Deadbeat is now four festivals into the summer with four to go... The best thought to have hit me so far is this: 'shantih shantih shantih' is a phonetic representation of a Sanskrit phrase which means 'the peace that passeth all understanding'. An alternative spelling could well be 'shanty shanty shanty' which clearly means 'so amateurish as to beggar belief'. Both these definitions apply (sometimes simultaneously) to the Smallworld tent.

An example of this has jumped up and bit us a couple of times on the sound desk recently. Some equipment upgrades have resulted in truly delightful PA, capable of a creamy, engaging sound. Then, for no apparent reason, it turned into a horrible monster which wouldn't go as loud, and distorted nastily on the very vocal peaks which should entrance and captivate. Finally Matty nailed it - one of the many extension leads we use (randomly) didn't have an earth lead. When our set-up is properly earthed, we have a beautiful system - without it, it stinks. At Buddhafield (the most grounded of the festivals) we were earthed, of course. At the Secret Garden Party, (where the whole place only comes back into the solar system when the Marching Powder runs out), the system was predictably all over the place. Then, through a mixture of unremitting nerdiness, sheer dogged persistence and brilliant diagnostic reasoning, Matty found the shonky, amateurish wiring which was sabotaging the magic. Shantih Shantih Shantih.

Recently I read in Private Eye how there is an Indian police force using 'chilli grenades' as a more humane (well non-lethal, anyway), greener sort of tear gas. Apparently the 'Bhut Jolokia' pepper rates an impressive score of 1,041,427 Scovilles (No disrespect to Mr. Scoville, but clearly the strength of a chilli should be measured on the Stella Scale (or, to be more culinarily authentic, the Tiger scale).
This reminded me of a Blackadder skit in which mention was made of attackers armed with fruit, and thence to a day some decades in the past when Deadbeat was making his way to an anti-fascist rally. My route took me along Marlborough Place (in Brighton) where, in those days, Simple Supplies was to be found. They sold what my mother used to call 'worthy' bread, - organic, whole-grain loaves of a particularly dense and chewy consistency. The salesperson was not impressed by my wit when I went in and asked to buy a couple of their long-range throwing loaves. Neither was a police constable (always revered for their good-humour when they have had their leave cancelled because of a demonstration) when I explained that I was intending to deliver sandwiches (albeit in kit form) to the poor hungry fascists.
Given that the bulk of the Coalition's austerity measures are designed, broadly, to take bread from the mouths of the poor and use it to feed the avaricious maws of the same unrepentant arseholes who got us into this mess in the first place, Deadbeat thinks that we should return to food wars with a vengeance.
Pack up your unfinished tuna fish sandwich and post it to number 10 now.

More soon....

Deadbeat