I was at a local car boot sale the other day – well I was actually selling on my own stall, but happened to chance upon an old book I had read as I child. I don’t usually buy stuff at these events, just sell unwanted items, but here was a paperback book entitled “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” just a few stalls along. I just had to buy it again.

You see, when I was a child, our family used to go for walks along the sandstone ridge known simply as ‘The Edge’ which overlooks the Cheshire Plain and the village of Alderley. The Edge is a public access wooded area now owned by the National Trust. The main fascination I had as a child was the caves formed by old mine workings; relics of by-gone times which gave the place a sense of magic and fantasy. I was told of the local legends and stories of the Wizard and King Arthur and loved exploring the caves with my younger brother. My Dad introduced me to the book “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” as The Edge was the setting for the fantasy story, written by Alan Garner and published in 1960.

In fact, many of the locations in the book and are actual places which Alan Garner knew from his own childhood. As well as the long sandstone escarpment of the Edge, these include the ancient Wizard’s Well and inscription, the open mine pits, and the Beacon.

I’ve heard a lot of good reports about Edinburgh as a city and most people have enjoyed their stay in Scotland’s capital city. I’m travelling up from Manchester on Thursday for a friend’s stag weekend and this will only be my second visit to Scotland; the only other occasion being the T in the Park Festival in 2005 (see my previous post on UK Festival: T in the Park).

We are staying in relative tranquillity in surrounding Gordon, about an hour away from the city centre; from Friday onwards so will only get an opportunity to sample the city and its nightlife on Thursday (staying in a Youth Hostel) and Saturday (the obligatory night out).

I am looking forward to seeing its renowned beautiful cityscape and famous castle, making it an ideal city break destination. As we will be spending most of our time away from the centre, I’m going to make sure we do as much as possible on Thursday and Saturday. Hopefully I’ll get to see some of the museums and galleries, as well as sampling the many bars and nightclubs.

During the summer of 2007 I was between jobs and so decided that it would be the ideal time to take a sabbatical and do some travelling. However, the notion of randomly backpacking had never appealed to me and I wanted to go to the United States. I have always had an interest in film and writing a script in particular. Like most things people procrastinate about, I never got round to actually starting it so I looked into enrolling on a film course in New York. I found an interesting screenwriting workshop at the New York Film Academy - School of Film and Acting .

The course was very involving and hands-on. Our tutor, who has worked in the industry for many years, wanted the class to develop their writing skills through trial and error. We each had to present our work-in-progress scripts at least once a week for a read-through, with character roles were cast to each member.

I set aside the recommended three hours of writing time each day (including research) and by the end of the course I had written just under fifty pages of my script. I would certainly recommend the course to anyone considering a course at the NYFA. The experience of living in New York for the duration of the course and for some time beyond was certainly a contributing factor. No wonder many movie scripts and TV shows have been written by screenwriters based in New York. The place just oozes creativity, is captivating and a great place to finally get that script written.

I was reading today about a retired accountant and trainspotter, Mr Edmund Tan who was told by a member of staff he needed permission to take pictures at Macclesfield station.

Mr Tan, 54, from Prestbury, Cheshire, said:

“I was amazed. In the past I have always taken photos of trains on the platform. The member of staff came over and told me to turn the camera off because I had not asked permission. She was very rude.”

A Virgin Trains spokesman was asked to explain what security risk might be posed by a trainspotter:

“There are a number of issues around security. They could include things like terrorism or the security of the station - for example, we’ve had some burglaries at Macclesfield station.”

I later read that commuters are now switching from trains to buses as the recession takes its toll on train operators, new figures from travel operator Stagecoach seem to suggest. The growth in rail travel has slowed, but revenue from UK bus operations was actually up by 9%, according to Stagecoach.

I also found out that rail passengers are travelling on increasingly ageing trains, official figures have shown. At the end of last year, the average age of trains was 15.5 years, with trains operated on long-distance lines being 18.28 years old on average.

So, when put into perspective, shouldn’t train operators be concentrating on modernising their trains and looking to provide a better service than hassle poor old Mr Tan.

The V Festival is another jointly held annual festival at both the Chelmsford and Staffordshire sites over the weekend of 22-23 August 2009. It had previously been held at Temple Newsam in Leeds, before being replaced by the Leeds Festival.

The main acts for this summer’s V Festival have now been confirmed. The Killers, Razorlight, The Specials, Lily Allen and the Script will play Hylands Park, Chelmsford on the Saturday, with Oasis, Snow Patrol, Elbow, James, Biffy Clyro, James Morrison and Ocean Colour Scene taking centre stage on the Sunday.

I went to V in 2007 (Weston Park) with the headline acts being the Foo Fighters and The Killers. I personally found the music acts at V a lot more commercial than the other festivals with fewer rock and indie artists in the line-up. The weather was terrible the whole weekend and I even ended up watching McFly and Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the JJB/Puma Arena the rain was that bad – well that’s my excuse!

Tickets: Went on Sale 6th March.

Hylands Park, Chelmsford has now Sold Out

Tickets are still available for Weston Park, Staffordshire and can be purchased from SeeTickets, Ticketline and Ticketmaster, subject to availability.

Travel agents do not offer the ‘best value for money’, according to a new survey. Only 19 per cent of British travellers believe that they get the best value for money from travel agents, according to the YouGov poll.

The online poll was conducted on behalf of Stena Line. The survey revealed that experience and knowledge are the qualities people most appreciate in a travel agent.

Stena Line general manager Dermot Cairns said:

“We are delighted to learn of the British public’s appreciation of the knowledge and experience agents offer.

“It’s a definite incentive for us to continue the trade training and familiarisation trips that we organise as they are clearly paying dividends.

“We are also acting on the importance that British travellers are attaching to value for money by continuing to ensure that we are offering the best value fares for all our crossings, and great value hotel breaks.”

With the latest technology and business telecommunications it is easier for travel agents to communicate effectively when buying and selling holidays and so they can get offer some really good bargains.

I must say that I have only used travel agents on a couple of occasions, but my overall experience has been positive and I did get value for money. When I used Trailfinders to book a flight to visit my brother in New Zealand in October last year, the flight was relatively cheap, I had a planned-out travel itinerary and it was all sorted efficiently. The travel agent I spoke to was very knowledgeable and I had nothing to complain about.

As soon as I heard about Michael Jackson’s proposed tour – the day of the press conference – I signed up straight away for the chance to get a pre-sale code.

I have been a fan of Michael’s music since I was 9 years old back in 1987 when I bought ‘Bad’ on cassette tape – my first ever music tape. My younger brother was also a fan and his part piece has always been to do the Moonwalk, which is actually quite impressive!

Back to the tickets… by Tuesday evening I still hadn’t heard anything so assumed I hadn’t been successful. And then an email arrived giving me the opportunity to purchase tickets in the pre-sale the following day at 7am!

I was one of the thousands who had technical difficulties with the website and kept getting kicked out by ticketmaster. I gave up and went into work at 8am. I tried again but couldn’t get through and left the ticket page searching for tickets in the background on my computer. Just after 9am, to my surprise and delight, there were 4 tickets reserved for me for Friday 24th July. Granted, it was £75 a ticket for seats way up in the Gods, but I could now relax and ignore the general sale on the Friday, eBay touts and the Viagogo prices.

I’m looking forward to the tour at the O2 and like a lot of Michael Jackson music fans, just hope he is up to this and it doesn’t turn out to be a disappointment. I do hope that rumours about the support acts to possibly include Eoghan Quigg from the X-Factor turn out to be false!

The Reading and Leeds Festivals are annual music festivals that take place simultaneously in Reading and Leeds in the UK and are run by Festival Republic. The events take place on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend.

