Mark E. Spliff

I'm on Three and I found that I had almost zero signal from the moment the public arrived. However, I've also got a Vodafone mifi dongle which had good signal throughout, so I was tethering my phone to that and was able to use WhatsApp for calls and messages. Worked brilliantly, so Vodafone were doing something right, although I never tried the Vodafone network ior calls or SMS - only data.

I'm on Three, and had good data connection when I arrived on Monday, but when the masses arrived on Wednesday, this quickly disappeared. After then, I could only get a data connection in the early hours of the morning or if I was up at somewhere like Strummerville - presumably because that puts you in line of sight of an off-site phone mast. Calls/SMS were a little bit better, but still lots of failed calls and undelivered messages. Also had a Vodafone dongle, and that had decent data connection throughout.

No - you're right: having just done my Wikipedia homework, I've now learned about the machinations of Hawkwind, including the fact that Nik Turner left them long ago - before I ever saw them. I'm an unreliable witness when it comes to this sort of thing as I never used to read the album covers, let alone the music press, and rarely know the names of the members of the band I'm watching. You've probably saved me from an embarrassing confused discussion with my fellow audience members if I ever do make it to one of Nik Turner's Greenfield jams.

I've evidently touched a nerve, which counts as a direct hit when troll-trolling. Plus, if you scroll up and look at his previous reply to my earlier post, you'll notice an important mistake he's made: he forgot to deny my assertion that he was also the equally-dismal troll 'Jimbarkanoodle.' Given that (in his preceding post) he's also contradicted his claim that he sneaked in this year, I'd say this was a very bad day's trolling for this young chap.

(Re. the troll responding to my previous post - the best way to annoy them is to talk about, not to them. Try it.) I promised I wouldn't mention boring camping stuff, but your mention of the awkwardness of sleeping bags reminds me of one product that doesn't get the publicity it deserves on here - camping quilts. The expensive down ones pack down insanely small, and they're lightyears ahead when it comes to comfort. The only drawback is they require a bit of camping know-how, e.g. you need to know how to wash/store down products and you need to have a bed/mat that provides sufficient ground insulation.

Just in case anyone hasn't spotted it already (e.g. in the Vegans at Glastonbury thread) this CauliflowerEar/Jimbarkanoodle character is a good friend of Barry Fish. So remember this next time Barry's having one of his 'all the woke lefty snowflakes are picking on me and labelling me a troll for doing nothing more than expressing my honest opinion that I hate them as much as I hate Glastonbury' tantrums. I can't give an answer to the question posed by this thread because in all honesty, I think I got it nailed this year. I've been doing it many years so I've sorted out all the boring logistical stuff like clothing, camping equipment and regulating substance abuse to get the optimal balance between enjoyment and ruin - so there's no point me even mentioning these things as they've all been discussed ad nauseum in their own threads. The one thing that I finally did to perfection this year was to completely triumph over the fear of missing out. Although I'd scribbled down a few reminders of what I wouldn't mind seeing, I paid little attention to it, and just made the most of wherever I was and whatever I was doing at that time. For example, I ended up having to trek miles across the site in my spare time to try and sort out a problem with the work I was doing, but I just treated it as an adventure and one thing led to another and it turned out to be one of the best nights of my festival. I now reckon you can predict who's going to have a good time and who's going to have a stressful melodrama simply by how focused they are on their 'itinerary.'

You'd love to be a fly on the wall at Barry and CauliflowerEar's first date. The small talk is going to be a bit awkward once they've realised the former is a bitter agoraphobic redundant factory worker from Leeds, and the latter is a 13 year old boy with one big shoe.

Barry Fish and CauliflowerEar in furious agreement with each other! They both make a good point though - identity politics trumps everything these days. The identity I identify both of them with is people who don't go to Glastonbury and despise the progressive politics the festival unashamedly promotes. Barry's being cunning about it though - he's on a mission to portray himself as a plant-eating, Labour-voting martyr who's being unfairly silenced/misrepresented by an unthinking mob of on-message, woke, lefties. Unfortunately for Barry, he's not smart enough to recognise that having a back-slapping moment with CauliflowerEar is the forum equivalent of being high-fived by the local BNP candidate whilst you're trying to fit in at the local craft ale and man-bun cooperative.

