I notice) and is best remembered, of course, as the hitman Sunshine in little-seen BBC sitcom Grass.

England, half-English
An illuminating tale. I shall refrain from giving any details; needless to say, a tradesman was in our house doing some work this morning - and this is not a moan about tradesmen. The work he did for us was excellent: neat, professional and honest; he turned up on the day he said he would, at the time he specified, and the price he charged us was the price he'd quoted, give or take the cost of materials. I'd like to say I'd recommend him and use his services again myself. But there is a problem.

A chatty fellow, he arrived at 8.30, and as he brought his equipment in from the van, I made him a cup of tea (strong, white, no sugar). He then stood at the kitchen doorway for a natter before starting work. In the end, he nattered for the best part of an hour. Now, this is quite a long time to have to engage in conversation with a man you've just met, when you're kind of hoping he'll start the work. (As I say, once he did start the work, he was everything you could hope for, and he finished it well ahead of time, and he didn't put on a tinny transistor radio either, so in the event, this wasted hour had no great repercussions.) However, he seemed a nice chap, and if the bloke fancies a chat, I'm not rude enough to deny him the chance. He told us he was in the process of selling his house - he and his wife wanted to move to France. This is interesting. On the face of it, such a move suggests character and wordliness. (Friends of ours did the same thing two years ago, and I admire them for it.) However, the man's reasons for moving seemed to be based on the number of speed cameras in Britain.

This wasn't literally the only reason he was moving (although he and his wife only saw one when they went to France). He seemed to have a broader problem with this country. Problems with the government, and with regulation, and with the media, and with the amount of traffic lights. At one stage - I think we'd been moaning about Tony Blair, which gave him his way in - he said he was "conservative through and through", and reminded us that he was a "small businessman" to underline why. (This was his first leap to a conclusion that I wouldn't leap to. After all, I am a small businessman as well. It is possible to be self-employed and not get down on your knees and thank Mrs Thatcher for the opportunity. You can be in the market and not worship the market.) He also told us that he had come back from bankruptcy. I admired him for this, although by this time the prospect of learning more about his rise and fall and rise was less enticing than him starting work.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (an advantage you have that we didn't), the man turned out to have very strong views on England. He used the following dread words:

I'm not a racist, but ...

He was not a racist, because, guess what, he had two Asian friends and some "coloured" ones. He also liked Indian food and admitted, magnanimously, that Polish builders are very good at what they do, even though they're over here taking our jobs. My gut instinct is that anyone who feels the need to use the prefix "I'm not be a racist," is a racist. (I don't believe I have ever said to anyone, "I'm not a racist." You don't need to if you're not one, do you?) The man basically believed that England the way it is now is not the way it should be. He started to talk about the UK Independence Party, at which point my heart sank, as I thought he was going to give us a leaflet. Instead, he went to his van and brought in a poem that his mate had given him. He handed it to me to read. I kept it.

I find it fascinating that a man in our house to do a job of work might give us this poem to read first, so I will reproduce it in full for the record (the CAPITALS are the author's, as is the punctuation, but I have corrected the spellings, except one, which is significant):

Just Don't Say You're English
Goodbye my England, so long my dear friend,
Your days are numbered, being brought to an end.
To be Scottish, Welsh or Irish is fine.
But don't say you're ENGLISH, that's way out of line.

The French and the Germans may call themselves such,
As may Norwegians, the Swedes and the Dutch,
You can say you are Russian, Polish or Dane, BUT,
Don't say you're ENGLISH ever again.

At Broadcasting House that word is taboo,
In Brussels they've stopped it, in Parliament too.
Even schools are affected, staff do as they're told,
They must not teach children about the ENGLAND of old.

Writers like Shakespear [sic], Milton and Shaw, the kids do not learn
About them any more.
About Agincourt, Hastings, Arnhem and Mons, when ENGLAND
Lost thousands of her brave sons.

