Man About Town: Glam and glee at Glastonbury

I don’t know what they were taking, but whatever it was, it should be handed out to politicians before major diplomatic conferences

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The mass of people waiting to see the Rolling Stones contracted and I was forced to stop in front of a rotund couple in their forties. “You’ve got red hair,” the man said to me. “It’s really great”.

I was trying to fight my way through the crowds to get back to our spot in front of Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, so I just smiled and said yes. I was fully expecting a joke about my hair, but it didn’t come. “He’s really nice, isn’t he?” the man’s wife said to him, about me. “He’s dead handsome.”

Her husband seemed to agree, he was now just stroking my face from hair to the bottom of my beard, like I was a giant benevolent dog.

“Can I give you a hug?” she said. I wasn’t going anywhere, so I agreed, and she grabbed me and kissed my face. I was still finding the glitter, which made its way from her face to mine, two days later. Like the catalyst for change, the crowd then parted and we carried on our way.

I don’t know what they were taking, but whatever it was, it should be handed out to politicians before major diplomatic conferences. War would be a thing of the past, at least until the comedown a couple of days later.

Which might be how the bloke speaking loudly outside my Somerset sleeping quarters on Sunday morning is feeling now. Through the walls of my little wooden hut (or podpad), I heard a cockney-sounding man tell a group of northern women: “Do you know what I really want to do today? Go into a dance tent and go nut-nut.” The term “nut-nut” was new to me, and I love it. I’d be using it more often but for the fact that going nut-nut has never really been a particular hobby of mine.

Another thing I learnt is: don’t listen to idiots who talk about the “real Glastonbury”. Far better is the “really nice Glastonbury”. I had a drink with a couple of friends in the VIP Winnebago area, among the shiny havens, with their own showers and loos and a bar outside where Veuve Clicquot flows all day. That’s the way to cope. Anyone who tells you differently has just gone nut-nut.

Twitter.com: @lukeblackall