Oracles
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Posts posted by Oracles
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Tatting seems to be becoming part of the main stream now, like the Rabbit Hole and other once secret venues.
As I have stated, this year and the last have been very different to the previous yrs with regards to tatting, ive seen alot of people being bollocked by police and security, even carted off but for silly stuff like discarded gas stoves.
What really took the piss was when a security guy told me that they will go out together on the Monday in their high viz, even when not on a shift and go around watching the best tatters gather up the alcohol and then nab them for it and take it back to their compound in one of the Landies!
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Given the 'green credentials' of the festival, thats why some of the crew thought an insider docu or something would be interesting to some.
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It is a great thing to hear someone else's point of view on the subject, for sure, makes the thread much more readable.
Over the 5 yrs i've worked the festival there have been some pikey basta*s on the crew but they dont last long as they are the same types that dont turn up for their 6am shifts or turn up hammered. The gaffers arn't stupid, they see the people who are there to do the job from those who are basically on the take for whatever they can get.
The folks I have had the honour and pleasure of working with over the years at Glasto and other gigs are some of the most creative salt of the earth (sorry for poor cliche) people you could find. How would some of them still be welcomed back each year if they were on the rob? This is a job to us, we work shifts during the festival and then 8 hour days from the tuesday, our jobs are highly valued to us.
If im honest I would say its the highlight of my year!
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If they can get some sort of a system going between the crews with regards to the working areas that would allow these guys the time needed to have a real bash at getting tents down and packed for re-use, that would be a great thing.
It was originally heartbreaking stuff to be feeding £600 tents into a machine, now its just part of the job, we get a bollocking if we get seen tatting whilst on a shift so there is not much to be done but feed the machine and tidy the farm!
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That's a great start if it's the case. I did bump into a guy I've worked with on litter pick before and he asked us to chuck all paired wellies we find to one side as there would be a crew going around collecting them. What their deal was I don't exactly know but someone said something about selling them on to all the fruit pickers for a tenner a pair, once cleaned and inspected?
There is a lot of gossip and rumours that go round each year, so take with salt!
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For sure, theft is theft. When your'e chatting with people packing up, they let you know who's left and who's gone, if your after tents then that's the way to do it. If your seen taking down tents by security or police then its bye bye, regardless as to whether the tent is abandoned or not nowadays.
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I've never personally met or heard of any 'licensed' tent collectors? From the Tuesday morning, all stuff left in the fields goes into the wagon. There are tractor crews that go round collecting those camping chairs and beds for the metal but they are just another branch of the recycling crew.
I seem to remember that one year, maybe 2010, there were Rotary club folks going around dismantling tents but they weren't given a real chance as it takes too long to take a tent down and pack it away. They were getting in the way of the clean up crews and were rather brusquely moved on.
I could well be wrong, I'm not saying there aren't any licensed tent collectors, just that I've never heard of any such teams doing the rounds.
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When you interact with people as they are packing up they are more often than not only too glad to offload their surplus alcohol and foodstuffs. You get an eye for the safe tat with experience, a discarded camping kettle next to a pile of bin bags hasn't been put their for safekeeping whilst the owner is at work!
As I stated in my first post, it is theft if you take something that belongs to someone else and you quite rightly deserve to be dealt with. I've seen too many people have their festival ruined due to theft of belongings be that from pickpockets, bag snatchers or indeed security!
The alternative under the current state of affairs is that it all goes to landfill. I for one will continue to liberate as much food and beer from the jaws of the compactor for as long as i do the festival rather than it be needlessly destroyed.
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2011 was wet and the full wagons and other heavy machinery had caused great ruts in some of the fields and we ended up with huge waves of mud as it started to dry out. Within these churned up waves were loads of wellies and even crisp packets and other crap from the 80's. The old transparent golden wonder crisp packets was one particular thing i remember.
I took my metal detector one year, complete waste of time, the thing went berserk with all the slowly rusting tent pegs inches under the surface!
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Well, it's gotten me into the largest festival on the planet since 09, we get fed watered, showered and paid, the work can be very physically demanding at times especially in the wet, but you will hear no complaints from me (only occasional observations). It was only as I was leaving this time that I realised how quick we had gotten through what had looked like the last days of Rome just days before. I think it will still be a good month or so, maybe a little longer before Farmer Eavis has his farm back and the girls can get back out on the land and produce their fine Somerset milk.
Then it probably wont be too long before the whowl process starts again
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I was told by one of the wagon drivers, a local Somerset lad, that some areas are even ploughed and then re seeded?
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Well yesterday as I trundled towards the Red gate on my final journey from the farm I looked around and with a warm if slightly knackerd glow saw the yellowy green of recovering fields that had untill recently been the scene of some of the hardest partying on the planet!
I consider myself one of the lucky ones who get to see and sometimes explore the site before the rivers of human traffic come pouring through the gates on the Wednesday and the once lush green of the recently cut fields become a patchwork of brightly coloured tents and flags flapping in the wind.
In a nutshell there is probably only the fine pick left to do before the enterprizing chap with a huge electromagnet on the back of his tractor does the rounds to try and get most of the tent pegs up.
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Heard from several different sources this year that the main security compound was raided by the Police and four of the head honcho's were arrested on charges of drug dealing and other dodgy activities related to previous money making activities employed by many of the thugs they seem to employ.
