Tag: culture

Nobel Museum, Stockholm

I sat on a Nobel Prize winner’s chair and ate his chocolate.

The founder of the Nobel Peace Prize was also the inventor of dynamite. I didn’t know this and found it ironic that the money for rewarding and promoting peace originates from something that blows things up.

This was just one of the interesting nuggets of information I picked up at the Nobel Museum.

Alfred Nobel lived from 1833 to 1896 and was a successful chemist, inventor, entrepeneur and businessman. Throughout his life he was able to amass quite a fortune. As he was also a pacifist, he left a lot of that fortune as a legacy to fund the prizes which are named after him.

The first prize was awarded in 1901 and since then almost 600 prizes have been awarded to honour outstanding achievements in the sciences, literature and the pursuit of peace.

Nobel medal
A Nobel Prize medal

All except the Peace Prize are awarded in Sweden (the Peace Prize is awarded in Norway) and so it is fitting that Stockholm has a museum dedicated to the life of Alfred Nobel and the winners of the Nobel Prize.

Nobel museumA monorail hangs from the ceiling and loops round the building. A constantly moving stream of cards each depicts a Nobel Prize winner. It seemed a really effective way to show just how many Nobel winners there have been.

Nobel prize winners info cards Nobel winners info cardsInteractive terminals allow visitors to access information about the prize from each decade.

interactive terminals

Side rooms contain displays about the prize and the inventions that have led to it being won.

Winners attend a banquet and as well as a nice dinner receive a medal and a million pounds (10,000,000SEK). I’d like to be at that dinner party!

The table setting for the banquet follows a set layout.

place setting for Nobel banquet Info on the Nobel banquetDinner is followed by chocolates wrapped in gold foil and embossed to look like the medals.

chocolate Nobel medalsTraditionally winners sign the underneath of their dining chair. Some of the chairs are displayed in the museum. Others are used as seating in the cafe. As I’m not likely to get an invite to the banquet any time soon, I had a coffee in the cafe instead.

chair signed by Nobel winnerSo at least I got to sit on a chair signed by a Nobel Prize winner. I didn’t know who it was, but the coffee was good.

And I bought some of the after dinner chocolates to take home.

Firearms and Fingertips

Corpses, video games, shoot-outs, manic harbingers of death, desperate surgery and blood and gore galore are the mainstay of the action-packed 70 minutes that is Firearms and Fingertips.

Corpses, video games, shoot-outs, manic harbingers of death, desperate surgery and blood and gore galore are the mainstay of the action-packed 70 minutes that is Firearms and Fingertips. 

A DJ plays in the corner, a corpse with a bloodied torso lies still on a hospital bed. After several minutes we realise that the corpse isn’t quite dead yet and frantic doctors and nurses try to revive him. He’s in pain, screaming, gurgling, swearing and asking for his mum. She’s outside. He’s been shot and she found him by the bins when she arrived home with their takeaway. He’s a good boy; no reason for anyone to shoot him. 

Cue the harbingers of death, they love a good death but it really isn’t the same these days. They lament for the good old days of plague with all the puss, and the times when people died of syphilis. The ’80s were good too; that was the time of AIDS you know.

They are presenting a show: ‘This is Your Death’. They wake almost dead Spencer up to tell him the good news. He doesn’t take it too well. With plenty of macabre pomp and fanfare they introduce a series of guests: Spencer’s mum, his girlfriend, shooter Jordan, and Jordan’s mum. As they are hot-seated in turn we learn more about the background of the incident as well as being introduced to the five stages of grief.

A mock-up of ‘The X-Factor’ (‘The Death Factor’), a killing spree computer game and a re-enactment of a war-zone in which the actors race around the place shooting each other and using members of the audience for cover. Bit by bit the reasons for the shooting are uncovered. Was it bad parenting? Was it a disloyal girlfriend? Or was Spencer not the good boy his mother believed him to be?

The dark themes of teenagers and guns, death and bereavement are dealt with in a way that is chilling and humorous. And loud. And freaky.

In the end Spencer dies. It couldn’t end any other way. We return to the hospital scene with the doctors and nurses realising they can’t save him and his mum coming to his bedside and hugging his bloodied body as she says her final goodbye.

