balti-pie

Its quite hilarious seeing United fans only blaming the Glazers - theyre killing our club! theyre murdering us! its so unfair! - when you look at how theyve bankrolled managers with transfers and wages on an almost unprecedented scale over the last half decade. Yes, the stadium needs shitloads of work, and yes they're taking lovely big dividends to try and leverage off the debt, but they've backed every manager with staggering amounts of money. They cant solely be blamed for the ridiculously underperforming players and completely lopsided squad. manager after manager has spent £££. Admittedly you can blame them for the wages ensuring they cant possibly firesale the flops out of the club, but then if a transfer target turns them down due to not being offered enough wages, the fans instantly start complaining about that as well! Its a shitshow. They're by and large a spoilt fanbase who's only real attachment to Manchester United is to bathe in some form of reflected trophy glory, and in the total absence of that, there's basically no reason for them to support the club. (i'd best point out this isnt their proper fans, obviously!) The same thing has happened at Arsenal over the last decade, a fanbase of 'new' fans who only started being arsenal fans because of Wenger/Invincibles/etc etc, and are then distraught at the fact that it just isnt like that all the time, and every club has seasons, decades of perfectly ordinary achievement. 'legacy' fans (i love that term, its so perverse) can buckle in and enjoy the mediocrity, cos it makes the return to success all the better. But the new fans are watching NFL by then, cheering on the New England Patriots . . .

I'd love to see Alice Cooper - he wont get a legend slot, but might be up for an afternoon pyramid thing (that metal slot that kind of happened a couple of times) and a secret Truth stage 1.30am appearance too please. I like a fair bit of his 70's output, and you've definitely got a point about the theatrics covering up for less amazing music perhaps, but it still adds up to a very enjoyable spectacle

Went to see GWAR last night in Brighton - they're a fairly notorious live band, because (assuming not everyone is down with the GWAR) they're a punky/thrash metal band who play in massive rubber suits, and have a very theatrical live performance with beheadings, executions, guts, brains and blood - so much blood - all over the stage and the audience. They executed Joe Biden, the Queen, Vladimir Putin, and various other people, in quite grotesque style. I was aware i would get a bit messy, i was about fifteen ft from the stage so not exactly front and centre, but didnt realise i would be absolutely covered from head to toe in red blood, blue alien semen, green pus, and who knows what other colours . . . had a shower as soon as i got home, and had another one this morning, and my thighs are still blue 😆 In short; if ever you get a chance to see GWAR, take it. They're brilliant. Dunno how they manage to play so tightly while wearing their costumes!

This is nothing to do with scottish independence really, i just love scottish lower league football - the Highland league is my main focus though, i'm off to the mighty Clachnacuddin next weekend and i cant bloody wait! i've been to a fair few of the Highland league grounds and its a beautiful part of the world, and i'm sure i'll move onto looking at scottish league grounds soon enough as well. What are the pies like at Ayr?

Bit late for predictions as we've already started, but anyways . . . 1) Man City 2) Liverpool 3) Spurs 4) there's a fag paper between Chelsea and the Goons - perhaps the latter, just. A plague on both their houses! relegated: Bournemouth, Forest, Leicester FA Cup - Spurs League Cup - Man City Champions league - FC Bayern beating Liverpool in the final, with a Mane goal obvs Europa league - PSG Conference league - Villarreal Top scorer - tempted to pick the easy option with Haaland, but his injury record isn't great (and he's so bloody big!) so i'm gonna go with Salah, as he'll have a nice month's rest in November World cup - Argentina's time to shine, beating England in the final 😄

The Pixies and Rammstein have the same approach - get on, say hello (perhaps), play songs, might say goodbye at the end, finish. perfect! though i do like a rambling nonsense from the Flaming Lips (well, Wayne, obvs) ensuring you dont get an encore cos he's crossed the curfew by describing love like an old episode of Star Trek

If thats dreadful slop like Miller, Budweiser, etc etc then that would be absolutely dreadful - but if its yer craft offerings from Half Acre, Russian River, Sierra Nevada and the like (and you're getting glorious NEIPA's and imperial stouts) then i'd be a lot more up for it. Bet its the former though 😆 who have you seen? whats the atmos like there?

Is that you, Pardew you old goat?

Big Lostprophets fan eh? 🤣

Pantera. I loved Pantera, been listening to them since the mid-nineties, they've helped inspire so much great stuff, Dimebag is a much missed genius, Vulgar display of power is a magnificent album, but Phil Anselmo being such a fucking idiot has ruined them for forever for me. If he can just not be a ridiculous white supremacist prick, i can go back to loving em again. I cant in all honesty go and see the reunion even though Zakk Wylde on guitar is legit amazing, because of Phil. (admittedly, theyre not at all likely to rock up at glastonbury for a whole host of reasons!) edit: i love a bit of norwegian black metal too, and its hard at times to find bands that don't hold ridiculous views in that genre . . .

Its an oft-repeated and glaringly obvious point perhaps, but there's only one thing to blame for rape: and that's rapists. Not drunkenness, access to drugs, hot weather, 'heavy' music, bottles of water costing too much, none of that turns anyone into being a sex offender.

