1968 was a year of exciting change in Britain. Arthur C Clarke published 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine hit cinemas, and the first Isle of Wight music festival was held, a year before Woodstock. British television was changing, too. The publicly funded BBC had been the only broadcaster in the country from 1927 until Independent Television (ITV) was founded in 1955. ITV was a private broadcaster, supposed to act as an umbrella for local networks all across the country. By 1968, it had grown into a major player on the British media scene, and its first round of contracts with local networks had come up for renewal. The fight for the contract to produce programming for London was particularly contentious, and after much brouhaha it was awarded to the newly-formed Thames Television, the product of a merger between two production companies.
Thames Television were eager to make their mark on a TV landscape still largely dominated by the BBC, so in 1969, less than twelve months after their formation, they made the bold decision to spend four years and £900,000 (£11.5 million or $18 million today) making a 26-episode documentary about the Second World War. It was, at the time, the most expensive series in the history of British television.
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.
Stallman does not stop being Stallman for even one minute.
Steve Jobs was:
Steve Jobs was not:
A hot morning turns to drizzle by lunchtime, so once again the festival finishes as it began.
Glasto was hard work this year, but no less fun for it.
I don’t want to think about what I will do next year. Camping at the olympics?
There is talk of getting the gazebo crew together to steward at a different festival!
Find it, find it, find iiiiiiiiiit… YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!
Glasto 2011: SLOGFEST
fin
Shift 3: 6am to 2pm
Half-dry mud is much, much harder to walk in than wet mud.
Morning shift on the last day, perhaps not surprising that the Oxfam radio traffic is all about stewards not showing up for shifts.
At last, a sunny morning!
IT’S NOT GOING TO RAIN ANY MORE!
A hot one. Feels like 2010 again.
Done aaaaaaaand DONE.
In most of the well-travelled areas the mud has dried and been pounded flat.
Cider bus, cider bus, oh cider, cider bus,
Call my baby cider bus, tell you why…
Saw (ok, heard) from afar Laura Marling on the Pyramid stage. Cute girl folk.
Saw Paul Simon on the Pyramid stage. You can be my bodyguard.
Don’t get captured.
Saw Go Team at the West Holts stage. My band cuts the record down to the bone.
The mud has reached danceable levels of dryness.
Saw Hercules and the Love Affair at the West Holts stage. Two DJs, two drag queens and an androgyne.
Saw the end of Kaiser Chiefs at the Other stage. We are the angry mob, we read the papers every day.
Saw Queens of the Stone Age at the Other stage. No-one knows.
After a good mosh, I am finished. No dancing until four in the morning this year.
Re-convene, and a lazy wander to the stone circle. One last story-swapping session. Make a few more new friends. A final hike up the hill to the Oxfield. Huddle under the gazebo until sun-up.
The severe weather did not materialise, unless 10 hours of drizzle passes for severe.
It is not going to rain any more
I partied too hard last night, which has severely compromised my ability to party hard today. Pacing is important at Glasto, especially for staff.
Everyone is a little crazy by this point. I see a lot of people wandering around on their own talking or singing to themselves.
Fiiiiiiind iiiiiiiiit…
Saw some folk-funk in Avalon and then some comedic poetry in the Cabaret Tent. Also a guy contorting himself through a metal hoop ass-first.
Saw Janel Monáe at West Holts. Beyoncé ain’t shit.
Saw Big Boi at West Holts. You’ll find me in the A.
The met office has issued a severe weather warning for 6pm to 4am. So much for flip-flops by Saturday…
Shift 2: 2pm to 10pm
DRIZZLE
We shout ‘Hi Bono!’ at every tour bus and blacked-out 4x4 that passes our station, including one that (probably) actually contains Bono.
Apparently the severe weather warning is for wind, not rain. 35mph+ forecast.
The weatherocalypse has so far failed to materialise.
I met Craig Charles!
Fiiiiiind it!
Also met Bono’s masseuse’s driver. Really.
