How I got really cold at Glastonbury....

Below is a short (working, unedited, rough etc) extract from my forthcoming book about the Glastonbury Festival.

In this bit I'm standing waiting to watch The Rolling Stones...and getting really cold.    

As I stood there watching the field fill up more and more-many people must have been waiting for Primal Scream to finish- I realised that I felt cold. 

I’d gone and got a coffee from the nearest place at the back of hill while Primal Scream were playing, but that hadn’t warmed me up that much. I had my t-shirt on and a thin jacket, my rain jacket, although it didn’t make much difference. 

There was a dampness in the air; not a fog, nor a mist but a bone-chilling dampness. It was if condensation was seeping through to my very core. I couldn’t believe it. It was June and I was cold at 9.00 at night. I had never been that cold during an evening at Glastonbury. I wrapped my coat tightly round me and stuffed my hands in my pockets. It made no difference, I was still freezing. It was ridiculous.

I looked around me at everyone else standing there and walking around. They all seemed to have fleeces, hoodies and jumpers on. Some of them even were wearing woolly hats. I’d have killed for a woolly hat.

I looked at my watch. It was just coming up to ten to nine. The Stones were on at 9.30. They’d be on stage till midnight I guessed. I couldn’t see them finishing much earlier than that. 

What to do? 

Could I stay as cold as this for another 3 hours or more? 

It wasn’t as if it was going to get much warmer. The sun wasn’t going to come up and even if I danced around a bit to the Stones (not that I would) I couldn’t do it for 3 hours and I didn’t think that it would make any difference.

I’d end up in the medical tent with hypothermia, wrapped up like a big oven-ready turkey in a foil blanket and stuck with a bunch of pissheads and kids who’d taken too many drugs. This wasn’t me being overly dramatic, I really was that cold. 

I’d started shivering involuntarily. Wasn’t that one of the first signs? Would I start to hallucinate and lose all sense of where I was? If I went to the medical tent with those symptoms, there’d be a fair chance that I’d be mis-diagnosed and I’d be shunted in a corner with all the acid casualties. 

“I’m cold, I’m so cold,” 

“Of course you are. And you think you can fly as well. We know. It'll pass.” 

I could well imagine the conversation. I had to do something to avoid such a scenario. Even though it would have been a ripe source for writing material, I wasn’t prepared to go that far.

The rest of the (as yet untitled) book should be finished and published sometime before the end of this year.

In the meantime the first two books in the trilogy are available here, both as Kindle e books and paperbacks;

"Turn Left at the Womble" 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Left-The-Womble-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B0060YCKGW

"Left Again at the Womble"  
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M

Left Again at the Womble- the tale of the tent

Extracted from "Left Again at the Womble-The Adventures of a Middle-Aged Dad Working at the Glastonbury Festival". This bit is all about practicing putting a tent up...   

The remaining time before Glasto sped by without really noticing. Before I knew it, it was the beginning of June and therefore only 3 weeks away. Apart from buying all the gear a few weeks before, I hadn’t done anything else. I knew that I had to try to put the tent up, in a practice run sort of way, but considering my general ineptitude in all matters tent-related, I’d kept putting off the evil day, but faced with such a short deadline, I knew that I’d have to face up to my demons and just do it. At the very least, if there was something missing or broken, then I’d have time (just about) to sort it out. I couldn’t really leave it until when I was actually at Glastonbury to try to put it up for the first time. 

As a side issue, and this is something I’ve noticed every time I’ve been to Glasto, is that everyone else seems to be an expert at putting tents up. Even really complicated, big ones seem to get whizzed up with no difficulties and look really professional; tight, florescent guy ropes and everything securely in place. Each time I’ve put our tent up, it’s always involved a lot of wrestling and swearing, and the end result appears to look as if I haven’t a clue about what I’m doing or really know how it should turn out. Which I haven’t and I don’t. The fabric always seems gravitate towards slackness, so by the end it’s the camping equivalent of some wrinkled prune. Whereas everyone else’s remains as tight as a drum, repelling water and wind, without a second thought. 

