I’ve got a few friends doing some down time in Canada at the moment. I’m a little jealous to be honest, here’s me stuck in the grey and miserable UK when my buddies are out having the time of their lives in the C . . . Looking forward toa mental winter season no doubt!

I keep seeing stuff on their tweets about POP Montreal which looks pretty cool. I’m hoping that some of you guys might be able to tell me a bit about the festival and what goes on there.

From what I can tell the festival looks well cool with five days of world class acts hitting the city. Where’s the best place too get tickets? One of my Pal’s is having real trouble even searching for things like tickets montreal, most seem to be sold out!

Anyone got any ideas about the venues? Looking at what’s on offer I think that I might hop on over next year and see if I can’t soak up a bit of that atmosphere – Amigo’s looks brill.

Best thing is it looks like this festival kind of carries on all through the year with all kinds of acts on all year round . . . Choose from music, art installations, films, whatever – I reckon there must be something for everyone in there. (Aloe Blacc on 16th November for example).

So what can you tell me about POP Montreal? Is it worth the visit? I’ve got plenty of places I can stay, should I get out of miserable Manchester and get over to Canada? Drop me a line and give me your opinion!

Now i don’t have any tattoos myself (i’m too much of a wimp) but loads of my muso mates have them. They’ve got some really cool designs too, I wish i was a bit braver, perhaps I’d get a few myself. One of my mates works in the tattoo supply industry and he was telling me about some of the crazy stuff people get tattoed on them.

Me, I guess I’d go for something tribal probably, a big bold tribal pattern on my shoulder – I think those look pretty cool!

So anyway, my inspiration for this post comes from a great tattoo I saw on the Radio One websit a while ago. Edith Bowman had this great feature on about tattoos and this guy called in and was telling them how he’d had a picture of Noel Gallagher out of Oasis tattoed on him . . . Only thing was . . . It didn’t turn out exactly how he wanted:

Lol – you’ve got to love that haven’t you Anyway, here are some cool tattoos for you festival type dudes:

This one’s only gonna freak you out when you’ve had a few.

One for you web type geekos

And one of my tribal favourites

Take it easy guys

The ones to watch for me have to be Guns N’ Roses, I don’t need to debate whether it’s a real GNR line-up, Axl Rose will be there and so will I as they headline the final night of the festival! Mumford & Sons seem to be doing the full round of festivals in 2010 and they will be at Leeds too.

Saturday is going to be a wild day with a throw-back to the pop-punk of the 90s and early 2000s… Blink 182 and Limp Bizkit in one day, that’s one for the mosh pit.

In fact it’s time to put on Blink 182’s “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket” and party in this summer sun… See you all at Leeds

Other highlights for me were Faithless and Dizzee Rascal bringing some beats to a guitar-dominated festival and the fantastic Stevie Wonder… this guys record sales have gone through the roof since his Sunday night headline slot!

On the John Peel Stage Ellie Goulding and Marina & The Diamonds brought some glossy Pop hits to the fields of Somerset.

Highlights from The Other Stage included the ever-fantastic The Flaming Lips, fronted by the energetic Wayne Coyne…a feast of balloons, psychedelic pop tunes and confetti.

Before you know it though it’s all over, the stages are packed away and the cows come home… literally!

Roll on next year.