the village voice

We've got a brand new area for words, theatre and performance at our fete this year which we've called The Village Voice. Along with performance art, poetry slamming, Giant Boggle and storytelling, our friends at Fourth Estate are also bringing along their book tombola.

Disclaimer: Tombola may not look like this in real life.

Not a sniff of tinned baked beans, bubble bath or crocheted egg warmers on offer. Just bring an old book along with you and swap it for another book from the tombola. Cracking stuff.

Other highlights include the first million pound poet, Murray Lachlan Young, who will be doing a spot of performance poetry on Saturday as well as Ross Sutherland and Chris Hicks from poetry boy band sensation, Aisle 16, who will be performing on both days. 

There'll also be amazing puppetry from Blind Summit, Lonely Planet travel writers telling tales of faraway places, live comedy and giant fridge magnet poetry for you to unleash your creative beast and make some beautiful haikus.

There's plenty of other interactive stuff to get involved with too, so make sure you get down there at some point this weekend.

colin, berti, tug boat and oysters

Please say hello to Colin (foreground), his cousin Berti (background) and their fine Scottish oysters*. Colin is our innocent representative up in Scotland. You might have seen him on our blog before presenting a retailer of the month award and riding a space hopper. Along with working for innocent Colin also does a nice little sideline in fresh oysters straight from his farm on Loch Creran, which he will be selling at our fete this weekend in the food market bit.

Colin and Berti call themselves the oyster boys, click back there to find out lots more about their oysters and peruse some photos of these strapping young Scottish chaps doing their stuff.

*Colin's brother 'Tug Boat' who often helps out with the oysters isn't pictured here. Tug Boat is called Tug Boat "because he is a very powerful man and he builds tug boats and 'extreme support vessels' for a living. He also loves being in the sea. When sailing he gets excited and his voice is fog-horn like. These combined attributes resulted in him being termed the tug boat". So now you know.

christian prommer's drumlesson & son of dave

Thought we'd show you some more of the people who will be playing at the fete. First, Christian Prommer's Drumlesson, who plough the furrow where jazz meets classic house.

They do a mean drum solo too.

And here's Son of Dave doing his one man thing.

our day by day fete line up

There's going to be plenty of stuff to do at our fete on both the Saturday and Sunday so it might be worth planning what you want to fit in over a tea and biscuit before hand. So here's a day by day, hour by hour guide to what we have lined up over the weekend.

There'll also be loads of other stuff dotted about which isn't mentioned above. Like ferret racing, smoothie tasting, knitting and tea drinking, come and say hello to innocent area, face painting, petting zoo, funfair rides, kids assault course, a flea circus, a big farmers' market , real ale, cider and other bars, and much more.

bring a book, swap a book

We're having a new area at our fete this year, all about words, books and theatre. Along with live performance art, poetry slamming, Giant Boggle and storytelling, our friends at 4th Estate are also bringing along their book tombola.

The book tombola may not look like this in real life.

Instead of buying a ticket and praying to bag the bottle of gin over the collector’s set of King Charles Spaniel porcelain plates, you just need to bring an old book along to the fete. You then get to swap it for another book from the tombola. It might be better, it might not, but one thing’s for sure – you won’t be going home with a tin of beans or any commemorative canine crockery.

So please bring a book (or two) if you're coming to our fete.

any more for any more?

We're very pleased to now confirm that the wonderful Angus & Julia Stone will be also be playing at our fete on the Sunday. If you aren't familiar with either Angus or Julia (brother and sister) then have a little look at the below video.

I've got them on my ipod. They're very good.

ukulele a go go

Amidst the welly wanging, odd shaped vegetables and unruly ducks,  you might notice an abundance of small, four stringed instruments around the park this summer, that resemble a cross between miniature Portuguese guitars and plucked lutes.

As part of our cracking line up of music and dancing, we've enlisted the help of some very fine ukulele players to get everyone into the fete spirit.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are coming along on the Sunday to strum everything from Nirvana through to the theme tune from Shaft and a Cossack version of that old George Formby classic, Leaning on the lampost.

George - an inspiration to ukulele lovers everywhere and collector of execllent ties

The orchestra itself consists of seven ukuleles and a bass ukulele (which is actually a bass guitar but since it has four strings, is affectionately known as the bass ukulele). They've been going for 23 years, ever since Richie dared George to play his son's Smurf guitar at a gig, and they're still going strong.

According to Jodi who looks after getting the orchestra from A to B, the ukulele or 'uke' is relatively easy to learn and with schools across the country encouraging budding ukulele players of the future, there is now a shortage of ukuleles in the UK.

So if you've always fancied yourself as a ukulele player but have never got round to learning, you can come along and try the next best thing with the nice people from Karauke, who will also be at our fete on the Sunday.

Karauke is just like karaoke but instead of singing at a bored telly, you get to jam with a band of chipper ukulele players instead.

According to Nick from Karauke, soft rock numbers work really well and they do a mean version of Karma Chameleon, in case you want to get a bit of practice in before the fete.

And for any of you who were slightly concerned about toe treading or string bashing-at-dawn, Nick lent George from The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain a spare ukulele the other week when they were an instrument short, so there's no animosity or professional rivalry there.

Just plain, good old fashioned ukulele love.

Make sure you get involved in some at the fete.

some more confirmed acts for the fete

We've just had confirmation on some more great music acts for both Saturday and Sunday at the fete. So we're very excited to let you know you'll now be able to catch this little lot on the band stand.


Wallis Bird

James Carrington

Peter and The Wolf

Rod Thomas

And even more Wallis Bird, back for her second appearance of the weekend.

We're still dotting the t's and crossing the i's on a few more great artists. Keep your eye out here for updates as they come in.

put up posters and win stuff

We're hoping that you might be able to help spread the word about our village fete this summer in your local neighbourhood or place of work. All you need to do is download this post, print it out and stick it up somewhere where lots of people might see it.

Then you can take a photo of it and enter it into our flickr competition if you like. There'll be prizes for best placed poster, the strangest placed poster and the place where the most people are likely to see it.

It's all about keeping it local these days.