AT THE time of writing I am making the long journey home from three days of music-related rambunctiousness at T In The Park.

Music festivals are the best things in the world. The day after a festival is not. Thusly, as I hack away at my keyboard, I am host to a broken brain and a heavy heart; induced by mind-altering quantities of mega-good music, Jagerbombs (or should that be YAYgerbombs?), and other such liquors. Like many things in Scotland, fun is super-sized — which makes the subsequent festival-comedown that little bit richer.

As I sit on the train looking with bleary eyes at my ten hour rail-clang back to Barnstaple, my carriage is serenaded by the unrelenting cochlea-scything screeches of two small children.

They were giving their mother such a hard time that I felt a bit sorry for her. Although her predilection for ramming all manner of sugar and E-numbers down the throats of her gannet-like offspring soon saw that sympathy turn to contempt. Such feeding was not so much stoking the fire as plying it with gasoline and calling it a sissy. It was then that I decided it should be obligatory for travelling toddlers to be gagged during long journeys on public transport.

Another by-product of the festival comedown is stifled creativity. And while I could probably write enough about the brilliance of Bombay Bicycle Club, Delphic, Muse and Shed Seven to render this week's newspaper of Biblical girth, I fear that would be shamefully dissevered from soundCHECK's intentions of broadcasting what's happening gig-wise in North Devon. So it is with my final resources of optimism that I turn to this week's gig listings to eye-up the happenings.

Of which are inevitably sparse. Not least because Generator's gig scheduled for this Saturday is cancelled. In fact as fields full of sheepies zoom past my window, I wonder whether North Devon will ever play host to a festival of equal stature to T In The Park.

Gigs this week are Severe:Zero (The Riverfront, tomorrow night – July 23), Baltic Sirens (The Palladium on Saturday – July 24) and Cosmic Ray Gun, who play at the Combe Martin Music and Arts Festival on Saturday (July 24). The latter band are a clutch of musicians of an age that should be more accustomed to pocket money and computer games than playing music festivals. They won't let that faze them.

Kids today...