Jan 4, 2001
DIY Glastonbury
So, Glastonbury festival is off this year. Well, not to worry. Just because Michael Eavis (the man with an upside-down head) isn’t going to oblige, doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the fun. Just follow my handy tips below, and with the help of a very obliging friend, you can be well on your way to recreating the Glastonbury experience in the comfort of your own home….
- Duck out of work early on a thursday, and then go and sit in your car for seven hours. Don’t go anywhere, just sit there. If you have heating, even better: whack it up to full.
- When it gets dark and you’re nice and sweaty, go around to the back of your house and enter by vaulting over a hedge/climbing in the windows/shinning up the drainpipe. This will be your method of entry and exit to the house for the next four days.
- Arrange in advance to have a friend distribute your furniture, posessions and various random bits of taut string around the house in your absence. Also, tell them to remove all your lightbulbs. Upon entering your home, stumble around blindly for an hour or so before you find your bed.
- Insert four or five large rocks under your matress. Better still, remove mattress altogether and sleep directly on rocks.
- Take an aspirin.
- Wait for nothing to happen.
- Go to bed.
- Arrange for a friend to wake you up by pissing on your duvet.
- Eat a mars bar for breakfast.
- Go and stand outside your toilet for an hour and a half.
- Use toilet (not paper)
- Arrange for your friend to stand at the bottom of the garden holding up a CD jewel case of a band you aren’t really that keen on.
- For true authenticity, arrange for another friend to stand directly in front of you and shout.
- Put the radio on very quietly, and put it quite far away. Keep this up for six or seven hours.
- Queue up beside your kitchen cupboard for two hours.
- Throw £4.50 in the bin, and help yourself to an authentic Thai meal (pot noodle)
- Take an aspirin.
- Wait for nothing to happen.
- Arrange for your friend to accost you naked on the stairs and jabber wildly at you for an hour.
- Stand outside your toilet for an hour.
- Give up, go into the garden and pee under a bush.
- Repeat steps 12-14.
- Throw £15 into your neighbour’s garden. Roll up some bay leaves and sage in a Rizla. Light. Choke. Repeat.
- Take an aspirin.
- Wait for nothing to happen.
- Go to bed.
- Discover that someone (possibly your obliging friend) has pissed on your bed.
- Sleep fitfully while your friend plays bongos two feet from your head and shouts “Oi-OI!” every ten minutes.
- Repeat steps 8-15
- Flush £8.20 down the loo and grab yourself an authentic organic Mexican Veggie burger (8 Linda McCartney Spicy Beanburgers, 99p from Tesco) (best served lukewarm)
- Take an aspirin
- Wait for nothing to happen.
- Become amazed when you actually do start to feel a tingle in your toes.
- Neck half a bottle of White Viking Lightning Extra Fearsome Cider.
- Find a puddle.
- Dance in it for twelve minutes, even though you can’t hear any music from where you are.
- Find a bush.
- Throw up in it.
- Repeat steps 19-23.
- Watch your friend (or other random person) twirl fire balls and/or juggle while wearing a jester’s hat and no shirt.
- Say “wow”
- Repeat any of the above steps.
- Go to bed.
- Discover that someone (probably you) has thrown up on your bed.
- Sleep fitfully while your friend throws buckets of water at you, shouting “Glastonbuuuuuuuuuury!” every five minutes.
- Repeat steps 8-15.
- Rip £6.40 into tiny shreds in return for a plate of cold, congealed chips.
- Repeat steps 16-24.
- Go to bed.
- Discover that someone (probably your friend) has stolen your bed, your clothes, and, in fact, everything you own.
- Climb down the drainpipe and over the fence, and sleep in your car.
- Wake up uncomfortably and then sit in your car for nine hours, with the heater on full blast.
- Go directly to work.
See? Nothing to it! The authentic festival experience in the (dis)comfort of your own home. Who needs Madonna/Radiohead/John Peel/Camping anyway?
© 01/01, Meg Pickard.
