Curled Wup

Well, the World Cup then. It leaves me cold. It does nothing for me. I think I can trace this to a number of factors:

• I support Nottingham Forest and Nottingham Forest only. I hate most of the players in the England team (apart from Dawson, James and Milner), and I despise most of their 'fans'.


• People who normally hate football who are suddenly 'experts'; like those witches in the canteen at work whose only previous knowledge of Ashley Cole is through his estranged missus. I'm nowhere near a football expert, and I regularly go and watch my team. You know, pay money to go in and everything.


• Flags on cars, hanging out of windows, bunting, face paints etc. Normally sported by those in the point above.


• Sponsorship. If you buy a Hyundai off the back of ITV's World Cup break-bumpers then you should be shot.


• In particular to this world cup: those bloody horns. Make it stop. The sound of the crowd is a much more rewarding experience. One good point about the horns - they'll probably drown out that stupid Pukka Pies England band featuring Bernie Clifton. The band who only know two tunes: The Theme from The Great Escape and This is the Self-Preservation Society. Those horns have resulted in me seeing a grand total of about fifteen minutes worth of football. Apparently FIFA have endorsed their use because it's part of South African football culture. By that token, should England host the 2018/2022 World Cups then I fully expect to see the reintroduction of rattles and mindless violence.


• The pubs become unbearable. I'm not a massive drinker these days but I hate TVs in pubs. Pubs are supposed to be all about socialising, not getting a cricked neck watching Slovenia v Algeria. And why go to a pub when it's free to watch at home? Why not leave the pubs free for people who want to escape football.


• Football isn't a summer game. By the time May comes around I've had enough of football, and even I'm not an obsessive. I refuse to watch Soccer Saturday because I not only detest Jeff Stelling but I'm not really bothered about Chris Kamara reporting from a ground while the match goes on, unseen, over his shoulder. I do have a weakness for the BBC's Final Score though, but that's because I find Garth Crooks fascinating.


• People who, normally those mentioned in the second point, who call it 'footy'. I hate that word. I hate it even more than 'soccer', at least 'soccer' does historically have a point (it was used as a corruption of the word 'association', as in 'association football' to differentiate it from rugby football in the 19th Century).

Anyway, never mind all that, I went to my first folk festival yesterday. That was an experience, people just take musical instruments and start jamming, man. There was also the best food stall ever there, he gloried in the name of The Pie Minister. I spurned his charms to have a curry - it was the worst curry I've ever tasted, I've tasted better Tyne Brand curry out of a tin, and I dribbled a load down my new Gap jeans, that yellow will never come out. Next year it's the Pie Minister all the way for me, especially as he was offering minted mushy peas.
I only really went because The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain were on. I love them. I don't know why they're always associated with folk music. Indeed one of them made a joke of this in the between-song patter, he say "I don't know if you know much about folk music, but..."
The thing is with The UOOGB is that it's just a good fun thing. I think it was a stroke of genius using them as the last act on the last day considering that folk music, and folk music fans are usually pretty serious. They're also a little bit posh - one's called Hester - but that kind of eccentric poshness which is always delightful.

I don't know a lot about folk, but like art, I do know what I like. What I don't like is these bearded types with fingers in their ears singing sea shanties. What I do like is a bit of folk rock (they had a folk rock band yesterday, with, horror of horrors for serious folkies, a drummer) and just the lovely stuff, like what we had yesterday with the excellent gaelic singing of Julie Fowlis. Even I know that she's pretty big news in folk music circles. What I like about music sung in any other language than English is that you can make up your own words (like I do when listening to my beloved Super Furry Animals when they sing in Welsh). I also admit I fell in love a little with Ms Fowlis. Ooops.

Anyway, here's my favourite Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain interpretation, pity they never played it yesterday.