This weekend I met a wizard, and he granted me a wish.

If you’re wondering how I knew he was a wizard.. he had a big beard.  And was sat in a boat.  In a tree.  With a fishing rod.  Attached to a basket full of wishes.  One of which was mine.  See! a wizard..

Every so often he’d reel in the basket, and grant some of the wishes by reading them out over his megaphone.  Mine was one of the ones he granted.

An unusual occurrence you might think, but not all *that* unusual.. in Glastonbury.

For yes, this weekend I was in Glastonbury, with the wind, the rain, the mud, and my first experience of festival toilets.  And I had SUCH a great time!

Saw loads of cool bands, comedians, movies, the wizard, and a magician.  Amy Winehouse, Lilly Allen, The Kooks, The Killers, Bjork, Mika, The Who, KT Tunstel, The Fratelils, Babyshambles, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Gossip, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Shirley Bassey, Chas n Dave.. plus various others I wandered past and caught a quick song or two.

but some of the highlights were the stuff away from the main stages:

The Tent

Emma was kind enough to let me share her tent, so I didn’t have to pitch my own.  Which was handy because by the time I arrived all the good spots had gone.  Also I don’t own a tent.

At Glastonbury the “good spots” are the ones near the top of a hill.. any hill.  The tents at the bottom *will* get bogged down in mud and water.

Our camp had one unexpected side effect tho.. being on a slope, with a shiny sleeping bag, meant that every morning I’d wake up on the opposite side to where I went to sleep.  Most nights I’d wake up 3 or 4 times in the night, clamber my way back to the top of the tent, only to slide back down again when I fell asleep!

the weather

I was hoping for sun.  My plan for Glastonbury (my first festival) was to listen to the bands playing whilst I lay on the grass, towards the back of the crowds.  What happened instead was that I listened to the bands playing, whilst I stood in the mud, and the rain, and the wind.

Mud does seem to be the one thing everybody mentions first about Glastonbury, whether you were there, or just saw the pictures in the media.  And it was EVERYWHERE.

Two weeks before I went, I’d started keeping a close eye on the weather reports.  They all showed rain, and lots of it.  But that was fine, everybody knows how difficult it is to predict the weather two weeks in advance, or 10 days in advance, or a week, or 3 days, or..  It was when the forecast on the morning of the festival itself still showed rain that I finally accepted the mud warnings:

Personally, I think they underestimated.  But it really didn’t matter.  The only real difference the mud made was that you had to wear wellies the whole time.  And you got dirtier.  And it took longer to walk places.  And you had to avoid the occasional mud-swimmer wanting to hug you.

The mud did however provide me with one of the highlights of my Friday night..

the mud hole

By friday night the mud in most places was a good 8 inches deep, in some places the added water had made mud pools.

As I was wandering from the main stage towards the bar, I noticed a group of about 30 people stood in a semi circle around one such mud pool.  There was an obvious sense of excitement, so I went to look.

It turned out that in the middle of the mud pool, was a small pothole, about a foot deeper than the rest of the floor.  The semicircle of people were watching as unsuspecting innocents walked through the mud pool, tension grew as they neared the hole.. then erupted into either cheering if they fell in, or booing if they didn’t.

I saw my first person go down, loose his footing, and fall headlong into the mud.. and I was hooked.

The hole wasn’t very wide, so lots of people walked across the spot without falling in, which made it all the more exciting when somebody did.

I kept promising myself the next fall would be my last, then I’d go see a band or something.. but it was just too entertaining to walk away, I just wanted that one last fix…

After about the half hour, I was talking to the guys stood next to me, and we agreed what we really needed was a short person, wearing white, and carrying food or drink, the perfect victim.  And within a minute our wishes were answered, she fell in waist deep, mud splashed all over her white clothes, her tray of chips scattered all around and slowly sinking into the pool.  I decided it wouldn’t get better than that, and went to see Bjork.

I did feel slightly guilty later in the festival when Tammie texted me and mentioned 1000 people had suffered broken ankles and other injuries in the mud.. only *slightly* guilty tho!

my lack of moustache
After Bjork, I met up with my mate Paul from work.  We had a few drinks, went for a wander, and ended up in Trash City, described as:

Trash City is an intergalactic red-light district, straight from the pages of a 2000AD comic, where space pirates, bootleggers, illegal aliens and all the scum of the universe can come to party the night away.

I loved it there!  We queued for 15 minutes to get into a 1970’s New York nightclub, only to be turned away at the door because none of us had moustaches, which seemed such a great reason to be turned away that we didn’t mind.

So we went next door to a weird eastern European bar which was like something out of a horror movie, and then to a crazy Russian disco, both of which were weird but fantastic.

The next night, after my humiliation at the ‘World Record Attempt’ (see below), I found myself back in Trash City.  My mobile battery had long run out by now, so had no idea where anyone was, so was wandering round on my own.  I’d heard a rumour of somewhere I could source a fake moustache, so queued again for the 70’s nightclub.  While there I got talking to the group stood behind me in the queue, we were talking about the need for moustaches, and I offered to draw some on them using a permanent marker that I was still carrying after Bonnie lent it me at Decalogy.

See my handiwork here:

It didn’t occur to me at the time that.. as I learned at Decalogy when Nina wrote on my arm with the pen.. it takes a *lot* of scrubbing and a few days to get rid of this pen.. and that was in my house with ready access to hot shower, bath and lots of soap.. not at Glastonbury.. where you’re in a tent in a field with minimal supplies, and no running water.  Also it’s a lot easier to vigorously scrub an arm that your face..

I didn’t see her again after that night, altho I did keep a close eye out for a girl wearing permanent markered facial hair for the rest of the festival.. you’d think she’d be easy to spot!

I do know she was due back at work in her office on Tuesday.. I hope she got most of it off!

the world record attempt

This is the bit of every blog where you get to share in my humiliation..

On Saturday night, following a secret Madness gig, match.com were going for a world record attempt for the worlds biggest kiss (or some similar wording), they wanted to get 30,000 people to kiss the person stood next to them.

As a (pending) world record holder already for being part of the worlds biggest ghost hunt, I decided that being in the Guiness Book of Records once is a good thing, twice would be better.

I left the Killers a few minutes before they finished and rushed (took 45 minutes) to the Lost Vagueness area to see Madness, followed by the record attempt. I missed Madness by 2 minutes, muttered a bit, and decided to leave.

As I walked past one of the clubs, they announced it was time for the attempt, so I wandered in, everyone was pairing up, a few singletons left over so I went to speak to a girl on her own. She saw me and came over to me. Countdown from 10 began.. she said “so we just kiss for 10 seconds?”, I nodded, the countdown continued.. at about 3, another girl walked over and started kissing the girl I was stood with… so for the world record attempt there was a room full of kissing people.. and me stood there in the middle of it all on my own just hoping for the mud to open and swallow me up..

I wouldn’t have mentioned this.. except that it seems hearing about my humiliation is the only reason some people come here!

bill bailey

On Sunday night after all the headline bands had finished, there was one show left, over on one of the circus stages Bill Bailey was doing a stand up routine.  It took a long time to get there, I got very muddy and very wet.. but he was ace!

Glastonbury was my first festival, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was dreading the predicted mud.  Turns out, it was absolutely, positively fan..tastic!  It had all the things I like about cons, but with 180,000 people, loads and loads of top bands, a small towns worth of shops, stalls, takeaways, constant entertainment, loads of weird things to see and do, an oxygen bar, sensory deprivation room, massages, buffalo chili, crocodile, kangaroo and ostrich burgers, and of course, a wizard!