Beleaguered Hunters of Moribund Journalism,

Eventually, I’ll be headhunted by the broadsheets – many of them are not so broad nowadays – because they’ll release that my social commentaries and cultural reviews deserve a wider audience than The Bellyaches massive and I could add thousands to their readerships. At the very least, I can say it’s more likely to be me than the other guy.

Thankfully, Thursday was a slow day; part of it was spent back at Loch Leven. This was – sitting in the car, reading and listening to the radio - when I received the results that I had been hoping for – I was edited out of Radio Café. I wouldn’t have minded being on radio saying something sensible but I was babbling something that I really didn’t believe. I was only trying to help the lovely BBC lady, if it was a commercial radio station I wouldn’t have offered any comment. Nobody would’ve known it was me and anyway, I don’t know anybody who listens to Radio Scotland, which is a shame. It’s a great station, it does magazine programmes; like the Radio Café, really well, its documentaries are really interesting, it has a range of music programmes that cover all genres and there’s a real sense that the channel is rooted in the people and is (usually) not celebrity-obsessed.

I’ve finished Little Green Man by Simon Armitage, in fact, fairly quickly, again due to the marathon sessions of waiting by the lochside. They didn’t have the books I wanted in the library, so I loaned this book by Simon Armitage. Simon’s better known for his poetry, which is excellent, he’s always a worthy guest on the Mark Radcliffe show. It’s the first time that I’ve read a proper story in a while, my reading’s been based mainly on war and space but I enjoyed Little Green Man. The book is about Barney, he’s a thirty-something whose life is in something of a trough but he cannot see this, in fact, he cannot see the truth in most situations and that’s his downfall. Inspired by the rediscovery of the Little Green Man, a sort of childhood trophy earned by completing dares, Barney reunites his old friends, in an attempt to recapture the happiness he thought he had known as a child, with disastrous consequences. I know Simon best from his radio appearances and the book is written in the first person, so I did foolishly keep treating Barney and Simon as interchangeable and keep thinking “Why did Simon do that?” The book includes a hefty portion of nostalgia, for childhood games and toys, so I reckon parts of the book must rely upon Simon’s own childhood experiences but I don’t think he’s as naïve as our Barney. It’s a good book with many wise thoughts committed to paper in amongst an inspired and unpredictable plot.

The current album in the car CD player is We Are The Pipettes, I wonder if this is really appropriate, however, there’s no crime in playing some good pop. I’m well used to driving around with Belle & Sebastian or Polyphonic Spree belching from my car windows as some pitiable antithesis to the neds and their hardcore dance drones, I suppose The Pipettes could enhance this effect, if I allow them to. The Pipettes have played live on nearly every radio show I can think of, so I was already familiar with many of the songs on We Are The Pipettes, but as a result of hearing them live so much, the album feels over-produced. I really like the album and I expect the feel of the production will disappear from my mind in the coming months. My favourite song is Judy, and I'm quite prepared to look out for Judy, it might be the same one who had a dream of horses.

I listened more to this CD as I travelled to Anstruther to see Vic and Bryan’s Big Scottish Adventure broadcast live from the harbour with live performances from members of the Fence Collective. As I drove past the harbour on my way to find a parking space, I saw a bad thing, in fact, two bad things next to the Radio Scotland campervan: Colin and Justin. I parked up and walked to the shop and bought a £1 worth of rock’n’roll wine gums. When I got back to the harbour, the show had just started; it was quite weird to watch DJs that I listen to often in action, padding about as they read from their scripts. I wandered off while they played a pre-recorded clip about croquet (never a big sport in the Kingdom) and arrived back in time to see the Pictish Trail do the first live song; the Pictish Trail always impresses me and it was a difficult environment with the local neds, wasted on cider, staggering across the front of the OB unit and the boy racers revving their engines in the background.

I marched off around the harbour again; I didn’t want to hear about how Colin and Justin had re-decorated the Radio Scotland campervan. When I came back, with ice cream, they were hawking themselves to the crowd who were only interested in listening to Vic and Bryan’s show; they were forcing people to have their photo taken with them, inviting people to ask them for autographs and generally seeking attention.

The next performer was HMS Ginafore, it was a pleasant performance, I can’t say too much based on one song but she has a good voice with a slightly haunting quality. After the song, I bought some more junk from the shop; Quavers and Lucozade, too much standing about leads me to do stupid stuff like this, I’m probably encroaching on the one per cent body fat danger limit after all that garbage.

Soon, Gummi Bako was in the seat armed with the guitar. He was really great; he took everyone by surprise with his lively performance and his range of voices, his head looked as though it might be ready to explode when he was doing the squeakiest bits. The three songs were a good example of the capabilities of the Fence Collective, they really do deserve more attention from the national radio stations, but anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing the Fencesters again either at the Pittenweem Arts Festival or the Embra Fringe Festival in August.