Festival tips
Short, sharp, essential lists for part-time field dwellers.
Signs that you've overdone it:
- You're naked and body-painted from the ankles up;
- People start calling you 'Moon of Orion', and you dig it;
- You mix the dance tent up with your own tent and camp down for the night next to a massive speaker stack;
- You arrange to meet friends outside the recovery tent;
- You're in there shouting 'More maestro!' when The Kooks leave the stage.
Signs that you're under-doing it:
- You're up at day-break, clear-headed and hungry;
- After the final act, you head for your tent and tuck up;
- Friends keep asking you to look after their valuables;
- You spend more time under the showers than in front of the stage;
- You keep phoning home just to find out how things are.
Always in the pocket:
- Money (cold hard cash if you can. Guard credit cards with your life);
- Sun-block (it might help urge the rain away);
- Plastic bag (useful should rain hat/pillow/shoe protector things get muddy);
- Condoms (useful should rain hat/pillow/shoe protector things get muddy);
- Mobile phone.
People to avoid:
- People who don't blink, ever;
- People who reek of patchouli, including their children;
- People with dark glasses and earpieces;
- People in Take That T-shirts;
- People who stride about shouting: "Jesus says this is all wrong!"
People to seek out:
- Naked mud wrestlers (because it isn't big or clever, unless someone else is doing it);
- Your mates (six hours wandering by yourself can get lonely);
- People who live in tepees (from a distance. Don't go in, you'll never come out);
- Bar staff that recognise your thirst and like you;
- Backstage security that look the other way for the price of a pint.
Ways to ensure people think you're a twat:
- Wear a jester's hat (Do we even need to mention this?);
- Sling handfuls of mud at passers-by;
- Rope off a 20 metre-squared area round your tent for "privacy" reasons;
- Smile smugly from the VIP area at the great unwashed;
- Talk ridiculously loudly into your phone about how you've just been hanging out with your great mate Beth Ditto/Rob da Bank/Faris Badwan etc.
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