Hendrik

Hendrik is home again after an absolutely fantastic Glasto 2010. Love and thanks to my old Dorkesville pals Sara Whiteley, Kelvin Palmer and Martin Burt for making it so great. Joel Smith and Vicky Barrett...shame we didn't get to meet up this time. But there's always next year! :-).

Glastonbury 2010, Day 3: Frightened Rabbit (brilliant!), the Hold Steady, England v Germany (absolute pants!), Ray Davies (sublime!), I Am Kloot (brilliant!, Toots & the Maytalls, LCD Soundsystem.

Glastonbury 2910, Day 2: Jackson Browne, Green/Circus field (comedy), Devendra Banhart, the National, Ed Harcourt, Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, Nick Lowe, Midlake. Harcourt, the National & Midlake were transcendant!

Glastonbury 2010, Day 1: Joshua Radin, Corinne Bailey-Rae, Willie Nelson, Phoenix, Steve Mason, Turin Brakes, Mumford & Sons, THOM YORKE & JOHNNY GREENWOOD of RADIOHEAD (!!!), Gorillaz. Weather glorious, good times!

The crates of London Pride, tubes of sun-cream, sunnies, wellies, kagoule, trilby etc. etc. are all packed. The camper-van is ready to roll. Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts...here I come!

Cosy chat? No, thanks. I just can't stand all the phatic. Let's for once just enjoy a conducive silence. :-).

Hendrik is reading Tony Horwitz's excellent "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the unfinished civil war", a hilarious and disturbing study of the way the war is remembered and "kept alive". Many thanks to Jane Keessen Adams for recommending and Flora Franklin for gifting it to me for my birthday. Best quote so far? "If at first you don't...

Saya lapar. Mau makan krupuk memek -- yang paling enak!

Hendrik enjoyed the Spain v Honduras match very much. Spain strike me as an international version of the Arsenal. Very pretty patterns, beautiful to watch...but just lack that killer edge. Spain versus Chile should be a blinder, though!

Hendrik is reminded (and happy) how quickly things can turn around for the better. From dark to light in less than 24 hours. As Jim Morrison (who I normally can't abide) sang in one of the Doors' more palatable tunes "L.A. Woman"..."Let's change the mood from sad to gladness"... :-).

Hendrik was on the loo when the phone rang...my best friend Joe. So I put him on speaker phone and we had our usual weekend chat, as we always do. I didn't tell him where I was, so he didn't suss until he heard the loo flush. Then he was bemused. So now I'm wondering...talking on the phone whilst on the loo, acceptable or unacceptable? Opinions...

Hendrik is feeling like Stonewall Jackson on his last day...

Hendrik loves the World Cup, especially the vuvuzelas! But is baffled by the Jabulani. That ball has to be the WORST World Cup boo-boo ever!

Hendrik believes he may just have seen the World Champions elect in action...in the form of Argentina. On this display against South Korea, especially going forward, definite contenders!

Thanks everyone for their kind birthday wishes. Predictably, perhaps, Willem, Anneka and I celebrated with a curry in the Masala, Tunbridge Wells. Willem and Anneka gave me a T-shirt for my birthday - with their photos on it. Hilarious! Anneka said it was so I "could carry us with you wherever you go". Nearly made me cry, the sweetheart!

Hendrik is in Geneva for the day. Back to London tonight for an I Am Kloot gig at the Bush in Shepherd's Bush with Josephine Hall. Really curious as to the new songs from the new album produced by none other than Guy Garvey of Elbow fame...

Hendrik feels suitably re-booted after a weekend on the Isle-of-Wight.

Isle-of-Wight festival day 3: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (fun - come up and see me!), Spandau Ballet (hilarious - this much is true!), Editors (Joy Divsion lite), Pink (consummately briiliant! Really impressive!), Paul McCartney (brilliant! The Beatles, the Beatles!), James (genius!)

Isle-of-Wight festival 2010 day 2: the Hold Steady (great!), Crowded House (brilliant, despite Neil Finn's dodgy tache), Vampire Weekend (inoffensive), Biffy Clyro (OK), England v USA game (pants!), La Roux (really good), Blondie (genius!), the Strokes (OK).

Isle-of-Wight festival 2010, day 1: Doves (brilliant), Florence & the Machine (brilliant), Jay-Z (brilliant). Weather better now too!

Isle-of-Wight.

Hendrik took his entire library of American Civil War books (and there's a lot of 'em!) home to the UK, because I'm going to spend the next eight months in Europe. Combined weight was 48 kilos! But the kind BA ladies at JFK didn't blink an eye, bless them! (And wherever I am...I still root for Team Confederate!)

Is at Heathrow T5 airport conveyor belt 7 standing next to Gwyneth Paltrow. Yep, even without make-up, she's a babe!

Hendrik quite fancies his cousin. Is that wrong?

Hendrik thinks it might just be me being thick, but it strikes me tonight upon hearing it randomly coming up on the J-Pod - and having listened to the song all my life - that Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" is actually profoundly homo-erotic. Discuss.

Hendrik is lost in the remote past. There's nae need tae remind me...

Hendrik thoroughly recommends the book "The Slave Ship: A Human History" by Markus Radiker, a brutal, brilliant and harrowing account of the Atlantic slave trade and testimony to man's belief-defying capacity for Godlessness and inhumanity. Utterly heartwrenching.

Damn right, Tony Hayward, should BP pay for the eco-catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico as you committed to do on April 30. You take the profits; you take the risk.

's laptop is Donald Ducked. Again. A consultant without a computer is a like a chef sans kitchen, or dancer without a pole. Basically I feel naked. Not good.

Managed to scrape the front-right panel of the black Mercedes C200 I had rented from Mr. Avis on a pole in the car-park at the post-office in High Brooms. Oh dear!