Festival Fever

At this time every year I feel really tempted to crawl into the loft, find my old tent, dust it off and head for the nearest music festival. They tell me that festival business is booming and Britain will stage over 500 festivals this summer. Not that many years ago there were no more than a dozen to choose from and I did more than my fair share of crusty festival-going. Reading, Glasto, Stratford, Leeds, I've waived my lighter at all of them. I wasn't just going to festivals, I was being paid to go to festivals. One of the few perks of working with teenagers for a living, was that I got to ferry them to festivals and make sure that they came safely home again; dazed, confused, oddly different in a new-worldly sort of way...but safe. Onerous as such duties were, I still managed to find the time to see every band that I had on my list. And that was the kind of list that any serious self-respecting Q-reading muso would have. It was a long list. I even saw bands that were woeful, just to tick them off the list; Bjork, American Music Club, Ice Cube, Hole...I'll never get that wasted time back. My only real regret was missing David Bowie, who played while I was stuck in a two-mile-12-hour traffic jam just outside Stratford. The pain of lost opportunity has only recently subsided.

Time is the great healer. It's also the great deceiver. When I get festival wander-lust, I seem to forget the discomfort, the standing up for 12 hours each day, the queues, the warm expensive beer, the sweatiness, the toilets (OMG the toilets!) and the tripping over tents in the dark. I conveniently forget that my last festival experience culminated in a moment of shocking revelation. It was 1998, I was moshing in a dance tent to Shed 7, when it suddenly appeared to me that I was the oldest person there; including the band. It was an epiphany and I couldn't reconcile myself to the jarring reality that all the other 30-something musos were at home, probably listening to Gram Parsons on Denon hi-fi systems with cold beer in hand. I haven't been back. But every year I ask myself the question, 'One more time?'

This year, the answer will still be 'No'. But it's worth noting that this year's Saturday night Glasto headliner will be a 59 year-old Bruce Springsteen. Sunday will be topped by the 63 year-old Neil Young. So maybe there's a chance for us all to go back. We'll be throwing a bit of a party to watch the Boss from the comfort of the lounge at Clow Towers; a few nibbles and cocktails, 3-course dinner, clean toilets and then, when it's over, off to a real bed. Much better than the real thing. Anyway I saw Springsteen live in 1985 at St James Park in Newcastle. Neil Young was ticked off the list at Reading in 1994, (or was it '93?) Now where did I put that list...?

Allotment wisdom

As some of you know (and others will have guessed) I'm still a relative newby to the whole allotmenteering world. But that really shouldn't stop me offering up my hard-earned wisdom for those who wish to follow the way of the dibber and spade. In fact, I'm convinced that novice status bears no relation to the quality of the advice you can give in gardening circles. Some of my neighbours down at plot 28 have been 'tendin'' for years and most of their words of guidance have proved to be a load of old manure, (although their encouragement is always welcome). From this I have deduced that either their allotments are growing despite their interventions, or they're keeping all the real trade secrets to themselves. Either way, the only determining factors in passing on gardening wisdom successfully are the grave sincerity of your demeanour as you impart advice, (preferably in hushed bluff Yorkshire tones), and a solemn nod to the grateful recipient. Some of my compadres have perfected this method to the stage where they no longer need to use language; like Yorkshire Jedi, they can just nod and scowl meaningfully; those in the know will nod and scowl back.

So for what it's worth, here are the immutable allotment lessons learned in my first year.

• Gardeners can control the weather. Go to dig and it will be baking hot, go to water and it will rain.
• Everything is genetically programmed to try to survive. Kindness is the biggest killer, especially too much water or light.
• All allotmenteers are paranoid and consumed with envy. Over the fence, your neighbours' plants always look like they are bigger, prettier and greener than your own.
• Quantity surveying does not come naturally on the allotment. A patch of digging will take three times as long as you guessed, multiply the barrow-journeys by a factor of 10 from your worst estimate and a small pack of seeds contains 6 months worry and work.
• The world is full of evil unseen enemies that exist to starve your family. Slugs, bugs, birds and rabbits, give them no quarter. They are your mortal foe, so put away all childish thoughts and plot against them, as they so surely conspire against you.
• The bigger the seed or plant, the easier it will be to grow. Trees are fantastic; carrots are a nightmare. Learn to enjoy big food.
• Try to introduce small amounts of weeds to your diet. If you can evolve your gene-line to thrive on weeds then your descendants will eventually populate the globe. Weeds grow everywhere, faster than everything and when all the useful plants have been nibbled by slugs, there will always be a pristine crop of nettles to rely on.

Fellow Jedi take heed and welcome to the green-side. Here endeth the first (but probably not the last) lesson.