Part pastoral idyll, part voyage into decadent exoticism. Incredibly beautiful grounds and fairly clean toilets.
http://www.porteliotlitfest.com/Fri night
Arthur Brown and Polly Marshall. AB (looking in incredibly good condition all things considered) and his biographer reading from the biography 'God of Hellfire'. Tales of encounters with the Sicilian constabulary and other mildly amusing japery.
Saturday
Alain de Botton - doesn't like Barrett homes.
Arthur Smith - Tour of the Grounds: cancelled due to sickness in the family.
Hanif Kureishi - Reading from The Buddha of Suburbia: majestic stuff: scenes from the meditation evening at Eva Kay's house: garden and attic room. Q&A session: soaring acerbicism. 'Why don't you write plays any more, have you stopped believing in the Theatre?' 'Well, when you write a play, first: you don't get any money, second: no one goes, third: you get crap reviews.... which is a bummer.'
The 2nd Extraordinary Meeting of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Quite literally folks. Fairly entertaining slide show presentation from chap who got the Telegraph to send him to Australia to film glider pilots surfing the wave of clouds rolling in from the Pacific.
Alex Bellos and the forro band - youngish Guardian writer who lived in Brazil for 5 years, ghost-wrote Pele's autobiography. Here presented three-piece band (accordion, bass/snare drum combo, triangle) playing 'forro' - pronounced 'Farha' - from North East Brazil. Very well received, but not my bag, man (see Kureishi, above).
Simon Munnery - rather dodgy new monologue entitled 'The Confessions of Sherlock Holmes'. Mostly very weak stuff, sad to say. The rest of his set was a good deal better, including a reading from his book of aphorisms as published by mysterious graffiti artist Banksy.
Lily Fraser - kind of a posh English Bjork. Band featuring cello & harp. Pretty good. Kureishi liked it enough to hang around.
It's Nice Up North - featuring John Shuttleworth: film documentary following his quest to the Shetland Isles (most northerly point in Uk, you see) to test his theory that the people, and life generally, are nicer the further north you get. Good stuff and certainly not for Southern softies.
Salt Peter
http://www.saltpeter.co.uk/ Pretty damn fine stuff. I certainly couldn't summarise them any better than their web site: "ska-punk-porno-dub-break-beat-ya-meat-red-raw-sounds". Their sound is a triumphant and exhilarating concoction of salivating bass, filthy break-beats and thought provoking and unashamedly salacious lyrics."
www.myspace.com/wearesaltpeterImmodesty Blaize - slightly amusing pair of turns from the Queen of Burlesque, but ultimately lightweight and unenduring stuff blog buddies. At the end, I kept expecting to hear the fateful words "And now, Barbara Dickson".
Sunday
A Cornish Forager's Feast - Tasting Workshop. Cooking demo from Skye Gyngell (nuff said) from Richmond-based whole foods cafe. The foraging they'd done seemed to consist of (a) retrieving a few bits of orach (rather like spinach) leaves from nearby, and (b) asking a couple of local fishermen for some fish. The scallop I tasted was delicious but I did get a frightful case of the shits for the next 24 hours, whether by coincidence or not.
Mick Brown on Marvin Gaye. Author of The Spiritual Tourist reading from his work on Mr G, punctuated by loud blasts over the PA of selections from the man's back catalogue. Nice writing, nice presentation and nice music. Nice.
Michael Eavis - Q and A session. Who was the baddest rock star? Pete? Liam? Mark E? How much cheese is produced per day from his 400 cows? (1 ton). Best performances? Oasis 94, Radiohead 97, Bowie 2000, McCartney 2004 (We were a bit worried whether he'd be right for it... we thought he might be a bit too Daily Mail), Van Morrison (you get 1 great gig for every 5 grumpy ones) Worst moments? Dwight Yoakam getting stage fright/not wanting to go on. The Corrs ditto after the Daily Mail reported them as the event's Most Unwanted Act. The Fall not going on in protest at being lower-billed than James.
Guy Pratt - basically an after-dinner speech, and a superb, hilarious one, from the bass player who's played with Pink Floyd, Page, Coverdale, Madonna, Michael Jackson etc. Probably the best-received act I attended. Quoting from his fellow artists: Coverdale on the twin nuisances of Aids and overly-litigious ex-groupies: (booming portentous voice) 'These are dark days indeed for the cocksman'. Madonna's endearing catchphrase during recording sessions: 'Time is money, and it's MY MONEY!!!'.
http://www.guypratt.com/Luke Wright - 24 year-old former member of poetry boy band Aisle16 - so far, so unpromising. But lo! This was one of the best stand-up acts I've seen in a long time. The act was titled 'Luke Wright: Poet Laureate' and was structured around his job application letter and observations on past and current Laureates - from the underperforming 18th-century poet Eusden (output in role: zero, leading to Wright's declaration that "I've done more than Eusden") to today's hapless incumbent (rap on the 21st birthday of Prince William: 'Here's an age attack'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3008210.stm ). Poems on the absurdity of the Olympics and the Edmonton Ikea riots of 2005 expressed the mind-set of The Paper about as perfectly as that entity can be expressed.
http://www.lukewright.co.uk/http://www.myspace.com/lukewrightpoet
