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LOL. You know you’ve wandered into middle age when one of your primary concerns at a music festival is much less the line-up, and much more how close to the tube ride home you are!
I stand guilty as charged on this, btw – a virtue of Latitude is that is has a supermarket on site. One will be highly affronted if it turns out not to be a Waitrose, of course…
gc
I’m not going but it looks the best festival to goto after Bestival. I’ve given-up on Leeds/Reading.
The Comedy Stage looks good (if you like comedy at festivals, that is). Bill Bailey, Ross Noble, Rich Hall and Stewart Lee. As does the Literary Stage though I’m not sure how that works: is it a Q&A thing?
I see The House Of Love have presumably re-united too. I would see them just to hear Christine and Destroy The Heart. .
Goat by The Jesus Lizard is brilliant. I love that sound, it’s clearly what Nirvana were aiming for on In Utero (choosing the same producer emphasises that).
I’m mainly listening to the new Free Kitten album, which I think is their best album yet (which is praise indeed from me). With it’s multilayered vocals and contrapuntal guitars, which drift in and out, and intertwine, and drift again, over slow long songs – it’s like low-fi psychedelica, totally unique.
New Approach without a doubt. I can’t believe how many good judges (in the racing weeklys) believe that Tartan Bearer or Casual Conquest will improve past him… that’s madness. He’s simply a superior animal to them. He beat them comfortably at Epsom after pulling hard and meeting trouble in running; he’s the only Group 1-winner in the field; and he nearly beat Henrythenavigator over 1m while most of these are being considered for this year’s St. Leger. It’s easier to make a case for him winning by more this time than for the form being reversed.
Best Single: I like loads of singles by one(or two)-hit-wonder punk groups. I’ll go for Into The Valley by The Skids.
Best Album: Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall.
Best Band: Sonic Youth.
Best Solo Performer: Neil Young.
Best Gig: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (it was very enjoyable but it wasn’t ‘special’; I just haven’t been to many gigs at all… hopefully My Bloody Valentine next week will be).
Tip For The Top in 2008: The Manhattan Love Suicides (they won’t get in the charts but I’m treating this as a thinly-veiled ‘favourite new group’ question).
Most Hated: I don’t like a lot of these novelty indie groups… The Hoosiers or something? I don’t know, my consciousness just refuses to absorb them, like most adverts on TV.
The name ‘Mugabe’ backwoods is the Yorkshire colloquialism ‘e-ba-gum’.
Er yes, Africa, blah, blah, blah.
Here in the middle of a Northern mining-town, the cars are blaring out… CDs of ‘happy hardcore’ DJ sets with weasely thugs rapping over the top (think Scooter); that is what the majority of the young working-class listens to (and makes), not funk or soul or anything remotely artistic or meaningful. Maybe a couple of generations ago… I wish I was born here in the 60s/70s (in theory).
As much as I dislike Bono, I think The Unforgettable Fire is a great album… and, er, the song New Years Day. Even tomorrow if U2 made an album better than my current favourite album (Hex Enduction Hour this minute) I would call it rubbish; there is definitely a relationship between my perception of an artist and my appreciation of their music, which I think is probably the same for most people (unless I’m exceptionally shallow).
Thanks for posting those pictures. Ouija Board, her foal, Notnowcato and your Deckhair (good luck with her) are all beautiful animals.
Everything was in Yeats’ favour, and looked a penalty kick before the race – and thus it proved.How anyone could think that the French colt could beat him over course and distance is beyond me.
It’s days like today which give me hope. The way some were thinking that the fancy French raider Coastal Path, who hadn’t ran in a Group 1 before, and was unproven over the ground and distance, could just turn-up and outclass the multiple Group 1-winner and course-and-distance-specialist Yeats… as if Yeats had been getting away with it for the last two years and was now finally going to meet his comeuppance.
It reminded me of the way Inglis Drever was a predictable drifter in the last Long Walk Hurdle.
One day I’m actually going to back these horses instead of being swayed by Richi Persad’s mysterious ‘French-form man’ into just watching.
Kelly is blameless. Yeats was beginning to get away from Geordieland: so Kelly could either sit there, lobbing along, and watch (and look stupid) or push him along and go for it (which obviously wouldn’t work, with Geordieland being the way he is, but at-least conveys his desperation to win)
AP O’ Brien said the greatest miler he has ever trained and when you look at some of the gretas he has trained at that distance, Rock Of Gilb, Georgeous George amongst others it is some statement to make…..
