Rating The Presenters: Glastonbury

Glastonbury has come to an end after one great day and two mildly interesting ones. It’s a shame that everyone focused on Jay-Z as a controversial headline act, when for some reason Michael Eavis chose the Kings of Leon and The Verve to headline on the other two days. Jay-Z was blinding, anyway, but this is all besides the point.

The BBC were hosting the event this year, as ever, and they had a range of presenters doing their ‘thang’ to try and make the festival as interesting as possible. I know what you want, though – you want me to rate them all out of ten to see who was the best presenter. Well, even though I am pretty hung-over, I shall oblige. Because I’m so lovely.


Edith Bowman – a decent effort from Bowman this year, although she suffered from not having Colin Murray around to support her, and was instead drowned in the sea of boring egotism that flowed out of Zane Lowe at every opportunity. 5/10

Zane Lowe – nonsensically up himself for the entire festival, when he wasn’t talking about how close he was with Jay-Z he was attempting to fill his interviews with in-jokes that nobody, not even his co-presenters, could understand. As such, he was one of the worst narcissists of the bunch. 2/10

Phil Jupitus – normally Jupitus is a funny, charming bloke. Whenever he gets near to live music, however, he seems to feel the need to turn the attention on himself by twittering about some 1980’s jazz act that nobody cares about and interrupting everyone in sight to make lame jokes. Disappointing. 4/10

Lauren Laverne – the most pretentious of the lot. Always has been, always will be. There is a time and a place for rambling semi-jokes, and it isn’t whilst presenting a music programme. Along with Jupitus, she formed the most annoying double-act of the festival. 3/10

Annie Mac – nice lady, who obviously knew what she was talking about. She sometimes got lost in her own conversation, but she was fine. 6/10

Nick Grimshaw – odd choice to present, but he came across as a likeable chap who was self-depreciating and witty. In fact, he was one of the only presenters who actually pulled off self-depreciating without sounding like he was being ironic and egocentric. Odd voice, though. 6/10

Rufus Hound – predictably brilliant. He is saddled every year with the most difficult job around, of walking round with the general public and exploring the non-musical side of the festival. It’s a tricky job to do, because you don’t know if people are going to start swearing or if they’ll jump in front of the camera, and you have to be witty to do it. Luckily, he was. 8/10

Phil Nichol – the worst presenter by far. He was here for some of the links, and his manic laughter and smug grin made me want to punch him repeatedly in the face, shoulder, knee and groin. 1/10

Jo Whiley – Jo is always good. She has a good presenting style, knows when to let her interview subjects to talk and when to interrupt, and gave a good sense of the feel of the festival. There’s a reason they made her the lead presenter, you know. 8/10

Mark Radcliffe – class and quality, as always. I don’t know why they don’t team him up with Stuart Maconie, but oh well. Radcliffe can move from genre to genre like none of the other presenters, meaning he was in charge of the BBC4 and the BBC2 coverage, and he seemed at home whether he was presenting some jazz or a scuzz rock band, or Jay-Z, or folk music. And he always had a decent anecdote to relate. He’s the new John Peel, essentially. 10/10


What was my highlight of the festival? Well, obviously, it was Katie Melua.

How To Seduce 60 Beautiful Women (Part 4)

The one-liners continue.


21: Rosamund Pike (actress)
“If I’d been James Bond, I would’ve gone evil for you”
A willingness to give away everything for love is considered admirable in a potential suitor.

22: Joss Stone (singer)
“So we’ve had a great evening… can you tell me what we’re gonna do now?”
This is a kiss-off line as opposed to a chat-up line, but I can't do all the hard work for you, can I?

23: Keira Knightley (actress)
“Keira, you almost made ‘The Phantom Menace’ a bearable cinematic experience”
Be honest. And don't sacrifice your opinions just to please her. There's nothing worse than a pushover.

24: Natalie Portman (actress)
“Listen to this band. They’ll change your life, I swear.”
Natalie Portman LOVES IT when people say this to her.

25: Kate Havnevik (singer)
“Will you show me some love, tonight?”
You show off an endearing shyness, how can she resist?

26: Gemma Hayes (singer)
“You have never left me hanging around, Gemma.”
This is another entendre. Be sparing with these, as they are so brilliant that you may leave her crying with laughter, and you'd like her to keep her energy for later.

27: Katie Melua (singer, goddess)
“I love you, Katie Melua. I really, really love you”
I really do.

28: Rachel Bilson (actress: The OC)
“You can import my hard salami anyday”
If all else fails, make up a really obscure joke about a single TV episode.

29: Evangeline Lilly (actress: LOST)
“If I had to pick one person to be stuck on a desert island with, it’d be you”
Sweet, eh? Girls are all over that stuff.

30: Summer Glau (actress: Firefly, Serenity)
“Wow, you’ve really ‘blossomed’ as an actress”
Firefly jokes are hard to make, as you'll inevitably say her bottom lights up at night. This is a gentler joke, and works on several levels.

Explaining Album Covers

Some album covers are instantly recognisable; filled with imagery and artwork that refers to the music within in new and fascinating ways. Others... not so much. Here, we look at old album covers and try to explain what they mean and why, in their own way, they are important. Here are two recent albums from two very different female singers.

Christina Aguilera has literally gone 'Back To Basics' here, as she is wearing no clothes and only a few buckets of makeup. And she still has her satin sheets and gold pillows. Still... no clothes. That's pretty basic. Oh but wait, she's wearing a bra. So perhaps when she says 'Back To Basics', she means that her music is overproduced nonsense again - that'll be it.

Katie Melua shows that whilst her album is coming together 'Piece By Piece', she spends the rest of her time sitting between two chairs and dreaming of a giant corporeal mouth (can you see it?) Or... maybe she's thinking up statistically incorrect ideas for her new songs? By the way: I love Katie Melua. Seriously.