The traditional dates for the Hull Shanty Festival (Sea Fever) were always the first weekend in September. This year the Festival was moved to coincide with the return of the Round the World Clipper Race, but many locals have always regarded the September dates as 'Shanty Weekend'. As an additional event, for anyone not wanting to attend the Saturday night concert, we provided a fringe singaround which has come to be known as the Anti-Shanty. Not that we've got anything against shanties at all, but we don't insist on maritime songs as some of the attendees don't have an extensive marimime repetoire. In recent years this has been at the Minerva, a superb historical real ale pub on the Humber Foreshore.

This year Phil Daly, the landlord of the Minerva, suggested that we could have the traditional shanty weekend based at his pub. So we are! There will be a singaround in the old brewery room hosted by Maggie and me. There will be a big musicians session in the boat room. Both of these will last from 1pm(ish) each day until late and we hope to see a few of the people we normally see that weekend, as well as any other singers and musicians who fancy a weekend of do-it-yourself music.