I'm not a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, but this is clearly bollocks. If someone was trying to do a satirical lampoon of an ill-informed 'bloke down the pub' rant, they'd probably have stopped short of the amount of wrongness you've opted to go with here. If you want anyone to debate any of your views, it would be good manners to first clue yourself up with a suitable Google search e.g. 'comparison plant-based meat carbon footprint.' (You shouldn't expect people to spoonfeed you factual information when it's already freely available.) There are discussions to be had on the margins, e.g. whether it's better to graze livestock on marginal land which isn't suitable for crops, but the assertion that a plant-based diet would be worse for the environment is batshit crazy. But thanks for letting me know I don't have the stomach or bacteria to digest plant matter. I'm just off to throw out the sack of potatoes I've just bought - that was a close call.

I feel a bit mean for being one of those calling him out now. I'm normally better than this: for example, no matter how bad an April Fool's joke is, I'll steadfastly refuse to call it out because there's always a slim chance that it actually catches out someone else and generates some small amount of fun. Sorry Jim. As per our discussions in the past: re-spawn and try again. I promise to keep my mouth shut next time.

A thought for next year. Try volunteering. Go for one of the main ones - even though you hear people complaining about their shifts doing recycling or manning a gate, the important thing is that there are hundreds of them. Even if you don't find it easy sparking up a conversation with strangers, you're still likely to meet a few people who you get on with. If you made just the one friend, I reckon you'd love Glastonbury.

Surprisingly, he's still managing to catch a few out, but the giveaway with CauliflowerEar/Jim was always that the antisocial behaviour he casually slips into discussions is clearly contrived. Anyone who actually does steal a tent peg or dump their tent does so without any thought. They don't say to themselves 'this will form the basis for a great anecdote with which to regale my chums on the forum later.' He wasn't at Glastonbury, and the antisocial lout persona is 100% guaranteed to be covering up an inadequacy. As already mentioned - the genuine articles don't hang around defending their actions on forums, whereas the disgruntled fantasist losers absolutely do.

It's a tricky one, but if I were in that situation I'd let the group know the situation and ask them to make the call. If they were prepared to take the risk, I'd wear as good a face covering as possible (but not an FFP3 type thing which tend to have exhalation valves) and keep the windows open all the way down - not disastrous given the current weather forecast. So long as they don't consider themselves to be in a high-risk group, then the cost/benefit analysis of that one would be about the same as I made about going to Glastonbury, i.e. I thought there was a very real chance I'd catch it, but I judged it worth the risk. Depending on the length of the walking holiday, the worst outcome might be the same as many seem to have had with Glastonbury - a thoroughly good time being had, with the price being paid after you get back home. Obviously, this doesn't factor in the possibility of your own symptoms getting worse, but if you think your symptoms started on Monday, then that's now a low probability which will be reducing dramatically each day. There are a lot of reports above from people whose tests are now showing strong positive lines after the bad symptoms have passed.

