New blog entry:

Has gone up over here.

Finally Worthy

Ah, the end. It comes too quickly.

I am trying not to get sad about it today, and to think of today as 'no more camping day', 'my own bed day' and 'hot shower day'.

I am looking forward to all those things immensely.

It is hard, when you are here, to remember that there is a real world going on outside this steel ring. That there are people who are going to supermarkets, and to work, and aren't bumping into groups of beery blokes in drag breaking into song spontaneously, or people in deeley-boppers doing the conga through a group of samurai with 6-foot tall hair.

I've called home a few times while I've been here, and it's sort of jarring. Like placing a phone call to another dimension.

I will, of course, be sad to leave - I always am. I love this festival (but not it's internet access. That was too much stress) and I know that when I trudge off site, I'll have tears in my eyes, despite the fact that my feet are killing me, my back aches and I've managed about three hours sleep the entire time I've been here.

This pop-up city of friendly chaos means the world to me, a bubble where for three days I can forget everything else, leave most of my worries behind (case in point: net access). It's a place where I don't worry about what I wear, or who I'm stood next to. When it's considered weird not to smile and hug people you've never met before, strike up conversations with strangers, paint your face, get a henna tattoo and dance like an idiot.

The fact that something so magical springs up on my doorstep every year is not lost on me. Most of the time Pilton is a beautiful but quiet village, the sort of place you tend to pass through, rather than go to.

The fact that some people will live their entire lives without experiencing this is something I can't comprehend. That they will never see Arcadia sending spirals of flame into the air, or sit at the Pyramid, or be busked at by a hopeful man with a hat at his feet as he cranks out some tunes on an inflatable guitar.

Glastonbury isn't just about the music. To call it a festival doesn't even begin to cover it. It's about being part of the friendliest army of on earth, it's about losing yourself in a crowd of people, and loving every moment of it. It's about getting lost and finding things you never even thought could exist, let alone considered how much fun it would be to do them.

I love this festival with all my heart. And I am sad that it is coming to a close.

It will be very, very nice to sleep in a bed, and not on a rapidly deflating lilo, though.

I'm off for a wander, and then to catch Mumford, before packing up my stuff and shuffling back into the real world for another year. Monday morning, I'll be bleary-eyed at my desk, so tired that I won't be able to talk, and my feet aching so much I won't be able to put them on the floor. But it is completely worth it.

I really missed this place last year.

It's been good to be home. I feel..Worthy.

Catch you on Twitter (@glastfestblog), if I can get a connection from the Pyramid, and a round-up blog in a couple of days.

This is Laura, signing off for now.

In Eavis we trust

You have to hand it to the residents of Shangri-La, they've picked a good deity.

They've always had a bit of a theme up there, that they worship the short-wearing one - and it's plain to see that he's held in rather high regard by the revellers (although, not enough to adhere to his requests to 'love the farm, leave no trace' or not to bring gazebos along, but still.)

This year the recycling crews have been kitted out in 'Recycle for Michael' t-shirts, urging people to separate their waste and all that jazz.

I've spotted some rather cool flags, including one with a robed Michael Eavis painted in stained-glass style, the sun shining above him, the Tor to his back, his face serene and peaceful and his arms spread out to welcome us all to the green (..er..ish..) fields of Glastonbury Festival.

Written above him? 'Heaven on Earth', obviously.

It's hard to work out what Michael - a Methodist - makes of all this.

But you've got to admire some of the artwork.

OK, OK..

I'm sorry I called the phoenix a duck.

You can just about make out the bird on the ledge of the Pyramid, before it awoke. Also, a massive thank you to whoever bought the massive pair of lips again. Totally didn't obscure the view of the stage or anything.

This was probably the closest approximation of my view. At least I wasn't behind someone tall.

I love the phoenix. Really. Every time I'd wandered past the Pyramid over the last few days I've seen it resting on the little balcony thing on the stage and wondering what it was going to do and when.

And it was amazing.

The whole stage dimmed to red, ominous lighting, highlighting the phoenix, beneath it, the lights were red and looked like flames. Smoke poured out, the first few maraca shakes of Sympathy for the Devil hissed out, and slowly but surely, the bird lifted it's head, and the crowd went wild.

While we dutifully provided the 'woo-wooos', the bird eased itself into a standing position and stretched it's wings, and seemed to be regarding us balefully.

