In a return to what was an annual event pre-2020, on 26th and 27th June Nick Mason and his wife Annette opened up their gardens at Middlewick House in Corsham, Wiltshire, to support the Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust, of which Annette is a vice-patron, and the Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

Over the two days, they had over 5000 visitors and raised over £50,000 for the two charities.

Nick told the Wiltshire Times that he was delighted to be able to go ahead with this year's event, after last year's was cancelled due to Covid-19: "People are delighted to take a look at the gardens; they look so much better after one of these events than they did before.

"Many people have been bottled up for so long during the pandemic they are just pleased to come out."

Brain Damage regular Ian McKenzie made it along to the Sunday opening (27th), and was grateful that the rain (only just) kept off.

He told us that "there were a lot more of Nick's cars there compared to 2017 when I last attended, including two very special cars. I managed to have a chat with him on a couple of occasions, and asked him which task requires the most co-ordination and concentration; driving a Ferrari or playing the drums. For the record, he said the former is the hardest!"

Ian kindly sent a selection of his pictures from the day, which can be seen in full over at the Brain Damage Facebook page, but the thumbnails here give a flavour of the shots - Nick's cars, his helicopter, and Nick himself. For more information about the event itself, and for tickets to attend in future years, visit middlewickhouseopengarden.com.

There's been an interesting and appreciated trend recently focusing Pink Floyd books on localised appearances, such as Pink Floyd Live Tour In Japan 1971-1988 and Pink Floyd in De Kuip '88. Another such book is on its way, focused on the Floyd's French appearances.

Pink Floyd and the band's individual members have enjoyed a long relationship with France. From their early appearances on French TV, to their eventual spectacular arena shows - not forgetting the recording of landmark albums such as The Wall - the book Pink Floyd en France, published on November 30th, 2021, now traces the band's historic "French connection"!

France embraced Pink Floyd's music right from the very first album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, in 1967. Nick Mason was quoted in Muziq Magazine in November 2016 as saying that "Pink Floyd may never have survived without the French audiences. We toured a lot in France and appeared in many TV shows. It was our home from home in a way. France responded to our music quite rapidly, as opposed to England where our fan base was not always very reliable". The group performed on more than 60 occasions in France between 1968 until 1994. Roger Waters and David Gilmour also toured extensively in France to promote their solo albums. Nick Mason's own band Saucerful Of Secrets has also played a few shows there.

Author Patrick Ducher tells the band's story from several different angles: firstly reviewing numerous French rock magazines of the times, including long discontinued and forgotten publications, and secondly his many personal concert recollections. Next, Patrick invited a number of fans to review essential bootlegs, one from each of the band’s French tours, along with solo performances by individual band members in France. Finally, the author posed the simple question "Why Pink Floyd?" to almost a hundred French fans, passionate followers of the band, and interviewed musicians from several tribute bands, all devoted to keeping Pink Floyd's music and legacy alive.

"Pink Floyd en France' is a 420 page, French-language hardback book with many rare pictures. The 250 illustrations include magazine covers, adverts, posters, and tickets. It's now available to order direct from the publishers, at pinkfloydenfrance.com in standard or limited edition, priced at respectively at €45 and €85 plus shipping. The limited edition includes a copy of the book signed by the author, a 2-track 7" by a French Floyd cover band, 2 prints, 4 coasters, and 2 plectrums, all in a special box. The website has full details...

Just published is the latest issue (number 36 - cover date June 2021) of the Pink Floyd fanzine "Heyou" run by our friends over at the Italian website of the same name. The 52-page dual language magazine (in Italian and English), which is published every six months or so, catches up with things in the Floyd world.

Unlike other recent issues of Heyou, the latest edition selects just two subjects as its major focuses, not least as 2020 ended up being a year where despite the planned tours from Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets and Roger Waters, very little happened due to the global pandemic.

The first feature covers around two-thirds of the magazine, and is the second part of a detailed article looking at the run of Wall concerts in 1980/1981, focusing on exactly what happened during the shows. The article was put together in conjunction with Vernon Fitch, a name familiar to many of you as a Floyd fan with an encyclopaedic knowledge. The article is illustrated with some very interesting photographs of the concert, tickets, passes, and more. The coverage concludes with The Show Must Go On, suggesting that the next issue will include the final, third part of the analysis.

Turning the clock back further, the magazine then focuses on the 1969 film, More, which the Floyd provided soundtrack music for. Their coverage includes contemporary reviews of the film, and a reprint of an interview conducted with Barbet Schroeder at the time.

A review from Flood Magazine of the Pink Floyd Live At Knebworth 1990 release precedes the normal wrap up of the recent news that concludes every issue - not a huge amount this time, of course, due to the current situation.

More details of the Heyou fanzine can be found at www.heyou.it/fsubscrbd.html, where you can get individual copies, and subscription enquiries (four issues costing 35 euros within Europe, and 45 euros outside Europe) should go to  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - make sure you mention Brain Damage when you write!

Just announced as a special edition, being sold only in Japan (presumably due to licensing/release agreement), is a very interesting package celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd's pair of concerts at Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Hakone, Japan - the band's first in that country.

The background to the release is this: an original 16mm film of Atom Heart Mother from the 1971 Hakone Aphrodite shows was recently discovered. A long time was spent digitizing, restoring and remastering, and to mark the 50th anniversary of the '71 Hakone Aphrodite event, a special edition (a two disc set of a CD and Blu-ray) of Atom Heart Mother will be released on August 4, 2021 in Japan.

The Blu-ray disc contains the restored footage of Atom Heart Mother, showing the band on stage performing the song, and travelling around Japan, together with some additional bonus footage of Pink Floyd's crew, setting up the show, dealing with issues, etc., which hasn't been seen before.

The pack comes with a 60-page photo book with never-seen-before photos, a reproduction programme, flyer, poster and ticket reprint which all looks great! More details can be found at PinkFloyd.jp, although if you can't read Japanese you'll need to use Google Translate or similar. Orders can now be placed through various links found at sonymusicjapan.lnk.to/PF_gjb including Amazon Japan, HMV, Sony Music Store, and others. We suspect that most, if not all, of these retailers will happily ship the item worldwide, although in certain countries customs duties or import taxes will be levied, so please be aware of this and check before ordering.

If you want to see a quick comparison of a short part of the footage, comparing the newly restored film with what many of us will have been familiar with for many years, here's something that Sony Music Japan have put together: