Radio 2 marked the 40th anniversary of Woodstock (15 August) by first diving headlong into a classic soundbite: "It was a three-day honeymoon
for those who didn't get killed or freak out. On acid."

Other contributors to the hour-long documentary fondly recalled the sheer excess of "eyebrows and hair". Patent star of the show was the guy who kindly offered his farmland to the organisers after they had had their original application for an outdoor music licence turned down: "So I called, and Mike said, 'Where are you?', and I said, 'White Lake, look at a map', and he said, 'White Lake?', so I said, 'You can see me from the air' . . . and anyways, my mother - who was religious Jewish, which I am not - well, she saw me go out and make the sign of the cross on the lawn with sheets and so she called the rabbi. I mean, she didn't know what the hell was going on . . ."

All the usual facts about the festival were duly trotted out: that they went 6,000 times over budget; that the brown mescaline doing the rounds was no good; that Richie Havens was forced to be first on stage, literally pushed up the steps towards the mike to utter the official welcome to the waiting half-million ("Hello. You're all groovy"). And that Pete Townshend hated the event vehemently - "hypocritical", he hissed, as though still freshly disgusted, like someone leaning over your shoulder and reading from the front page of a local rag. Apparently he waited 11 hours to go on stage, by which point all the acid in his coffee had worn off ("despicable") and he said to his manager: "Listen, for all this shit I want to be paid."

But the general tenor of the programme was that everyone's mind was successfully blown (I mean, what does Pete know? He isn't even the lead singer in his own band) and that Woodstock was marvellous, a little slice of heaven - even the 72 hours of Joan Baez. (Baez. The anarchic terror
of Middle American insomnia herself. That ominous, two-chord guitar-strum blankly iterated all the way since 1958. Imagine - I sometimes do - throwing a cream pie in Baez's face. I mean right smack in the kisser.)

Meanwhile, Norman Tebbit cooked pheasant for Evan Davis on the Today programme (Friday, 14 August). Evan took round some white wine ("which was not on expenses") to Norman's to find him up to his elbows in feathers in the kitchen, prepared to get Jack and Jill on the nation's arse.
“I don't think Gordon Brown is a bad man," intellectualised Norman. "I think he's a good man, but he's wrong. I think Blair was a bad man."

“Right," said Evan quietly, as though half expecting Norman to get out the felt tips and start drawing a snappish crocodile with zigzaggy teeth.
“I'm not a social liberal, see. Others are."
“Right."
“We've got the apple, the cream, the Calvados," said Norman, cheerfully, "and it all goes in like this. Hopefully, we haven't missed anything with all this talking. Now let's see, three o'clock. This should be done by five." Two whole hours with Norman were then cruelly reduced to nothing by the "magic" of radio.
“Do you want some gravy?" Evan was saying, remotely, when we all came to.