balti-pie

it would piss me off something chronic if Pearl Jam are at BST over glastonbury weekend: i've got a bit of an in for a volunteering position at Hyde park that gets you a golden circle spot for the headliners for about four hours of volunteering, and i'd bloody love a bit of double PJ

You can continue to Tottenham Hale, which might be slightly closer, or get out at Seven Sisters and just jump on any bus with a number ending in a nine going up the High Road - they all go past the ground. I like the walk down the high road, cos I can have a beer in the High cross, the Beehive and Bluecoats, all of which are great pubs 👍 having a beer after the game always ensures the queues have died down and you can get straight on a tube. you can go from Liverpool Street and get a train to either Northumberland park or white hart lane, both of which are a five minute wander from the ground, but I like the chance to get thirsty to be honest!

I can very much see Robbie Williams doing the Tottenham stadium next summer - after the spurs fans covered and reworked Angel into being about Big Ange, and him doing that video saying he's a Spurs fan now, he'll come aboard and itll be a big crossover nonsense. There's two Pink dates announced for the Tottenham stadium so there's a fair bit of availability there next summer. I've not been for a concert there yet (and definitely bloody wont for Robbie) but its an amazing facility for football, and for other sports, now there's been a bit of a bedding in period and they've sorted the sound and access etc, its good to have stadiums used more for other things. I do love an empty football ground, its something i always check out when im in a different town and city, and seeing them used for other things is always a bit fascinating. (Williams apart, cos bollocks to him)

Id always had the hope that the Pogues would end up with a headline spot on the Avalon or something similar one of these years. i know corralling them all - and especially Shane - was a fairly tricky task, but they'd managed the reunion gigs, and typically they fell into a rhythm of getting Shane onstage for 3 songs, then off for one or two, and then back on, and it worked quite well during those one offs. He could manage a lot of little spells, but couldnt do a great big stint. I think it was 2016 when the Pogues played Bristol on the wednesday night ahead of glastonbury, and i had it in my head that they'd be the special guests opening the Other Stage on the friday morning - i got down there early, all excited, and then out came the bloody Kaiser Chiefs to sh*t on everyone's chips 😐 anyways, i digress. i think Rum sodomy is their best album but i absolutely love Red Roses as well. gonna stick them on, and i think a pint or two is very much in order tonight as well of course. Pints of Jameson's.

I got a mate a pressie at the last glastonbury, just for being an all round good'un - it was a bottle of his favourite rum, decanted into plastic and carried in, and gifted to him in the pyramid field just as one of his favourite artists were starting (and hilariously, that artist is bloody Texas, the beige nonsense 😆) he was a very happy lad indeed, all i could see was smiles as i got the hell away from bloody Spiteri before she commenced her caterwauling

i got around that by watching half of Bicep and half of Kendrick Lamar - i know most people say to avoid doing 2 half sets, pick one and be happy, but i really liked getting a bit of both - and also really liked wandering between WH and the pyramid and seeing how quiet it is when its headliner time. A little wander when everyone else is doing something is a lot of fun

they nicked that riff from a nazareth song, didnt they? I'm sure i saw something about that on a doc about stolen riffs

Not sure about all this Heart slander at all. Alone is an absolute 100% cold stone banger of unimaginably epic proportions, and it warrants them a slot based just on that. Ok the 80's stuff is all fairly dreadful otherwise, but there's some 70's bangers as well - barracuda and crazy on you are also Yossi's drawn straight from the top shelf. Heart please!

you bring the squirrels, i'll bring the pies!

Its all barrel-aged imperial stouts and trained therapy squirrels now tbf (i would absolutely keep a therapy squirrel if i could get one, without a doubt)

If i wasn't volunteering, i absolutely couldn't afford to go. £350 for a ticket, £55 for parking, and diesel etc would be another £100 odd, beers/food etc easily another £500 on top of that - i just plain don't have a grand for a holiday. TBF volunteering will still come in at about £3-£400 all told for the week, and as i've got all my camping gear i don't have to shell out for any of that thankfully - i can do it as cheap as can be realistically achieved. OK i could spend less on nice food etc but i do like having double dinner 😆 particularly on shift days, i've earnt it

