St Peter's Square, Rome

Italian customer service is legendary. Everyone who’s experienced this wondrous, infuriating and frankly astounding phenomenon has their own story. Well, here’s mine.

We were in the bustling Termini station in Rome, the great city’s main rail hub, on a busy Saturday afternoon. We wanted to ask about tickets to Florence for a possible trip the following day, and whether there were any special deals. Noticing the ‘Customer Service’ desk adjacent to the crammed ticket office, we join a small queue. A simple quest in most other countries, but not here.

Within 15 minutes we’ve moved four inches, and behind us stand at least 20 impatient travellers. Every so often someone tries to sweet-talk their way to the front, before a gruff Roman in front of us sends them packing to the back of the line. At one point an elderly priest is even given his marching orders in no uncertain terms. Remarkably, one young Scandinavian woman succeeds where others have failed. But her sincerity is written across her face as she begs each queuer in turn to let her through – her train is leaving in five minutes and she’s genuinely frantic.

After parting us like the Red Sea, the woman reaches the threshold of the counter. But there are two customers occupying the attention of both advisers, and judging by their litany of questions it seems like they’re trying to get to Milan via Moscow. Finally, the girl gets her chance and bounds forward. The stony faced middle-aged madam (there are two of them and they’re practically inseparable in my memory) looks her up and down, impervious to her panic, and sends her, distraught, in the direction of the ticket office with a wave of the hand that is contempt expressed in a single flourish.

Now it’s our turn. Or is it? Our adviser, oblivious to the baying mob that is now around 50-strong, walks away from the counter, shuffles some paper absent-mindedly by the printer, exchanges some words with her colleague, then, her nose aimed firmly at the ceiling, returns to her seat and deigns to call us forward.

I offer my usual “parla inglese?”

“Nil,” she replies, curtly.

Undeterred, we manage to express our question about prices. She interrupts us mid-flow with the set price, which apparently never changes, no matter the time or train. Having made it clear that she is in no mood to offer any more “customer service”, she looks straight over our shoulders and calls the next person, and we have no choice but to trudge away, knowing nothing more than we did half an hour ago, apart from the fact that there’s some truth in the Italian stereotype.

But that’s just one story. There was also the bartender who spoke fluent English and suggested I try his recommended beer, the old pizzeria owner who spent the whole evening loudly greeting each and every diner, and the courteous woman who rented out her apartment to us and was a pleasant, if rarely seen, host.

Actually, I don’t want to complain too much about the way Italians treat tourists, because it’s part of who they are. On the flip side of the coin, what would Rome be like if you couldn’t sit at a café and watch the couples exploding in rage one minute and embracing the next, the old men who know everyone in the neighbourhood, or the manicured women strutting imperiously along on their four-inch heels? They’re hard-wired for confrontation, for the kind of heightened fits of passion that would entail either  fistfights or official complaints were they to take place in Britain.

Ah yes, but there’s still the 2,500 years of history lurking in the crumbling remnants of the Empire, the Renaissance glories of the Sistine Chapel, the ornate sculpted fountains of Bernini, the winding, trattoria-filled streets of Trastevere or the bustling markets that crowd the piazzas.

It can be frustrating when you need to do something or go somewhere that involves seeking the aid of the locals, but that’s Rome. It was born on an arrogant belief in its own superiority, and it’s not going to change that for all the camera-clutching tourists in the world.

A few tips if you’re going…

• While I wasn’t as impressed with the pizzas as I thought I’d be, Pizzeria da Gildo in Trastevere gets my nod for its generously topped capricciosa.
• If you have a day spare, take a trip to Ossia Antica, a virtually complete Roman port town, and the seaside resort of Lido. While the beach isn’t the best, you can take in both these destinations with your Metro ticket.
• The Vatican Museums, which house the Sistine Chapel, are a must-see, but I’m not alone in that view. So you need to get there before it opens at 8.45am if you don’t want to spend half your day in a queue.
• Fed up with the overpriced drinks? Stop by Il Baccanale in Trastevere. It’s a cosy place with good quality beer at near UK prices, cheap cocktails, and friendly staff.
• At the Colosseum it’s worth paying the five euros extra to skip the queue and get the guided tour. I learned that ‘arena’ means sand in Latin. You can’t put a price on nuggets like that. And remember, the ticket also gets you into the Forum and Palatine Hill.

