BY the time you read this I will be en route to south-west England - Zummerzet, no less, and the annual festival farrago that is Glastonbury, when the population of the small town and its environs swells freakishly from 9,000 to nigh-on 180,000 with the invasion of minor-league aristocrats, sundry public school lunks and other slaves to accepted notions of what is cool and what is not, all of them hell-bent on good times within neighing distance of the hallowed Glastonbury Tor.
By en route I mean not flying first class but rather slap-bang in the middle of a 10-mile tailback on the M5 tantalisingly close to Frankley Services with a 96 per cent full bladder, for my means of transport is the reason for my going to Glasto (Glasters? Ghasters? Yes. Ghasters).
Despite my status as a bona fide music nut and this year's festival featuring ample diversions for someone of my aesthetic persuasion, I've never fancied being a punter at Glastonbury. If you want to pay me to drive a minibus laden with musicians and their crew, however, that's another story.
And lo, so it came to pass that tomorrow I will be leaving my press pass at home and flashing instead a welter of official fluorescent paperwork at myriad security people, who will then perform the rock festival equivalent of the parting of the Red Sea, thus granting me and my charges safe passage to the hallowed backstage area, which will in all likelihood be all I see of the entire site.
Which is fine, actually; even if you're on the payroll of "the talent" (as production staff refer to those on the bill), the best place from which to witness Glasto is your couch. This not only saves you having to rough it with the hoi polloi (who smell and will annoy you), but it also gives you the power to mute the many execrable musical acts who will make up the bulk of the television coverage. Me? A snob? Damn right.
This will be my second Glasto, the first having been a good few moons ago with the same troupe. On that occasion the Red Sea failed signally to part and it got a shade hairy when officials sent us in entirely the wrong direction along one of the many avenues flanked by food outlets in the public arena.
Endless waves of banjoed punters buffeted our vehicle, desperate for a gander at the musos within, while unceasing drizzle did a grand job of transforming the earth beneath the metal boardwalk into a stool-brown broth with an appetite for the wheels of a DAF 15-seater minibus to rival that of the Big Bad Wolf for Little Red Riding Hood. We got out unscathed. But only just.
Wish me luck.
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