The third in our series of Ambridge Acoustic Revues was another roaring success. Noting the date, Rob had suggested we adopt a Day of the Dead theme and decked the building out in fine style. And for a special treat Garry created a fabulous puppet to greet people on the door.

Jon and Phil, our usual house band, were off on tour with Beth Rowley, giving the evening a slightly different feel. Jez kindly stepped in on drums, and Foy Vance joined a couple of the others to lend some bass to their tunes. Hayley, Jon, Foy, and of course Iain played well, and all in all it was immensely enjoyable. We hope to have another one ready to announce in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, the rest of my photos are on flickr.

Tags: ambridge, ambridge acoustic revue, day of the dead, foy vance, garry rutter, hayley hutchinson, iain archer, jon bilbrough

It’s taken a month, but I’ve finally sifted through my Greenbelt photos, picked out a few passable shots, and uploaded them to flickr. It was far more satisfying last year when there was time for me to do some editing and uploading as the festival unfolded, get around and capture more, and be a little more responsive to how the photos were working out. But there are still a few shots I’m pleased with, and editing them is a nice reminder that I did make it to a little of the festival.

You can find them over here.

It’s also been very satisfying to see the video content begin to come together. There were some great responses to the live streaming a group of us put together (which you can read about here, here and here) but there’s also something great about the more carefully edited (well done, Jenny) material that you can find on the GB site.

In fact, witnessing the recording of a couple of those videos were among my highlights of the festival this year. So much so that I’m going to break with my usual habits and embed them below. Enjoy!

Foreign Slippers featuring Beth Rowley at Greenbelt 2008 from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

Iain Archer and family at Greenbelt 2008 from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.

This year’s Greenbelt programme contained a piece by Maggi Dawn, who sadly wasn’t able to be at the festival. Reading the programme on the tube back from a post-festival get-together, I really connected with Maggi commenting:

Whether Glastonbury or Global Gathering, at their heart, all festivals are actually less about gazing at bands from the back of a field, and far more about the day-to-day encounters we have around the site. We have a fundamental need for these real-life meetings, because without them, we cannot create or sustain community. Yet, strangely, that’s one of the paradoxes of this idea of festival: we immerse ourselves in order to be able to leave it. Showing up is what makes the festival work, but Greenbelt is also all about not being at Greenbelt, about taking the infection away and breeding it in the day to day communities that sustain us.

I love the second-half of the paragraph, but it was the first that really struck me. I had one of those years where I felt like I didn’t really see the festival in the programme sense. I turned up for a few minutes at several gigs, and took a lot of photos (all of which sit on my laptop awaiting editing, I’ll post again when something’s on flickr) but I wasn’t able to really get a sense of what the festival was like this year. And that’s okay.

David Dark and I had a brief exchange about the “deep magic” (I called it magic, he added the deep) that keeps so many of us working at the festival. We run ourselves ragged, get frustrated, and channel it all into conversations about how we’ll fix it for next year. Always next year. (almost) Always hopeful. It’s quite a thing.

The festival may or may not be in perpetual beta, but the feature set is somehow compelling.

The first of our little musical get-togethers at St. Luke’s went so well that we’re planning to make them a regular fixture under the name “Ambridge Acoustic Revue.”

The next one will be on August 30th and if all goes according to plan will feature Julie Lee, Lobelia Sabo and Aaron Roche. And of course it will once again be ably hosted by Iain Archer.

For those of you who are planning to attend Greenbelt you can think of it as a little afterglow from the festival, and for those who aren’t… well, we suspect it’ll be a highly enjoyable evening of music.

If you’re so inclined you can let us know you plan to attend on facebook or last.fm.

Last year among many other activities we managed to:

• sell a house
• travel round the world
• move from the USA (Grand Rapids, MI) to the UK (London)

As a follow-up this year, we’re in the process of:

• moving out of our rented flat
• heading to the US for a couple of weeks
• buying a house
• having a baby

Today was the big day when the removal firm came and moved us out of our rented flat. All our belongings are going into storage until such a time as we can move into the house we’re buying. So for the next couple of weeks while in the US, and for at least a week after that we’re going to be experiencing that safe, middle class form of homelessness known as “crashing with friends.” And very grateful we are too.

I knew when I emailed the editor of Matthew’s House Project with a fairly strongly worded response to one of their recent articles that there was a good chance I’d be asked to write something as a follow-up. And that’s exactly what happened. So a piece I wrote on identity and immigration is now available for reading over there.

I may well have mentioned this here before, but living in the US I was frequently surprised by the number of people who, when hearing I was from europe confided in me their desire for the US to have good public transport. I wasn’t just surprised because as a Brit I’d been trained to think of our public transport system as very poor (it looks a lot better to me now than it used to), but also because I kept wondering how something so many people wanted could still seem so far off.

There’s a lot of ways to approach that question that I’m not going to go into here; deep discussions to be had about the nature of contemporary political discourse. But that recurring conversation kept coming back to me as I read Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?.

Though the book’s various authors touch on dark themes, and the potential for environmental and/or economic collapse is very real, it maintained the sense that those steps we can take to be more conscientious might also take us closer to the planet we would like to live in. In that, it reminds me quite a bit of Generous (on which more, later).

The book has its weaknesses. For the most part it’s a volume for people who have access to the resources to make significant changes (whether simple or radical) in their lives, and a safety net to fall back on. But for those of us who are in that boat, it’s a good and helpful read.

Whilst attending the ecampaigning forum I frequently had to dash off and find a quiet corner to make final tweaks to a site that was about to launch. Thankfully the wifi coverage at the conference was pretty good.

Late last night we pushed the button and that project—a total redesign of the Greenbelt website—was launched. We’ve been working on it for several months, and I’m very pleased with the result. You can see a few words Paul wrote about it on the site.

Taking a couple of days out of the hectic schedule which has kept me from updating anything around here for a while, I spent Thursday and Friday in Oxford for the 2008 ecampaigning forum. It was a great event, and a good time reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I live blogged several sessions and written up some notes over in the other place, but wanted to post a pointer here because it’s likely to be of interest to those who might normally avoid the tech overload on that blog.

Normally being in the office on a Saturday would seem a bad thing, but this weekend there is still enough novelty for it to be a little fun. This week, you see, Matt and I moved into an office space we’re going to be sharing in Hoxton. There’s still a lot of unpacking, arranging and decorating to be done, but so far it feels good to have a space outside the home for working. Pictures will come with time.

There’s space here for one or two more people, and our hope is to find one person to share it on a full-time basis and keep one desk free for occasional visitors. So whether you need a space in east London to get a bit of work done, need a more permanent office space, or just feel like dropping by, get in touch.

(For a full-time person rent would be around £170 per month including bills and wifi. You’ll need to provide your own furniture.)