There are more photos from my holiday on my Flickr page.

Last weekend was the festival’s 18th year and my eighth visit. I lost my T virginity in 2001 or 2002 I think. Back then it was all for fun – camping, reaching a sustainable level of drunkenness for an entire weekend, laughing at the dire bands, enjoying the good ones, not giving a shit if your tent was completely flooded. Did I mention the drinking?

Then in my student days I entered T exile, preferring to sample the offerings of Spanish festivals like Benicassim, Summercase and Primavera. But for the past four or five years I’ve been back at T in the much less fun capacity of music journalist. This obviously has its advantages – free ticket, access to the not-really-that-special hospitality area, less slumming it. But every year I quickly realise that T in the f***ing Park is almost impossible to really truly enjoy unless you’re in some state of considerable inebriation.

Still, when I wasn’t reviewing, tweeting or publishing this year I tried my level best at getting into the T spirit while sober. The Slam Tent proved the biggest challenge to overcome – Boots could learn something from the customer service techniques of its army of pill sellers. But there was no way I was missing Leftfield – an old favourite of mine – and I forced myself to bounce along with the hands-in-the-air hordes.

T in the f***ing Park gets a lot of stick from us music snobs. We dismiss it as a neds’ holiday, a celebration of knuckle-dragging, brutish drunkenness and rampant commercialism.

Okay, fair enough, but I’m getting a little tired of this sniping. It might not be to all of our tastes, but the undeniable fact is that 85,000 people turn up, have an evidently brilliant time and usually return the following year. To those who slate the choice of headliners or the mediocre pap that usually precedes it on the Main Stage, it’s a necessary evil if you want to stage a mainstream event and subsidise the smaller stages that host the genuinely exciting international acts and breakthrough Scots bands.

And you have to admire the level of organisation and professionalism that goes into just making it happen. It’s a premier league event, almost equal in scale to the likes of Glastonbury and Coachella, and Scotland cannot always claim to compete with the biggest and best of the world in other areas of life. This year, for the first time, I wondered whether we should actually be proud of T in the f***ing Park as a great Scottish event that doesn’t involve tartan or bagpipes (at least not as the main draw).

You might be thinking to yourself, ‘Yeah, but I bet he wouldn’t go if he had to pay a couple of hundred quid for a ticket’. And you’d be right. It would take a phenomenal line-up for me to part with that sort of cash, especially when I can get a foreign holiday with a festival included for a little more. But then maybe I’m just too old for it.

Or not old enough. I saw countless middle-aged couples at Balado this year, unashamedly joining the youthful majority in their lager-fuelled revelry.

Good on ‘em. Maybe I’ll be one of them in 15-20 years when T in the f***ing Park is approaching its 40th birthday.

But if I hear that chant of ‘Here we, here we, here we f***ing go’ one more time, I reserve the right to reverse all opinions expressed in this post.

Take a look at our T in the Park reviews and photos over on Radar.

Like most people currently raving about it online, it took me by surprise.

The Beeb have given Curtis free reign to make the most wide-ranging and wilfully weird documentary about modern ideologies and their origins you’re ever likely to see.

It’s as aesthetically striking as it is thought-provoking, clashing grainy footage of the first computer technicians against doe-eyed mammals one minute, before veering off into some other loosely-related realm the next.

The soundtrack is also inspired, including Clint Mansell’s foreboding theme from Moon…

The last episode tells the story of Bill Hamilton, the brilliant scientist who travelled to the Congo amidst a brutal civil war to collect chimpanzee faeces in the misguided belief that he could prove that US workers had accidentally created the HIV virus during vaccine testing decades earlier. He died after contracting malaria and refusing to take medication for it.

In the same programme he weaves together ideas about free will, the “selfish gene” theory, racial stereotyping and how liberal values led to bloodshed in the Rwanda crisis.

It’s brilliantly tangential, endlessly fascinating, and if you haven’t seen it, set aside three hours and make sure you do so before Monday.

And if it’s a little pretentious, so what? At least it’s television that actually forces you to think about some of the big questions of our time, rather than whether a rustic-style kitchen is preferable to a sleek, modern alternative for a particular London terraced house.

The practiced tone of upbeat, football-manager-speak noticably fell away as the likeable McGlynn responded: “Now that’s a different story, now we’re talking about something completely different. Raith Rovers Football Club are now in a really bad situation.”

Rarely do you hear such undisguised pessimism in the rhetoric of football, but there was worse to come.

McGlynn explained his negativity by stating that the loss of local rivals Dunfermline from the First Division – and the inevitable arrival of the poorly supported Hamilton from the SPL – means a major loss of revenue, and a subsequent cutback in the club’s budget for players.

Gazing into the void, McGlynn continued: “I’m afraid that eh… promotion…”

There followed a pitiful “huh” that dismissed that notion as fantasy, before he added, matter-of-factly: ”If we’ve done what we’ve done this season and we have to cut then you’d have to think that next season is going to be a difficult season.”

McGlynn’s dose of realism came after Raith slumped to a last-minute defeat at home to Queen of the South, in the same moment that Dunfermline fans were staging a pitch invasion after their team’s victory over Morton sealed the title. In truth, the business was concluded a week earlier at East End Park, a painful loss which finally killed off Raith’s gallant promotion push.

Undoubtedly, it’s been a remarkable season for Rovers, in which John McGlynn has taken a very ordinary group of players and a very small squad to the very brink of the SPL. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, especially in the 19 games since the victorious New Year’s derby (won 8, drawn 4, lost 7) – and the falling away of Falkirk and Dundee have undoubtedly helped our cause.

Dunfermline only came charging back in the final months after buying three quality players in the January transfer window, and while you can’t take away from their triumph, as a Raith fan the sense of gloom is only hardened by the realisation that this was our best chance to get back up, and perhaps the only chance we’ll have for the foreseeable future.

McGlynn’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Scotland boss Craig Levein has already sung his praises, and tonight he was named manager of the year by his peers at the PFA Scotland awards. The big question is whether he chooses to cash in his chips and take the SPL or English job he deserves, or see out his contract at Stark’s Park. I’m sure most Raith fans would wish him well if he does choose to move on this summer, as the suspicion is that he has taken the club as far as he can.

Speculation aside, what hope can Raith fans cling to for next season, after such a brutal assessment from our own manager?

Well, we’ll have to readjust our ambitions in the short term. A mid-table finish, or anything above a relegation scrap, is surely going to be the target. We have a core group of dependable, professional players, a first class manager (at the time of writing) and a strong fanbase that has been galvanised by the thrill of the chase this season, myself included.

The aim for next season has to be security; to make sure that we avoid a bounce factor that could send the club hurtling back to the dark days of Second Division football.

Football fans are notoriously short-sighted. And, miracles aside, promotion next season is not on the cards.

But the following campaign, or the one that after that, who knows?

When he joined Raith in November 2006, McGlynn had a five-year plan to get the club from the third tier of Scottish football back to the first. He’s worked wonders, but perhaps it’s time to draw up the next five-year plan.

A day to remember in Kirkcaldy

“… And he doesn’t!

“Celtic have won the Coca-Cola Cup!”

Doesn’t really have the same ring to it does it?

But even the staunchest Raith supporter would not begrudge Paul McStay his penalty spot revenge over Scott Thomson in the Ronnie Coyle benefit match at Stark’s Park today that featured some of the players from the famous Coca-Cola Cup final of 1994 and an array of other fan favourites.