We are NOT Europeans, how CAN we be? ENGLAND
Is miles away over the sea.
We're ENGLISH from ENGLAND so let's be proud
Stand up and be counted, shout it out loud! Let's tell our
Government and Brussels too, we're proud of our heritage
And the red, white and blue.
Fly the flag of ST GEORGE or the UNION JACK,
Let the whole world know WE WANT ENGLAND BACK.

Deep breath.

OK, let's go through this verse by verse. (If you look up this quite rubbish, anonymously-written poem on the internet, you'll end up on various forums, and not necessarily far-right ones - I found one for the over-50s and another for bikers.) Its thrust is clear: that England is being taken away from the English. That to be English is somehow a crime. Well, first of all, I'm English. I would instincitively tell someone in, say, France, that I was Anglais. I'm also British, by geographical definition, and European, but I don't really need a map to define me, and I'm certainly not proud to have been born somewhere and not somewhere else. I speak English. English is the most commonly-spoken language around the world - about a third of the world's population speak it.Unlike, say, the Welsh language ("To be Welsh is fine"), it's anything but under attack. It is flourishing. It is dominant. England, on those terms, still rules the waves. On any other terms, however, it doesn't any more, no matter how nice we are to America. We're just a little country with a good economy and some US air bases. I have no great pride in the Empire. As far as I can see, when we ruled the waves, we used them to sail to other countries, plant our flag, ship the minerals home and fuck the place up. Now I sound like I'm ranting, but this poem has gripped me with its storming SELF-CONFIDENCE.

The right, as embodied by the tradesman in our kitchen, are so confident. (I would never walk into someone's house and give them a poem about my political beliefs. Couldn't he see the Guardian on the kitchen table?) Confident, and yet so defensive and wounded and self-pitying at the same time. This poem is one long whine, and most of its facts are baseless. True, my passport says European Union at the top, followed by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That's factually correct. It says I am a British Citizen, but it also specifies my place of birth, Northampton, which is far more specific than just England. Where is it "out of line" to say you're ENGLISH? This is simple paranoia. "Don't say you're ENGLISH ever again"? Calm down. The word "ENGLISH" is not taboo at Broadcasting House, I can vouch for that. We've just had a World Cup in which England were the only competing team from these islands. The media was saturated with the word ENGLAND, and the ENGLISH fans were never off the news - for keeping out of trouble as much as for getting in it, I might add. It was a PR victory for the ENGLISH. The flag flew, annoyingly, from every white van. You couldn't get away from the red cross of St George. To not be ENGLISH in this country for those weeks must have been highly irksome. The English were hardly cowed and pathetic.

Now, the devolution of Wales and Scotland and its effect on Parliament, where Welsh and Scottish MPs still vote on issues affecting England, is one worthy of debate. But the word ENGLAND is not taboo. And the ENGLAND "of old" is taught in schools. That'll be the ENGLAND that oppressed the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish. We learnt about that. How about the ENGLAND that went to war with France just to make some money by holding their noblemen to ransom? That'll cover Agincourt, where, apparently, "thousands" of our "brave sons" died. I'm not doubting the bravery of the outnumbered English soldiers in that clearing, but it's not as if France started the war. Henry V invaded to increase his approval ratings at home. It's an old trick.

As for Hastings. Yes, the French invaded us on this occasion, but it was over a disputed claim to the throne. Harold claimed it, William, who was Edward the Confessor's cousin after all, opposed his claim. All I'm saying is, there's some dispute. It's not cut and dried.

Arnhem - a battle fought in the Second World War, which is never off the current curriculum in schools, wounded ENGLISHMEN - was a British defeat. Not an English defeat. In fact, it was a British-Polish defeat. The Germans held British and Polish forces on the Arnhem bridge (the Bridge Too Far, in fact), and we withdrew, a great many of our men never actually making it to the bridge in the first place because they were parachuted in to the wrong spot. Hardly a glorious victory for our boys. They fought valiantly obviously, but here again, I'm uncomfortable using the theatre of war to glorify the country I was born in. By the way, the Canadians eventually secured Arnhem. And the British army included Welsh, Scots and Irish, not to mention soldiers for the Commonwealth. Why pick out the ENGLISH who died for special treatment. Were they braver thant the Scots or the Poles? (Ha! The Poles were over here stealing our work even then!)

