2011 was a year when the wheels of global history cranked noticeably forward, the news always full of images that will be in school text books within a decade. It was also the year when, for most of us, “a bit peeved” became “utterly livid” that greedy, over-privileged vermin had gambled and lost all our money and were clearly getting away with it, unhindered.

Never knowingly under-mythologised, U2 have chosen to mark the 20th anniversary of their album Achtung Baby with this sizeable documentary about the making of the record and the traumatic soul-searching that went into it. It dovetails neatly with the forthcoming reissue of the album itself, which will be available as a mere single CD, as well as in a vinyl box set and an "Über Deluxe" edition crammed with CDs, DVDs, luxurious art prints etc.

Thursday 23 June

Haven’t left yet but someone sends me an email saying, "Not going to Glastonbury this year and feeling rather smug about it." What are they feeling smug about? The fact that they’re going to have a forgettable, normal weekend while this extraordinary event is going on? It is, of course, to do with ideas of rain. A lot of the pre-Glastonbury coverage focuses endlessly on rain and mud, as if home comforts are everything. When did comfort become the big cultural draw?

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…

You could tell Glastonbury at 40 was in trouble as early as the opening three minutes, when it cut from a well-heeled, ageing hippie survivor mumbling about “earth magic” to footage of Robbie Williams in 1998 bashing his way through the entirety of "Angels". The programme stumbled into the vast gulf between those two concepts as uncertainly as a reveller stumbles into the wrong tent at four in the morning, and never once looked like finding its way back home.

Well, folks, only 10 days to go til The Strumpettes hit Glastonbury and let me tell ya, we’re gettin’ a little hot under the collar. It turns out this ain’t some big practical joke that Velma cooked up to give us all a fit o' the vapours. We’re goin’. Next week. And this little Strumpette is quakin’ in her boots.

theartsdesk has an insider at Glastonbury this year - one of our writers is performing in the festival. Here we present the diary of Miss Kitty Kowalski, ukulele diva, and her cohorts in The Strumpettes.