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| John-John's Glastonbury Guide |
| Posted on 18/06/04 at 08:53 by Bert |
Well, brainses, it's nearly that time of year again when every bastard that's ever been to Glastonbury before starts thinking they're the fountain of all fucking knowledge and starts imparting their half-remembered wisdom to the novices, thus ensuring said newbies only have about half the fun they'd have had if they'd just wandered about and discovered it all for themselves. So, in spite of the overwhelming urge to do just that, I'm not going to bother. Instead I'm going to give yez all a couple of wee tips to make your stay a bit more pleasant. It'd be dead good if other people could add their thoughts to the end of the article, too.
Stuff you should bring - the web's full of hints and tips on what you need and what you don't, and they're useful and you should seek them out before you go because there's bound to be stuff you haven't thought of. But unfortunately these guides never seem to proritise - they just tell you everything's either necessary or not. It dunt work like that, brainses. There's an awful lot of stuff you can get by without, but there's a few things that would make for a pretty miserable experience if you didn't have them with you. First and foremost of these is alcohol-based soap. It comes in a wee bottle you can put in your back pocket, it costs about 80p in Superdrug, and it's a total godsend. Squirt a wee drop on your hands after going to the bog or before eating, rub it all over, and it just evaporates off, leaving nothing but a bit of an antiseptic whiff behind. Hey presto, no need to worry about festival tummy. It'll improve your quality of life whilst there no end. Get some.
On the subject of bodily functions, you're obviously going to bring bogroll with you, but can I give you a wee John-John tip? On the way down in the car, get one of the passengers to tear off lengths sufficient for a really prolonged shite, fold them up and put them in a freezer bag. Saves on space and it means you can carry your bogroll around all day in the back pocket that isn't reserved for your soap. Do likewise with yer baby wipes, which, by the way, are tremendously overrated by the old hands.
Get yourself a wee Medicine bag together. Throw in yer obvious stuff like headache pills, Germolene and sticking plasters, of course, but one thing I'd really recommend is Dioralyte. Not in case you get the shites, which of course you won't if you bring the soap, but in case you get heatstroke, which is far more likely, because if it gets sunny, there is absolutely bugger all shelter on that site. I'd also advise against taking Imodium - let's face it, if the shite's running out of yer hole, there's a good reason why, and do you really want to keep that inside you? And certainly don't do what some do and take a good dose of Imodium just before you get there and try to go all weekend without taking a dump - it'll make you feel awful, and anyway the bogs aren't THAT bad. I've sat on a long drop reading the paper before and I was happy enough.
As for toiletries, I'd definitely advise you to bring talcum powder. If you can't get washed properly, you'll want to use this stuff to dry up the old feet and Betty Swollocks and just generally keep everything from chafing and/or mouldering Oh, and you've already packed the sun cream, right?
Something very easily overlooked, and which will make you very glad you brought it even if it isn't exactly essential, is a rug for sitting on outside your tent. Trust me on this one. Don't leave it outside overnight though, otherwise those friendly Manc lads in the next tent who were sitting round the campfire with you last night might suddently disappear with it in the wee hours of the morning. Oh yeah, and when you're sitting about outside at night, it's really fucking cold, far colder than you would ever expect it to be, so bring your heaviest woolly jumper and a warm hat, right? Don't say I didn't warn you.
I shouldn't have to tell you to bring a nice powerful torch, but I will anyway. Tripping over a hundred guy ropes on your way to the bog, getting wrapped up in some other bugger's tent and pissing them right off is no fun, so play with the head.
All over the site you'll see people flying flags so they can find their tent again. Personally I wouldn't bother my arse, as it's not hard to find your way about if you've any sense of direction at all, but I would definitely advise you to bring one and put it on your car. Those car parks are just endless and completely uniform, so finding your car can turn into a complete nightmare involving lilterally hours of wandering about. Strap summat to your aerial. And speaking of your car, leave an emergency change of clothes in the boot for when you come back. If it pishes down and it gets to Sunday and you've nothing dry left, you'll be glad of being able to get into something clean and dry for the trip home. It's a fucking miserable business leaving that place, and while it's fortunately not happened to me yet, the prospect of sitting in a traffic jam cooped up with several others covered in mud and sweat and soaked to the bone doesn't really bear thinking about.
Finally, the organisers tell you not to bring any food with you because there's loads available on site. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? It's all right if you fancy paying two quid for a slice of watermelon or a 99, and a fiver for a ropey burger and a handful of chips, but I can assure you when you wake up in the morning, it's a ten or fifteen-minute walk to the nearest food stand and the queues are six deep, you'll wish you'd had something to hand. Bring stuff that isn't bulky and will keep for the duration - use yer imagination.
Stuff not to bring And now for the stuff that you think you might need, but you don't really, or that you just shouldn't bring for one reason or another. First up, toiletries like shower gel and shampoo. If you manage to take a shower (And I wholeheartedly recommend that you do), you'll find that there's stuff provided in there, so you won't need your own, and the reason why it's provided is because it's biodegradeable and therefore not going to make a mess of all the wee rivers and stuff in the farm. If you're just sticking your head under a tap, bear the whole environmental thing in mind, and if you must bring stuff, make sure it's something green like Ecover, which is what they provide.
I wouldn't bother bringing any kind of cooking equipment if I were you. It's an awful lot of stuff to cart, and while a nice fry-up for breakfast would be just the dab, it's not worth the mither. Just get something cold and nutritious down your neck and go about your business.
Leave your ghetto blaster at home, brainses. It's a pain in the hole to carry, it'll annoy the people around you and to be honest you'll probably be glad of the peace back at your tent. I'd say the same about musical instruments too - no matter how romantic the idea of sitting round the campfire singing Kum Bah Yah sounds, it's not so clever when you've a wet bum from the dew and you can hardly play the guitar because your fingers are so numb.
How to do it - First and foremost, don't just look at the schedules and run about from one band to the next. This isn't V. Pick out the bands you really want to see and go along, but there's a million and one cool things to do which aren't taking place on any of the stages, and it'd be a crime to miss them, since these are the things which make Glastonbury what it is. Take your time to just wander about and soak it all up - you're bound to find something which sticks in your head as a highlight of your time there. The place is full of hidden and not-so-hidden treasures, and a good lot of them are in the Lost Vagueness field - don't miss it. If it's all getting a bit much for you, take yourself off to the Green Crafts field and indulge in a bit of whittling with my man Tom the carpenter, if he's there. The Green Fields are the best place to get eats, by the way, as long as you don't mind going veggie, and you really shouldn't.
When it comes to setting up camp, whatever you do, don't camp on the hill above the Pyramid Stage. It's full of mongs that've seen it on the telleh, everybody spends the entire night indulging in the great Glastonbury tradition of "bollocks" (you'll see), and that's where all the thieves head for. Get over the other end of the site, get out of the thick of it a bit and take it easy. You can have all the noise and excitement you want if you go looking for it, but when you get back to your tent, it's good to have a bit of peace. Stick your tents in a big circle by all means, but don't cordon them off, it's gay. Oh, and try to avoid putting the entrance of your tent facing uphill...
Apart from that, just wander about, take it easy and be nice to people and you'll have a cracking time. I've sort of run out of steam here and there's probably a million things I've left out, but mebbe some of the other forum heads can add their thoughts to help me out. See you at the second-hand joke stall with a packet of matches...
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