The Long Weekend.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland this weekend is a holiday weekend. That means that most of the people who finished work today, Friday, don't have to be back at work again until Tuesday. As this is the last holiday weekend before Christmas a lot of people associate it with the end of the British summer. In order to try and squeeze the last little bit of joy out of summer there are a lot of things going on this weekend.

Firstly there is the Reading and Leeds music festival going on in, well Reading and Leeds. There's nothing particularly important about this it's just that I went to Reading a few times in my younger days so I always look on the festival fondly. However after three days of torrential rain the Reading site is looking pretty gruesome at the moment.

In London there is the Notting Hill Carnival. As Europe's largest street carnival this sees over 100,000 people drinking and partying for three straight days. Obviously this always leads to some fights, most of which take place on Monday evening. However I don't think there'll be any more trouble then you'll get on an average weekend in London. It's just that this weekend it's going to be concentrated on a very small part of London around Ladbroke Grove.

On Saturday (28/8) the English Defence League (EDL) will be trying to incite the mainly Muslim population of Bradford to riot. The Home Office have banned all marches and processions in the city on the day so the EDL will be staging a static demonstration instead. This means the run up for Saturday has been exactly the same as it was in 2001 when a banned National Front demonstration provoked three days of full on rioting. Obviously I don't want to lay down a challenge to the EDL but on this occasion I'm expecting an awful lot of hype but no real action. It will still be a very long day for the police in Bradford though.

In ultimate Big Brother John McCrirrick has just be evicted. This will make him happy because apparently he had a very large bet on him being the first evictee. Also Victor and Michelle have entered the house. Along with Nadia they starred in the 2004 series of Big Brother and in homage to that series they have entered a "bedsit" that is cut off from the main house. In the 2004 series this device led to a huge fight that saw security staff being sent into the house to restrain Victor and I believe one other housemate being carted off to a psychiatric hospital. 2004 was the year that Big Brother specifically putting the boot into me so you would expect the re-appearance of housemates from that year to spark off all sorts of reminiscences.

Also Josie walked out of the house yesterday (26/8). I think this is a good thing because it would be a shame if she wasted her 15 minutes of fame on a show that seems to be trying to go out with a whimper rather then a bang.