The former Celtic captain flew over 10,000 miles from Australia to show his support for his old mucker Coyle, a family man who is battling leukemia at the age of 46. And McStay made sure his penalty, in a shoot-out that followed a 3-3 draw, found the net this time round.

It was this kind of good-natured camaraderie, between fans (all 2729 of them) and ex-players on both teams, which made the occasion one to remember.

So often testimonial matches are paint-dryingly boring affairs, with tubby middle-aged men huffing and puffing and prodding away pre-arranged goals and faded superstars smugly soaking up the adulation.

While this game was hardly a footballing spectacle, it was quite refreshing to go to a match that wasn’t a win-at-all-costs, bile-strewn slugfest.

Today was about the human stories behind the game, about the great personalities and unbelievable glory days that have graced the Kirkcaldy club, and ultimately it was about showing respect and empathy for a loyal servant to the Rovers and a thoroughly decent man.

Some people say that benefit matches are meaningless fundraisers, but this was so much more. It was an example of how football, a game so often taken far too seriously at the top level, can actually make a real difference to people’s lives.

And since we’re on the subject of 27th November 1994, any excuse…

Feedeth your fish too much and they grow bloated and perisheth, but feedeth them scraps and they stay hungry and healthy.

No? Well that’s because I made it up. But there’s still some value in it.

When it comes to keeping your fans starved of information, few bands are as tight-fisted as Boards of Canada.

We know the basics: brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, 40-ish, formerly (?)  based in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh at a studio/commune they call Hexagon Sun, sharing an appreciation of crackly old educational documentaries from the 1970s and US cults.

But try learning much more and you’ll only come across rumours, sunburst photographs and cryptic quotes. Contrary to popular belief, they do actually give interviews, but their last one was in 2006.

So us BoC fanatics are hungry little fish, pouncing on any tiny scrap of information that drifts our way.

Such as this evening, with an almost imperceptible but potentially significant change to the official band website. If you now click on the Discography page, there’s a new tenth blank icon after their latest work, which apparently wasn’t there before. It’s hyperlinked, but doesn’t go anywhere.

Could this be the sign of the fourth coming, the fabled new album we’ve been waiting on since the year of our lord 2005?

Whether it’s concrete proof of activity or just a cruel mindgame, one’s thing for sure: for anyone remotely interested it’s far more effective than any superlative-heavy press release or official announcement.

Of course, any new artist will have to play the self-promotion game to some extent, but perhaps when they’re a bit more established they should remember the proverb of the fish tank.

Like every other person in the country who is remotely interested in recorded sounds, I have, for the past ten days, been listening intently to the new Radiohead album, The King of Limbs, and, to a lesser extent, PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake. While my first impression of Yorke & Co’s new dispatch (once I’d managed to blank out all the Dancing Thom YouTube silliness) was familiar disappointment at the lack of so-called standout songs (a well-worn complaint since the dawn of the millenium), I quickly started to enjoy the record’s understated and unusual qualities; the spidery percussion, looping basslines and detuned guitars. Like everything Radiohead have done since OK Computer, it’s eminently interesting background music, without the lyrical or era-defining focus of their mid/late 90s output.

But then isn’t Yorke’s commitment to cryptic,  throwaway messages, disorientating time signatures and dubious dance moves becoming a little tiresome, a bit predictable in itself? Wouldn’t it be more refreshing if Radiohead were to unpack their guitars and produce a truly monumental record that didn’t sound like the studio noodlings of five self-indulged 40-something men but took on the absurdities and injustices of 21st century life with the kind of burning anger that underpinned tracks like ‘Paranoid Android’ or the caustic cynicism of ‘Just’?

I’m breaking my own habit here, by the way. I’ve always defended and applauded Yorke’s risky reconfiguring of the Radiohead sound following their huge early success, and the constant complaints from Dad Rockers around the nation about the lack of big, distorted guitars are misguided at best.

