DeanoL

That's just it though. Arcadia and Shangri-La weren't full formed new ideas when they first turned up. Back when it was the Afterburner and Trash City. They grew with the festival and in tandem with it. I'm not looking for them to parachute in Punchdrunk to run some immersive experience (as cool as that would be). I'm looking for them to invest a small amount of time and space in some creatives who maybe don't have it all together already, and to see what happens.

That'd certainly help if they want to just keep adding more stuff. They need space for new ideas, at the moment there is no way the festival will find the next Arcadia or Shangri-La team. But unless they're willing to break some ties and retire some stuff, it'll never happen unless they get more space. I do get it. Most of the stuff at the festival is done for way under market rates and those putting on things become friends of all involved - it'd be a hell of a thing for them to tell the Arcadia team "thanks, but we're going in a different direction next year".

I'm done for now. Maybe in the future I might look at going and camping in LoveFields but: 1) really physically struggling to lug stuff from the car to the campsite these days. Part age, part fitness. 2) loss of Rivermead/Pylon makes the walk worse, and as we arrive late Wednesday afternoon, it's a pain no longer having a field that's certain to be quiet and still have space. For years we've camped at the back of Rivermead and could all arrive throughout Wednesday/Thursday and be sure we could get a spot near each other. 3) the site is busier. It works when the weather is nice but I generally can't see it working in a muddy year, with everyone trying to keep to the paths. The paths+the grass either side are now often as busy as the paths used to be in the muddy years. I do think the festival is in for a major shocker when they get the first rainy year as they've just not had one to stress test them since the numbers went up loads. The old behaviour of people just staying in their tents at the campsites when it's raining that used to be relied upon is just not happening any more. So much of the camping is so far out... it's not like when half the site camping was over the Pyramid or Other stage so you could walk 10 minutes, go watch an act, and then go dry off in the tent when it starts raining. People camped in South Park, Lime Kiln, Darble are not wondering back to the tent then out again multiple times a day. You'd head there and it'd have stopped raining again by the time you're back. How busy the site is now on a Wednesday shows just how dedicated people are to having as much fun as possible for their money... which brings me to... 4) the price. It's not too expensive. But I think it *is* too expensive if you're not that interested in any of the headliners or most of the Pyramid/Other programming. Used to be "there's so much do, you don't even need to go to the main stages" - which is still true but there are cheaper ways to get your folk/comedy/circus fix. Speaking of... 5) age/fitness again - I can no longer sit on the floor for three hours chilling in the circus or cabaret tent. An hour or so and my back is screaming at me. 6) my musical tastes haven't changed much. But the festival has changed around me. I don't begrudge it that, it's the one moving with the times, while I'm staying still. But outside of the booking policy for the main stages, the rest has stagnated. Glastonbury used to keep physically growing every few years. More stages, more stuff, space for interesting and innovative new ideas and people to give us innovative new stuff. It's how we got Arcadia, Shangri-La, HMS Charity, the Greenpeace installations. But now there's no space any more. But there's also no willingness to let the old things go. Arcadia was going to go and get replaced by a new thing... by the Arcadia team. The Pier is a nice idea, but it's Joe Rush again. Carhenge was a throwback to the old days of the festival, and was also Joe Rush again. Rimski's Yard is great, love it as an addition, but it's run by the same groups with the same acts that are on at the rest of the T&C field. The Atchin Tan at the top of the T&C field... I don't have anything against the cause of Travellers and it's a neat idea but that's some prime real estate to give to over to something people were really uninterested in. And it's the political equivalent of booking 90s Britpop on the Pyramid all day. If we're going to have an area for a political statement to be made, maybe we could give it to some young people? Leftfield have done a good job at keeping up with the issues that affect the younger generation but certainly much of the rest of the place hasn't. Green Futures feels so very, very dated. Similarly the way people engage with stand-up comedy these days: most people go to the theatre and watch hour-long shows by acts they really like. Few people go to comedy clubs and watch a bunch of acts do 10-20 minutes. But the latter is still the format for the Cabaret tent. Maybe more acts doing actual full shows that people could make a point of wanting to go and see, rather it just being somewhere for people to drop in or out of. All of this you can argue either way, that you'd prefer it one way or the other. But to me it's about moving forward rather than standing still. I would rather the music booking policy was what it was in the early 2000s and they booked more of the bands I liked. But it moved on. I can accept that. But the rest of the site has not moved on in the same way. I've been going for 20 years and the Astrolabe still has acts that have played there every year since I first went. And I've read a bunch of Marcus du Sautoy's books and think he is great but does he really need to be doing three shows every festival? (And yeah, it's because he probably does it for the price of a couple of tickets and there's no budget put in elsewhere - I'm not blaming the bookers at these fields - modern cutting edge circus/comedy/theatre acts would cost more. But Elton/GnR/Arctics cost more than Muse/Coldplay/Pulp but we're not using that as an excuse either...) Got a bit ranty there, but yeah, I don't mean to attack the festival or anything, it is what it is and they make the choices to put the money where it benefits them the most, but it does mean it's moved away from my tastes consistently over the past 13 years. Ironically by moving where my tastes are standing still and standing still where my tastes are moving on.