Depends on what you want to do. I work in psychiatry, and to be honest I really don’t want to take time off work to end up doing the same thing - especially considering it’ll be 90% drug-induced psychosis, and that’s not a particularly fun part of the job. Stewarding with Oxfam is a very different thing to my normal job and I like the break, I like the lack of responsibility, I like the easiness of it! FMS is good though, you’d tend to do two shifts and won’t be on your feet as much (probably) and you might even be able to take a companion along with you (but would have to pay for their ticket, and it’s dependant on availability and demand etc - might take a couple of years)

in the grand scheme of things, there's about 150k tickets and at a conservative estimate, about 500k people trying for them. so about a one in three and a bit chance. Some are serious about it, sharing info and spreadsheets and hopefully maximising their chances, and some log onto seetickets and give it a bit of a bash before giving up after twenty minutes of BSOD and then moaning about it on twitter or on here. While demand outstrips supply people will be 'wanting to make it fair' but to be honest, fair only really means 'ensure i get a ticket'. If you really want to go, volunteer. It might take a couple of years of getting onto lists and volunteering for other festivals, and it does impinge on your annual leave a bit more, but i dont have to join the ticket bunfight any more, i only do it for mates. (and i havnt even seen the bloody booking page since 2016!)

As a Spurs fan: hell to the f**k no. Nice lad, runs his nuts off, but technically just plain not good enough. He's about a £30m player, if transfer fees have anything like any kind of meaning these days. Plus we gave them a great big Dele Alli discount that they're stuffed up, as well.

I think i'd be pretty damn content if great swathes of this appeared. Sleep Token ffs! Truth stage pls!

It does take a bit of a mindset shift when the festival and the stages are all in full swing, and you really fancy a cold pint and to amble along to this particular set, but you've got a shift starting at 10pm and you know you'll be on your feet for all of it so have to rest up a bit and be sober. It does take a little bit of discipline, but as Stuie says, you're getting Mon and Tues there without anybody else, and lets not forget you're there for free as well, and helping out a charity - when you reconcile missing out on things, but getting other things by way of compensation, it becomes much easier. I mightve hugely disagreed if i've have had to have missed Gojira, The Cure, or Skindred, or one of the other sets i was really hyped about 😆

It changes every year, but i missed out on tickets for 2019 and have since remained in the volunteering ecosystem via Oxfam. I was absolutely adamant i was going to be there and applied for a raft of things, and saw an obvious three different areas to volunteer/work with, which was oxfam/wateraid/security (the last one was 12hr shifts, but paid) and i thought oxfam seemed the easiest and cushiest number, to be honest - which it pretty much is! Its a bit of fastest finger first when the places come up, but if you're persistent and flexible, you absolutely will get a place. Check availability several times a day and at some point you'll probably get one. And maintaining that year upon year is easy enough, assuming you have the annual leave and desire to do one other festival at least to maintain your priority. Its not for everyone, it is knackering, but i really dont fancy a normal ticket any more - i'd miss the camping, the staff bars, the getting in early. Its a great way to see the festival from a different perspective.

Far better good people get the hospitality tickets rather than knobheads: I was on gate A for a shift last year and basically everyone with a hospitality ticket finds a way to mention it at every opportunity 😄 one particular example wanted me to find out if there were Sherpas around to give her a hand with her bags, and could we radio the hospitality area to let them know she had arrived? I smiled my most polite smile and encouraged her to take responsibility for herself for the next couple of hundred yards, we don’t have an army of servants ready to carry her padded leather bags 🤣

6 out of 9, with ten people trying. 66% is a decent success rate and better than most but I’m still absolutely gutted for those 3 that missed out

It’s gone to a sold out page now, there’s no holding page - can’t see how it’ll get through

Cos then about 5 million people will join the lottery, on the off chance they get a ticket. This way at least rewards persistence, even if most people still end up disappointed

All blue screen here, trying for others. I’ve not even seen the booking page since 2016 I think 😳

More socks than you think you'll need - fresh socks on knackered feet are f**king BLISSFUL

Madonna vs Biffy sunday night would be really bloody good, i'd be all over the biff

yeah, to be fair a trapeze type stage set-up is mildly diverting, perhaps enough to ignore the slightly uninteresting music - but if you really want to see trapezes and bungee dancers, there is a whole actual circus set-up just a couple of fields away from the pyramid field 😆 and its lovely and quiet during headliner time!