As for Mons - which doesn't rhyme with "sons", I hate to break that to the Unknown Poet - it's in Belgium and was the setting for the first battle of the First World War. Another British defeat, I'm afraid. The Canadians took it eventually. Are these four battles listed to make us feel sorry for our boys? If so, fair enough. British soldiers (not just English) have died all over the world for their country. They are remembered every year on Remembrance Sunday, a massive public event, which the media always covers.

Shakespear [sic], Milton and Shaw are apparently not taught in our schools. First, it's Shakespeare. Second, he is rammed down the throat of every schoolchild that's ever passed through any school in this country, and will be forever more. Milton, I never learnt at school. But we did Dickens (English), Eliot (American-born but based in England after the First World War) and Chaucer (English), not to mention Arnold (English) and Tennyson (English). Too many English authors if you ask me. It's biased the other way. And, you'll be ahead of me here, but George Bernard Shaw was Irish.

By all means, be proud to be ENGLISH if you must. No need to "shout it out loud" though, that's just boorish and stupid. Imagine me shouting, "I'm from Northampton!" out loud. Or, "I'm a man!" Equally silly. And if you're so hung up on being English, why are you so keen to fly the "red, white and blue"? That's the flag of the United Kingdom, something the English nationalist must surely be against with its woolly acceptance of other nations in graphic form? It's got the Scottish and Irish flags in it! It's about being united, not divided - it's about the bigger picture, not the smaller one. I suppose the author of the poem and the man who came to our house must yearn, painfully yearn, for a time when the Union flag was flown by the ships of the British Empire (hence the "Jack" part, which relates to a ship's ensign), off to lord it over Johnny Foreigner with his spices and his gold. If you really care about this country, get worked up about the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables we import when we could easily grow our own.

Oh, and if the man in our kitchen, who kindly showed us the poem, loves England so much, why's he planning to move to France? (God help France.)

Give it away now
More goods shifted in a charitable direction. This time we phoned ahead, and the Children's Society (not the Children's Trust - I think I made that up) in Reigate made positive noises. Again, no place to park, so we had to use the magic hazard lights, but fuck it, slowing down the Bell St traffic on the one-way system is a small price to pay. We started taking in the boxes (this time, six of videos, two of books), and, God bless them, the staff in there started to look a little vexed by the third delivery, so we put them out of their misery and offered to stop after six boxes. They seemed relieved. Nipped next door to St Catherine's Hospice, told them we had one box of videos and one box of books and they took them off our hands. Result. Another empty car. Only about four boxes of books and four of videos to go.

Is this interesting? Funnily enough, Radio Times phoned through with next week's choices and The Birds came up as candidate for the Movie Moment feature, where I describe one scene in detail. I offered to do it, thinking I had the film on DVD. Turns out I had it on video. And now the Children's Society have it on video.

Give it away - wow!
Charity update. Still had a car full of stuff from yesterday's failed attempt (three huge boxes of books - including one or two copies of Where Did It All Go Right? and Still Suitable For Miners, two of videos, a cat carrier, some Trivial Pursuit games and questions, other bric-a-brac) when I set off to buy some wood. I passed through Banstead for some Waitrose bits and pieces, and while I was there, on Tim Bowling's recommendation, I wandered down the High St to enquire about donations in the charity shops. There are two Cancer Research shops, which is a bit greedy, and I won't give to them as they test on animals (you've got to have some ground rules). I have no idea if Scope test on animals, but it's certainly not the bread and butter of the good work they do, and it's Richard Herring's favourite charity, so I was delighted by the response. Are you taking donations? Yes! The man at the counter called the woman from the back room, who called the manager, Alex, who told me I could park "round the back". I felt privileged. He and another woman even helped me unload the boxes and put them into the storeroom. They took the lot! With pleasure! I love Scope in Banstead.

Still have a few more boxes of videos and books, but we've really shifted a lot now. Thanks for all your suggestions. We might well try a depot for the next batch.