Then it regally belched streams of flame into the air and we all dutifully went 'ooooh!' like a bunch of fireworks had gone off, or we'd never seen fire before, and screamed our approval.

And it was dramatic, and amazing and awe-inspiring and amazing and also amazing, and everything that a mechanical phoenix coming into life while legends sang about the devil while on the world's most iconic stage should be.

The bird bobbed it's head, flapped it's wings and breathed fire for the duration of Sympathy before folding itself back up again and going back into retirement.

It was by far the most interesting thing I have ever seen the Pyramid do. More, plz.

The duck rises

I got tangled up in a bottle neck yesterday, somewhere between the John Peel stage, the Other Recharge Tent (biggest queues of the festival are at the phone charging points) and my campsite.

Even the queues here are fun. As a sea of people heading in one direction found themselves confronted by a sea of people heading in the other direction, separated by a line of people who'd been waiting in line for six hours to charge their phones, it became reasonably obvious that we'd have to resort ourselves to shuffling around a few steps at a time and that no-one was going anywhere fast.

Instead of tutting, an impromptu sing-a-long broke out, and we had a few bursts of Deliah, I will Survive and You're just too good to be true, before sorting ourselves out and making our way along.

The reason for the trip to the tent was to get the rum for our annual cocktail evening. It was supposed to be White Russians this year, but somehow we ended up with Mojitos. Not that I was complaining.

Then, nicely toasted, we headed off to watch Primal Scream (pretty good, but I spent at least half their set wandering back and forth to the loo) and to wait for the Stones.

Growing up in my parents house, I think I sort of absorbed a knowledge of the Stones and their music from Dad taking over the record player every Sunday when I was growing up. Consequently, it turned out that me and my sister knew more Rolling Stones songs than we thought we did, and were able to hold our own in a crowd of people in their t-shirts, or the current festival favourite - 'who the f*** is Mick Jagger?'

Press tent rumour has it that the outside world didn't approve of their performance, but like everything else in the real world, it doesn't really relate to what was happening inside the steel fence at Worthy.

For me, it was my 'I was there' moment. I sang and boogied my way through Honky Tonk Woman, Brown Sugar, went into raptures when they broke out my favourite Stones song, Wild Horses and watched awestruck as the duck on top of the Pyramid Stage awoke for the first time (too much to drink on Thursday undoubtedly) to join in for Sympathy for the Devil, and started flapping it's wings and belching fire while the crowds roared their approval.

To be fair, the phoenix was awesome. I took about 900 photos of it.

It was nice of Mick to dress up for us - lovely jacket, and a spangly jacket for the last few numbers.  It was hard to believe that the rubber-lipped, snake-hipped man strutting around in front of me is older than my dad.

Not bad at all.

A few sights around the..er..site..

This BBC cameraman, whose work will inevitably be obscured by 19,000 flags, yet works diligently anyway. We salute you, high-flying BBC cameraman.

This group playing to an appreciative audience at the bandstand.

 

This bit of the site, which somehow manages to combine a shanty town with a nightclub and a mahoosive statue.

Flags, gazebos and bottles

The flags are in abundance this year. It's like with the other festivals trying their best to ban them, they all go crazy here.

I love a good flag, me.

You have to feel slightly sorry for the guy who didn't get a ticket, though.

His friends have lovingly made a flag with his name and number on, urging revellers to get in touch with him and tell how sorry they are he isn't there, and letting him know what he's missing out on.

What lovely friends.

Banning things doesn't tend to work too well, though. I've got no doubt that with all the people streaming in there's just no way that everyone can be checked, but there's still a bunch of gazebos lying around and the 'love the farm, leave no trace' motto seems to be being almost entirely ignored. The ground is littered with..er..litter. Mostly beer cans and plastic bottles, but to the extent that when you walk around all the main stages, you can't hear anything apart from drunk people screaming and singing, and the gentle crunch of tins and litter being flattened.

In my head, a passing Michael Eavis saw this gazebo and in a fury flipped it upside down while screaming 'I SAID NO GAZEBOS'. Clearly it didn't happen, but still.

You see the clean-up crews going around, gamely trying to pick up after people, but they might as well be trying to push water uphill.

CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES!

Sad, really. All those lovingly hand-painted bins and all that rubbish. 

