Flaming relief

I don't tend to blog about music as I'm not terribly 'with it'. Particularly since being marooned far from the monsters of MTV, Top of the Pops (bye bye TOTP) and the NME and such like for the last year or two. But this week due to a lot of good fortune (not one but two free days at the Wireless festival in Hyde Park) I have had a week of joy and discovery.

The man who you see here walking over the festival crowd in an inflated ball is called Wayne and he is wonderful. I wandered in to Hyde Park quite late for Friday's musical offering and sat myself down on the grass, thinking I'd read my book through the Flaming Lips as I'd only heard them once or twice a long long time ago and judging by the state of Wednesday's support acts (particularly Dirty Pretty Things - how we yawned) I wasn't going to be wowed until I got Massively Attacked later. Then some people walked onto the stage; a crowd of people, some dressed as aliens, some as Santas, some as inflatable spacemen, some as superheros. They put this Wayne into an inflatable ball and sent him strolling over the gathered trendies.

By this point I was up and heading for the assembled hordes (I'm a sucker for a stageshow) and in their company I remained as he returned to the stage and the band, along with their costumed groupies, made my week. My mum would have liked it, she loves audience participation. She's off to see Forbidden Planet for the millionth time soon. They only played a few songs but they made them count. Their version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (I cringed - you can't do Bohemian Rhapsody! - but it turns out you can) in honour of England's world cup campaign was so good that by the end I was yelling along in spite of myself. A nun puppet sang the encore to that song about Yoshimi and the robots. I "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah"d when asked if I'd let everyone in the world work hard so I could sit on my arse; I'm not sure I would, but then I'm not sure I don't anyway and it's what the backing vocals say. I got showered with confetti and bubbles.

Not many people at this 'festival' dance. I think they're worried about getting sweatstains on their designer boho festival outfits or pulling a hair extension. Needless to say I have strained all of my dancing parts and pulled at least one of my smiling muscles. To think that I was worried about going to such an event on my own. I met a very friendly banker, a gang of stoned kiwis and a robot who sang Frank Sinatra but even without them I was in a ludricous kind of heaven.

Then I felt a bit ill. Since I've been feeling a bit ill I've been playing with vector graphics; not quite successfully yet, but getting there.