Was working on one of the very noisy main stage bars and, despite spending the festival with customers shouting/spraying their orders right into my ear, I've tested negative ever since, unlike most of my fellow volunteers. To my knowledge, I've never once had Covid despite being in the middle of a few outbreaks where pretty much everyone around me has caught it. I'm now telling myself that I've got some magical immunity to it and, although I secretly know that's probably a load of bollocks, it still makes me feel better. Still happy to do tests whilst I've got a few of the free ones left - exactly the same as if there'd been an outbreak of chicken-pox and there was such a thing as instant chicken-pox test available: it's just interesting/helpful to know. And if I discovered I'd got any type of infectious disease, I'd change my behaviour appropriately - avoid going near people or wear a face covering or verruca sock or whatever - because I'm not a conspiracy-theorist dickhead. Surprised to see the amount of slack being given to Barry Fish and his fellow 'face nappy'/'enough is enough' dickheads on here. They've been infesting this forum throughout the pandemic and really ought to have fucked off a long time ago. If Covid-related discussions turn to shit, then ban the usual suspects that derail them - don't stop the discussion. Barry's a joke: a semi-literate bloke who's been trying to present himself as a hot-shot businessman, despite spending every waking hour postng shite on this forum - almost as much as 'Steviewevie.' Face coverings were only ever a means to prevent dickheads from coughing/sneezing over each other, but Barry reckoned he was on a moral crusade against them because his nipper found them distressing. The jury's out on whether Barry actually has a child, but (using language that I wouldn't normally stoop to, but which Barry would understand) if he's raised a snowflake kid, then he's got no right to expect us to give up sensible infection precautions to humour him - lock him up in the same cellar that Barry demands the clinically vulnerable be confined to. As to the original question: I'm aware of at least 5 people that I went to Glastonbury with who subsequently tested positive. None of them have yet tested negative. But no - none of them have had serious illness, which confirms my understanding that we were saved by the Omicron variants which out-competed the earlier, more hazardous variants. I expect I'll be hearing they're testing negative imminently.

Ah right - this was yet another year when I didn't manage to make it, so don't know whether he was there at all. Didn't see anything that would usually be labelled psychedelic rock this year, but I reckon Dakabrakha's new visual set, especially the bits with the Ukraine fighting, would have kept a 1970s Hawkwind crowd happy.

Thanks for reporting back on how going solo worked out for you. This forum has got a real problem with everyone chanting received wisdoms like mantras without seemingly thinking about what they are saying. One of these mantras is 'don't have any second thoughts about going solo: just do it and you'll have the time of your life!' I think this is downright thoughtless - who knows how a stranger on the internet is going to react in a situation where any self-doubt or reticence about troubling strangers could result in a week of loneliness? Over the years, I've noticed that the people giving this advice have often only actually made solo excursions from their friends/family group, which is a completely different proposition to going there alone. You don't need to be despondent about it though. Going as a worker on a large crew is one possible strategy that might be more successful for solo fliers. Being thrown in to work with a big group of people is one of the most effective ways to establish camaraderie, work out who's on your wavelength and make friends.

Nick Turner has been playing daily slots in the Green Futures field for the past few years. I've never managed to see any of these, although I did go and see him fronting Hawkwind in 2019. Search the schedule - he's on the Mandala Stage every day from around midday and this year it's in honour of Arabella Churchill and Andrew Kerr.

Thanks for this - in previous years I've posted the stream link so people can use Tunein Radio or similar, but this year they seem to have gone to a bit more trouble to ensure people access it via the WorthyFM website, and I didn't have the IT skills to identify the stream address in the html code. I can't see why accessing the stream directly would cause WorthyFM any problems, and there are good reasons to use a 3rd party radio app, for the increased functionality, e.g. sleep timer etc.

Couldn't agree with this more, and it goes beyond the politics - everything that's crap about modern life is still present, to some extent, at Glastonbury. There's a cycle with Glastonbury excitement. After Christmas, throughout the grimness of January and February, those with tickets fantasise about being there and those waiting for the re-sale are having nervous breakdowns which turn to ecstasy if they succeed. Then, after the resale, the excitement levels gradually ramp up until these two weeks when lots of workplaces are seeing very little work done and the talk on here is of Glastonbury being this magical place where everyone's lovely and we all ride round on unicorns. And then the festival happens, and a lot of people find out that Glastonbury isn't really a magic place, e.g. you can still be unlucky enough to be camped next to arseholes and all the usual everyday niggles are still there, only now they're pissing you off mightily because it's not the Narnia you'd promised yourself it would be. So afterwards, you get the post-mortem discussions on here, with people saying they're throwing in the towel as it's not the place it used to be etc. The best way to deal with Glastonbury is to expect the same as of a night out in a provincial pub. That way, you're better prepared for the inevitable glitches and you'll almost certainly have a better time than you would if you'd over-hyped it.

