It topped 100F at Heathrow, making it the hottest day ever in the UK and slapping in the face those who deny that global warming exists. In Nottingham, however, it was pouring down and our departure was delayed by waiting for the rain to clear. That meant we missed the first half of the Cosmic Rough Riders set inside DeMontfort Hall. They were indoors and had shed their lead singer and main songwriter, Dan Wylie, since I last saw them. They are no longer the ugliest band I’ve ever seen. Instrumentally, they’re great, in a mid-60s Byrds sort of way. Vocally, they’re less strong (but more in the right key) and some of their back catalogue song choices weren’t the strongest (drop the Glastonbury song,…

‘Summer Sundae’ is a kind of mini-Glastonbury at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall, just round the corner from where Sue works, which is useful for parking. On the Saturday, I fancied seeing Laura Cantrell at three. However, as the temperature in our garden hit the mid-thirties, we decided to leave the 45 minute journey until the day reached a more temperate 30C, just before six. We arrived to find three of the festival’s four stages in action, lots of stalls, a relaxed crowd, many of them flat out from the sun, and The Alabama Three about to come on. We put down our blanket in a prime spot as they began with with ‘Woke Up This Morning’, the theme song from ‘The Sopranos”. Often a mistake…

Not the best of holidays for reasons I’d like to have been able to leave at home, but in between driving and eating far too much, I did read some good books. Most of the holiday book lists you see consist of either: people trying to impress their readers, talk up their mates or (at best) mention books they read ages ago that they think others might enjoy. Here’s what I actually read (along with catching up on back issues of the New Yorker, Uncut and the TLS that we took with us), in order of how much I enjoyed them. 1) The Nashville Chronicles: the making of Robert Altman’s Masterpiece by Jan Stuart took me over a year to track down, by which time…

When we arrived in the Gers last week, it hadn’t rained for two months and a hosepipe ban was being considered. Within a day we’d had an overnight storm. Now we’re in the French alps, where it hadn’t rained for three months and the water is cut off for several hours a day. Last night, there was a storm and it’s been chucking it down for the last hour, too. Call me Rain Man. Only trouble is, the reservoir is so leaky that it’s completely out of water and the whole village’s water is now cut off all day. So we’re in the only village in the entire country with no showers or flushing loos. Just like Glastonbury then…

I’ve just finished Michael Frayn’s Spies, in which two prepubuscent boys concoct fantasies about the secret lives of their neighbours and relatives, accidentally uncovering sadder secrets than the ones they suspect. It’s a very well written Second World War tale covering slightly over-familiar ground. Many readers will see the ending coming (if not the extra, final ‘twist’ that Frayn doesn’t quite succeed in bringing off) but so what? Originality is over rated – give me predictable but convincing over shock/stretch the credulity endings any day. I finished the book in bed, before turning off the light (most novel reading, I suspect, takes place on holiday, or in bed). When I thought about the book again in the morning, one thing confused me. What made it…