 

Wicked – the musical

There’s a lot more to ‘Wicked’ than I’d given it credit for.

Last night I accompanied a group of students to the theatre to see Wicked. I didn’t know anything about it beforehand, but hey, it’s a free theatre ticket, I’m not going to say no. I knew it was a musical and so expected singing, dancing and superficialness. Yes, there was the singing and dancing but I was surprised by some of the challenging themes it addressed. 

The show is basically the backstory to The Wizard of Oz and begins with the Good Witch Glinda announcing the death of Wicked Witch of the West to the people of Oz. They are hesitant to believe the good news at first but once convinced celebrate gladly. One asks Glinda ‘But weren’t you friends with her once?’ Shocked silence. Glinda at first deflects the question, then decides to answer honestly. The show switches to flashback mode and we get the story of the Wicked Witch’s life from her birth to her death.

Born green, her father, the governor, had no time for her and more or less abandoned her. When her wheelchair-bound sister was born she was given the role of looking after her. As teenagers they went off to boarding school together, though Alphaba had been allowed to go only because her sister needed her. She is shunned because of the colour of her skin. Her sister isn’t treated much better due to her disability despite them both being in a supposed position of influence being that they are the governor’s daughters after all. The theme of racism and prejudice continues and develops into a paradigm of how a society, particularly one in hard times, creates its own scapegoats and how easily people buy into the idea. 

The scapegoats in Oz are the animals. All animals can talk and hold down regular jobs such as teaching. One by one, species by species, the animals are silenced and in some cases caged. They are dismissed from their jobs and lose all ‘human’ rights. As people’s minds are poisoned against them, there are few to stand up for them and those that do are seen as subversive. That the scapegoats of choice are so readily turned from upstanding citizens into public enemy number one is reminiscent of 17th century witch hunts, 1930’s and 40’s Nazi Germany, the US’s Reds under the Beds anti-communist frenzy of the 1950s and the present day scaremongering and paranoia about ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘bogus asylum seekers’ as propagated by the likes of the Daily Mail.

Despite the ill-treatment and disdain, Alphaba is good. Good and righteous she is one of the few to stand up for the animals. When she first arrives at the school she looses her cool and demonstrates her ability at magic. The headmistress, impressed by this ability, takes her under her wing and gives her special lessons in sorcery. Alphaba works hard at these lessons as she wants to attain a standard high enough to warrant an invitation to meet with the Wizard himself. Finally she is able to realise her dream of meeting the Wizard and we find out that her reason for wanting this so badly is because she wants to ask him to do something for the animals. To her dismay, she discovers that the Wizard is not all he seems and his power is due more to clever PR than any real talent for magic. To consolidate his position it is he who is behind the scapegoating of the animals.

Alphaba ends up on the run with her name blackened. She continues to fight for justice in Oz, but the Wizard’s media savvy PR is far more powerful and effective than her magic. 

Other characters from The Wizard of Oz, such as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are woven into the story and we find out their backstories too. Glinda, the Good Witch, starts out as a spoilt and self-centred airhead whose only interests in life are her looks and getting her own way. For her and Alphaba it is a case of loathe at first sight. Thrown together as roommates they come first to tolerate each other and then to become friends. Through her friendship with Alphaba, Glinda becomes the good person she later becomes renowned for being. 

I really enjoyed the exploration of so many different issues reflective of contemporary life (there are more than I’ve touched on here), and also enjoyed the way the story was so cleverly linked to the original to become a ‘believable’ prequel. I can now understand why it is so popular and why so many people rave about it.

Groningen Museum

An exhibition on Nordic Art was a great way to start my visit to Groningen.

Arriving on the train from Amsterdam this morning I went straight to the Groningen Museum. This made sense as the museum is right in front of the station, lying on an island in the canal that runs in front of the station and circumambulates the old part of the city, effectively turning the whole of the old city into an island.

Groningen Train Station

It also made sense because I could leave my heavy bag in the cloakroom and so didn’t have to walk round with it for a few hours. I’m only in Groningen for 3 days and so only have my daypack but it’s still heavy to be lugging around with me all day. The hostel is on the far side of the town, only a 20 min walk from the station but still … and I couldn’t check in till after 3pm anyway.