The Monkees

I spent most of last time rammed into the crowd at the front of the Pyramid for the Arctic Monkeys. I was reasonably disappointed to discover I only know one-and-an-eighth of any Arctic Monkey songs, and it turned out that one of them was actually a few lines of Yellow by Coldplay.

Arctic Monkeys - well, sort of.

Still, it was good to join the masses, marching under a hundred silly flags to claim our own, tiny patches of flattened beer cans in the name of the proud nations of 'Where's Al?', Spongebob Squarepants, 'Spiffing Choons!' and 'It's my first Glasto, say hi.'

The crowd, bless them, were fun and friendly. I found myself rammed up against a man's arm pit, almost unable to move my arms and forced to pogo in a bid to free my arms. I will admit to being somewhat relieved when the guy shoved his way through the crowd a little, only to spend the next forty-minutes being doffed in the face by the girl-in-front-of-me's ponytail.

My view for much of the festival thus far

Another good night's sleep - despite awakening in a puddle of Pringles, spooning a bottle of cider and discovering my lilo had deflated during the night. I suspect a leak, but I can't be bothered to look. Damn thing.

Good news! Today the site is warm and currently sunny. I have celebrated with a sunglasses/skirt/trainers/t-shirt combination.

It's reasonably quiet at the moment - people still in their tents from the night before, the market traders just beginning to open up (those that bothered to close, at least) and the site full of those out on the hunt for an early breakfast, or staggering to bed for the day.

A campsite, yesterday.

The dry weather and hundreds of thousands of wellies have tramped the land down to something smooth and glassy, with bits of beer cans sticking out of it, fused with the earth.

Plans for today include: The annual Midsomerset News and Media cocktails at 5pm, someone that my sister is forcing me to go and see, and then a trip to the alleged party tent for Primal Scream and The Stones, of course.

Celeb spots include: Christine Bleakley last night, and that Parker-Bowles guy from the cookery show. And the Arctic Monkeys, but since they were on stage at the time and being watched by a billion other people, I'm pretty sure they don't count.

Really?

So apparently I am going to have to post from a smartphone. Wonderful. Turns out all those anxiety dreams weren't anxiety dreams, but the onset of psychic powers.

Dammit,  I always hoped I'd get something cool, like super strength.

Well. There has been cider, which was warm, but rather lovely. There was getting stuck behind a tractor full of you-know-what,  and that was significantly less lovely.

The sun is out, the sky is occasionally blue and the mud is drying up. Ollie has arrived on site, have successfully located one friend and rather randomly been papped by a Times photographer for their welly special.

Or I'm the victim of an elaborate hoax.

Ich bin ein binbagger

Ewwww, it's all getting a bit wet out there. Even the sky is mad at Bono about this tax thing.

Status update

Have..ooh, celeb. VV Brown just walked past me and gave me smile. Score one celeb for me. Not that it's a competition or anything.

Sorry, where was I?

Have just returned from the mighty Quo. They may only know three chords but they know how to use them. Have thoroughly enjoyed practising my one-shoulder-dance in the crowd for Quo, and joining in with the songs I know. Since most of their songs sound the same, I was singing the wrong words pretty much all the time, but I enjoyed myself and that's all that matters.

The cloud cover today is a welcome relief from yesterdays baking heat, but it's humid and I'm sat outside the press tent, in a field and feeling very rural. Micheal Eavis was due to give a press conference today, but like the rock n' roll god he is, he showed up late and was immediately surrounded by a gaggle of reporters and paps, so I headed for the Pyramid instead.


(Where's Eavis?)

Sister's plan to 'meet near Funky Fish and Chips' at the Pyramid proved a bit of a non-starter, since at least half the food places in a ten mile radius is called that. In the end we navigated using flags ("..left at the smiley face..then head to the pink Rolf flag...then..can you see the Cornish flag? We're not near that.") in a manner that would make my seafaring ancestors proud - if I had any.

Quo were good fun. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, so fair play to 'em. Rockin' all over the world was one of those Glastonbury moments where the whole festival seemed to be singing at once. I'm pretty sure that Blur's parklife will be the same. And everything Tom Jones sings. Oh, and Madness. Think I'll just camp out at the Pyramid today.

