Jeff's here to tell us all what he had for T in the Park

THE festival season continues at Balado, a former airfield in Kinross, this weekend. T in the Park began in 1994, and moved to its current home three years later.

Over the years, some of the biggest bands in the world have played the festival and this year is no different, with The Verve, Rage Against The Machine and REM headlining the three-night bash.

If you're not lucky enough to have tickets to T In The Park, fear not, because the BBC - as they did with Glastonbury a couple of weeks ago - will be covering the entire festival.

Edith Bowman returns to her homeland to front the highlights shows, while Jeff Leach will be the man on the ground, interviewing bands and finding out what's happening around the site.

And he can't wait to get started.

"It's going to be really nice to work with Edith. We've met before, but we've never worked together, so I'm looking forward to that," says the 24-year-old.

"She's great at what she does, so that side of it will be good. But she's just had a baby so it'll be nice just to hang out with her and ask her how she's getting on.

"The Scottish crowd will be brilliant too. I've not been to T In The Park before, but I did DJ at a few things up there last summer, and the people up there were mad. I hope they're the same for the festival."

As well as the three headliners, there are a host of other great bands playing over T's seven stages.

"I love The Chemical Brothers," says Leach, "and Kings Of Leon are an awesome band. I think Scouting For Girls will go down really well. MGMT, Band Of Horses, Lightspeed Champion and Cajun Dance Party will also be wicked.

"I think it'll be fun to watch Amy Winehouse staggering around too. Festivals should always have a comedy act!

"The best thing about all this is because I'm going to be backstage, I'm going to meet all the bands too. If I see Amy, I think I'll just give her a cuddle and some soup, but if I get to talk to Rage Against The Machine, I don't think I'll be able to contain my excitement."

One person Leach might not be looking to seeing backstage is, however, is Kate Nash.

"She's from my neck of the woods in North West London, and we were supposed to go out for a drink once, but I decided it would be a good idea to get drunk in the pub and ring her when I was with my mates," he says.

"They were all shouting down the phone, and funnily enough, she's never answered one of my calls since then. Seeing her might be a bit awkward, but I would like to apologise for being an idiot."

Prior to appearing on the T In The Park coverage, Jeff's other TV work included The Surgery, a BBC Two show in which he talked to an audience of teenagers to get their views on a host of topical issues.

"I really enjoyed The Surgery," he says proudly. "It's great to talk to young people about the issues that affect them - sex, drink, drugs, politics.

"It's good to be able to talk to them about my colourful existence, but also to show them the other side and explain that you get to an age where you'll move on from that and be all clean-living again."

Leach got into presenting after getting talking to a TV producer while DJing at Bestival on the Isle Of Wight last year.

"I used my dad's phrase, 'If you don't ask, you don't get', so I just asked her to give me a job. It worked, and I got a screen test and it turned out I was pretty good on TV - and obviously incredibly modest too!

"Now I've done a few things on TV. I've just finished doing Big Brother's Big Mouth recently, which was brilliant."

Leach is also an experienced DJ, radio presenter and actor, with bits and pieces for Radio 1, XFM and Kerrang! Radio under his belt, as well as a tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"I did a piece with the RSC for their 50-year anniversary, and it went very well," he says, before explaining how he's about to start reading scripts for various independent films.

"Basically I want to crack Hollywood," he states, ambitiously. "It's going to happen as well, you know when you know? Russell Brand has the same agent as me, and look at him now, doing massive films with Judd Apatow and his crew.

"I think I'm going along a similar path to Russell, plus he's got a few years on me, so I don't think I'm doing too badly for a 24-year-old.

"My absolute ambition is to star in a remake of the Gene Wilder and Richard Prior film See No Evil, Hear No Evil alongside Will Ferrell. I'm not asking a lot, am I!"

• T In Park BBC coverage kicks off today on BBC Three, and will also be shown on BBC Two over the weekend


Have your say: I can let you into a Cybermen secret

KEEPING a secret can be a very hard task to accomplish these days.

There has always been a strange human impulse towards hoarding information of course, and there has always been a dedicated cabal of gossip merchants and nosey parkers eager to pry secrets from people, regardless of what they are.

This is particularly true of TV shows - hardly surprising considering how much time people spend ogling the box, but a bit baffling considering the reason most of them watch the TV in the first place is for something a little unexpected.

So it was a genuine surprise to see how the Doctor Who team, in this celebrity obsessed world of rolling news, gossip websites and a relentless pursuit of the truth that would put Mulder and Scully to shame, managed to keep the big twist of their season finale an absolute secret.

For people who have a passing interest in TV, of course, most plot lines and twists will be a surprise, because that's the way they like it.

For other, more obsessed fans, all they want is to be first with the latest news, regardless of whether or not it will ruin their enjoyment of the show.

And so, barely minutes after David Tennant's Doctor started regenerating, having taken a rogue Dalek death ray to the chest, the internet was almost crippled with Who-hounds trying to get to the bottom of it all.

Seven days later they were a lot more excitable and still none the wiser, and would have been on tenterhooks to see what happens next.

But, of course, as they found out a mere 30 seconds into the show, the reason the future of the Doctor was kept so secret despite their best efforts was that, really, there was no secret to tell.

Instead, with a quite literal sleight of hand and some fast-talking sci-fi babble gibberish from Tennant, the entire regeneration twist was neatly put to one side so that the show could get on with more important business.

And while it might have been a bit heavy on the cross-overs and cameos - even wonky cyber-dog K9 got a look in - the writers certainly delivered everything that could have been expected.

There were Daleks, including evil-Dalek supremo Davros and his evil wheelchair of doom. There was Captain Jack getting killed, although sadly he yet again failed to stay dead.

There was the continued return of Rose Tyler, slightly less chav-tastic but still just as weepy eyed, who, thanks to a handy bit of magic, managed to both get the Doctor AND suffer the heartbreak of never being able to see him again, even though she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. Sort of.

In short, it was all fast-paced flashy nonsense, with Catherine Tate's Donna Noble emerging as the saviour of the known universe and then having her brain wiped, and lots of flying dustbins exploding.

It all end with what resembled a suspiciously long promo for the next season of Torchwood, and the Doctor all alone in his big little blue box, drifting through the cosmos.

As the end of a series it was certainly climactic stuff, although after such a bloated finale you have to wonder just where they will take it from here.

What? Oh. Cybermen apparently. See, it's impossible to keep a secret.