It cost a hefty 13 euros to get into the museum and I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a museum year card at 49 euros but worked out I probably wouldn’t get my money’s worth. When I used to come to the Netherlands more often I always had a museum card and it was so much nicer not having to worry about the cost when going to museums.

I had no idea what to expect from the very modern multi-coloured building (a complete contrast to the old ornate train station opposite) so hoped I wasn’t to be disappointed. I wasn’t.

The current special exhibition is on Nordic Art and blew my mind. The colours! The light! The impact! I had never heard of any of the artists but now have a few new favourites.There were artists representing all five countries which are considered Nordic – Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I spent well over an hour walking from room to room trying to take it all in.

Yin Xiuzhen ‘Weapon’ 2003-2007

Another exhibition which caught my attention was the a display of weapons hanging from the ceiling of one of the rooms, all at different heights. Each ‘weapon’ had a kitchen knife tip but the hilt was made from old clothes; stretched jumpers and the like. It was all rather colourful and effective. Here’s the blurb:

Resembling darts that appear to be heading directly toward their target, these colourful objects look not only dangerous but also comical. On the one hand, the threat is reinforced by the knives that are attached to the spear-like objects, but the fact that these are primarily kitchen knives, in conjunction with the feature that they are made of second-hand clothes, emphasizes their domestic nature. The ‘weapons’ evoke the idea of TV masts, which have similar form and function all over the world. To Yin, they are the ultimate weapon. After all, they control the flow of information like gigantic filters.

How deep and meaningful is that?

I sat in the theatre for an hour watching a Michael Palin film about Danish artist Hammersvoi. I’d never come across this programme before let alone the artist so learnt quite a lot.

The rest of the museum I wasn’t so interested in. The regular collection, which was actually quite good, couldn’t excite me after the Nordic Art exhibition. I also found a basement room full of crockery. China displays never really interest me at the best of times and this one didn’t either. What I did like about it was the way it had been displayed. The glass cabinets were all shrouded by a maze of net curtains. It really was like a maze and got quite disorientating walking around trying to see everything and never knowing what was going to be behind the next curtain. In one space the exhibits were actually in the floor with a layer of glass over them. I think it was meant to be representative of how some of these exhibits have been ‘discovered’ but as there was no information it was difficult to be sure.

Finally I saw an exhibition of Russian women artists which at another time I probably would have really enjoyed but by this time I was all museum-ed out and had achey legs and an empty stomach. I retired to the restaurant for an expensive panini and a cup of coffee before wandering round town and finding my hostel.

Here are some of the amazing Nordic Art paintings I saw:

Britain’s Got Talent Audition

A boring but interesting day. At least I got to pick up some film-making tips.

After a lot of procrastination I decided that spending up to 12 hours at the Britain’s Got Talent audition would be a good use of my Sunday.

Alex had come over from Amsterdam just before Christmas when I was in the middle of all my building chaos because he’d got an audition for the show. This was a first round audition which I think is fairly easy to get. Auditions were held at various locations around the UK and he’d picked Manchester so he could combine it with a visit to see me. The audition went well and soon afterwards he was called and told he’d got through to the second round. This was before Christmas. He’d not heard anything more so had kind of written it off, but then he was called again on Wednesday and told he needed to be in Manchester on Sunday. A quickly booked flight and a phone call to me and before he knew it, he was on his way over again. He arrived on Saturday and I met him in Manchester after my NUT meeting.

Early breakfast in my kitchen

Sunday morning we were up at 6am. I made sandwiches whilst he did his make-up. By 7.45 we were on the road to the Lowry in Salford Quays ready for the 8.30 appointment. He’d gone to the first audition alone, but as the second round is televised the auditionees (is that a word?) are asked to bring friends and family members with them to make up the audience and provide ‘background crowd’ for the interviews. I was quite interested in going and wanted to be there to give moral support, but hesitated when he was warned that we’d probably be there for 12 hours.

In the end I decided to go as I’ll probably never get another chance to do something like this and I might pick up tips for making films myself or tips to help me as a drama teacher (this is what I spend a large chunk of my time teaching even though I know nothing about the subject and have no dramatic ability myself).

We sat for a few minutes with a few other contestants in the foyer before being called to the registration area upstairs. Registration involved sitting around for a while and then all lining up in front of the registration desk. One by one the contestants went forward to register and be filmed for the first time. The friends, family and other contestants made up the crowd scene backdrop. 