One of our higher up crew bosses told us that out of the 5 or so security firms employed by the festival only one could be considered a professional firm suited to an event like Glastonbury.
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We heard what sounded like a youngish dog yelping and barking whilst we were on a shift, forget which day, maybe Monday afternoon, we just thought that they had let some of the after festival litter pickers on as last year a load of Basque folks turned up for the clean up and there were loads of dogs about.
This year nobody was aloud to bring their dogs on during or indeed after the festival, my friends from Switzerland had to put their boy in a local kennel for the fortnight they were there, the poor lass was pining for her baby something rotten, I really missed my Daisy but knew she was at home with me dad watching over the place.
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We had an idea to fill small vials with bin juice and sell em along with 3 blades of original Glastonbury grass for a tenner. What could possibly go wrong?
Anyone be interested?
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Hmmm....... I love the smell of bin juice in the morning!
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I was informed by a fellow tat meister about a great pile of army surplus boots that had been left by one of the surplus stalls. The look on my birds face as i was given this info told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was under no circumstances to go hunting for this pile of leathery tat and that if boots suddenly started appearing in or around our truck, then she would be disappearing from our truck!
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Me and my tatting buddy were mooching around the pyramid stage one year, after the last performance, when he found one of those walking canes that had a concealed sword type blade! Granted, It was a cheap 'n' nasty tourist jobbie from India but non the less a possibly lethal and most certainly concealed bladed article.
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Yeah, the amount of mystery powder we find can come in handy, even if it aint your thing then it always comes in handy to trade with someone else.
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I find myself going for the useful and practical nowadays, unused cordage from discarded tents, unused tarp's and packs of unopened batteries are always a happy find for me, it can save me a small fortune over the winter when we get 3 day power cuts or are snowed in. I mean, it's always nice to make an honest buck from the effort that is put in. I'm not joking when I say that if you really go for it then Tat Monday is one of the most physically demanding days of the year as we have to lug it all uphill to our camp and then repeat the process untill you are either literally unable to go another foot or are too inebriated from your choice tatted beer to continue!
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Last year my best and most handy bit 'o' tat was a Gerber multitool, I live in the Hills of Wales so it has come in handy many times. In years gone by I've gone all out and spent the whowl day gathering cans of alcohol, it's largely pisswasser but we would each gather maybe 500-1000 cans of all denominations then after the work was finished, take them back to my mates in Bristol, clean them up, chill them and then go to St Pauls carnival and make a bob or two.
Some folks tat only for discarded clothing, we find expensive gear that has been worn once, slighly muddies and then chucked to the side, a quick run through the washers sorts the wheat from the chaff and hey ho, no need to spend on clothing for a good while.
For those creative types amongst us, and I often spot them, as if browsing through a second hand cloth stall, gleaning items that they can repair or enhance to sell on in their line of business. We're not all crusty vagabonds you know, there is actually a great deal of talent and skills amongst these folk.
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Aye, poor sods seem to be treated like a chain gang at times, they do such a blinding job with the daily stage clean ups and they are largely volunteers who have had to put down a £200 deposit! There were a great deal of continental folk doing the pick this year, Polish, French, Spanish, Portuguese and even a family from Georgia were camped in our field after the festival ended and the real litter pick began.
I watched in open mouthed amazement as a bus load of young volunteers arrived and were being shouted at as soon as they stepped of the bus. I felt so glad at the time to be part of the traditional clean up crew.
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Just don't get me started on the food waste, I mean tinned foods going to the landfill! I gather as much as I can transport home to save on food bills over the winter as do many others. I feel absolutely no shame at all in picking an unopened multi pack of brand name beans onto my tat trolly or indeed any other undamaged tins.
For years we have said that the local homeless in the area could be fed and clothed with the stuff we're told to chuck, all in the cause of saving a few pennies by getting the clean up done in record time or some other such spurious excuse.
Around our camp, after Tat Monday is over, piles of food, clothing, alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks alike start to appear as us Wombles sort through the days pickings and having gleaned the choicest tat for ourselves we donate the rest to the tat piles around camp for all to come and take what they want so those who were unfortunate enough to pull a shift on the Monday morn dont lose out too much.
If I ever find anything like Phones and such, they go to lost property as I lost my phone the first year I was there and my Mam and Dad got a call in August to get an address to send my found phone to, so now i make sure any found phones or ipads, laptops etc get to lost property. Has to be good Karma?
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Yeah for sure. As we see the messy process through I have often wondered about how it could be done but even with an army of good natured types volunteering to sort through the whowl mucky twisted lot I have yet to see how it could be made possible. I get especially hacked off when I spot what initially appears to be a gem of a tent, only to find that the occupants decided to somehow defecate all over the interior before vacating! It's just wrong and as we try our best to guide our 30 ton bin wagons through the throng of the the crowds, I find myself looking at faces and wondering, just who is it amongst you that feels the need to ruin what could be a prized possession to one of the travellers who make up the core of the recycling crew, although they are getting thinner on the ground now.
Funny things overheard at the festival
in Chat
Posted
I was just getting my head down with a nice spliff and i overheard one girl say to her friend that she only needs to see a bag of cocaine and she needs to go for a poo! Gave me n the missis a chuckle.