A Big B13 shout for The Moseley Folk Festival, which triumphantly played out this weekend in the private park. Can there have ever been such a gathering of fanciful coloured wellies within these City limits? In this demi-Eden, women freely breastfed their babes, ate felafel, quoffed organic ale. Blokes chewed over social injustices, compared temporary tattoos, reminisced about the last time Fairport played the Town Hall. The occasional whiff of weed or glimpse of silver-haired dancer; the inevitable spot of rain.

The Moseley eco-credentials made me suddenly self-conscious of carrying our picnic around in a disposable plastic Somerfield’s bag. Everyone else seemed to have dressed appropriately – with long-life bag, fair-trade picnic blanket and brolly in tow. The MFF is now into it’s 4th year and growing impressively for what is a tiny festival. This year’s line-up including Beth Orton, St.Etienne, Cara Dillon, Ade Edmondson & the Bad Shepherds. the excellent Mama Matrix, Carthy and Swarb (a decade after his obituary was famously published in the Telegraph). The boys happily fitted into the vibe, disdaining their more feral peers and seeming to share my enthusiasm for the reformed cult legends Comus, introduced to me by Jonathan Holloway earlier this year (“drip, drip…from your sagging lip…” : My Arms, Your Heurse, 1970). It was exciting and strange to see Jethro Tull , performing but gobbing distance from The Prince of Wales, the pub that we, as 6th formers, would call our own; which hosted our music-obsessed gatherings and which oft inspired our music-making. We first saw the Tull (yeeeaaaahhh!) at the NEC in about 1982. They were getting on a bit then…or so we thought. In fact, they were a lot younger than we now. With those thoughts permeating darkly, I slipped out from the gig quietly and went home for my cocoa.