So what about the rest of the Connect Festival I hear you ask, well Saturday was one of those annoyingly dry-damp-dry days, luckily we had some fine music we saw some or all of sets from 1990’s The Fire Engines, the Only Ones, Bat For Lashes, Dine Comedy, Teenage Fanclub, Modest Mouse and Primal Scream. Also had a very brief chat with Gerry Love from Teenage Fanclub and received a couple of text messages telling me that City were (briefly) top of the championship, obviously a pretty good day!

Sadly the rain meant that moving around the site was getting to be hard work, this was even more true on Sunday, however we did manage to catch Patrick Wolf, The Kissaway Trail, Tilly & The Wall, My Latest Novel, Bjork, Big Start and a smidge of LCD Soundsystem. So over the course of the weekend we heard lots of great music, just a shame that the weather made the site such hard work and although the food was excellent, some of the general facilities left a bit to be desired.

Monday morning saw catching the coach back to Glasgow and what a fantastic journey alongside the Lochs and through the mountains it was, of course the sun was shinning brightly now that the festival was over! For the rest of the week we were in new hotel on Bath Street, just around the corner from The Glasgow Film Theatre and The Glasgow Scholl of Art. We took of our boots and spent the afternoon on the bed watching The Rockford Files and having a long hot shower – lovely.

During the rest of the week we stayed in Glasgow apart from a brief trip to the west coast town of Largs (home of the “no poo on my shoe” campaign) and the nearby Kelburn Castle. Went to the cinema a couple of times and bumped into Carey from Camera Obscura at the GFT when seeing Calum Foe. Later in the week we meet up with Carey again along with Gav amd Lynsey and Tracyanne plus Francis from Teenage Fanclub at a small club where Tracyanne was DJ’ing. The band are taking a well earned breather at being on the round for the last year, then Traceyanne will start writing the next album and of they will go again. Strangely when we did hit the dance floor we had to share it with a couple of members of Belle & Sebastian, that sort of thing always seems to happen to us in Glasgow. It’s a great place to spend time and the people are always so friendly, I think it has become our 2nd home.

Since we’ve been back I’ve watched one the best games of football that I’ve ever seen when City drew 1-1 with a very impressive West Brom side, to go back to the top of the table again. After years, no almost a decade of watching some mediocre football it was such a thrill to watch such a pulsating game where the only thing it both sides mind was going for a win. All week whenever I meet anyone that went to the game the next 20 minutes would be spent discussing in ever-increasing superlatives that wonderful game. Yesterdays 2-2 draw with Burnley was more of a bread and butter game but to be unbeaten after 7 games in a season where survival is all we ask for is something of a shock.

Aside from that, we are watching the events in Burma with growing surprise and hope. Interestingly today we were with Orynthia’s extended family and someone who hadn’t met them before. He kept trying to bring up the topic of Burma but even at this distance no one wants to discuss the situation there. It’s something I’ve got used to over the years; these things are not just a topic of discussion for them, what happens in Burma affects them, their family and friends. However I could sense his bemusement at the stonewall responses he was getting from the older generation. After several false dawns, some of them appallingly crushed by a brutal regime, maybe things are about to take a change and the family here and everyone in Burma will be able to voice their opinions without fear of retribution.