Perhaps I am not best placed to offer a review of the Meadowlands Festival in 2011, having only turned up on the Sunday morning. As we arrived, lots of people were leaving. The Festival organisers can hardly be blamed for the havoc strong winds wreaked on poorly equipped campers though. We pressed on, found a depopulated site and prepared for the worst.
In fact, we had a great time. The music was excellent, by and large, with the only tired set coming from Sunday’s big name, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Whoever booked the bands knew what they were doing. Here’s the music I enjoyed the best:
Overall, the festival looked like a work in progress. There were no recycling facilities on site at all. That’s a highly unusual decision for event organisers these days. There needs to be separate bins for different types of waste. Without that, serving drinks in recyclable plastic cups is counterproductive because they will do more harm than good in landfill. Even with the few people still camping on Sunday night, six was an inadequate number of toilets for them; I couldn’t understand why the punters were prevented from going back onto the main field, where there were plenty more toilets. There were other tell tale signs, like the security removing the roof from the entrance tent to stop it being blown away. Charging £25 for car parking, running the whole event on recycled oil and solar power were brave moves. I hope the organisers continue to work on this project and hope to go next year.
), Brighton’s street plan is pretty much a congestion charge in itself. At some point in the last century, our roads were gridlocked and a one way street was introduced. Predictably, traffic moved again. People complain about the one way system because they can’t remember the previous state of affairs. Either that or they are the sort of people who complain because their mothers never taught them to be positive. Viaduct Road, where I was apparently moved to when I was 18 months old, actually now enjoys lulls in the traffic whereas before it was a continuous shit hole. On a hot summer’s busy day, the traffic still moves albeit very slowly. The idiotic visitors who drive our local economy have to rush to spend money when they get here because they have wasted so much time sitting in their car on the London Road, queuing to get into town.