Once registered we were taken to another building across the way. Before we could get out of the doors however, Alex was whisked away to do the first of many interviews and I was escorted alone to the other building. People were just starting to filter in and the crew were buzzing around setting up lights and cameras. One of the crew members ‘Lilly’ spoke to us all and asked us to take coats and scarves off. As the show will be aired in May we needed to look a bit more summery. She also reminded us that cameras were running all the time and so we should look cheerful and alert and definitely not look as though we’d got up at 6am on a Sunday morning!

The holding room

Alex was brought over, but didn’t have much time to tell me about his interview before he was called for another one. This was filmed in the main holding room (see how I know the lingo?) and so I stood alongside and watched. The interviewer was asking questions from a clipboard which obviously held all the information from the long questionnaire he’d had to complete before Christmas. He was coached into answering in full sentences, encompassing the question as he answered. For example, if asked what his favourite colour was, rather than answering ‘blue’, he would have to answer ‘my favourite colour is blue’. Presumably this interview will be edited into a monologue.

Throughout the day Alex was repeatedly taken away by different people to do interviews or to be filmed walking about (including walking slowly round the holding room) or to have stills taken. Each time he was gone, I either sat reading or stared around me. The room had filled up and it was interesting to try to guess what the different acts entailed. Some of the costumes looked great: a dance troupe with black and gold costumes and make-up looked sophisticated and exciting; the dance troupe in the American flag dresses less so. On the whole, the people who were wearing costumes of one type or another looked good, whereas the people who just looked ‘dressed up’ seemed quite tacky: wrong shoes; wrong skirt lengths and styles for their legs: frizzy hair and make-up that looked as though it had been drawn on with crayons.

Finally, late on into the afternoon Alex was called over to the theatre to do his audition. I couldn’t go with him, but was told to wait and I’d be taken over just before he went on stage. It was quite a long wait and I did wonder if I’d been forgotten. I was waiting with and talking to a woman who was there supporting her husband and we’d seen them on and off all day. Her husband had been taken over at the same time as Alex.

Eventually we were led across to the theatre and told to wait outside. A few minutes later we were ushered in and instructed to sit in aisle seats close to the stage. The audience was quite large, presumably with people who’d applied for audience tickets. Just as we got inside the judges (minus Simon Cowell who’d called in with a sickie) decided to take a break. We sat for quite while with not very much happening. The odd person would walk across the stage and move something, but that was it. Then someone came to us and said the running order had been changed and we’d have to go back to the holding room. Not to worry, we’d be brought over again when the auditionees we were supporting were due to go on.

The stage and the empty judges’ chairs

So we sat, we chatted, we looked at our watches, we waited. Then I saw Alex walk in. He came straight over: ‘Where were you? Why weren’t you in the audience?’

Turns out he’d been on and I hadn’t been there.

He said he’d barely got into the first line of his song when he was buzzed off. They’d said he was singing out of tune. Being a fair sort of bloke he said he had to believe them as he couldn’t hear himself to know if it was true or not. Many of the other acts had been allowed to do a sound check, but he hadn’t, so when he got on stage this was the first time he’d heard the volume at which his backing track was played.

When speaking to him after rejecting him the judges made a big deal about something quite minor he’d mentioned in his application. Throughout the day this had been referred to in interviews as well. He found it quite strange and more than a little annoying that this was what they’d fixated on rather than the many other much more relevant details he’d provided. They’d also asked him if there was anyone in the audience who supported him and thought he should have a second chance. Of course, no-one said anything and so he’d said ‘Anne, where are you?’ but of course I wasn’t there.

We couldn’t go home straight away as he still needed to do another interview and so we needed to wait around for that. As we discussed what had happened, it did seem like a bit of a set-up. Why hadn’t he been allowed to do a sound check? Why had I been taken out of the audience just before his audition? Why had they fixated on this one particular detail from his questionnaire?

Talking about it afterwards, I got the impression that he was glad to have had the experience of taking part and of having got to the second round, but was disappointed to have fallen foul of what seems to have been some hidden agenda.

As for me, it was a boring day but interesting at the same time. It’s not something I’d want to do again, but I am glad I decided to go along today and have the behind-the-scenes experience.

