The Cornwall Blog

We are very much in the main season here in Cornwall, the beaches are packed and the streets are full of slow moving tourists looking at the view - murder when you are trying to get to work in the morning! My wife gets very angry when it is so busy, as do many locals, but considering the tourist industry is the largest source of income in the South West, I have a more ambivalent view. There are many plus points to such an influx of visitors to a relatively small area, the sudden boost to the local economy not being the least important, but the season has become progressively forced into a tight time period year on year. One factor contributing to this has been the new policy for schools to penalise children that take holidays during term time. This has meant that parents will only go away during the six weeks school break, and are not able to take advantage of, perhaps, a short heat wave. The effect of this reduced season also means ridiculously expensive prices for the two months of h

The Eden Sessions were again superb, a fantastic venue and relaxed atmosphere. A friend of mine went to see Basement Jaxx the night before Ian Brown played, and said that the crowd were perfect. Ian Brown was supported by Badly Drawn Boy and British Sea Power, and the whole evening was dedicated to a charity set up to help Kosovo. There was a young woman helping to raise awareness for the charity there, she had survived being shot 19 times. I had not heard British Sea Power before, and was not really engaged by them until their final number. A man dressed as a moth-eaten bear came onto the stage, whereupon the band started to beat him up, and each other; swapping instruments and generally making a complete mess of the stage. That certainly got my attention. I have both of their albums now. Badly Drawn Boy was excellent, but was playing to a crowd waiting for Ian Brown. This definitely affected his performance, but he still made the show for my wife and I. We saw him play at Eden