It’s meaningless – he says it every year! Just marketing…
Though there’s no doubt Henry is very good. But that wasn’t quite as impressive as I was expecting (didn’t seem to travel that well? needed some rousting along). And I’d like to see him beat his elders, just for the record (I don’t doubt he’s capable of it).
This (BBC’s coverage) is terrible. Is there any wonder horse-racing struggles to attract a new, younger audience? Seeing that feature about jockey’s wives, with one of them telling the girls about arranging for ‘Bonny’ to babysit the kids so she can goto Ascot and show off her dress… it makes Ascot seem so unwelcoming, a World apart, inaccessible to ordinary people.
I’ve never liked Claire Balding’s presenting. Her manner is haughty and pompous yet the content (of what she talks about) is condescendingly light: as if she’s presenting the program exclusively for the benefit of dilettante minor-Royals watching at home, who want something simple but with a swanky veneer.
It’s all so smug. Obviously the feudal-style setup of Ascot doesn’t help.
I wish they’d show that footage of Ouiji Board and her foal again from Epsom on Friday. That would be soothing.
I’d go for Yeats.
I’m sure he will be opposed on the day but its all looking reminiscent of when Inglis Drever won his third Long Walk Hurdle to me – too much said about his age, and the layers thinking that all the rest should have caught him up by now; but he’s an exceptional horse over this distance, has won it twice before and beat everything comfortably (other than Coastal Path), and has been aimed at it again all year.
I’’d choose Finsceal Beo in the first. I like to stick to Group 1-winners in Group 1s – unless there is very strong Group 2-winning form.
The only Group 1-winners are: Darjina, Finsceal Beo, Haradasun, Sageburg, Mount Nelson.
Hard to see Darjina going from flopping in a poor Group 1 in France last time to winning this; and she had no excuses that day (should have been fit enough after running in Dubai). Finsceal Beo will love this firm ground and seems to be back to her best judging by her last run over 1m2f (she was cruising until the final furlong). I’m prejudiced against Australian form (Haradasun) from anything other than 5/6f races – and the horse doesn’t even seem to have that good form there (lost his last seven races and was tried in cheekpieces). Sageburg looked good last time but I’m not sure the ground will suit him: he’s the main threat. Mount Nelson is seemingly gone at the game.
As for Tariq: his greatest success was in a Group 2 at Goodwood but is beating Asset 1-1/4L (with Dunelight in third) that great? I think he may have been flattered in his last run too (a slowly run 1m race, so suiting a horse with plenty of 7f form)
I think there are easier 9/4s shots than Fleeting Spirit. In fact, My Gacho is one at Thirsk today. I have no desire to back Henrythenavigator at that price, going for his third win in a row. The other races look impossible to me.
If everyone keeps on dissing this animal he might actually go off a tidy price.
I personally would not want to play at this price but I would rather be with him than agin him.
He impressed me last time out, not because of the performance but because he got really warm beforehand, ran free and still put it to the others in a good style, a similar peformance will get him home comfortably.
I’m certain he will drift on the day (like Purple Moon did in last year’s Ebor). These kind of horses do… bookmakers will be laying him purely on the price, and becuse they (the on-course ones) won’t have taken a penny for him yet so will need to attract a few decent bets.
Bankable has so many things in his favour he is hard to oppose.
However I would rather try and find a 7/4 shot in a 7 runner novice hurdle than depend on him in a large field at Ascot.
My thoughts exactly.
I’d rather back him than lay him though if pressed, because unless he gets a bad draw, there isn’t any reliable reason why he won’t win as the handicapper thinks he should do – when laying, I can’t rely on intangible things involving the size of the field, the pace, etc, when betting on the equiverlent of a 1/2 shot.
Oh dear. That is the opposite of what US racing needed, with the Animal Rights lot protesting about the race outside of the course and all. The facts won’t matter.
To be honest I’m bored by the whole thing… and I haven’t even been paying attention properly; just skimming over all of the articles and hearing the faint background hum.
So I don’t know my facts. But isn’t it possible that Bolger may have been too open? Informing the media of every fleeting, contradictory thought that he’d had about the horse’s participation; whereas, say, if he’d just refused to talk to anyone from the beginning (so been un-coperative) we would have been spared this circle of doubt and self-deception?
Or is he just a scoundrel?
