Il Tempo De Postino

06/07/07

Delighted to find my friend Mel is performing with an acoustic guitar inside 3Rooms, but don't see much of her as I have to head off to the Midland - where Prince Andrew is just checking-in - to have very civilised afternoon tea with the PlayStation Season team. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

Go for a quick drink with Mel and then head into an artist's talk with Philippe Parreno, who is curating the Il Tempo Del Postino group art show, and Festival curator Alex Poots. According to Parreno, who is French but looks every inch the local scally with his shaved head and expensive windcheater, most art shows are about creating objects. By contrast, “Il Tempo Del Postino is about creating moments.”

Ask a couple of deliberately awkward questions (Alex Poots ends up asking me: “Are we being defensive enough for you?”), make my excuses and leave.

We go to see Monkey: Journey To The West, which is just fantastic. Fei Yang, the guy who plays the Monkey gig, is another MIF artist with a very Mancunian manner about him. Take Liam Gallagher's bloody minded swagger and add Ian Brown's too-cool-for-school attitude and you're halfway there, our kid.