Incidentally, I was also successful in my quest for wood. I have decided to box in the pipes in the downstairs loo. This is a big deal for me. We are having new bathroom furniture installed by a local plumber. We had originally asked a decorating firm who also do basic plumbing and other work, but they couldn't fit us in until the first week of September, so we let them go. I asked the plumber if he could box in and he said he'd have a go if I got the wood for him. Well, I got the wood, but not for him, for me. I'll save myself some money and have a crack myself. I had the plywood cut to size in B&Q, Sutton, and once again praised that company for going out of its way to employ older people, who know so much more about these things. I painted the woodwork in the loo this afternoon, thus saving some more money.

Bloody hot, isn't it? Anybody else noticed that?

Give it away now?
Today was the first day of giving stuff to charity. In a great purge this summer, we have halved our library of books (this has been a psychologically cleansing act - when you choose to keep a book, it means more), and they are boxed up, ready to go. We are also, as mentioned before, jettisoning our entire pre-recorded video collection, which includes, among many famous feature films, music videos and TV shows, a full set of Hitchcocks, a full set of Woody Allens, a full set of Morse, The World At War, complete I, Clavdivs, four complete series of ER and on and on. That's hundreds of books and hundreds of videos, all in good condition, plus various other pieces of extraneous household, which are also boxed up and unused in many cases. It's a bonanza, and we decided to try and spread it out over a number of charity shops in the area. Here's how we fared:

Oxfam, Reigate A great start. Easy parking outside, and they were delighted to take two boxes of books, two boxes of videos and one box of various. One carload cleared. Back to base to reload.
Cats Protection, Purley Easy parking outside (20p for 15 minutes on meter). They wouldn't take a single item. Full up. Also, it looked like mostly clothes on circular rails in there. Pity, as it's one of our favourite charities.
Help The Aged, Purley Easy parking outside. They wouldn't take a single item either.
Oxfam, Purley Next door. The woman was awfully sorry but they were about to undergo a ten-day refurbishment and she couldn't take anything until this was completed. She said she'd love to take some books, if we could wait.
Children's Trust, Reigate Couldn't park outside due to Reigate one-way system, so pulled in on yellow line and put the hazards on, risking the wrath of pre-rush hour drivers and I went in first to see if they wanted anything. Closes at 4.30.
St Catherine's Hospice Closes at 4.30.
British Heart Foundation, Reigate At least they were open! The woman behind the counter gave an enthusiastic yes, so we started bringing the boxes up from where the car was parked, but as we arrived at the shop with the first load, another woman, presumbaly the manager, said actually, no, they weren't taking anything. Back to the car.

A hugely dispiriting afternoon. Now, I understand that space is of a premium at these shops, and that they're run for the very best of intentions, and that they close early, but from a purely selfish point of view, it's depressing to be turned away, for whatever reason. We'll try the Children's Trust shop again tomorrow, as I've been in there before and asked if they'd be interested and they were very keen. But after that, how much more driving are we prepared to do to offload all this good stuff? I am loath to throw any of it away. When we lived in Streatham, charities regularly did door-to-door collections, but not round here for some reason, otherwise this stuff would already be off our hands and hopefully doing some good.

Home truths
I think I'll reprint this in full. It's one of the developers from last week's Property Ladder (the eco-special), Julie, who was moved to post a comment on here after my assessment of the programme, which I really appreciate, but this is the insight into the distorting process of editing a TV show she posted on the C4 Homes Forum after one or two people had mocked she and partner JP's efforts to develop a healthy, natural, eco-friendly house in Surbiton:

Hi,
As one of the eco-friendly couple, thought I'd just add in some extra info about the development ... it's nice, but nerve-wracking to see it being discussed! Obviously what we did, or our personalities, won't please everyone, but there were several errors/generalisations in the show which I'd like to settle because we genuinely want to promote a more eco AND health conscious approach to building.

We're not developers, and normally live very happily on a small houseboat, and consuming very little, but have seen so much waste and missed opportunity going on in renovations - such as entire kitchens ripped out and replaced to sell ... just to be redone by the next owners - so we wanted to help promote recycling, and also the importance of upgrading a property's energy efficiency ... CO2 levels simply won't be met without improving existing housing stock.

