This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ve always viewed Sidmouth Folk Week in the way that the author of Das Kapital saw history, and the author of Mein Kampf saw life: as a virtuous struggle.

You camp a mile or two up the hill, and you get to and from the town (where 95% of all the music is happening) by a bus.  The bus service is good, but still… once you go into town you can’t really just nip back to your tent.  So you need to bring everything with you: instruments, your own food if you can’t afford to keep eating out, sunglasses, swimming trunks, umbrella, GoreTex weather gear, defibrillators, the usual English summer stuff.  And whilst I have long appreciated (as a Sidmouth veteran of many years) that this makes me a better human being, it does have the negative side-effect of making me not quite be arsed to do anything much after about 11am.

And then a friend told me an extraordinary secret. Continue reading →