Two recently decommissioned fighter jets are in the incongruous setting of Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries. One plane, polished to a mirror sheen, lies belly-up, like an injured animal; the other hangs suspended from the ceiling, its matt surface stripped of its combat colours and stripes, painted instead with faint feather markings, bringing to mind a giant, trussed-up bird. Its stilled presence is both powerfully majestic and inert.

Afro-Cubism is the fruition of the World Circuit label's original intention for Buena Vista Social Club album, which was to have been a stellar collaboration of musicians from Mali and Cuba. In 1996, the African contingent of Bassekou Kouyate and Djeliomady Tounkara claimed they couldn't get visas and so the label used the studio time to record the Buena Vista album, and the Rueben Gonzalez one, and the Afro-Cuban All Stars' first album, a trio of classics. (Another story has it that the Africans were offered a better paying gig at home - if so, bad call, gents, as the Buena Vista album has sold many millions by now...)

This time, the hype was perhaps deserved: Christie's did have a claim to be putting on, last night, the sale of the century.

Ladies and gents, the time has come. The Strumpettes are ready and set for Sunday night at Glasto! The tent is packed, along with three pairs of red patent heels, three figure-huggin’ frocks, three retro-style microphones and three beautiful ukuleles (a soprano for Bettina, to match her harmonies; a concert deluxe for me, and a tenor for Velma). The Strumpettes sure don’t travel light.

The truth of it is, we're kinda a high-maintenance band. So I tell ya, the best thing about performin’ at Glastonbury is this: we get to use the “artists’ facilities”, which in short means we get showers and a proper, clean powder room, thank the Lord! I mean really, three classy ladies like us having to face the long drop? I don’t think so. So now the only thing we really gotta worry about is all that mud. Here’s hopin’ for blue skies…

Right now we’re feelin’ pretty positive about it all. We had a rare ol’ time at our gig last Saturday night – after a somewhat inauspicious start, I might add. After drivin’ to the other side of this sprawlin’ ol' metropolis, we found ourselves starin’ at the world’s tiniest pub, on the corner of no-man’s land and the least swingin’ neighbourhood in south-west London. Hell, we were this close to turnin’ back.

And it got worse. When we started settin’ up, we hit upon a little snag. Our little ukes - all courtesy of London’s finest ukulele emporium, the Duke of Uke - each have their own pick-up fitted inside so we can plug ’em in to the sound system and give ‘em a bit of oomph. But no sirree, not today; the DI boxes weren’t playin’ ball, which meant no amplification, which meant we had to play unplugged.

But The Strumpettes are resilient young things, we bounced back and sailed through the first set, mostly of safe songs, coped admirably in the second set where we road-tested our new numbers and even managed our solos – Velma’s “I Wanna be Loved by You”, Betty’s “My Funny Valentine”, and my “Oh, Look at me Now” - without a hitch. And by the time we got to the third set, we were really in the swing o' things; the room was jam-packed and we had every man, woman and child in that place in a good ol’ fashioned singalong to a little tune we stole from Bugsy Malone.

Sure, a glass of whisky each helped no end… as did the lovely locals. They were just plain sweet to us, very appreciative. Hell, they even asked for our autographs, the cuties. But then I guess we oughta get used to that, huh?

So we’re feelin’ okay. Excited I might even say. Velma, Betty and I are just about ready to head on outta the big smoke, into the sticks and to march out onto that festival stage on Sunday night, hip flask in hand. Wish us luck, folks…

A couple of very different publications have lately had me thinking about those 21st-century inescapables: death and celebrity. A new magazine called Eulogy hits the news stands for the first time today. It is an attempt – one that is on first sight slightly barmy, but in actual fact may be quite brave – to create a mature and engaged public discourse about death. Death, their reasoning goes, happens all the time, affects everyone, and makes us think about the deeper things in life that otherwise get obscured by banal minutiae – so why not bring it out into everyday discussion and acknowledge that it is something we all have in common?

Today Rinse FM, London's leading pirate radio station, announced it has been granted a legal broadcast licence after 16 years of illicit transmissions. It's almost impossible to overstate how potentially momentous this event is for the UK's most vibrant and promising music scenes, and what opportunities it presents for artists, personalities and record labels ranging from the deep and experimental to the most flagrantly commercial. From the rumbustuous, teen-friendly fun of Scratcha's breakfast show to the experimental electronic jazz and funk of Alex Nut at Saturday lunchtime to various hard and dark grime and dubstep shows - as often as not playing exclusive music fresh from the hard drives of its creators that may never even become commercially available - it is a brilliant representation of London's cultural vitality in the 21st century.