If you have the financial discipline to do so, don't do that. Take the same money and put it in a high interest saving account or an ISA. You'll easily get 5% return on that right now, and your fixed mortgage is probably at 1-2%. So £100 paid off early means you save £1-2 in interest every year, whereas in an ISA that same £100 makes you £5 in a year. When your fixed deal is finished you can overpay as much as you want so then you take that savings pot as pay off as much as possible. If you're on a low fix rate mortgage, overpaying is literally one of the worst things you can do with your spare cash right now. You just need the discipline not to touch that "overpayment" savings pot (and if you're unsure on that bit, you can always get a 2 or 3-year fixed rate saver, so you're not actually allowed to get the money out, same as if you'd overpaid on the mortgage).

Because it's about the censors getting to say that they made the western band bow down to them rather than about the actual content.

Depends if you think he cares about Macca or the festival. I suspect it's the former.

It's notable in his autobiography that Glastonbury doesn't even warrant a mention. As ever, we massively over-glamourise the place, for most acts it's just another gig. I think he'd be a good booking, the current show is good, but I don't really see it happening.

Never actually see a Pulp gig with that level of production before. Or really much of any production or staging. Was certainly a revelation.

Great article here: https://doublechorus.substack.com/p/004-the-chaotic-self-absorbed-radicalism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1779003&post_id=135352401&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

Sometimes engaging with the censors and making some sort of change is enough to make them happy. They think they have won then. Big world famous rock band changed something because they said so. (And the people actually doing the job may not give a crap anyway, they just have to show they've done something so the higher ups are happy)

I'd be interested if any of the reprisals or clamp-downs they were worried about have actually happened? It's a week on and I've not seen anything, although most of the international media stopped caring the second a western rock group were no longer part of the story.

I think it's more than just people over here. It's the press as well. 100s of articles about how the Malaysian LGBTQ community are angry about what he did, all citing the same spokespeople from the same couple of charities, and the same individuals on Twitter. Maybe those people *are* representative of the entire community. Maybe they're not. "Oh but where are all the social media posts from Malaysian gay people who liked what he did?" You can figure that one out. In any campaign for social change, there will be those that want a radical approach, and those that prefer to work within the rules to achieve change in a slower, more measured way. Plenty of climate change activists find Just Stop Oil unhelpful, but others like their existance. (And general activism theory is that you require a "radical flank" to do the over-the-top, attention grabbing stuff, to give those more reasoned activists the spotlight to actually talk and address the issues. In this case, a foreign band would be well positioned to act in the radical flank, because of the ability to get the hell out without ending up in prison. Depressingly I'm sure the above mentioned LGBTQ charity spokespeople talked at length with various news outlets about the awful issues facing LGBTQ people in Malaysia, before saying that what Healy did was culturally insensitive and unhelpful. But that latter bit is all that gets reported in the press.)

I also wish we had more tests cheaply and easily available but we don't. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother to use the ones we have.

Yes, do you not?

U OK hun?

