Agree with you on 1-4 above, St Etienne being a real surprise for me - I only went to get an early spot for Magazine and was very pleasantly surprised by how good they were.

Would have to disagree about Grace Jones - interminable gaps between songs to accommodate yet another costume change and it was all a bit one-paced for me. I also thought Thom Yorke was fine in his early afternoon slot with some real 'spine-tingling' moments.

Also on my list of 'hits' were the '70s/'80s throwbacks that were Squeeze, Pretenders and Magazine. All clocking the years, all still delivering the goods and looking like they were enjoying themselves.

It goes without saying that The Gaslight Anthem were once again immense, even without added Bruce this time.

Also recommend 'The New York Fund' who were also there last year, opening one of the smaller stages. Scottish acoustic stuff and all the better for it.

Other good things - excellent neighbours in the campsite, daft stuff in the Cabaret area, Guilty Pleasures and overwhelmingly nice people everywhere. And the Scarecrow ale, which slipped down very nicely all weekend. Oh and the drainage - sandy soil is the way to go!

Downers - Comedy and Uncut tents too small and in the wrong places, queueing for over two hours to get in on Thursday afternoon (if you're going to wristband people on the way in, then for God's sake make sure you've more than enough people to cope with the influx) and an increasing number of teeny groups on their school leaving parties trying to be 'random' or whatever it is young kids are these days.

But overall the good far outweighed the bad - bring on next year.

Oh, and isn't Southwold quite literally miles and miles away from everywhere?

who'dve thought?

charlatan

If you read the small print on your wristband, you'll find it was actually compulsory for all over-30s to attend the Thom Yorke set. Even Mark 'Sue' Ellen was there.

I adopted a P-shaped strategy this year. So my highlights were:

The Phenomenal Handclap Band - a sort of modern day CS&N. No, wait, come back. They were terrific.

Passion Pit - the current media zeitgeist band. The new MGMT, except not crap live.

Phoenix - the missing link between Air and Daft Punk.

Sad to have missed The Vaselines and Wild Beasts, but wish I had missed the Mummers (Bjork-lite). Also enjoyed Magazine, Maps (Power Corruption & Lies-era New Order but all done on synths), Local Natives, Amazing Baby (who should be renamed Quite-Good Baby) and Casiokids. The latter weren't even the best Norwegian electro band at the festival. That, and the best band of the entire festival was Datarock, the new Talkingheads. For me, they pwned Latitude.

Loved Nick Cave (and Rasputin on violin)- piledriver best of set; shame about the curfew, and the prick in luminous overall ('Safety Protection Officer') grabbing my roll up and accusing me of smoking weed.

Really enjoyed Gurrumul - wonderful voice. Thought Thom Yorke seemed in a pretty good mood - got into his loops and swapping instruments.

How the fuck are the Editors so popular?

That is all.

The Handclap Band were just that - the Word review of their album is spot on.
I expected a lot of Magazine and they did not disappoint.
Jarvis Cocker doing a rather fine Purple Haze.
And any event with iLiKETRAiNS can't be bad.

Downsides - although no one will probably take any notice as they can do what they like as they sell out - a total lack of updates on schedule changes. Frankly, it seems just an effort to whittle down the mountain of £8 programmes on sale rather than provide any service to paying punters.

Poor stewarding. There was one really good guy around the 20 mark at the right-hand entrance to the Bafta tent on Sunday afternoon, but some of the others were a shambles. Unfortunately Latitude is becoming popular with rites-of-passage teenagers who can't be bothered to queue up to get in, and as the stewards - I use the term in its loosest possible sense - aren't that much older they just look the other way.

+1 for the Phenomenal Handclap Band. The way they really meant every tambourine beat and every strum was kind of funny - only teenagers and Americans can be so irony free, but they were marvellous. They were the surprise of the festival, and I'll be buying their music.

Spiritualized were superb. I hadn't seen them for about ten years, but they were as good as I remembered them.

The Crooks did a fine set on the Outdoor Theatre on Thursday night, having been drafted in the day before because the scheduled artist had Swine Flu.

Thumbs up for Saint Etienne, Camera Obscura, The Vaselines, Goldheart Academy and 1990s.

The Pretenders were a treat, (though that might have been because I wasn't expecting much having seen them on Later recently). The Pet Shops Boys were good without being great - I think a festival crowd needs a Greatest Hits set, which the PSBs only half provided.

I must have gone to the other Thom Yorke set, the one where he was joking with the crowd, taking the mickey out of himself and generally having a laugh. He was on over Sunday lunchtime on the Obelisk Stage. You should have been there: he was excellent.

Loved the Sunrise stage. Really liked the Lake Theatre. The sound could have been better on the Uncut stage, and I think it's just me but I found it hard to dance on a slope.

Top marks for St Etienne's Fox Base Alpha placards.

Pretty much every steward I came across was fantastic. Friendly and dedicated to their job, even if they were in a car park in a field miles from anywhere. All through the weekend, they did their job with good cheer.

Overall, a magnificent weekend. Didn't mind the drive to Southwold, never got stuck in traffic, got a little bit wet, but not so bad it ruined anything, (yes, and top marks to Lisa Hannigan for battling through her set in the pouring rain, and yes, yes, yes to sandy soil for draining remarkably well). We'll be back next year!

As many have already said, the Handclaps effortlessly lived up to their name. This was my first Latitude and I'm kicking myself for missing the five previous ones. I know this sounds over the top but me and the missus honestly had one of the best weekends of our lives. It gets stick for being middle class but as Stuart Maconie said, if you like being stabbed and having your tent set on fire, then this isn't the festival for you. Otherwise, just enjoy the friendly, chilled atmosphere and astoundingly diverse programme.
My absolute highlight? Sunday night, knackered, stumbling into the cabaret tent to see Orkestra del Sol come on and deliver a blistering performance of polka/waltz/calypso/conga brass band mayhem that means I haven't stopped grinning since.
As a bit of balance, yes the eight quid programme did take the piss a bit...

This was my third Latitude, and the one which made me certain that it's now officially better than Glastonbury. It had already ticked most of the boxes in previous years: excellent musical acts covering everyting from the retro to the painfully cool, diverse other acts meaning that you could enjoy yourself without ever seeing a band, superb location and stages that you can reach from any part of the site in 15 minutes. And then came the rain... and it didn't get muddy! Which meant that the rain was just an annoyance rather than something that had the potential to ruin the weekend. Hurrah for great drainage!

Musical highs for me were the Pet Shop Boys, who put on a phenomenal show, The Pretenders, Thom Yorke, The Mummers and, perhaps most of all, Gurrumul who made you forget a storm was lashing the tent. Beyond that, Shane Meadows' new film 'Le Donk' was hilarious and the Grace Maxwell/Edwyn Colluins reading and chat was heartwarming.

Lows - mainly the no-shows of Speech Debelle and First Aid Kit. Also a downer was the destruction of our gazebo by a freak gale and the teenagers camping next to us who thought it was hilarious to shout 'bellend' all night. Literally all night. Oh yes, and the fact that i wanted to see pretty much everything that was on around 4.30 on Saturday afternoon (plumped for ShloMo whose vocal antics were mind boggling).

On the subject of teenagers - did anyone think there were far more teens than in previous years? This isn't a low, just an observation, but it was the first Latitude where I felt that I was older than a significant proportion of festival goers.

I've just found out that the chap who handed in my phone is one and he's star and cherub.
I think we were near the "bell ends" mind!

Despite getting drenched on Sunday it was a great weekend.

The damn programme though - I think the cost is far too much, and as it has to be printed in advance it isn't even up to date. It wasn't until the second day that I found the information hut with the daily changes and listings, however, it was on one sheet of A4 and was absolute tiny. so I missed a few things I wanted to see because they'd been moved and I didn't know.

Also, the Uncut tent is a problem - it's on a slope so it can be very hard to see if you aren't at the front. I couldn't see Squeeze so sat outside in a temper!

For me Saturday was the weakest musically overall, I saw more poetry and literary things that day.

Andrew Motion was fab, though mostly quite sombre.

And Jarvis . An unexpected pleasure...

Enjoyed it lots though and hope that next year's line up makes me want to go again.

Buy the friggen programme then