They did over 10 full days of filming, and obviously chopped out lots to fit the small slot - with that amount of footage, it's possible to present various takes on what we were doing. Our intention was to do both eco-friendly AND healthy interior ... as I recently discovered a big part of a decade's poor health is due to chemical sensitivity. God knows where they got the 'packing chips' line from on the programme - the living room lights were naturally-vacated silk cocoons!!!

We deliberately avoided introducing new synthetic materials - MDF/carpets/plastics - into the flat as many of these outgass a whole cocktail of volatile organic compounds. This was part of the rationale for using the old kitchen carcasses - saving waste/manufacturing and transport energies - plus they were old enough (but in excellent condition) to have long outgassed most of the formaldehyde. We redesigned the layout mostly using the old cupboards and fitted high-quality solid beech-frame doors. We chose natural stone (reclaimed/leftovers where possible) and wood (also reclaimed or local), and used non-toxic finishes throughout ... such as pure tung oil for the worktops. We spent months researching the least toxic and least eco-impact goods - but the programme seemed to choose to pitch ours as 'eco', and the other one as 'healthy' so they missed out all our explanations about indoor air quality ... maybe we were just too earnest about it, and they need to make an entertaining program, but if you've been made ill by modern chemicals, then you would be wary of them too. (The eco-aspirator did get constructed in the office, though the air quality is SO good here it's not really needed, and my health is finally improving now.)

We had three aims ...
1. to show 'eco' can be 'chic and desireable' ... ie. NOT just niche market
2. to show it can be done on a budget (by reclaiming materials we actually put about 23,000 pounds worth of long lasting, quality, healthy materials into the flat, including top of the range boiler and solar heating, on a budget far lower than the one quoted), and
3. to consider the health of the occupants by NOT introducing unecessary toxins.

Designing SPECIFICALLY for true chemical sensitivity is a whole different ballgame as different individuals are sensitive to different things ... even natural products such as pine could cause problems for some.

JP is a designer, with many years' experience of all things eco, design and architecture, and does know exactly what he's talking about (when allowed to!) so at least it was mostly me that Sarah had a go at on screen! I'm never going to live down the lilac curtains.

It was a shame, however, that the programme didn't have time to put more about the reasons why we'd done some things - they'd filmed lots of us insisting on upgrading efficiency and sourcing locally/re-using/limiting waste and recyling wherever possible - items left over WILL find good homes! (We had planned to make all the furniture but ran out of time so borrowed eco-designer items.) We totally blew the budget by replacing an old, horribly inefficient back boiler with a new condensing boiler. We topped up the insulation, even foil backed radiators, changed to a genuine eco electricity supplier, got thermostatic valves, DIDN'T fit a power shower, stuck an A-rated fridge-freezer on the coolest, north wall, went for solar hot water which is very efficient these days, and spent that bit extra to use eco-friendly non-toxic paints which generate less waste, and don't lay me out for days just from the fumes ...

And energy-efficient homes will increasingly attract a premium price, so although not the most profitable approach now, it will become so...there are talks of waiving stamp duty on eco homes for example - now that would make any property more interesting as well as cheaper to run.

Yes, the outside of the flat isn't terribly pretty, but it was all my borrowing capacity would stretch to, and we quite liked the challenge of giving an unremarkable interior character. Rumours of what we've done to the flat have boosted the value of unmodernised ones here. They are in a convenient (if not pretty) location, and 2 beds round here are expensive. Unfortunately the valuations were done when the flat was less than half finished - partly due to us running WAY over schedule due to illness and circumstances and partly due to Sarah going on maternity leave - this is why the second bedroom, rest of the full length shower, and half the kitchen were missing in the programme.