The dual festivals generally share the same bill of rock, alternative, indie, punk and metal acts. Between 1998 and 2007 the festivals were known officially as the “Carling Weekend” because of a sponsorship deal with Carling. The Leeds Festival at Branham Park has been going since 1999 and has become increasingly popular with festival goers, reaching 70,000 in 2007. The Reading Festival needs no introduction as it is the world’s oldest popular music festival still in existence. The festival is held at Little John’s Farm on Richfield Avenue in central Reading.

I have been to the Leeds Festival many times and the heavy rock and indie line up has always appealed to me. I have been fortunate to see many bands over the years and went last year when Metallica and The Killers were headlining. I must admit that this year I sold out a bit as we stayed in the Tangerine Field tents with warm showers and toilet facilities. Not very rock n’ roll. We had a great time and the only problems were caused by the weather; the wind made the sound on stage appear muffled at times, during the Rage Against the Machine and Queens of the Stone Age sets and the torrential rain before the festival meant the car park in the forest had become like a mud bath and I had to make use of the AA van on the site to get going again!

This year’s line up has not yet been announced.

Tickets: via Ticketmaster and Seetickets

Tickets go on sale March 30th from 7pm (when the line up will be announced).

The prices haven’t been revealed yet, but they were £155 for a weekend ticket last year, so tickets should be priced around the £165 mark.

T in the Park is held at Balado, Kinross in Scotland from 10th to 12th July 2009. The headliners this year are; Kings of Leon, The Killers, Blur and Snow Patrol. Well known supporting acts through the weekend are; Razorlight, Elbow, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, The Specials, James, Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave, Bloc Party, Paolo Nutini, The Script, Pet Shop Boys, Glasvegas, Lily Allen, The View, Ting Tings and many more…

Since it opened at Strathclyde Country Park in 1994, T in the Park has grown in size and influence to become one of the most important and critically acclaimed music events on the international festival circuit.

Each year, T continues to outdo itself, boasting arguably the finest line-ups of all the festivals. With over 180 artists performing across 11 stages over 3 days, T in the Park consistently attracts the finest international talent.

When my brother and I went in 2005, the line up was probably the best than any festival we’d ever been to. The main stage on the Saturday was as follows; Foo Fighters, Keane, The Killers, Embrace and Audioslave, who played Rage against the machine and Soundgarden hits. On the Sunday it was Green Day, Travis, Queens of the Stone Age, Snoop Dogg, Razorlight and Athlete, with the Prodigy on the R1/NME Stage.

The festival was hot all weekend and the music was amazing, with Green Day, The Killers, QOTSA and Audioslave the highlights for me. I uploaded many videos on Youtube that I took with my mobile phone and the comments brought back good memories for a lot of people. Scotland was a long way to travel for a festival, but I’d certainly recommend it for the quality of the acts and the atmosphere.

Tickets: via Ticketmaster

Ticket availability is now limited.

It’s that time of year when festival lovers will be looking forward to their chosen music festival experience and find out which acts have been confirmed. I have been to most UK festivals over the years, but unfortunately this year I really need to save some cash.

Over the next few days I will look at each of the main festivals I have been to; T in the Park, Leeds Festival and the V Festival.

Of course I will be omitting major festivals such as Glastonbury, Download and the Isle of Wight, but as I haven’t had the pleasure of attending them, I can’t really talk about the experience of actually being there.

One event I will be attending this year, albeit just for the one day is Hard Rock Calling in London’s Hyde Park on Sunday 28th June. This day has already sold out and I am really looking forward to the headliner, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. I also enjoy listening to the support act, the lesser known Dave Matthews Band, who is huge in the United States.

Hard Rock Calling is presented by Hard Rock International, who has just released news about Saturday’s headline act, Neil Young.

Sean Dee, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Hard Rock International, said:

“We’re thrilled with the addition of Neil Young to the Hard Rock Calling line-up and are excited that Sunday’s headlining concert, featuring Bruce Springsteen, sold out immediately. As one of the UK’s most anticipated summer concert events and the kick off of Hard Rock’s 2009 Ambassadors of Rock Tour, we expect this event to make rock ‘n’ roll history.”