The First Cut

Wowed by an exhibition of cut-up bits of paper.

A magical forest of greens and autumnal colours slowly swayed; in the distance a black nebula, suspended in space, dwarfed the folk wandering below.

I was at Manchester Art Gallery for The First Cut exhibition. I’d heard good things about it, but even so, I was still completely blown away by the ideas, skill and paper transformations on show. On the stairs leading up to the gallery was a patchwork quilt made from squares of maps. It was only when up close I could see that it wasn’t actually made from patterned material. Through the door the forest of giant leaves could be seen. Large branches were suspended from ceiling, each with huge leaves, covered with woven strips of paper, attached. Walking amongst them created a slight draft and they all gently swayed.

Some of the works were huge, such as the floor to ceiling length nebula cut from black paper. Others were tiny such as a tree cut from, and sitting inside, a Burger King bag. Each of the works was delicately formed with painstaking detail.

Many of the works had philosophical and political ideas behing them, such as the world map in which each country had been created from its own bank notes. The detail was so exact even the tiniest specks of islands had been symbolised by their own currency. (The UK was represented by a £5 note).

A whole section was devoted to works made from books. Pages had been gouged and the paper from them made into train tracks, flowers, people. A man, suspended from above looked as though he was swimming through the air. Closer inspection revealed him to be a stack of books with the bindings intact along his spine, but the pages carved and sculpted to create his form.

A motorbike made from paper, a gun made from US dollars, a dress made from maps: all life-size. A garden made from books of wild flowers. Hundreds of the books were arranged on the floor with flowers carefully cut from their pages and stood on end, arranged to form a beautiful symmetrical garden with, for some reason, frogs jumping around in the middle.

Scattered throughout the rest of the art gallery were other works such as a swarm of butterflies pinned to a wall around the Victorian paintings, pinned in the way Victorian naturalists would have done with their specimens. Each butterfly was made from a map and had been cut with tiny detail. In one corner, a pile of 12,000 individually and delicately feathers cut from maps.

Description, and even photographs, can’t do this exhibition justice. I bought the book, but more as an aide memoire and for the information about the artists and their works, than as a pictorial representation of the works. I didn’t take any photographs myself as my camera batteries died but here’s a link to someone who did. And his pictures are much better than any I could have taken myself anyway. Below is a video of the artists talking about their work.

Womad Weekend

My review of all things Womad. Except the music that is.

I really didn’t want to leave my campsite in the Cotswolds. I was sharing a 4 acre field with a few campervans, a portaloo and fantastic weather. It was so nice to arrive back each evening and be able to lie outside reading until quite late. I felt chilled and relaxed and really didn’t want to move on.

On Friday morning I packed up slowly and sorted out my gear for the weekend. I didn’t know how far from the car park I’d be pitching my tent and so packed my lightweight tent, a change of clothes and some dried food into my backpack. Rain was forecast for Sunday, but after the dry week I didn’t expect things to get too muddy and so only took my sandals, leaving my new wellies in the van.

I programmed my TomTom which informed me I was 29 minutes away from Charlton Park, the Womad venue. I phoned my friends to let them know when I’d be arriving and get any last minute packing tips. At this point in time I was a bit excited about finally going to Womad, but also regretting leaving my nice field and feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing – would the toilets be really disgusting with huge queues? Would I be able to wash my hair? Would I feel safe leaving my tent unoccupied? Would I get on with my colleague’s friends? Would I have the feeling of being ripped off the whole time? And so on. As usual when I feel apprehensive about something I actually really want to do, I just told myself not to be stupid and to get on with it. I also quite liked the apprehensiveness as usually when I feel this way I end up having a great time. So after a last check for stray tent pegs I was off.

The drive to the ground was quite traffic-free and even once at the ground the queue to get in and park was moving, albeit slowly, but so much faster than I’d expected. Friendly stewards seemed to be all around directing people and everything was well sign-posted too.

Once parked, I locked the van and hoisted my backpack and went to find the gate to get in. It took only about a minute to walk to the gate and I joined a queue of about 20 people waiting to show their tickets and get wristbands. I phoned my friend again to let her now where I was and she asked me to phone again once I was through the gate. I thought this might take a while, but as soon as I hung up I was through. There were lots of people taking tickets and issuing wristbands and they were really quick, so there was no waiting time at all. I called my friend again and got directions to the La-Di-Da Loos near to which they were camped.