Anyway, I decided I couldn’t leave having the practice run any longer, so one night after work I summoned up the courage to give it a go. Now for ease we’d got one of these new-fangled pop- up tents, which in theory, should be able to be erected with simply a deft flick of the wrist. I was a bit sceptical about this. Surely this was the camping version of the old “whip-the-tablecloth-off-whilst-leaving- the-bone china-in-place” trick. It would all end in tears. Always ready for a good laugh, the whole family gathered around while I studied the instruction booklet intently. It did seem fairly simple and because it was only a two-man tent, I decided not to mess around with putting it up outside. The front room would do. It was a flat circular affair when packed; like a big nylon pancake. I undid the packaging, and to my utter surprise, it seemed to leap out of my fingers of its own volition and jump into the middle of the floor, all set up.

“And you all doubted me”, I said, somewhat triumphantly. “I knew exactly what I was doing”.

Amy looked at me, over her cup of tea. “Ah, you’ve just got to get it all back in place now. That should be easy as well.” Sarcasm is not a very likeable trait in one so young.

Read more/see/get "Left Again at the Womble" here; Kindle e book or paperback



UK  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00IBK2V6M

US  http://www.amazon.com/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M

Beyonce at Glastonbury

Beyonce at Glastonbury 2011

extracted from "Left Again at the Womble: The adventures of a middle-aged Dad working at the Glastonbury Festival "

As I sat there pondering and musing on such thoughts, I slowly noticed that more and more people were heading past me and onto the Hill. I hadn’t expected that much interest in Beyonce. I anticipated that there wouldn’t be much excitement about Pendulum who were on before her; I caught the very last few minutes of their very last song, but only drifting towards me in the air as I reached the coffee stall. I don’t think that I had missed out on an earth-shattering performance. 

I thought that if I was going to get to see a glimpse of Beyonce then it would be advisable to get a better viewing spec, although I’d need one quite near the edge of the crowd so I could beat what would no doubt be a hasty retreat. I supped my coffee off and wandered down the Hill. I did think about getting another drink; but I could get one on the way to see someone else. I’d only be there for a couple of Beyonce’s songs.

I ended up halfway down (or up) the hill, facing the centre of the stage, but with enough space around me to head back up and away. I looked around at the people near to me. There were a group of three women, I’d guess in their mid to late thirties, all ready to dance along to Beyonce. Standing with them was one bloke, who I took to either be a long-suffering partner or an extremely grumpy looking stalker. As much as they all looked to be up for Beyonce, he was at the opposite end of the spectrum. He fitted every cliché of a chap being dragged along to the shops on a Saturday afternoon while the match is on. Apart from them, the rest of the crowd appeared to be a fairly mixed bunch and certainly not what (in what must be admitted, was my somewhat blinkered and slightly snobbish predetermined view), a demographic close to the usual stadium tour audience.

The lights on the stage dimmed and the crowd grew restless with anticipation you get either at the match as it kicks off or at a large gig such as that one, I sighed the sigh of a confirmed cynic. “Here we go,” I thought, “Viva Las Vegas.”

Then…BLAM!!!

read what happened next here:

Amazon UK: 

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M

Amazon US :

http://www.amazon.com/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M

Left Again at the Womble

"Left Again at The Womble-The adventures of a middle-aged Dad working at the Glastonbury festival "

Well, it's finally finished!

The new book about actually how I couldn't get at ticket for Glastonbury 2011; but still went as I managed to get a job there.


Don't want to give to much of the extremely exciting tale away, but it includes coping with mud-lots of mud- and a leaky tent.

Other highlights include too much coffee, the highs and lows and highs again about not managing to get a ticket in the first place, the glory of being able to use hot showers at Glastonbury and my skill in learning how to wear a t-shirt with the word "Crew" on the back.

It really is non-stop fun.

There's also a fair bit about music and includes a bit on what I can honestly say what was possibly one of the best live performances by any artist I have ever seen.

I may post selected extracts from the book here in the next few months.

There definitely will be bits here that I left out-including how totally underwhelming Paul Simon was.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy it!

