I've just got off the phone from Andrew Harrison who returned hotfoot from yesterday's Apple unveiling - new iPods, new iTunes and yet another social network called Ping - with some thoughts on what this all means for music and entertainment in the near future. Is it all about The Cloud? What's going to happen to the humble iPod? Will Steve Jobs ever wear anything but that bloody polo neck? This ten minute podcast might help you keep abreast of what's likely to happen next. You can sign up to get the regular Word podcast here or you can stream it below.

Jungle Blues is a big office favourite at the moment. Made by CW Stoneking, an Australian-American who seems to channel the music of great American primitives like Jimmie Rodgers and Blind Blake to weave complex, funny stories of encounters with lions and periods spent in clink. He's playing up and down the country for the next couple of weeks and, if you like this kind of thing at all, you're strongly advised to see him. He's at Brixton Windmill tonight (Friday). You can find details of his other shows and links to buy tickets on My Space. Straight off the plane he popped in the office to play and talk to Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Fraser Lewry.

Fraser also reports back from his pilgrimage to the Guca Festival in Serbia. You can find out more about this extraordinary 800,000 capacity event in a programme called "Serbian Trumpets", which is on Radio Four at 1.30pm this coming Tuesday.

Finally we talk to concert industry watcher James Drury about the likelihood of the UK live business experiencing a meltdown such as has apparently occurred in America this summer with major acts pulling out of tours and ticket prices going down for the first time in living memory. James's piece "Has The Live Boom Bust?" is in the September issue of the magazine.

You can stream the latest recording below. For information on how to subscribe, visit our podcast page.

After their agents insisted they take a break for the summer, Kate Mossman and Mark Ellen return with what may well be the greatest introductory video to a new issue of The Word magazine yet. Minutes in the making, this epic is now ready for viewer consumption. We hope you enjoy it.

Also in this issue: Laura Marling, Ben Folds & Nick Hornby, the Best & Worst doctors in entertainment, Tom Ravenscroft, Tim Robbins, Ray Manzarak, Martina Topley-Bird, Ian Rankin, Annie Nightingale, Peter Sellers, Robert Sandall, Mexico's drug wars, the live music boom, and Mark Hodkinson.

And that's not all: our free, 15-track CD featuring the best new music of September 2010, including tracks from Los Lobos, Richard Ashcroft, Chris Difford, Eels, Josh Ritter, Bull Kirchen feat. Elvis Costello, Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse, and many more...

How to subscribe to the Word.

The star of Oil City Confidential is in the big chair - plus guitar. A cruel cocktail of file corruption and dud battery purchase (the failed batteries used during this recording are pictured, below) has excised the first five minutes of this week's recording - Wilko demonstrating his finger-shredding rhythm-and-lead technique and some fond talk of life on the Canvey delta.

But tons of good stuff remains - and he regales Mark Ellen, "Seventies" Mike Johnson and Fraser Lewry with tales of the false economy of cheap suits, speed versus alcohol, going round to Strummer's house, seeing The MC5's Wayne Kramer sprayed gold, being left-handed before Hendrix, and the still painful story of his ejection from Dr Feelgood. Get in!

Visit our podcast page for more information on the podcast, or stream the latest release below.

Dearly Deprived,

Apologies to the various subscribers who've emailed to point out that their new issue's arrived with last month's editor's letter. Apologies too from the mailing room. The finely-chiselled document they should have included with Word 91 is here...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/files/subs/subs91.pdf

For non-subscribers, the new issue will be available from the finest of newsagents on Thursday.

Several "firsts" in Word podcast history. We've never had two John Peel impersonators in a live soundclash. We've never discussed Mills & Boon or crab opera. No-one's talked about having a bit part in The Office or the slightly pedestrian plots of 1970s stag films. We've never read a passage from Darwin's The Origin Of Species or found out how the Edinburgh Fringe can be free. And we've never consumed a Victoria sponge cake on air, freshly cooked by Fraser Lewry (see photographic evidence below). Happily these oversights have now been rectified because... Robin Ince has joined Kate Mossman and Mark Ellen in the pod!

Visit our podcast page for more information on the podcast, or stream the latest release below.

In the second podcast direct from the Latitude site Kate Mossman talks to John Grant (left picture, middle) and Mark Ellen talks to promoter Melvin Benn (right picture, on left). Subjects covered include: the importance of putting your poetry tent in the right place, translating in a New York hospital, Christmas discos in August, presenting a birthday cake on stage and why you can take Tom Jones out of showbiz but you can never take showbiz out of Tom Jones.

Our first podcast from the site at Latitude features Rob Young (far right, right hand picture), writer of Electric Eden, probably our music book of the year so far, and Geoff Lloyd (middle, left hand picture), who's here broadcasting from the site for Absolute Radio. Recorded in the luxurious surroundings of our Portkabin audio suite, it covers Vaughan Williams, Mark's posh digs in Walberswick, the correct response to a fellow camper who sings the blues in the middle of the night, The National, how to distinguish between a real beard and a fashion beard, how Tom Jones lets himself go at Christmas and the dark pact forged between Florence + The Machine and Claire's Accessories. Get it while it's hot.

Robert Forster, former Go-Between, acclaimed solo artist and now award-winning critic, is in the UK this week to play some shows and promote his excellent book The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll, which is finally published in the UK in a de luxe limited edition with accompanying 10" vinyl record. He's performing fifteen songs about London at the Jazz Cafe on June 13th, supporting Richard Hawley (sold out) and singing and talking at Latitude on Thursday the 15th (also sold out). He'll also be performing at Rough Trade East on Saturday.

