Looother

The other one's likely to be a DJ set though, isn't it?

I think it's a really exciting, diverse, brilliantly-curated line-up. It looks like Black Pumas are going to clash with Michael Kiwanuka though, which does not please me.

Did some digging online. Well, you did ask. There isn't much there that's very recent. An application for planning permission for "use of land for siting of up to 16 low impact residential shelters within a woodland garden setting and associated operational development comprising car park, telephone box, and children's play structure" was rejected in 1999 - though apparently there was a "legal breakthrough" in 2001. This is from 1995: Clearly it's still in use. A resident called Theo Simon stood for election to the local council (for the Green Party) in 2017. His band, Seize the Day, seems to play Glastonbury every year (at Toad Hall, Small World, sometimes other sets elsewhere). This is a video of their 2019 set: There's an interview with him, probably filmed at Kings Hill, here. He sounds pretty cool if you ask me. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/why-religion-matters/0/steps/73899 This is from a university thesis submitted in 1999: The King’s Hill Collective The King’s Hill Collective can be seen as solution to increasing pressures of living on the road for Travellers who were bringing up children and as a solution to (and rejection of) mainstream consumerist society by non Travellers many of whom were originally city dwellers. Nevertheless because many of the members had direct travelling experience, this community provided an example of one extreme in a continuum between those Travellers for whom the tag ‘New Age’ is a complete irrelevance and those for whom it is at least understandable if not desirable. This group is on the ‘New Age’, ecologically aware, ideologically ‘hippie’ and ‘sorted’ end of the New Age Traveller continuum discussed in the previous chapter. The site, which overlooks Pilton farm (the site of the Glastonbury Festival), is slowly maturing now with numerous trees, vegetables and a fully functioning water bore hole which supplies the site with drinking water. Water is extracted on a weekly basis using an old petrol engine and pump. The water, which is filtered by a series of sand traps, is inspected on an annual basis. The collective is concerned to demonstrate its willingness to 243adhere to regulations were this is possible and not contrary to its collective ideology. There are 16 plots, each at some stage of the development of the site, having a bender. The benders are almost exclusively constructed of light green Tarpaulin over a hazel wood matrix. Stainless steel flexi-vents lead from stoves in the benders. These act as chimneys supported by a single branch driven into the earth. The stoves are usually home-made conversions of gas cylinders which have been cut and welded into shape although there was an solid fuel Rayburn installed in one bender during the study period. Inside the benders bedding is arranged on wooden pallets or platforms and there is often an additional gas stove for cooking. Water is supplied either directly from the holding tank or stored in water barrels. Lighting is almost exclusively by candles or ‘hurricane lamps’. Twelve volt batteries and in one case a wind generator supplies electricity for radios and in one case a small black and white television. Some of the more established benders had a variety of trees and shrubs around the canvass construction including apple, pear and fig trees as well as a variety of fruits. The collective is serviced by a pay telephone located in an old red telephone box. Its position, in the middle of a field, is as incongruous as the lamp post in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books and is in a way reminiscent of the TARDIS of Doctor Who, adding to the slightly surreal or magical atmosphere of the place. Inside a small domestic pay phone is installed and managed by one of the community. At the centre of the site is a clearing of grass that acts as a communal area surrounded by a small circular mound inside of which runs a circular ditch in the fashion of a place of worship. In the centre of the circle is a small collection of sea stones collected from a nearby shoreline. There are four gaps in the mound representing the solstices and equinoxes, which correspond to the cardinal points of the compass. Each section of the mound was constructed during the period of the year that it represents. There are symbols representing Beltane and other significant calendar dates placed appropriately on the circle. The King’s Hill site owes its existence to Chris Black, a man who was broadly sympathetic to alternative lifestyles and provided initial financial support to the project. Chris Black purchased the field and ‘loaned’ sixteen plots to a number of Travellers and bender dwellers. The newly formed community developed a ‘constitution’ and organised a system whereby the loan of the plots was paid back over a period of two years through weekly contributions to a central fund. Thus after two years the land belonged to sixteen stakeholders.

No personal experience, but I've been eyeing this one: https://www.trail.co.uk/deluxe-self-inflating-air-mattress+size-single?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwrIixBhBbEiwACEqDJU0F9Df3Z8Lz7-oQB6jv6CoJOq5Ko48bFbovNxK4cDmLNK2Y8k26khoCTewQAvD_BwE Lots of good reviews on Amazon (here), but it's £10 more expensive.

I think if you want to buy one from source you probably need to work for the right companies, or in the right industries. Otherwise you get one from one of the festival's neighbors as part of an expensive glamping package. I got a couple this year through working for one of the festival's partners - we have a staff ballot every year.

Hospitality tickets have gone up to £900 this year.