I wore my yachting wellies in 2007 and found the lack of beefy tread made them dangerous on the slippery liquidy mud, especially when it was over a metal trackway - the route back to our workers' campsite, was a long side-sloping trackway, and I was the only one hanging on to the heras fencing to stop myself sliding down into the adjacent vehicle route. They're great on wet boat decks, and they do work in more sticky, chunky mud, but I've just used farmers wellies since my 2007 experience. (I avoid wearing wellies as long as possible to avoid churning the ground, but once the mud has set in, I'll switch to them as I never have problems with my feet.)

I've only just learned of their existence, and I can't find any previous mentions of them on here via a search, so... USB adapters for power tool batteries. If you, or anyone else you know, has bought in to a particular brand of power tools, then you can borrow two or three of their batteries and clip one of these on to each one to turn it into a festival power bank. Don't be confused by the low mAh numbers you'll see on power tool batteries - they're higher voltage, so will give you more charges for the same mAh number. If you want to do a like-for-like comparison, the number you need to look at is the Wh figure. For example, for the brand of power tools I use, I've got two batteries which are both 20v, 4000mAh. This equates to 80Wh. This is roughly the same as my 3.7V, 22,400 mAh power bank. So by buying one of these adapters, I've now got another two power banks of the same capacity as my expensive dedicated one. And it's a greener solution to make use of batteries you've already got than to buy dedicated power-banks which will just be gathering dust, discharging and dying in between festival seasons. The only disadvantage is that power tool batteries tend to be bulkier than dedicated power banks, but not by that much. They cost anywhere between £10 and £30. Here's an example of one for under a tenner. (A Google search will find them for most other brands of battery): https://cpc.farnell.com/einhell/4514120/18v-usb-battery-adapter/dp/TL20429?mckv=sE6CM0rzs_dc|pcrid|224680288544|kword||match||plid||slid||product|TL20429|pgrid|48556615353|ptaid|pla-430190314292|&CMP=KNC-GUK-CPC-SHOPPING&s_kwcid=AL!5616!3!224680288544!!!network}!430190314292!&gclid=Cj0KCQjwheyUBhD-ARIsAHJNM-PxWCRjLidOXvAxWFH-TGxdJ9YBa2Dwcz_MDYcni2JXfzy49CB5sUAaAurJEALw_wcB

Regularly getting drunk and flooding a forum with music videos with an insane relentlessness that is completely disproportionate to the amount of interest those videos generate says a lot about someone. Even back in the early days of social media, people instinctively understood that spamming forums was selfish - a forum can absorb one or two people doing it, but it would only take a handful to make the forum completely unreadable. Coming into a discussion about a music genre to explain to people that the music they like is 'shite' is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from that type of personality. Given, the 'me me me' nature of their posts, the most effective response is downvote, ignore, move on. Don't engage. [Not a metal fan, but know better than to try to convince someone else that the category of music/art/comedy/whatever that they enjoy is objectively bad.]

The earplugs question is effectively asking "what is the best size of shoes for me to buy?" It's an individual thing, dictated by the structure of your own ear canal. I'm lucky in that the standard little yellow barrel foam ones fit me perfectly, so I can just nick them from work. I've still got a load of the wax ones somewhere that I bought from Boots 20+ years ago because it was a battle to get the things to go in, and if I then moved my jaw, they'd both fall straight out. However, ask 'The Nal' and you're clearly going to get a diametrically opposed review of them. So finding the best earplugs is a matter of trying out as many different types as you can. Start with the cheap ones - ideally nicked from someone's workplace or given out free at venues - and only go down the more expensive custom options if they don't work out. So long as you can get good all-round contact inside your ear canal, it's job done as the foam that cheapo ones are made from is just as good at attenuating sound as the pricier stuff.

Nice work sir.

You really captured every last creative flourish in your friend-of-a-friend's story there. Did you use a Dictaphone and type it up afterwards or are you more a of a shorthand guy? Either way, I'm impressed - you managed to get the whole saga typed up this morning, when you're not due to be told it until this evening. Efficient.