Saw Carl Cox, Carl Cox vs Fatboy Slim and Fatboy Slim in Dance East. I have to praise you like I should.
The drizzle has got NO MERCY
The low clouds reflect the light from Arcadia’s flame-throwers across the whole site.
There is no point in going to the dance village if one is not fully committed to dancing.
Time on shift passes faster when you pay it no attention
Watching ill-prepared and unhappy punters slog through the mud. Schadenfreude abounds.
Find iiiiiiiit…
Managed to avoid looking at my watch from sun-down to sun-up
Maintaining a night shift fire is more about keeping busy than keeping warm
Dawn is heralded by light drizzle, but I feel a nice day coming on.
The rain intensifies to a solid pour for a few minutes. I cannot continue to live and die with each passing shower.
Seagulls pick through the refuse in the churned thoroughfares and bicker over what they find.
It is simultaneously too hot and too rainy to sleep
The rain is making people (me) angry
As cold as the cold wind blows
Suddenly, a beautiful day!
Flip-flops by Saturday?
Went deep, deep in to punter camping. I had forgotten what it is like
Michael Eavis is in the Rabbit Hole singing ‘My Way’ kareoke!
It’s all Shangri Lies!
Sat under a propaganda megaphone for three hours. Feel thoroughly indoctrinated.
Went to Kamikaze Kareoke. Too ra loo ra too ra loo ra laaaaaaaaaaay…
The punters are welcomed to the site by several hours of heavy rain. It is going to be a muddy one.
The only benefit to this weather is that it keeps tents cool enough for sleep well in to the day.
The boss says no more rain. I believe him.
Find it…
Played some foosball in a diner tent with great music. Lost.
Is the Benevolent Musicians Fund a fund for benevolent musicians or a musicians’ fund which is benevolent?
Cheers for the evening sun.
Shift 1: 10pm to 6am.
How many Glastonburies have your pants been to?
The Tuesday crowd are festival people. They are not here to see bands.
Indulged in some light pagan ritual.
Monday afternoon at work, and like most summer days there is a cycling race going on somewhere in the world. It’s the 10th of May, and the three-week Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) is just getting started. Sitting over the email client on my second monitor is a live video stream of the 3rd stage from ‘Rai’, the Italian national broadcaster. The commentary is garrulous yet engaging, even in a language I barely understand, and alongside it comes a constant stream of updates from two ex-pros riding on the back of chase motorbikes and opinions from the pundits in the temporary studio set by the finish line.
The peloton has just crested the Passo del Bocco and is plunging down towards the sun-drenched Ligurian coast, with the finish close at hand. The climb is tough and the pace high; nearly half the riders have failed to stay with the lead group, and stragglers are taking a few calculated risks on the descent, hoping to catch up before the flat. This is not a terrifying switchback-filled downhill on exposed, weather-worn roads like those race will soon face in the Dolomites and the Alps: the tarmac is smooth, the incline is relatively modest and the course is straight.
As the leaders approach flat roads, the commentator exclaims ‘una caduta!’ and the picture cuts to a scene playing out back on the descent. A camera motorbike has stopped to get a shot of the aftermath, but it’s immediately apparent that this is no routine tumble. Instead of the usual image of a limping rider, road rash showing through holes his shorts, trying to change a broken wheel and get going again, the pictures are of the race doctor leaping out of his gleaming white car and running to attend to a rider lying on the road behind it, hidden from view. A few moments later, the camera locates him, and for perhaps half a second the global audience of millions sees a young man lying completely still on his back, face smashed and disfigured, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. The director cuts away as fast as he can but the image is burned in to my mind, and I can tell from the tone of the commentators that their gut reaction is the same as mine: that man is going to die.
In the twilight of the Saturday of the hottest Easter weekend anyone could remember, I set off for my grandparents’ house one-handed and bare-footed, bearing with me two cardboard fruit crates full of books and DVDs, three framed pictures, a set of surround sound speakers, a Calvin and Hobbes collection in three massive hard-back volumes, a ham kettle full of keepsakes, and a bathrobe.