It was a less than 10 minute walk and really easy to find. My colleague has a big bell tent and she was sleeping in this with a friend. Her son and his friend were sharing a smaller tent and her friend’s daughter had her own small tent. I erected my tent in the small gap left between the tents and someone else’s gazebo and together we had our own corral. We were completely surrounded by tents of all shapes and sizes and by Saturday there was barely space to walk without having to step over guy ropes. As I usually camp in lonely fields, seeing so many tents packed so closely together over such a wide area was a new experience for me and I stared in amazement.

Once my tent was sorted it was time to explore, listen to music and chill. First stop was the La-Di-Da Loos so I could pay £10 for a wristband entitling me to use them. These are a posh version of the portaloos that were all over the site. The toilets look like the sort you would have in a bathroom, even though they are flushed by chemicals. There are wash basins with running water, soap and handcream. The toilets and basins are basically in 3 caravans joined together under a large tent of which the insides had been covered in pleated fabric and chandeliers had been hung from the roof. In the centre was a large space with 2 sofas and several long tables with mirrors, hairdryers and an array of hair products, spray deodorants, wipes and so on for customer use.

Next we wandered through a kind of village street lined with food outlets, a grocer’s shop, a camping supplies shop, a branch of Oxfam and a newspaper stand. All the shops had been created from portable kiosks, vans and tents. Towards the end of the ‘street’ was an Alpro tent. I love their desserts so we called in to see what was on offer. They gave us some free vanilla and chocolate desserts and told us that they would be doing free breakfasts, free lunchtime smoothies and continuing the free desserts each day of the festival. So that’s breakfast for tomorrow sorted then.

Finally we got to the arena and showed our wristbands to the stewards on the gate. The arena area was huge, with various stages – the main stage was open-air and then there were other tented stages as well. There were also streets lined with shops selling clothes, musical instruments, jewellery, bags, food, skin products, carvings, lamps, things to juggle with … The food stalls interested me the most as there seemed to be a real array of international cuisine on offer and it all looked tasty, well-prepared and relatively healthy.

We joined some other friends and lay on the grass in front of the main stage drinking a beer and enjoying the music. It was hot and I lay looking at a blue sky with not a single cloud in sight. How fortunate, after all the rain over the past few months, is it that this weekend has such gorgeous weather? It really would have been quite horrible to have been ploughing through mud, unable to sit down, not able to go anywhere without piling on the waterproofs, and feeling cold and wet whilst standing around trying to get into the spirit of things and enjoy the music! 

Anyway, the rest of the weekend passed in a similar vein – up early for a first breakfast in the village street, chilling around the tents before going for a second free breakfast at the Alpro tent, wandering towards the arena in the afternoon and then sitting listening to music or meandering around the stalls for a few hours, eating delicious food, having a beer, going to bed late.

It rained a bit on the Sunday morning but not nearly as much as we expected having seen the forecast. It had stopped and everything was dry by the time the music started at lunchtime. On Monday morning it was sunny and warm again and so I was able to pack my tent dry. We took our time packing up, but others seemed to be taking even longer as there were still lots of tents up when I walked back to my van. I thought it might have taken ages to get out of the park but as it was when I arrived, everything was moving and it didn’t take long at all. Once out on the road there was no traffic at all. No-one without prior knowledge would know that Charlton Park was in the process of emptying out 10,000 festival-goers.

So, that’s another goal from my list achieved. Would I go again? Yes, definitely.

Below, I’ve highlighted certain aspects of the festival and the weekend in general.

Food
Japanese noodles, Spanish tapas, Thai curry, Carribean goat curry, Cajun gumbo, Lebanese mezze, English fried breakfast, porridge, Mexican nachos, stone-baked pizza, fish and chips, Indian curry, sausage and mash, muesli, salads, roast chicken, pies – the variety of food was overwhelming. There was so much I wanted to try but not nearly enough time. All the food was quite reasonably priced, not cheap, but not unreasonable for the size of the portions and the quality. It was tasty, often healthy and sometimes organic. Much of it was locally sourced. Needless to say, my dried noodles stayed in the bag.

