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Aftermath of the festival

July 2, 2008 2 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized

A site specific work…

Filthy gorgeous!

Disposable culture…

Idiots put plastic bottles on fires…

The morning after the festival, we were dismayed by the sheer waste left behind…as described in a previous post. The attitude was very much “I’m here for a good time and fuck everyone else!” Very distant from the original premise of the festival… Still, if you want some free camping gear, stay till the day after and you can pick up perfectly intact tents, wellies, cooking gear by the dozen. There were an awful lot of those pop-up tents which are easy to erect and a nightmare to pack down again. I did take one abandoned pop-up tent and spent at least 40 minutes trying to fold it down into its bag. Gave up in the end… Maybe they need to be bio-degradable?

Went for a wander and as usual spent hours in my favourite stall…The Speaking Tree…a discount esoteric bookshop in Glastonbury town itself. I always spend a fortune there and this time bought Atlantis by Andrew Collins,  the aforementioned book on Glastonbury, An oral history of the music mud and magic, and The battle of the Beanfield by Andy Worthington which I was stunned to discover had a photograph of myself in it, playing at Stonehenge with the Kings Drummers. This book is about the attempt

“to establish the 12th annual free festival at Stonehenge. They never reached their destination. Eight miles form the Stones they were ambushed, assaulted and arrested with unprecedented brutality by a quasi-military police force of over 1,300 officer drawn form six counties and the MoD. That even has gone down in history as ‘The battle of the Beanfield’.”

I was also proud that my daughter spent most of her pocket money there too…I must have done something right with that girl.

When we returned to our bell tent, and this is a first for me at Glasto, somebody has nicked my wheelbarrow and rifled through our tent. They only stole the alcohol. The loss of the wheelbarrow meant that I had no way of getting my stuff back to the car, it was all too heavy.
I asked for help at the gate and they confirmed my impression that the type of people at the festival this year was very different. “Scousers!” they said. “You know, in previous years, if someone had a Scouse accent, we’d take their ticket off them and kick ’em out. Now they are back. And thefts have sky rocketed.” 
Some of my best friends are Scousers so I don’t know how true this is or if it’s just prejudice but there was definitely a yobbo element. 
I’ve got lots of photographs to post up but it’s a bloody nightmare with blogspot. I’ll try later tonight…

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Previous Post: « Sat nite/Sunday morning at Glastonbury
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ben Emlyn-Jones

    July 2, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    I went to The Speaking Tree last weekend. It's a lovely bookshop.

    Reply
  2. Lorraine

    July 9, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    I love the speaking tree too!

    I can't believe somebody stole your wheelbarrow. That is below the belt.

    Mondays have always been a bit dodgy for leaving your tent unatended, as people assume it's fair game/abandoned (even if it's clear you've not left, they have a clear excuse to loot whatever's there).

    I too was disgusted with how much stuff was abandoned. It's completely disgraceful. I rescued some trainers and tried to swap my wellies for better ones but they turned out to be a bit small and chafed. Size 7 dunlop wellies anybody?

    Reply

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