I don't know whether I'm surprised at this - Glastonbury has 'failed' to sell-out on the first day tickets have gone on sale for the first time this decade. Which also means we could say "this century", or even "this millenium", but then I think we'd be stretching the hyperbole to breaking point.

Of course, they still sold more than 100,000 tickets to eager punters who registered on http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/. To use the word 'failure' in connection with it seems kinda churlish.

Festival organiser, Michael Eavis, has been keen to blame poor weather at the last two Glastonbury festivals as a reason for the slow-down. Other people have focused more on the slightly lacklustre nature of the announced line-up so far - of the three main headliners, none are Glastonbury exclusives. Kings of Leon and The Verve are both whoring themselves about a bit, both making appearances near the top of the bill at the V Festival and T In The Park, while Jay-Z is headlining the first day of the 02 Wireless festival in Hyde Park.

Of course, this all comes as rumours abound across the interweb that Jay-Z is all set to pull out of his Glastonbury performance altogether. The reasons behind this rumour are mixed, with some basically accusing the rapper of petulance at the face of low sales, and others confusingly citing his recent deal with Live Nation as presenting a contractual issue (which considering Live Nation own Festival Republic, who have operational control of Glastonbury, seems unlikely). Festival organisers are denying all of these rumours as hogwash.

In other, slightly better, but slightly less musical news, Dave Gorman and Mark Thomas have been added to the bill of the Literary Arena at Latitude, with Omid DJalili joining the Comedy Stage. And over at the Vince Power-promoted Hop Farm Festival, the criminally-underrated Supergrass have joined the bill, joining Primal Scream and Neil Young.