Recycling
I was given a pack of recycling bags when I got my wristband. Throughout the site all the rubbish bins were divided into four – paper and cardboard, plastic, glass, and general waste. Much of the food packaging was was recyclable e.g. paper and cardboard trays and plates, wooden cutlery (the sort of wood disposable chopsticks are often made of), sauces that you squirt from a big bottle rather than individual sachets. Some food stalls offered a discount if you had your own cutlery. There were water taps throughout the site from which you could fill your own containers with regular tap water, but for the people who would normally buy chilled and bottled water there were stalls selling a refillable bottle for £5. This bottle could be refilled throughout the weekend with chilled and filtered water from any of their stalls. If you wanted the chilled and filtered water but had your own bottle you could pay £3 for a wristband entitling you to it instead.

Toilets
They were cleaned each morning and stayed relatively clean throughout the day. There was plenty of toilet paper and outside each set of toilets was a line of hand-sanitiser. The blocks of portaloos were spread all over the site and although queues could seem long, there were actually that many loos that there was never more than one person per loo waiting. Only on the Monday morning was there a problem. I think because it was the last day and the toilets would be removed the trucks hadn’t come to clean them. Of course, almost 10,000 people still needed to use them and so some of them, for the first time, got really gross.

La-Di-Da Loos
To use these I had to buy a wristband for £10. I’ve described them above so won’t go into detail here. The idea of them is great and when they work they work well. But there were lots of downsides. They are only open from 7am to 10pm. The 7am opening wasn’t too bad, but the 10pm closing time was way too early. Most people are still out listening to music at this time and so can’t use them when they are returning to their tents and getting ready for bed. Also there was only one set of these posh loos. This meant in the morning there was a big queue and throughout the rest of the day they were too far from the arena to use. The use of the products was great but some of them did start running out after one day. Also the toilets weren’t cleaned until later in the morning well after the other portaloos had been cleaned. As they are closed during the night surely this would have been the time to clean them? When you are paying so much to go to the toilet I don’t think it’s out of order to expect these few things to be sorted. I did like being able to use the hairdryers though and not having to go to bed with wet hair.

Showers
Lots of them, but there was still a 2 hour queue in the mornings. I had showers at night when they were mostly empty. They were pretty clean and had a space to put your clothes to keep them dry. The water was hot and the jet was strong.

Children
Children under 16 got free entry and the festival was really child-friendly. There were lots of free workshops for kids to take part in such as making pin-hole cameras, pottery, and drumming. There was also a fairground. The children’s wristbands had a space for a mobile phone number to be written in case they got lost. We hardly saw the young teenagers in our group, they were busy doing things all day or else just chillin’ round the tents. There was a whole section dedicated to family camping for those with young children.

Festival-goers
What a mix. Babies to quite elderly people. Very middle-class and lots of old hippies. The Guardian was the newspaper on site and was giving away free bags with each paper. The Guardian was probably the best choice of newspaper to be there as the crowd in general seemed like The Guardian reading sort. People were really friendly and it was easy to strike up conversation. This wasn’t just the festival-goers but all of the people working at the festival too. In fact I think it’s the only place I’ve been where, when leaving, the stewards not only directed the cars out but waved goodbye to everyone too. I didn’t see any drunken, aggressive or anti-social behaviour at all.

Queues
Even when there were queues they were usually fast moving. The only exception was at some of the food stalls and the morning shower queue.

Security
I felt safe the whole time. I didn’t leave valuables in my tent as I’m sure there will be people who get tickets to these festivals solely for the purpose of stealing what they can, but in general it seemed very safe.

Music
I suppose I should mention music seeing as it is a predominantly music festival, but I’m definitely not the best person for this. I like music and heard some really good music (Algerian singer Khaled is the one who most stood out for me). But I’m tone-deaf, can’t pick out individual instruments and most of the time can’t even tell if someone is singing in tune. Often I was very far from the stage, so it was a case of listening to rather than watching the bands. Some big screens would have been good so everyone could  see what was happening on stage. The music could be heard throughout the site and I loved hearing it in the background as I wandered around. I also liked lying in my tent at night listening to it as I went to sleep. It was never so loud as to make sleep difficult, but loud enough to be clearly listened to all the same.