Tuesday, October 23, 2001

WEB PERVERTS: Michael Jackson is going to do an online chat with his fans. Hmmm... maybe there is something in those panics about perverts preying on children online...
NME reports - yes, but will he keep the face mask on?

SHED SEVEN: from an email I've just written:
I quite like some shed seven. but... they're kind of like a butcher's shop. You know why they were there, but they've been a bit left behind by the tide of things, and while you wouldn't shut them down, you kind of wish they'd go and retrain as something else, and change the shop into a nice cafe that does something like hot chocolate with cream.

WK, II: So, they're desperate to build some sort of myth around Andrew WK, and guess what? There's now a backstory, suggesting that Andrew was named after a murderer who impressed his prison guard dad (oh, really? a prison guard who makes a hero of a guy on death row?) and that the WK stands for the White Killer. Now, what was I saying about him being a right-wing trojan horse?

IF YOU DON'T WANT SO MANY PEOPLE TO GO, LET US LET MORE PEOPLE COME:The artist update are reporting the following:
Organisers of the Glastonbury Festival want a license to increase the size of the festival crowd by 30,000 to around 135,000. The extra tickets, they say, will provide funding for tighter security – every year several festival goers gatecrash the event, but next year organiser Michael Eavis is planning to spend £1.5m on a new 12ft steel fence to discourage them. Council officials estimated that at June 2000’s event, there were approximately 100,000 more people than was allowed for by the festival’s entertainment’s license, and Michael Eavis was fined £6,000 as a result. According to a festival spokesperson, a new license is crucial for ensuring the survival of the festival – if the application is successful, another 20,000 tickets will be on sale for the 2002 festival, with the remaining 10,000 used for traders, staff and stewards. The license hearing is planned for November 29.
So - just pausing for a moment to lift our hats at that "every year several festivcal goers gatecrash the event" (in 1999, it was about 100,000 according to some estimates) - the idea is that, to stop there being a dangerous number of people inside, you have to, um, increase the number of people inside. The logic here depends on the "increased security" being able to cope with the additional numbers inside the event, as well as the presumably not reduced demands placed by attempted freeloaders. Without wanting to make Eavis' life harder, it's hoped that the licensing authorities will examine the proposals for increased security closely. If all they're thinking of doing is boosting the number of ill-trained people taking fivers for turning a blind eye up by the green field, it's clear the proposal will be unworkable. Anyone who's been to Glastonbury will know about the shortcomings of the security in previous years. Lets hope the plan isn't just the same on a broader scale.