WITH the Guide's leaky tent still lavishly smothered in Cropredy mud, there has been barely time to breathe before another weekend of al fresco madness is upon us, with this weekend's Reading Festival.

While Reading gets all the attention for 'out of the box' craziness, the usually sedate Fairport's Cropredy Convention did manage to throw up a few tasty highlights. Of course the old stagers still packed the site at Peewit Farm, turning much of the hillside into the usual sea of cool boxes, eye-gouging umbrellas and flags staked in the 'Banburyshire' earth.

So thank heavens for the nutters reeling around at the front of the stage - even after the music had stopped! And, to all those sitting around in deck chairs tutting: maybe you should find yourself another field! The organisers, meanwhile, might want to think about laying on something after midnight. An early night is all well and good ... but at a music festival?

Probably the biggest smile at Cropredy belonged to a certain Mark Radcliffe, whose band The Family Mahone had brought a touch of raucous, beer-fuelled levity to the preceedings on Friday, and who hung around after to enjoy a few beers with fans.

The cult BBC radio presenter admitted he was hardly appropriately dressed for the event, but nonetheless cut a dashing figure in a white linen suit, accesorised with a steady supply of Wadworth's Horizon ale.

THE HIGHLIGHT of the past fortnight was a storming show by the Kings of Leon at Brixton Academy. During their first tour of the UK, they played to about two dozen punters downstairs at The Zodiac, one wet Sunday night about five years ago.

The hairy Memphis lads then seemed to be so out of it (jetlagged obviously), they shuffled around the stage, knocking into things, and ran out of material after about 20 minutes. Now they've headlined Glastonbury and V Festival and, in Brixton, were commanding black market ticket prices of £120. So see every new band you can; they may be legends in the making.

NEWS that Oxford had been named second most rock 'n' roll city in the UK came as no suprise to us here at Guide Towers.

The only mystery was the figures. The 'silly season' survey, conducted by air guitar supremos guitarrockstar.co.uk, found Oxford was the second biggest city for rock heroes - with one star per 24,100 people ... pipped only by Manchester.

With a population of somewhere around 149,000 people, that makes it about six ... which is clearly nonsense. You can find more rock heroes than that in an average night at The Star.

WE HAVE been asked by shorts-wearing Oxford rock promoter Alan Day to apologise for a comment made on these pages about his new favourite band The Levellers. It is, apparently, unfair to describe them as "crusty, dog-on-a string anarcho-rockers".

It seems the band have now graduated to proper dog leads.