This Year's Lesson

I think I've worked out what this year's Glastonbury personal sermon was about. Every year I'm taught something new, not by a pixie or Thom Yorke or any other entity wandering around, but by the festival itself. Last year it was subtitled: 'I promise to go wandering'. It was a festival which taught me that it was ok to wander off on my own and speak to strange people. That I was as wondrous as they were.

This year, it was about the borders between realities, each one as valid as all the others. Such a tiny bubble as we walk in normally, sleep, fag, work, coffee, lunchtime, sandwich, work, hometime, traffic jams, internet mailing lists, sleep; with all the intermittant moments of magic that we can crowbar between the litany of the sleepwalking. How many times do we tell ourselves that happiness is just a state of mind? And if we could just think a happy thought, we might just stop shaking at the photocopier? I knew this lesson, but the Glastonbury Festival decided to teach me again anyway, in spades.

Billy Bragg said that this isn't a single festival, it's about fifteen of them all stuck next door to each other. He's right. At times, you could physically feel yourself changing dimensions as you passed through the gap in a hedge from one field to the next. Your bouncing reggae walk became a gliding, arms-stretched-out-under-a-blanket-like-wings ballet walk, as your ears picked up a different music. Huge, wide open spaces, carnival lights and fairground rides, into hordes of ravers, into hippy candles, pixie wings, into the politics of the leftfield. All different realities laid out like chocolates in a box. You pick one and if it doesn't quite suit, you pick another. All fine and well with the world.

This realisation slobbered all over me one night when, being health conscious and all, I decided it would be beneficial to find out what the temperature was, in order to either take clothes off or put them on. Being in a Syd Barrett frame of mind, it wasn't information I could discover for myself through the usual methods, so I looked to the crowd for clues. There, at one of the main junctions were dudes wearing only a pair of shorts and sweating, whilst beside them dithered dudes in full coats, hoods, hats and a blanket trailing behind them. All alright, all reacting to their own reality. I eventually asked someone if I was hot or cold. The dude didn't blink, just smiled at me and said, 'Are you having fun, dear?' I assured him that I was, and he rubbed my arm, 'You're cold but clammy, dear, I'd recommend your coat and taking your blanket for later.' Then he kissed my cheek and said, 'Carry on having fun.' Not much on paper, but at the time... it was nice.

The festival also simplified things so much. How often did something truly spectacular become 'nice' when described back at the campfire? Or requests for everyone to look at a stunning display of colour or fireworks become the simple call of 'pretties!' The boards on stalls advertized their wares as 'Food' or 'Coffee' or 'Rizla', because after the first couple of days, everyone ignored stalls which had tried too hard. It is difficult, for this reason, to report back on the 'other' aspect of the festival, the backdrop, the spontaneity, colour, sounds, emotion, the FEEL of the place. In fact it's downright impossible, therefore I'll just give you some random memories as they come to me for your selection.