"Was it hazardous?"

The Minx's foot has been playing up a little bit, so we took that as an excuse to do what we've done for the last couple of days anyway and that is to lie around on a sofa, drinking coffee for a while and then moving on to something a bit fizzier. 

By mid-afternoon, though, the Minx felt suitably recovered (and medicated) for us to walk onto site, where we grabbed a bite to eat and then took a wander around the healing fields (I think that's what they're called) and to take in the various signs. Our favourite was Gavin's hugging workshop, which cheered me sufficiently that I didn't get particularly irritated by the presence of the homoeopaths. Or morons, to give them their correct title.

As we walking across to the Park stage, we noticed that the queue for the Ribbon Tower, always long, last year, wasn't that bad, just three or four people. So bought a couple of ciders and queued up to wait our turn. Even though the queue was short, I reckon we waited for quarter of an hour to get the chance to go up the top, where we took a few photos, including this one. (I posted one to Facebook. My mum's comment: "Get down at once".) Look how enormous the Glastonbury festival is!

Once we'd made our way back down, our first gig of the evening was Spiritualized, of whom I had high, if somewhat unrealistic hopes. Basically, my ambition was that they would play the whole of "Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space'. And, predictably, they didn't. But what we did get was a lot of 60s garage grunge type work outs that even when I recognised them - e.g. 'Electricity' - weren't done in a particularly entertaining fashion. The only track I really enjoyed was 'Come Together', which retained enough of its recorded structure and arrangement to be properly enjoyable.

After that, we said au revoir to our chums, Keith and Nicky, with whom we'd met up to watch Spiritualized, and set off down to The Glade to watch Public Service Broadcasting. Along with Balthazar, PSB are our other great gig passion, this being the fifth time we've seen them, I think. 

In many respects, they are my favourite live band. They have exceptional wit and charm, brilliant songwriting ideas and great musical talent. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, they take old recordings - public service broadcasts for their first album, recordings relating to manned space exploration for the second - and set them to music that draws on a range of (largely electronic) styles. In between songs, the band don't speak but use pre-recorded voice samples which is less tedious and a lot funnier than it sounds.

Tonight was, I think, the best I've ever seen them. The set list was great - although I'd still love to see their second album played end to end - and the performance was outstanding, including the brass section that came on towards the end, along with a dancing spaceman. The highpoints for me were perhaps the obvious choices - 'Everest', 'Spitfire', and 'Gagarin' - but, actually, I couldn't fault in the entire gig and the band were clearly enjoying themselves.

And so it was on something of a musical high that we made our way back to our tent, and thankfully the Minx's foot wasn't giving her too much trouble.