Here's a link:

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M 

Amazon US:

http://www.amazon.com/Left-Again-Womble-middle-aged-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B00IBK2V6M

      

Wrestling (!) at Glastonbury

Here's a brief, rough extract from current, yet untitled, work-in-progress follow-up to "Turn Left At the Womble". The year I worked at Glastonbury as I couldn't get a ticket. And, as part of that, I was lucky enough to see a wrestling match in the bar I worked. (It's not all Arcade Fire and glamour.) Now read on... 

 

If anyone is old enough to recall World of Sport (ITV’s Saturday afternoons 1960’s/1970’s equivalent of Sky Sports) then I expected the wrestling to be a bit like that. World of Sport had a 45 minute slot of wrestling each week, from 4.00 pm to just as the classified football results came in. It was recorded in such exotic locations as Barnsley, Bolton, Croydon, Luton and the like and had to be seen to be believed. I could go on about it for paragraph after paragraph, but that’s not what this book is about. Maybe another time. Suffice to say, it is one of those things that, you can look back on and realise that we all grew up in much simpler and more naïve times. I think that sometimes repeats of it are shown on cable. It’s well worth catching up on. I didn’t expect however, that the wrestling would be like the Las Vegas/WWE American-type glamour fest, all bells and whistles, strobes and pantomime villanry. As the lights dimmed and the crowd’s (and mine, to be honest) expectations reached fever pitch, it was nearly time for one of the highlights of the night. I actually may be building this up a bit too much here; after all, if was simply a bit of wrestling and messing about in a little bar. On the other hand, in comparison to the rest of the shift, it was a shoe-in.

There was a bit of shouting and what may be termed a melee on the edge of the crowd. At first I thought it was a bit of a fight. Steve nudged me. “It’s all kicking off there,” he pointed, and then it dawned on us that it was part of the act. I guess that what wrestling is anyway; not really a sport, more light entertainment. Four wrestling blokes literally grappled their way through the crowd and into the ring. Just like a proper fight, a microphone descended from the ceiling. Not quite like that. I could see someone at the side threading it through one of the ceiling struts, but it had the same effect. They had however, put on a full show. There was an MC, complete with bowtie (and wellies, which sort of was appropriate but odd) and a referee, with one of those black and white striped shirts that American umpires wear. The wrestlers were introduced, in that over-the-top style that you’d expect. I can’t recall what they were called, but they were all purportedly from America save for a Mexican who was wearing a face mask and a spangly leotard. As soon as the introductions were over it all went off big time with all four of them in the ring at the same time. They weren’t messing around either and although it was clearly choreographed, they did throw each other about in a reckless fashion. The ring juddered under the impacts and there was a lot of booing and cheering from the crowd. From our vantage point it was hard to see exactly what was going on but there was clearly one baddie who relished winding the crowd up and used every excuse to fight dirty. (The words “baddie”, “fight” and “dirty” must really be considered only in the context of “professional” wrestling by the way.) The Mexican chappie seemed a dab hand at jumping off the top rope and launching himself at his opponents. Unfortunately he also seemed pretty adept at getting himself “whupped” , in the quaint American terminology of the evil baddie with the mullet. We could really only see what was going on over the heads of the crowd and most of that was the aforesaid Mexican jumping around. This spectacle lasted surprisingly for an hour or so. Surprisingly because all four of the wrestlers didn’t let up for a minute. Neither did we, as the cider kept flowing and the tills kept bulging. The whole bout ended with the Mexican “unconscious” in the middle of the ring and the evil villain-who thought he had won- being defeated by the combined efforts of the other two. Which was odd, as a few minutes earlier they had been knocking seven bells out of each other.  They were all helped out of the ring, battered, limping and bruised and, like one of those “there’s nothing to see here, move along, now” events, the crowd rapidly dissipated, all the fun over.

(As aside.when all the jollity was over, I nipped out the back for a quick smoke. Standing in the mud, I heard a few chaps laughing together in very strong Brummie accents. I stuck my head round the corner to see the stars of the show chilling out. Wrestling, like a lot of entertainment, is not what it all seems.)  

You can see/get/read "Turn Left At The Womble" here:

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0060YCKGW 

US:http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Left-The-Womble-Glastonbury-ebook/dp/B0060YCKGW