But the reason I’m questioning this latest journey into the leftfield from the Oxford group is partly provoked by first listens of Let England Shake, which surfaced just four days before The King of Limbs. It is in many ways the other side of the coin: angry, evocative, political. It is radical in meaning if not in style. It boasts memorable songs with choruses and verses and everything. In short, it’s not background music, because it demands attention.

As a die-hard Radiohead fan that’s what I’d like to see from Yorke. A full-on artistic assault, rather than an interesting-sounding retreat. He’s obviously an engaged, informed, sceptical guy, and it’s time he channelled more of this energy into Radiohead.

So what does Burns mean to me? Well very little, if I’m being totally honest.

My Granddad on my Mum’s side liked to think of himself as something of a Burns ambassador, and with good reason. Not only did he share his first name and birthday, but he was also born and raised not too far from Alloway (alright it was Newton Mearns, 30-odd miles away, but who’s counting?) and possessed an impressive ability to memorise those earthy, enjoyable lines.

But I, like many modern Scots, was probably too dismissive of Burns. When you grow up in a small country like Scotland you tend to turn away from patriotic icons like Burns, simply because you can’t approach them objectively as an outsider. The story of Burns-the-romantic-hero (though not his actual writing) is drummed into you at school, his face adorns millions of shortbread tins and teacloths, and finally, he becomes just another marketing strategy to lure in the easy-to-please tourist. Which is terrible, really.

It wasn’t until I was at uni, studying literature, that I got a real insight into Burns’ importance not just to Scotland but the whole world. I remember a lecture by committed Burnsologist Ian Campbell in which he explained how Burns, through his profound influence on Wordsworth, was one of the main figures behind the birth of a whole new era of romantic literature that dominated the early 19th century, decades after his premature death. (Apparently Wordsworth was intensely jealous of the ease with which Burns wrote in the everyday language spoken by the people around him.)

But even that didn’t really win me over completely, and I suspect I’ll always be the same: a bit of an indifferent ignoramus.

Today I did join in the festivities though, by filming this video of a Burns flashmob in front of St Giles cathedral for my day job. Even if I don’t really buy into the Burns mythologising, it’s good to see how the effect of his words still bring people together through simple yet revolutionary messages like ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’

"Steven? Just coming" - Adam & Joe have a cult following

In the media world, 6 Music is like the radio embodiment of its listeners: intelligent, unassuming, perhaps not the life and soul of the party but the one who brings the best records and has the best chat. In other words, since its birth in 2002 it has quietly gone about its business, delighting music fans, carving out a succession of niche audiences and leaving the vain, attention-seeking to its brash FM cousins.

But if your average (Adam &) Joe hadn’t heard of it before last week, he damn well does now. I won’t bore you with the details that you already know, but last Friday the BBC’s latest strategy review was leaked to the media, and that included the proposed closure of 6 Music. Cue a response that was passionate, bewildered, anguished even, from its 700,000 listeners (who, as you might expect, are exactly the type of people who know how to make themselves heard in the blogo-twito-faceo-sphere.)

I added my own thoughts on the weird reasoning behind the announcement on Under the Radar earlier this week, but here I just want to run through some of the arguments I’ve read elsewhere this week. It’s safe to say that Mark Thompson wasn’t expecting such a vigorous backlash …

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, from the band’s blog:

It literally is the radio lifeblood for music outside of the mainstream. Not to denigrate Radio’s 1 and 2, but it really is the only station that puts music first, and that’s from a punters point of view and not some bloke in a band. Nowhere else can you hear an archived session track from T Rex juxtaposed next to Midlake’s latest release. As David Bowie, put it … it keeps the spirit of John Peel alive.

Hear hear. And Milo at Gaseous Brain (he’s not in Radiohead but he still deserves a say!) has written a thoughtful dissection of 6 Music that points out its flaws but reiterates its worth:

It is literally the only station we use our DAB radio for, and if it is closed it’s hard to see why having a DAB radio is necessary at all. In fact, I would say the vast majority of people in the UK who own a DAB radio bought it solely to listen to 6Music. If it was on FM things might be different. If it was publicised properly by the BBC things might be different.