..I'm really looking forward to today. This is the first Glastonbury I've been to where I've seen so many acts - there's generally nothing musically that interests me too much, but this year's line-up has been sheer genius. Beginning to suspect I may have the best job in the world.



Think.. Trash City next, presuming I can find Cat n' Co. If not...who knows?

The exodus from the site has already started - lots of people lugging tents and bags around - possibly loading up their cars so they can bolt the moment Blur roll of stage. Hopefully - I can't figure why anyone would want to miss a moment of this.

99 problems for The Boss?

Last year it was Jay-Z and one of the interchangeable Gallagher boys grabbing the headlines as the mono-browed mancunian said that it was just wrong to have rapper at Glastonbury, apparently forgetting that The Roots, Cypress Hill, Goldie Looking Chain and Roots Manuva had all played at the festival in the past.

This year, however, King Noel, the patron saint of festivals, has given the line-up his seal of approval and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing he has given his blessing - apart from Franz Ferdinand, at least.

Wot, no controversy? Can it be so?


No, no. It's alright, Sean Lennon, has bravely stepped into the breach (i.e jumped onto the bandwagon) to complain about a headliner. Sean, it seems, doesn't approve of Springsteen and has called the fact that the Eavis' booked him 'shocking'.

Quite what the incredibly rich, famous and talented Mr Springsteen thinks of this hasn't been reported, but I don't imagine that he's sobbing broken-heartedly into his nineteen Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes or his Academy Award over it (they'd get rusty, after all.)

Course, last year, Jay-Z flew in the face of controversy and came out swinging, winning over fans, boosting his sales and generally silencing the non-believers, yo.

Whether or not The Boss will swagger out onto the stage on Saturday night, and defiantly lead the crowd into a cover of Sean’s 2006 smash-hit single Dead Meat before launching into Born in the USA remains to be seen, but I've got my fingers crossed.

Sneaky-peek at the festival site

Doesn't it look peaceful? Hard to believe that in less than a week every square inch of grass will be covered in tents, heaving bodies and over-excited people in silly hats.

The countdown starts here. Except that I started ages ago.

Everyone clap...

There are some things that festivals are famous for - in Glastonbury's case it's got to be the Pyramid, those flags near the Jazz stage, Michael Eavis, copious amounts of mud and a bare-foot Jo Whiley fawning over the flavour-of-the-month indie-band in the BBC's backstage compound.

There are things that you'll simply /have/ to do. You'll spend Thursday pouring over that little guide thingy The Guardian give out and plotting out your weekend - the bands you have to see, weighing up Kasabian over Pendulum and if you think you can make it to Other Stage in time to catch the end of one act or another. Where you're going to eat, how far away the toilets are and if you'll be able to find your tent in the middle of the night, after you've drank 2 litres of pear cider out of a plastic bottle. You'll wander up to the Green Fields in the hope of seeing some naked hippies, to the Park to say that you saw some band or another play at Glastonbury before they were famous. You'll buy a stupid wizard hat and an oh-so-ironic t-shirt. You'll get tested for an STD.

..No, seriously.

For some reason the good folk at the NHS have decided that Glastonbury Festival is an ideal time and place to offer Chlamydia testing - because, well.. why not? It is Glastonbury after all. And why wouldn't you want to complicate your festival toilet experience further by trying to pee into a plastic test-tube and carrying it around in your pocket for a little while?

Hoping to tempt you into one of six screening points at the festival, since the promise of finding out if your bits are diseased just might not cut it, there's a bribe of a a free glow-in-the-dark sperm key ring or glow-in-the-dark condom - which are no-doubt destined to be blown up and tossed around the crowd when people realise that five days in a tent and using only baby-wipes to clean themselves doesn't really lend itself terribly well to making whoopee.

Here's the science part. Concentrate.

Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world with one in 12 sexually active 15 – 24 yr olds in the UK testing positive.

Unfortunately, the disease has no symptoms in 70% of women and 50% of men, so they may not even know they have it. If left untreated Chlamydia can cause major infertility problems for women and men.

The testing service is completely free, confidential and easy and so are the test results and you can choose how to receive your result - a discreet message by text - ("sry, uv got d clap") or email, a letter or by phone. For those testing positive the treatment is simple and painless – just four antibiotic tablets taken at once.

And if you don't get around to getting tested at the Festival, you can still order a free Chlamydia testing kit from www.somerset.nhs.uk/checkitout