August 2008 Archives

Denbigh indie delights The Comics are the opening act for the town's Big Big Gig, being held at the Town Hall from 7.30pm this Saturday (August 23).

See their latest video here:

THE sad death of a Denbigh woman at the Kendal Calling music festival last weekend has touched readers from across the Vale of Clwyd.

20 year old Katie Jones, from Henllan, was taken ill at the event and rushed to hospital in Lancaster, where she later died of a suspected drugs overdose.

"We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident which occurred at the festival, which happened on Friday night on what was otherwise a successful event" said Festival Organiser Andy Smith.

"We send our deepest condolences to family and friends."

Katie's family said in a statement released today that they thanked police officers in Cumbria for their help, and that Kendal Calling was Katie's first ever music festival.

"Katie was fun-loving and vivacious and her life revolved around her family and friends who loved her very much. She had the gift of a wonderful sense of humour that brought happiness into people's lives" family members said in the statement.

"Katie was not a regular drug user and her family are at a loss to understand why this tragedy has happened.Her family are keen to express their wholehearted gratitude to the emergency and medical services who tried their utmost to avoid this tragic end to a beautiful young life."

If you have any messages for Katie and her family, please leave them below. Thank you.

I REALLY didn't realise I was the Country Mouse.

This is just one of the many lessons I've learned during a weekend when I really ought to have been at the Llanrhaeadr Show. For those of you who aren't keen students of Aesop, the Country Mouse is a sort of age-old cultural exchange student who swaps places with Town Mouse, presumably a rodent city slicker. Both despise each other's locales.

For me, Town Mouse was an old school friend, and Town was in fact Camden Town, that overly trendy bit of London usually frequented by self-professed New Lads and purveyors of strange herbs and spices. We'd headed down the M1 earlier that morning with some fatuous excuse of going to the British Motorshow, but predictably ended up pratting about on the Jubilee Line instead.

Town Mouse doesn't get the Vale of Clwyd. Says there's never a decent record shop or branch of Wetherspoon's, and doesn't like the fact you can't get a bus home at 2am. Then again, I doubt he appreciates a summer sunset in the hills around Ruthin. Nonetheless, he was determined to convince me otherwise.

I could have spent Saturday looking at cakes in Llanrhaeadr, following by a relaxing pint at Denbigh's Brookhouse Mill but instead I spent it stuck half a mile underground, sweating. Worse still was the prospect of being bombed, killed or overcharged, not problems I usually have to deal with on the number 51 from Rhyl.

Predictably, Town Mouse loved every minute of it, revelling in being surrounded by young purveyors of style and eagerly awaiting a drink in one of London's many boozers. Except that - strangely - any sort of bar or eatery seemed to be in short supply, and those that weren't charged £4 a pint.

I got back from my misadventures in the capital utterly exhausted, having spent all my money on Burger King's finest (there wasn't anywhere else open) and caked in sweat from the tropical climes of Picadilly Circus.

Come back Denbighshire, all is forgiven...