Just looked, yep its £37.50 for a weekend and £37.50 for a day 😆 i seem to recall the car park being a right bloody hike down the river as well (albeit i havnt been since 2009, i was spectacularly drunk and cant remember much apart from my first ever three day hangover)

i was looking at nabbing a sunday ticket for Reading for RATM - theyre sold out, but things always appear last minute - its £93 for a day ticket, and parking is a scarcely believable £37.50 for one day (which makes glastonbury's £50 for weds to mon seem so much more reasonable) so all things considered ive sacked the idea off before it even got off the ground. Smaller indoor gigs below £20 is much more on my agenda.

Yes! though i forgot to say that, which somewhat undermines the point of having improved memory . . .

Drinking much less has a few excellent effects - firstly the saved money, the improved health, and also the very underrated benefit of turning you into a comparative lightweight, so you get a lovely buzz off two pints whereas it would have taken four or five to do so previously. Its an absolute winner!

I'm the annoying unseen option of working it instead - which does save a bloody fortune, tbf. The £280 on a ticket, £50 parking, showers and food tokens thrown in, and getting a couple of extra days on the mon and tues before everyone else turns up makes it a really easy decision thats only affected by petrol prices and food/drink etc. Cant see me going on a punter's ticket for the foreseeable future, i just plain don't have what will be a good £800 at least for a week's holiday, when my partner has kids who would also love a holiday away - working glastonbury means its quite possible to take them away at another time as well. Sacrificing 3 x 8hr shifts is a very good swap in my situation.

I thought Ray Davies was great in 2010. Absolutely 100% right decision to sack off the football and watch Slash and then Ray (and then check the score and see England got done 4-1, which was really very amusing). It was just after Pete Quaife had died, so it was all quite emotional. Was Johnny Cash the first legend spot in 1995? That was the first televised glasto on ch4, wasnt it? I recall Tom Jones around that sort of time too - he's done it another time since as well, i'm sure. . .

the lineups are getting increasingly distant from the kind of thing i like (and doubly more so when they sacked off the earache stage this year) so i can quite easily imagine going and just doing t+c things all weekend - but there's small sets from the likes of Lekiddo that are live music, albeit lobster and disco themed singalongs, so its whether they count. Can't have a Glastonbury without Lekiddo!

That camp pop slot - its not Paul Simon or ELO, or Leonard Cohen, or Kenny Rogers (well, thats a bit arguable, he has one absolute classic singalong) and they've all been legend slots in the last 15 years or so - its a bit open to interpretation, and that's broadly a good thing to change it up. Neil Diamond (in 2014? ish) wasnt particularly camp at the time, but would be redoable with the whole Sweet Caroline thing thats happening in England over the last couple of years. Thought its not a slot thats designed for me really - Bring me the horizon opposite Kylie a couple of years back was ace, as were Amyl and the sniffers opposite Diana Ross this year!

I had a whole pile of council bods rocking up at my gate before the festival started, on the monday - i was on Vehicle gate 1, and there's a clipboard list of people allowed to access that gate as pedestrians - They werent on me list, so i didnt give them access. They had to call the farmhouse and ask for an escort (who was on my list) to take them in. I was in a bit of a quandary as to whether i should say yeah, crack on, just go in, but i thought it best to adhere to the instructions i was given, and they all seemed quite content with that - if it was a test, i passed! (i think)

I can legit see the point in people seeing a fair few artists that I have no interest in - for example I had no interest at all in Billie Eilish, but I’m quite glad that someone so young headlined, and I’m chuffed for people who absolutely love her. Arctic Monkeys are equally as uninteresting choice for me, but I can see why people would want to bounce around and give them a watch. Fleetwood Mac, another hot tip that I have no interest in, again I can see why people would want to see em. I don’t like Springsteen, but so many people are into him, of course I can see the point in him headlining. but Taylor Swift is just . . . It’s a nothing, it’s an absence, there’s absolutely nothing there. I just can’t see the attraction at all. the only redeeming thing in her musical career is that YouTube video with the goat - now that made me laugh, I enjoyed that. Well, I liked the goat, not her bit. I just can’t see anything redeemable at all. Not only in a ‘not for me’ kind of way, which I’m quite used to and happy with, but more of a ‘is this some sort of weird joke I’m not privy to’ kind of way.

The only interesting thing is Silvio Dante on guitar 😀 I appreciate this probably makes me an artless heathen, but if that’s my role then I’m right up for it 👍 it’s just great swathes of bland

Bruce Springsteen is about as middle of the road ploddy nonsense as the human mind can imagine. I've tried, loads of times, with early/late/mid period/hits/b-sides, having been specifically recommended by mates who love him - 'oh you'll love The River! listen to this track! lemme make you a playlist!' - and its all just so lumpen and uninteresting. My first thought upon him coming onstage with Paul McCartney (a Beatle, ffs!) was ugh, now i bet he plays some nonsense of his and everyone will go mad - and i was 100% right, he did play some interminable rubbish and everyone did indeed go crazy for it. He's staggeringly overrated and i wouldnt pay a fiver to go and see him. i read the Springsteen tour thread with a kind of curious detached interest - look at what these people are excited by! ffs, am i wrong, or is everyone else?

Controversial takes: Taylor Swift is a load of bollocks, and im absolutely befuddled by the idea of her headlining any stage, let alone the pyramid.

never seen him - been aware its a festival must-see for a fair few years now, and i like avoiding classic festival tropes. i dont like Beans on toast the meal, so i'm going to go out on a limb and say i wont like Beans on toast the singer as well. You've got to have a system, even if its drastically unfair