The day AFTER they were done, once it was at least dressed and tidy, it was revalued at up to 250k, which was amazing, since we were hoping initially for 225. We received an offer of close to £250 from someone who'd just come to get ideas, and have had others wanting to buy it. If we were after material gain, we could have got an easy 20k by painting the flat and fitting new carpets, which would have avoided months of bloody hard work (you would not believe how much time went into the bathroom and those elm worktops), not to mention the public scrutiny, but we wanted to create something original to show eco can be fashionable ... so were gutted the figures were not accurate. Using quality reclaimed materials and items - bath/towel rail/taps/sink/kitchen for example - can save thousands, not to mention decreasing the impact of a renovation on the environment.

The project will appear in the September issue of Property Ladder magazine, which will hopefully give a more detailed account, and if anyone wants further details of our approach please email ecoflat@hotmail.co.uk ... and we'll send out an information pack (may be slight delay). Hope that clears up some of the confusion!

Julie

The full discussion is here.

This year's festival
I do love this job. Why else would I travel to Oxfordshire to attend Truck? I've paid my festival dues, and stopped going to Glastonbury in 1995, feeling ready for a life without Workers' Beer Company cups, vegetable tempura in a polystyrene tray and dry grass down Doctor Marten boots. But last year 6 Music sent me to Summer Sundae in Leicester and it was a terrific experience. Modest, local festival, good atmosphere, easy to wander offsite and get a train home. Likewise, Truck, which is even smaller, albeit slightly older than Summer Sundae at nine. Marc Riley did his show from the site on Saturday and, listening to it from the air-conditioned cool of 6 Music, I was struck by how little I fancied being there, as torrential rains came down while he was on air, and Julie Cullen was unable to do any of her backpack-assisted roving reportage. There was talk of wellies. While I appreciate the need for water during a drought and welcome it on my back garden and the parched Wray common, I wished for a dry day today. And we got it.



I drove up this morning, listening along the way to Regina Spektor's excellent new album (and Lily Allen's, which is entirely lovable). Up the A34 I passed signs for a village called Compton, which gave me a smile. The rolling Oxfordshire countryside couldn't be further from NWA's hood. All around is yellow cereal crop. Big wheels of wheat. It's rather lovely. Truck signs greeted me on the A3106 and I followed them, and the straggle of indie campers who'd ventured into Steventon for breakfast and supplies, to the site, which really is on a farm. I was a bit fancy with my ARTIST CAR PASS, watching barriers part as I approached them, but all it got me was a space next to a cow shed. Truck doesn't really do backstage. Indeed, the entire festival would fit into the backstage area at Glastonbury. There are stages everywhere. It's possible to stand in the middle and hear about three bands at once. The Didcot Rotary Club do the food. This is admirable, and gives the event a certain summer fete feel, but it also means that, as a festival, Truck is lacking the traditional "food village" of other similar events (no vegetarian curry? no tempura? no Cumberland sausages in a roll?) - it's a burger and a doughnut or nothing, really. Avoiding wheat here is as difficult as avoiding it in your eyeline as you drive up the A34. I ate a roll and a doughnut. It was that or starve.

The show went well from the sweatbox studio in a barn where Goldrush (festival organisers) record. I got gradually more shiny as the three hours went by. I met Henry and Kaps from Mystery Jets, who came in for a chat (like a good festival band, they are camping and have been here all weekend), also Regina Spektor, who was in a bad mood due to some trouble getting into the festival, refused to have her photo taken by Kris from the 6 Music website and bridled at my innocent (and true) description of her new album as more "accessible", but played a great song for us anyway, and The Race, a band from Reading, who brought everyone they knew into our tiny hot bunker for their song. I do like an outside broadcast - you tend to meet the same reliable hairy blokes who do this for the BBC for a living and can set up a working studio just about anywhere. So, I didn't get to see many bands outside of our own sessions (I think I saw the Dungeons in the Barn, which is a barn, but I can't be sure, and I caught The Race on the Truck Stage), but that's what happens when you leave the site the second your show's over.

If I'm going to attend a festival, I don't demand a car pass, but I do prefer the option to come and go as I please, and, ideally, to eat some wheat-free food. Oh, and I do demand that it is a nice place to spend some time. Truck fulfilled nearly all of those criteria, and I salute it.