Well, it would be churlish to pick faults when Red Ken's given us such a nice day of music and hippies doling out Mojitos from washing up tubs, but sod it. The sound system on the main stage has all the power of a damp kitten. This is doubly annoying when Graham Coxon - surprisingly free of the usual tweed and owlish glasses - is turning out a truly blitzing set.  Ladling out treats from 2004's 'Happiness in Magazines' (Freakin' Out is on fire) alongside tunes from the excellent new release 'Love Travels At Illegal Speeds', it's a strong show. Or at least it would be if we could hear any of it without resorting to an ear trumpet.

Check out the RISE festival gallery for pictures from the day.

"Are you feeling it?" screams the MC on the Crescent stage. Yes, yes we are. Hardcore drum and bass with Indian dancing girls (who'd have thunk it? Works though.)  makes us very happy. As it does the several hundred people dancing like beserkers behind us.

This lot certainly do. Over in the African Village, there's Adamta, a collection of drummers, pipers and dancers bouncing away and grinning like it's Christmas. Then a guy comes on cartwheeling and flipping, before whisking out three metal bowls and spinning them round on his fingers, on his head, on sticks on his head, and while doing forward rolls. We salute him, he is now our king.

A soundsystem on the upper deck of a bus? Who said Routemasters were redundant? Spot the grown-up GAP year kids bobbing away, and the general air of joy. The sniffer dogs must have been on a break though, you could white out passively from the sheer amount of dope around. Aw, everyone's cheering the rapper now, that's very nice, and there's a cool old bloke on the decks. God how we wish our grandpa had been a DJ instead of a dentist...

Yes, we're at RISE London United festival in Finsbury Park and the atmosphere is bloody amazing. Even more so is Ida Barr, the elderly cross dresser in the comedy tent doing a bit of freestyling about Camden council, Boots and arthritis to the tune of Missy Elliot, Kelis and Black Eyed Peas. Who knew My Humps was actually all about lumbago? What's really nice is there's a sign language interpreter as well so nobody's missing a word of this wonderfully cracked act. Excuse us for a moment, we've just been roped into a riotous sing song. Ace!

Bad news for Sway fans: the London rapper has pulled out of Saturday's Rise: London United festival in Finsbury Park after being hospitalised this week due to illness.

In a statement on his website, he said: "I’m sorry that I can’t make it to Finsbury Park due to the fact that I have been doing too much and need some time to recover. Rise was one of the events I was most looking forward to, and I hope that despite my absence everyone enjoys themselves”

Ah bonny Scotland. (There must be some other kind of adjective to go with Scotland, but it’s after lunch and our brain hurts.)

Anyway. Organisers of the very bonny T in The Park have decided to plant 1600 trees in the Scottish countryside to counteract the carbon dioxide emissions coming off from the festival (Coldplay’s did the same thing but for their last album). They’re also planting trees in Mexico and Uganda, although exactly whether Africa and South America are going to know about T In The Park is not clear.

Scots flagwavers Franz Ferdinand, who are playing at T this weekend, are quite please about this, with singer Alex Kapranos saying, "It's great that T in the Park has taken these steps towards making the event the biggest carbon neutral festival in the world. I think more festivals should take their lead - such thought and that extra bit of effort are hugely worthwhile and beneficial to the environment."

We’ll be taking our litter home with us then.

Our atrociously googled Welsh aside, we love festivals and we love Wales, so another addition to the glorious country's summer roster is awesome news.

The Gwyl Macs Festival is being held on September 2 at Caerfyrddin Showground in Carmarthen and for a ludicrously cheap £15 you get 13 hours of music from the likes of Killa Kela, High Contrast, The Automatic, The Hot Puppies, Vibration White Finger, Optimas Prime and BBC stalwart Huw Stevens.

There will also be a chill out village, skate park, funfair and free parking and camping. Check out the official site for further details.