At the beginning of this week of frantic activity he joined us in the Word podcast to play a couple of songs and talk about hair care, bridge-opening, the likelihood of Mick Taylor rejoining the Rolling Stones, the statistical jiggery-pokery that meant Spain pinched what should by rights be New Zealand's World Cup and the 48th anniversary of the Rollin' Stones first ever gig.

For more information about subscribing to the podcast, click here. Alternatively, you can stream the current broadcast below.

As part of our commitment to bring all sorts of gaiety and innovation to this year's Latitude festival, we're thrilled to be able to announce that we've organised a signing tent at the event, where ticket-holders can meet some of the performers, and have their programmes/souvenirs/body parts signed. Confirmed so far are the following:

Friday
Richard Hawley (right)
The National
Eddie Argos

Saturday
Yeasayer
Ardal O' Halon
James
The Horrors
David Ford
John Grant
Rich Hall

Sunday
Kristin Hersh
Midlake
Peter Hook
John Cooper Clark

Times to follow, so watch this space. There will also be a Word Stall in the same tent, staffed by actual Word staff. Come and say hello.

In which we welcome our man Jim White back from the World Cup to deliver a first person account of the cack-handedness of FIFA, the inability of England players to hold instructions in their head for more than two minutes, the irresistible attraction of 40 blondes in orange mini skirts and the staggering size of the African continent. We also mark Ringo Starr's 70th birthday today with Mat Priest of Dodgy, a drummer who knows what's involved in being Ringo in a Beatles tribute band, who introduces us to the work of the amazing Batmankozyy (below). Happy Birthday, Ringo, from all of us.

Find out more about our podcast here, or listen to the current recording below.

Laura Barton is the guest in the pod this week, plugging her book Twenty-One Locks. Her first book, it deals with the pressure of expectation in the build-up to a wedding and hence we've been talking about the increasing part that music plays in weddings, from choice of hymns through highly-choreographed dance routines featuring the bridesmaids, playing the Velvet Underground while the register is being signed and Pan pipers who turn up too late to the ancient tribal rituals of the wedding disco.

We've also taken brief detours to reflect on Glastonbury, England's exit from the World Cup and what happened when Mark Ellen was booked on a honeymoon flight.

You can sign up here to get the podcast every week or you can stream this one below.

Mary Gauthier was left at an orphanage when she was a baby. She was subsequently adopted, ran away from home when she was 15, went through various rehab programmes and halfway houses and became a chef until, at the age of 35, she became a singer-songwriter. Her new record, The Foundling, is an account of her quest to make contact with her birth mother. David Hepworth presents this special podcast which features an interview with Mary describing what happened next. It's an amazing story. *Warning*. This interview was recorded in a hotel restaurant and briefly had to compete with one of those noisy floor polishers. Persevere. It's worth it.

If you want to make sure you get the podcast delivered to your desktop every week, go here. Or just stream it below.

Only those who have been living in a cave in the Tora Bora mountains don’t know the basics of packing for the summer festivals by now. Then again, I’m constantly amazed by the numbers of bright young things who turn up to Europe’s premier mud-strewn hiking soirees, in nothing sturdier than a pair of Amy Winehouse ballet pumps.

We presume you already know enough to pack your sunscreen and “toilet tissue”. Here are a few extras which the WORD Away Team have learned – through bitter experience – will make your festival experience go more swimmingly.

Spare mobile phone battery
There is no more dismal ritual than queueing outside a Charging Tent on a Saturday morning – unless it’s standing in the dark next to your phone while the bars creep upwards. Splash out on an extra battery and, of course, charge the living daylights out of both of them before you go. Look on the fiver you’ve spent as buying yourself an extra three hours’ lie-in.

Head-mounted torch
Say goodbye to plunging into someone else’s tent in the dark misery with the single most important item you can bring to any festival. A hand-held torch is OK but one of those super-bright cyclists’ head-lamps turns night into day. It also has the added advantage of terrifying hippies and the addled in the lanes late at night. For years I took a pair of those Orbital light-up glasses– never a dull moment.

Anti-bacterial gel
The fast-evaporating soap substitute is one of the wonders of the modern world and immediately gets rid of that horrendous post-latrine feeling.

A utility belt of some sort
You’re in the country. Usefulness beats fashion every time. There is nothing worse than having to cart a bag of stuff around, unless it’s the constant groin-ache caused by keeping a ton of phones and cameras in your front pockets. I favour one of those multi-pocketed waistcoats as seen on Walter in The Big Lebowski. OK, it makes me look a bit Clarkson but the ability to produce sunscreen, camera, wallet or bicycle repair kit in a trice makes it worth it. Come on, this is THE WORD, not Arena Homme Plus.

The largest plastic bottle you can find
No glass allowed on site? Buy a plastic bottle of economy mineral water (25p) from the nearest Morrison’s, pour it away into the flower beds and fill with vodka and cranberry juice. Your portable Sea Breeze is ready, sir. NB may lead to accusations of “trampness”.

Travel pillow
Now this just getting silly. Actually, though, nothing improves the festival like a genuinely good night’s kip. Most camping shops sell pillows that compress down to the size of a small loaf. Will also make you feel you are “a cut above”.

Any more tips? Add yours below...

If you haven't read the cover feature of the July issue, which is all about summer music, or if you have read it but there's some of the tracks you haven't heard, go here where you can read the words, watch the clips and follow a few relevant links. Let us know what you think and add your own if you like.