Druidic summer assembly

We are now part-way through the summer assembly, which kicked off yesterday with a series of sessions in the Town Hall followed by a ritual on the top of Glastonbury Tor. It's been fun so far: we had a party last night, also in the town hall, which managed to encompass a flamenco performance, a shit-kicking band called The Dolmen, and a thrash metal version of Verdi's Requiem.

We did not get home until gone midnight, where we discovered that a dog (finger of suspicion has been narrowed down to two) had staged what, if this household was the Maze prison about 1979, would be termed a dirty protest. Our lodger and I spent half an hour with buckets and rubber gloves scrubbing the carpets. Our guests arrived after this, thank God, and started a blues session.

I'm not really awake yet and my eyes look like little tiny raisins. No, I did not make Stonehenge at 4.15 this morning.

Overheard in a cafe: 'Bloody shamans. They come over here, take our jobs, with their bloody sacred rattles and their drums and their cross-dressing....'

Also, there seems to have been some sort of football on.

End of the weekend

A pat on the head for: everyone who organised this year's Druidic assembly, for doing an excellent job of it.

A smack round the kisser to: the Governor of Lewes Prison, for chopping down a stand of mature trees in order to protect his Ford Sierra from bird droppings. The person who is the nominal head of my druidic order protested, by banging on the door of the prison (always satisfying, he says), but was asked to leave by the police. He pointed out that the governor (who had not sought proper permission) had actually committed a criminal act, but the police refused to believe this. Later, they were instructed otherwise, and phoned to apologise, but added that they still couldn't do anything because the Governor, apparently, has some kind of governmental immunity. There goes any chance of seeing Blair in the Hague, in that case (she said, making a rather massive and possibly untenable judicial leap).

Statement of the day: "There's no such thing as bad weather. Only wrong clothes."

Wish of the day: It might rain and I hope it does. Everything around is parched and sere.

Horned Dame

You have to admire Vivienne Westwood, whatever you think of her clothes. Not many people would show up to receive their dame-hood from Prince Charles with a small pair of metal horns attached to their forehead.

Why? Who knows? Who cares?