I used to go to a music festival at least once a year, but I kind of gave it up after 2001 … my youthful enthusiasm was finally conquered by my fondness of sleeping in my own bed. But I still miss the mad atmosphere of Glastonbury and its imitators, if not the mud and overpriced junk food. I wonder if SecondFest, a virtual music festival taking place in Second Life over the weekend, will be able to deliver the same sort of experience?

Speaking of Second Life, Warren Ellis has been documenting the micropolitics of The Wastelands, the sim environment where he and I own plots. The arrival of a new tract of land (ironically enough named The Great Fissure) has reopened a rift between the RPG purists and the influx of new residents. There’s no escaping group dynamics, especially in an anarchic environment like SL.