What a difference a week makes! After the mud of Glastonbury we were treated to perfect festival weather with loads of sunshine combined with a gentle breeze to stop it getting uncomfortably hot.

The thing I love most about Beat-Herder is the attention to detail that the organisers have. They keep all the best bits from previous years and then add lots of new & quirky little things to discover and keep things fresh and interesting. This year there was a whole new "Quality Street" arcade of shops in the trees which included a hair salon and a proper tattooist which did a roaring trade in Beat-Herder logo tattoos. There was also a new tunnel to crawl through between two “teleport” boxes and a late night bar and dance venue in the Hotel California.

The other venues were much as we remembered them from last year although there were a couple of name changes. The Recovery Lounge became the “Perfumed Garden” and the New Bands tent was renamed “Rajazzle”. The line up was right out of the top drawer with performances from big festival name bands like Leftfield, Dreadzone, Dub Pistols, Afro Celt Sound System, The Selector, Horace Andy and Neville Staple as well as DJ sets from top names like Mr Scruff, Mylo, Krafty Kutz and Justin Robertson.

There was the same excellent selection of food as we had last year, most of which was reasonably priced, although £7 for an Ostrich Burger seemed a bit steep. There were also the usual couple of extremely quaffable festival beers plus a very reasonable 6.2% abv cider, all of which were £3 a pint or less. And although there were a few cursory searches at the gates there wasn’t the wholesale turfing out of bags and pockets that we had to put up with last year.

In fact there are probably only 3 detractions from what was otherwise a stupendous weekend. Firstly the poorly marshalled queuing system to get into the car parks where some cars were held for an hour or more while others were allowed to drive straight in. Secondly the problems of the overflowing urinals we saw last year haven’t been solved.

And finally the amount of litter which was just disgraceful! It’s the one thing that pisses me off more than anything else about festivals. Why are such a large proportion of the people who attend these wonderful events so fucking ignorant and lazy that they can’t put all their shit in the nearest bin? We’re not just talking cans and cups. There were plates of half eaten food everywhere, left lying around where people were trying to sit and children played. It’s disgusting & if you are one of those responsible and you consider your behaviour to be acceptable then you really need to have a good word with yourself because you are ruining it for those of us who actually do give a fuck!