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Somerset House, the Strand, London – 6-29 June Come one, come all, and experience the magic of the Museum of Water! The kids want to go to the Harry Potter movie set exhibition? The wife wants to go to the V&A to see some outfits or whatever they have in there? Why not ruin everyone’s day and force them to think really hard about how scarce water can be in some parts of the world?
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Diggle, Saddleworth, Oldham – 5-8 JuneIt’s hard to take the piss out of a bunch of 40-50 year-old men playing covers of Cream – actually, no, it’s not. Diggle Blues Festival, "a weekend of free blues performances in the scenic Saddleworth village of Diggle, where blues meets greenery!", will look a lot like an annual Fathers 4 Justice get-together, but with more guitars and men trying to sing like their lives have meant anything at all.That’s the thing about blues – it’s for black Americans who’ve had to endure historic hardships and gruelling lives of injustice, not vinyl dads with Guinness guts and a brand new Les Paul in the garage. I’ve always found something oddly creepy about these old man music fetes – like they could be the subject of a particularly pedestrian M Night Shyamalan movie, where the local teenage emo population get kidnapped by a Yardbirds cover band and forced to listen to Ry Cooder B-sides until they're dead.
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40 venues around the UK, May-September 2014According to the listing, "Mix Karaoke Bar is one of only 40 venues to be picked to host the very first British Karaoke Idol." Wow, one of only 40?! Get the floats out lads, it’s time to throw these motherfuckers a parade!I’m not sure what differentiates a "karaoke competition" from a "singing contest", tbh; do you get marked down for not being able to read or something? You’re singing to a backing track – if you’re serious about it you’d probably have already remembered the words anyway, so what’s the difference? There’s no showmanship in reading a screen. Is there a "reading a book out loud" competition as well?Maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe the British Karaoke Idol competition will be fun: Friends and family getting together, getting smashed, having a sing-song, not taking things too seriously, and running up a nice big bar tab – maybe even a trip to the Big Stink, London Town, for the grand finale. Or it’ll just be full of depressing people necking snakebite and pissing down their legs.Take your pick, dipshits, the choice – as ever – is yours.@joe_bish