My current and quite longstanding position (though I don't think I'm necessarily right and I'm always learning) is that I believe in the Jewish people's right to self-determination and, sadly, the longstanding need for a secure, defendable Jewish state as a place of refuge. Given that we are where we are I'd say that looks like Israel in approximately 1967 borders. I also support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - I think having a Palestinian state split across two non-contiguous areas is not at all good, but again we are where we are. It would then be up to that state to decide who it offers citizenship to, but irrespective of that Palestinian refugees and their descendants in neighbouring states should be freed from the camps many have been restricted to for generations - it is not just Israel (and not just neighbouring states either) that has treated the Palestinians inexcusably badly. I think none of that is possible without new leadership in Israel, in both Gaza and the West Bank, and in Iran - whatever happens elsewhere peace in the Middle East is probably impossible unless the people of Iran win their fight against the Islamic Republic. As you say, the indiscriminate nature of the bombing in Gaza, at least at the start of the conflict (maybe still, I don't know, though they seem to have toned it down a bit) was repulsive and hugely counterproductive.

I'm relatively new here, and this might make me unpopular, but here goes: As a left-wing Jew one concern I have about this year's Glastonbury is the likelihood that I'll be exposed to the combination of ignorance and antisemitism that has been allowed into the open, particularly on the British left, in the last six months. That's not to say that Israel's government, military, settlement policies etc etc don't deserve strong criticism and Palestinians strong support, and I am expecting to see both, but people have to be very careful with their language if they want to avoid causing offense. At Coachella for example towards the end of Young Fathers' set Graham Hastings shouted "Ceasefire now!" and "Free Palestine!". I don't really have an issue with that, but I'd say that ideally it should be something like: Ceasefire now - Free the hostages - Overthrow Hamas - Free Palestine. Hastings didn't say anything that suggests he supports Hamas or that he does not support innocent Israelis, but I did find the omissions curious (and I find the perception among some on the left that Hamas are defending the oppressed rather than another means of oppression completely bizarre). Really I think if someone with a significant public profile wants to state their opinion they should ideally make the effort to actually form one, something cohesive and suggestive of independent thought and genuine conviction, rather than just say a couple of random slogans. With Paul Currie, I think he clearly handled that moment poorly, but nothing I have read has remotely convinced me it demonstrated that he is an antisemite. I also have very profound issues with the Campaign Against Antisemitism's methodology. "We have contacted Paul Currie for comment", as they put it in their initial release about the incident, is nowhere near good enough, given the potential (and actual) impact of that release on Currie's career. There is real and rational fear of rising antisemitism in the British Jewish community, and while intending to protect them from the antisemitism the CAA also sometimes seem willing to weaponise the fear. Finally, I hope people avoid the temptation to make inflammatory and unnecessary comments, such as the one I've quoted above. It isn't necessarily antisemitic, but there was no need in the context of the rest of the post to make it at all and it seems, at best, wilfully provocative. Happy to discuss any of this either online or over a pint on the farm.

Excuse the newbie question but does this kind of collective efest ticket-buying business happen for the initial ticket sale, or is that just survival of the fittest/luckiest?

I watched just enough of their Coachella set for me to be pretty sure they'd give me a good time. Inked in for me, though I'm not at all happy about missing Jamie XX.

Browsing the Vonhaus website looking for potential trolleys I came across this one. Looks good in many ways, but I'm not sure the second feature is really something they should be boasting about.

Doesn't it mean "couldn't find a support so we're just going to wing it"?

For what it's worth, which isn't a great deal, I got sent a transcript. CM is Chris Moyles: CM: “Have you done Glasto, have you been to Glastonbury before?” RC: “No, I’ve never been to Glastonbury before, and it came out of the blue about seven or eight months ago. We got a little phone call and we’ve had to not talk about it for all this time. And you can imagine, you know, having a group of musicians around me that have been playing all of their lives. And for them to be playing Glastonbury, they just wanted to tell the world. We had to keep it secret until the other day.” CM: “So you’re going to be playing the acoustic stage. Have you see who else is playing the acoustic stage, the line up?” RC: “Yeah, yeah.” CM: “Oh, this ain’t no shabby, 113th stage in one of the far fields. This is a big deal! And you’ve got Ralph McTell is playing.” RC: “That’s just so cool. Yeah but also Albert Lee is playing on the same day.” CM: “Ocean Colour Scene are playing.” RC: “I’ve got two of their songs on my principal playlist, so that was… You know, it’s all a surprise, we didn’t anything about it. We probably don’t have the best Glastonbury experience ahead of us, because that would mean being able to be there for three days and what have you, see everything and do all that, but we’re basically being driven in on the day. We’ll do our thing, then we’ve got like a two-hour thing where we can look around but then we have to back on the bus, because we’ve got to be on a plane, because we’re flying to Dublin that night.” CM: “Oh, you’re joking! I mean, could you not fly to Dublin the next morning?” RC: “Well, there’s some basic sort of discipline things behind that. We’ve got a really big tour; we’re on the road for two months. So there is a lot of, ‘early to bed, boys.’”

I'm totally up for Tanita Tikaram. Also Stornoway - glad to see their excellent cover of the Only Way is Up still makes their setlist.