It's not like the countess to be so coy is it? The band in question is Bellowhead, or so she says on another board. What did they expect? To be treated as pros at a festival organised by amateurs? If they are so desperate to get gigs they'll have to learn to put up with this kind of treatmemt or stick to playing nightclubs like they ususally do. Considering who else was on the bill that night I'm surprised the promoter didn't get headbutted.

I didn't go, I was on the side of the boycott. Of course reading that people who went for the first time and the Middle Bar Singers think it was better than usual, shows how wrong I was. That you've all let the local authority off the hook with your ersatz 'Sidmouth' doesn't matter does it? Obviously the festival won't need support next year, as all the 'profits' from this year will more than make up for the loss of funding. Attendance down by three quarters is a Good Thing too, according to Steve Harris. Well of course it is you wouldn't want all we crusty old folksters clogging and dancing and messing up your town would you? Shame the ceilidhs only 'covered their costs' they won't be adding much to next years kitty then, will they?

As for the 'Friends of Lizzie Cornish', Rhyzla and Hip Flask Andy were booked by 'Lizzies' husband (she won't thank you for letting that out you know Duncan)it's not surprising they're singing her praises is it? I met her recently at another event and wasn't at all surprised at her demeanour. Where you seen shy and unassuming, I saw a unfullfilled bottled up woman, struggling with ageing, dressed a little too young, too much make up for daytime and uneasy in her own skin. Her behaviour on that day was exhuberant to say the least, she was running about exclaiming over everything from a crap dj to a woman with dyed hair.

Rhyzlas also states that bands had to PAY to play in some venues, what kind of festival was this? That any genuine folk musician would indulge in this kind vanity is beyond me. Were the punters told this? I take it he doesn't mean floorspots paying the entrance fee. How much did they pay? It doesn't sound like those venues will add much to the kitty either.

So Sidmouth is dead for me, thank fuck for Whitby!