Saturday: bands and beer
As usual, managed to miss a huge swathe of acts I'd eagerly marked down as 'must sees'.

Instead, enjoyed a rambling 'see what we find' stroll around the site.

Came across Simon Munnery in the comedy tent and then strolled across to the equally excellent Broken Family Band...this is what makes Glasto such a brilliant experience - the almost endless variety of odd, inspiring and brilliant acts at every turn.

Spent ages in the Green Fields drinking cider and listening (briefly) to George Galloway.

Go Team put in a energetic set, albeit one plagued with technical issues.

Evening ended in LV and Green Fields hippy bonkers stuff. Top Notch!

Friday: Mud, rivers and sunshine
When I left my tent on Friday morning, little did I know I'd be walking out into faithful representation of The Somme.

By Lost Vagueness, a large chunk of a field was under several feet of water,with just the tops of tents visible above the murky lagoon.

Apparently, campers were forced to swim for their lives in the dark of night as the water rushed down from the hillside.

By the Other Stage, a twenty foot wide river bursted through a campside as it created a new tributary impassable to anyone without wellies.

The ground around the site quickly turned into the familiar Glasto bog.

All the acts started late because of safety fears. The Dance Tent was hit by lightning and damaged.

The roof of the Avalon tent had to cut open as a trapped pool of water was causing the metal stanchions to buckle.

We met loads of people who had lost their tents, sleeping bags, everything.

Eventually, the rain cleared to reveal a murky day. Beer was called for. And more.

Checked out the end of Babyshambles. V. unimpressed. Former camping neighbour Willy Mason was superb.

Picked up Eme from the bus stop at 11 and guided her through the muddy armegeddon, dropped off her bags and then off to see Whire Stripes who kicked ass.

More drink and sliding about in the Green Fields till late,followed by ace bean burgers at Delilahs...

The quagmire returns
'The chances of getting a heavy downpour are quite small', said a Met Office spokesman yesterday.

Yeah, rrrright.

Last night was the meanest, loudest, heaviest and longest thunderstorm I can ever recall.

From about 4am to 11am,the rain thudered, nay, cascaded down on my beleaguered tent.

Almighty claps of thunder guaranteed that sleep was all but a distant hope as the heavenly pyrotechnics did their worst.

When I finally emerged from my tent, the whole field was covered in a 5cm layer of water, rapidly turning into the trademark Glasto sludge.

The rain's finally stopped, but the paths are already turning into ankle deep rivers of mud. I suspect it's going to get worse.

Will it spoil my enjoyment of the weekend? Will it fuck. Let's party!

Ready to rock!
After a lazy afternoon on the ale, I've been chilling in the tent ready for tonight's session.

Unhappily, my neighbours had to move elsewhere (they had the wrong passes) to be replaced by a towering monster of a tent that's pitched a nanoparticle's width away from my 'umble abode.

Even worse, the family-tastic tent is now sending plumes of smoke my way as Dad sets about grilling half a cow.

Oh well. Time to take to the drugs methinks...

Glastonbury; weds-thurs
After a daunting start at Paddington - with my 'booked' train declared full and much platform swapping called for - I eventually got a fast train to Swindon and then alighted a very jovial, but truly ancient train to Castle Cary.

The revenue-protection bastards of Great Western were at the station, methodically examing ticket and holding up the Glasto-bound crew.

One vintage bus journey later, we caught the near-spiritual sight of the festival, nestling in a shallow valley below...bring it on!

I managed to get the capacious tent up single-handedly in the scorching heat and readied myself to revisit my old stomping ground of the near-legendary Cider Bus.

A throng of Urbanites were in attendance with daft as a brush LisaRocket waving a, 'anyone from urban75 here?' home-made sign about with gusto.

As is the norm, many, many ciders and ales were heartily quaffed over the next few hours. Lovely!

Over the grapevine some bad news emerged of an Urbanite who was busted at the gate with 40 pills, chucked in the cells for 9 hours, charged, and given a 10 mile exclusion order from the site.

That fucking sucks...

Thursday update 14:15
Sleep came very lightly overnight as the tent heated up to glass-making temperatures early in the morning.

Gave up trying to kip in a furnace and got up too early.

Chatted to my camping neighbours from the US - artiste Willy Mason (onstage @ the John Peel stage tomorrow) and his film making chums. Nice folks!

Wandered around the Green Fields in the super-scorchio heat takin' a few snaps before heading back to the tent for a half-arsed attempt at a siesta ([not likely with a thumping sound system a few metres away...

Right....time for a beer...

testing!
Trial blogging run using Pocket Blogger software on my new I-mate JAM PDA....

Buzz Aldrin's Smackdown



I like it!

(Thanks to onemonkey)