In Which I Attend A Festival, Sober

Latitude, at Henham Park in Suffolk, as been called ‘the New Hay’. I have no idea about this, but its certainly very different from the staggering mess-fests I used to attend ‘back in the day’. The truth is, I hadn’t been to a full-on tents-n-loos festy since I gave up drinking. I haven’t done many sober gigs either. I was there to read on the Sunday afternoon, but had 24 hours to wait.

Before I rant, I need to make it clear that it’s actually a very nice festival, in a lovely setting, and there are no hordes of wasted scallies charging round, and, as far as I know, there were no stabbings. There’s lots of security and not a huge walk round the attractions. And I had a laugh with my friends. However, my days of going round with a water bottle full of vodka topped up with a bit of Ribena are long over, and so that warm fuzzy feeling I used to get after a couple of hours drinking in time to the music, and chasing people into dark corners, are long gone.

Luckily I met up with two friends, (Suzanne Portnoy and Adam Nevill, who read from his new book) who saved me from the outer reaches of my rage at the sight of what seemed to be so many dog turds on the ground, which proved, on closer inspection, to be fir cones. I did not need the momentary sense of outrage at this sight, which probably added up to a full minute if you put my reactions back to back, and would respectfully request that said cones be picked up before next year’s festival starts. To add insult to it all, we discovered the genuine article, this time produced by a human, not far from my tent the following morning.

I cursed the lack of chairs, and lack of a tea room, and the musical noise drowning out the literary and poetry stages. However, my grandest oaths were saved for the price of the food available, and the eight quid that it cost to get a festival guide and find out what was on all weekend. (How about a fold-out sheet for £1.50?) Call it the credit crunch or whatever you like, but £6.50 for a skinny dried-out cheeseburger, and £8 for a goat curry with the temerity to have extra plantain added, is taking the piss bigtime. Next time I’m bringing food with me, even if it’s just Bavarian smoked cheese in those orange plastic sausages, and Kendal Mint Cake.

My reading passed without incident, or any response whatsoever from the audience, as far as I could tell, as I could neither hear them nor see their faces. I read the ‘intra-vaginal transportation unit’ bit, which I consider to be funny, and I only hope they did too. Anyway, good old Richard Thomas for keeping it all going backstage.

However, cheering things did happen. The ex manager of the Clash told me he’d enjoyed my book, and Grinderman played a blinder. I went right down the front, where I ended up standing next to a group of youngsters who kept shouting requests for Bad Seeds songs, from Murder Ballads in particular. I hope Nick and the band could tell it wasn’t me.