People sitting down in crowds, and people pushing out and back in again to go to the loo are doing it for the exact same reason. To get relief from physical pain and discomfort, while not losing their spot in the crowd. Exact same reason. To not be in pain. I'm not going to get angry with people who want to not be in pain. By all means argue for a system of survival of the fittest where sitting is not allowed but that same system should also disallow going out and back in again for the same reason (and some festivals have a one way pit that essentially does do that, I'm not being ridiculous).

The ones in the pit aren't the problem. They just block the view of the stage itself which if you're not in the pit, you can barely see anyway. It's the ones further back that block the screens, which more than half the average pyramid audience are watching on, that are the issue. The compromise answer that would work is only flags in the central section- ie. Where you are infront of the stage, not the screens. But that's close to unenforceable.

I reckon at least 1000 people left the field for the toilet during or in the half hour just before Elton and then tried to get back in, yes. Which is apparently how many chairs their were. Each contributes to the "problem" in its own way

³ Wouldn't go out with the flu either. I back myself to tell the difference between a cold and the flu. I don't back myself to tell the difference between a cold and COVID. Because as you say, the vaccine is so good. Flu feels worse than COVID at this point.

Not necessarily a medical problem, just some people can't stand for that long. One could question similarly why your friend didn't have a wee before you went into the crowd. For me that seems ridiculous- that they wouldn't know and wouldn't go before... but different people work in different ways. You may think it ridiculous someone can't stand up for 4 hours. I may find it ridiculous someone can't go four hours without a piss. The festival takes all sorts. Wouldn't have it any other way. But I'd argue the 1000s of people sat in chairs were creating only as much of an issue as the 1000s trying to get in and out for the bathroom!

I do agree with you but I would also note, not everyone is a seasoned festival goer who can judge how busy an act will be. People might set up camp halfway back in the field thinking that is perfectly reasonable (and for headliners in years past, it would have been). And then you're chatting with mates, few drinks, maybe other stuff, maybe you're not quite as aware of the growing crowd as you should be. Doesn't excuse it once it's pointed out but not everyone is aiming to be disruptive from the start.

Just to repeat: she was given an extra 15 minutes over her scheduled end time. More than Bruce got and nearly as much as Macca. And given she still had about half an hour of show to go, I'm not sure five more minutes would have helped. She would have been told at 2345 her time was up but they could give her 15 more minutes. Another artist would have jumped to the end of the set. She didn't. She just took that fifteen minutes for granted, carried on with the show as is, and then started complaining. The narrative that the festival cut her zero slack is not true at all. She got extra time. She was not cut off the second she went over, she was cut off after being given fifteen minutes grace and then failing to use that time to wrap up the show. If they'd given her another five minutes she'd just have played the next song in the set and still not done Videogames and wrapped it up. The reason this has "never happened before" is that when it does happen, the artist gets told they can have 15 minutes to wrap up... and they wrap up. And you don't even realise it happened.

Yes, because it just feels like a nasty cold, and if I stopped going places any time I had a nasty cold, I'd never get anything done. But a nasty cold isn't going to cause problems for an elderly relative or friend in the same way COVID might. And beyond all that, I prefer to know what's wrong with me when I'm ill. That info is useful diagnostic data for future issues. So yeah, if I can find out at zero cost to the NHS then I will. Same reason I monitor my heart rate with my watch. Being well informed about your own own health can dramatically increase your lifespan, why do you think the royals live until their 90s on a regular basis? Amazing genetics? But its something that doesn't get talked about because it's too expensive for the NHS to do. Giving everyone over 20 an annual bowel cancer screening would save a lot of lives, but we can't afford it. But you can pay for one. You probably should. But no-one tells you that because it flies in the face of the idea that death is random and cares not for money or status. It absolutely does, and the amount of massively well off people who don't even a spend a fraction of their income on regular health screenings baffles me. They'll tell you they're not religious and believe in science but then just go "wont bother with that, when my number is up it'll be my time". But anyway, have a nice night!

We know how high you need to be for the flags not to obscure the view. Because that's what the Beeb camera guy in the cherry picker crane goes up to. Not sure it's feasible to have a viewing platform at that height!

At something like Elton when the field is that busy, you can't just move to get an unblocked view anyway. It also affects anyone stood in the back half of the field in the same way. It's not like every able-bodied person can all get down the front either.