Latitude 2009

As you might expect, Latitude is consistently full of surprises. Since arriving here, I’ve met a key-tarist (that’s a chap who plays a keyboard-guitar hybrid, no less), a guy who runs a karaoke circus, and a very friendly lady from something called the School Of Life, who’ll be offering Bibliotherapy over the weekend in the Literary Salon. Bibliotherapy, it seems, is a service whereby you’re recommended a potentially life-changing book after an interview with one of their therapists. Oh, and there was farmer Miles, too.

In terms of curious niche side projects, Neil Hannon's cricketing musical manifesto, The Duckworth Lewis Method, takes some beating. Retaining many of the elaborate and melodic elements of his day job as leader of The Divine Comedy, the group's charmingly tongue-in-cheek suite of songs was perfect mid-afternoon fare at a point in history when the Ashes series was nail-bitingly balanced at a draw.

Hello campers - since touching down a couple of hours ago, I've made it my mission to dash around the Latitude site catching as many bands as possible, giving my boots their first coat of brown since Green Man '07 in the process. Hopefully they won't see quite as much muddy action this time around.

An early and astonishing highlight of Latitude took place in the humble confines of the literary tent on Thursday night. Grace Maxwell read movingly from her book, Falling & Laughing: The Restoration Of Edwyn Collins, about her partner of 25 years and his road to recovery after suffering two strokes four years ago.

So after the biblical forked-lightning storm which hit Southwold and the rest of the South East of England at approximately midnight last night, Uncut have finally joined the 25, 000 strong crowd of music, theatre and word loving people who are on site at Henham Park for this year's Latitude Festival.

Wise heads are out in force at Latitude, as always, and we've been eavesdropping on their conversations...

Having recently resurrected seminal album Foxbase Alpha for a handful of live shows, St Etienne are getting ready for a short festival tour, including Latitude 2009. Here, singer Sarah Cracknell tells Uncut about the trials of bringing children to festivals, the memory flashbacks playing older material and what we can expect from their Uncut Arena show...

Patrick Wolf, the South London born avant-garde multi-intrumentalist who has just released his fourth album The Bachelor, speaks to Uncut.co.uk about his forthcoming appearance at Latitude 2009...

Lightspeed Champion is to perform songs by Cat Stevens from the soundtrack to cult film Harold and Maude at a special performance at Latitude Festival next month.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are set to headline the closing night at next month's Latitude festival, and they will be aiming to win over new fans as well as please the faithful with their set list, says Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos; the drummer returns to Suffolk for a second year after performing with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey as Grinderman last year.