Matthew at Song, By Toad meanwhile makes a good point about the huge, unbridgeable gap between underground and mainstream platforms that would be left in 6 Music’s wake:

How the hell are you supposed to progress, to step up, to actually make that massive leap without the developmental step of 6Music, where you can start out with a couple of airplays on one show, maybe get a session on another, and hope to eventually make the step up to a Maida Vale Session and perhaps eventually some Radio1 airplay. Take away 6Music and you have to go from the Song, by Toad podcast to Radio1 in a single leap, which is not only a ludicrous expectation, but also makes the process increasingly arbitrary, because bands develop at different rates.

Nicola Meighan at The List wastes no time in the cultural, political or economic stuff. Instead she lists a succession of reasons and examples why it must be saved:

This week’s 6 Music schedule offers the following: Don Letts’ ace documentary series on reggae powerhouse Trojan Records; interviews with Gorillaz, Fear Factory, Broken Bells and Errors; Steve Lamacq’s pick of unsigned talent.

There are a few priceless videos kicking about as well. Have a swatch of Adam Buxton challenging Mark Thompson to a fight on Channel 4 News …

… or Jeremy Paxman doing much the same (albeit in an interrogative sense) on Newsnight (complete with stifled laughter at the end).

Finally, this infographic by The Guardian illustrates the situation rather nicely.

Who’d have thought that 6 Music could provoke this kind of backlash? Not me. Or Mr Thompson, judging by the look on his face.

Gregory Tade celebrates the winning goal

Last night Raith Rovers beat Aberdeen 1-0 in the replay of their Scottish Cup fifth round tie.

For anyone unfamiliar with the context or the sport, there’s nothing remarkable about this fact.

But it was remarkable when you consider these facts:

In the original game, Aberdeen bundled in an equaliser in the fifth minute of stoppage time, to the bafflement of many onlookers who couldn’t see where five minutes of added time had come from. It was a tough blow for Raith Rovers to take, and so often it’s in ties like this where the bigger club (Aberdeen) stroll through the replay.

Before and after the first game, Dons manager Mark McGhee’s comments to the media implied that his team had some divine right to just turn up and the result would go their way. Before the first match McGhee said on the radio that Aberdeen had the better players and it was just a case of putting in the performance, and after the 1-1 draw, he said:

“I couldn’t believe we were losing, it was such an injustice. I couldn’t believe we were on the verge of going out, there was something very wrong … We are going back to Pittodrie now and we can finish the job.”

Last weekend’s results seemed to confirm the likely outcome of last night’s match. Aberdeen fought out a 4-4 draw with title-chasing Celtic, while Raith slumped to an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at home to Inverness Caley. By normal logic, this would mean that Caley are a far better team than Celtic. It’s a funny old game.

To add even more complexity to the fixture, on Monday Raith captain Mark Campbell, who for the past four years has been a constant source of dependability in defence and was inspirational in the first game, was badly injured in a car crash. While it looks like he will make a full recovery, this news must have sent shockwaves through the Rovers camp. The players could have reacted in two ways: resign themselves to defeat, or commit themselves to fighting for every tackle and header and ultimately, the win.

Even on the night it looked like the fates were conspiring against Raith. Defender Dougie Hill was injured in the warm-up and replaced by Robert Sloan, and because of the bizarre rules of the Scottish Cup, this meant manager John McGlynn could only have two substitutes at his disposal. Then in only the 24th minute, striker Johnny Russell had to go off after coming off worse in a 50-50 tackle.

But all it took was one tap-in from French forward Gregory Tade, a half hour of dogged defending, and Rovers now find themselves in the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup.

Much of the media attention today has focused on McGhee’s plight (and if he hadn’t been so smug beforehand I might actually feel some sympathy for him after being spat at by Dons fans), but nothing should detract from this remarkable win.

Now all Raith need is the same kind of incentive to go and beat Dundee in the next round.