Stomachs on legs are proud to present

A medieval festival at a schoolyard in Bonn



Parents who long to save their children from the perils of computer gaming, bad German rap and supermarket curry-ketchup can do worse than to visit regional Medieval festivals, where wholesome activities abound: from carving wooden daggers to weaving and paper making.

Food-wise, naturally there are the German staples of cake and currywurst, but there's also 'flammkuchen' roasted alsace flatbread with onions and bacon, and roasted wild boar - authentically unsalted, served from a dirty plank - and an activity of making campfire bread wrapped on sticks, which isn't typically medieval but keeps your little dragon-slayers silent and morose for 20 minutes or so.

Parents can enjoy wearing dead animals strapped to their belts, smoking fags next to the fake gallows and reminiscing about the days when German criminals were tortured with methods that resembled food preparation: hot oil, boiling and roasting. When gothic fonts were totally de rigeur, and sin was something to be wallowed in. What could be more wholesome than that?

Erik & me are currently in London working on the latest edition of the Red Bull Music Academy. This means endless cups of tea (Twinings lapsang souchon or various kinds that the English have stashed around), late nights raiding the studio kitchen (bags of crisps, toasted sandwiches, bowls of dodgy egg salad), and of course, after the night has been well and truly burnt at both ends, post-club missions to Chinatown (or for the brave, a grimy spot down the road called Chicken Sizzler - nothing to do with the reggae artist). At least, it has a nicer name than the dubious-sounding chain called Chicken Cottage.

On Thursday, DJ Mayuri (organiser of Japan's Metamorphose festival) stopped by for an unofficial visit. She didn't remember me, but I rented a room in her house for a few days, about eight years ago, on my first trip to Tokyo. I had gone to Japan with next to no money, and spent a week hanging out at Mayuri's Shibuya FM show (Ed DMX was the guest), walking all over Tokyo, eating nothing but white rice with furikake and boiled eggs. This kind of experience is the flipside to the late night feasts of the nominally music-involved. Those days when you're down to small change, so you hang out in internet cafes in order to drink the free melon soda. But in exchange for a permanent state of uncertainty, you get to have all kinds of crazy experiences.

I was just checking the website for Mayuri's festival yesterday, and found these nice pictures. These days, my life is lived much less nutritionally on the edge, but the late night snacks prevail: and 4am iced cucumber skewers and traditional festival food like roasted corn and grilled fish would be a sight for sore eyes. Literally, as I've come down with a heinous cold from the London clublife.

Photos taken by my mate Felix the Houserat from Vienna at Springnine Festival, Austria. 5 kilos of nutella should be enough for one weekend and a few hundred of your new friends, I guess.

Fertility festival at Tagata Shrine, Aichi, takes place every year on March 15 when you can encounter phallus-shaped snacks.




In case you are wondering, they are chocolate-covered bananas.



...and okonomiyaki-coated frank.