GLASTONBURY : FROG ON THE ROCKS

Apart from crystals, crystal pendants and slices of agate what other commodities do you think we sell in large numbers at the Glastonbury Festival? Could they be condoms, anti-vomiting agents, diarrhoea tablets or cigarette rolling papers? None of these but come to think of it they’re really worth considering if no-one else has got the licence. Okay, I’ll give you a clue. What’s the Festival famous for? Music? Well maybe. Drugs and filth? We’re getting closer but truth to tell it’s none of these. In the mind of the public Glastonbury is synonymous with mud. Heavy rain on the festival site end of June brings with it flooding, washed out tents and mud. The televised image of people wallowing in it, dancing in it and up to their elbows in it is only too typical. All that mud amid all that greenery! And what goes with mud and greenery, croak, croak, croak? Why it’s frogs!

Our best selling items at the Glastonbury Festival are frogs on marble. Little resin made frogs with big blue eyes and broad red lips glued onto pieces of polished marble or granite are the perfect complement to the oceans of greeny-grey sludge that covers most of the festival site after three days of downpour. People just love them. There they are, dozens of them sitting on our table, singly, in pairs or even three together mounted on a single piece of rock looking up at the kids like irresistible talismen. Mud, mud, mud, croak, croak, croak! Sunday mornings we can’t sell them fast enough.

They come from the wholesaler in boxes of three, same as the other resin animals we sell such as rabbits, squirrels and tortoises. One large, two small to a box. Buy them by the gross and they’re cheap. Around twenty pence each. All the small singles, whatever the animal, sell at two-fifty. The large on their own are three. Two small ones together are four pounds, a large and a small, four-fifty. All together as a family group the price is five. Not bad for our customers, the discount always appreciated. Of all the animals we sell, however, frogs outstrip everything else by at least ten to one. Here the positioning of the frogs on the rocks gives real scope for the imagination! We can put two small frogs together side by side facing each other. Very cute! Alternatively we can mount a big frog right behind a little frog, the suggestiveness of which everyone knows at a glance making the posture very much in demand. Another popular display is all three together, the large frog in the middle with a juvenile on each side facing inward or outward.

Given the serious demand and the fact that the frogs are often purchased as symbolic gifts of the Festival and its muddy experience, a great selling point is to customise each of the pieces on request. That means mounting them on pieces of rock just large enough to be written on. An example of this can be Glastonbury 2000. Equally popular is to have the name of the giver, Glastonbury and the date i.e.from John Glastonbury 2010 or even For Mum Glastonbury 2011. Most frogs sold however are kept by their purchasers so Glastonbury and the date are the most common inscriptions.

Each product is heavy and fifty together in a box weigh a ton so transportation is crucial. After making each piece we put them into strong cardboard boxes like those used for carrying bananas. Two full layers one on top of the other separated by a sheet of cardboard. Mercifully these boxes come with a space cut into each short side of the rectangle making it easy for two people to lift so that three or four days before we leave for the Festival our camper van floor is loaded with four boxes each side of the bedding area with six additional behind the driver and passenger seats. A serious weight with all that granite and marble so we need to make sure of the tyres!

Once we arrive we offload the whole lot stacking them up back of the stall, maybe a dozen or so pieces on one of the tables at any one time, most of them being frogs. Yes there’s definitely something about them, all sitting there in a bunch waiting to go to good homes. Simply irresistible if you’re wearing Wellington boots two sizes too big and you’ve already been trudging in filthy deep mud. Even irresistible if there’s no mud at all! They just sit there, on pink Italian marble, polished Aberdeen red granite or Norwegian black larvikite, glaring up at customers through baleful angry blue eyes with jaw to jaw bright red lips all merry with an insouciant smile. However you look at them, face on or from the side, they have a strange sinister demeanour. Almost like they could come alive at any moment, hop onto your cheese sandwich and let go something nasty all over it. And with such charm going for them they sell in hundreds. We just can’t make enough. Everyone loves them to pieces.

I’ve got one sitting in front of me at the computer and boy does it look malevolent! Almost like it knows what I’m typing and doesn’t like it one bit. It wants some fucking royalties out of this post make no mistake and if there’s no slugs to hand it’ll piss all over the keyboard!

You’d better not try that one on you slimy bastard or you’ll go outside on the ledge. You can try hopping off that onto the railings below!

No, seriously, I didn’t mean it! These frogs have been very good to us over the years and are favourably thought of in the highest quarters at Barclays. I’ve even thought of sending one to Chief Executive, Bob Diamond to put on his desk. Hi Bob, thought you might like to see how I get rid of my overdraft. In fact, would it be possible for the bank to lend me half a million so we could set up a factory unit in China. With a billion Chinese we could do serious business!

And what do you know all you banking cynics? You should be ashamed of yourselves. A week ago I got a letter from Barclays Head Office. Dear Valued Customer, it began. I can’t tell you how tearful it made me feel when I read it. Me! A Valued Customer! You could almost cut the sincerity. It was like having a conversation with Nick Clegg! Why, just imagine me being a liberal democrat voter; I wear stripy hooped green and black woollen stockings, pink sandals and a floral dress with water vole motifs on it and I believe in human rights for bluebottles and guess what? Someone at party headquarters phoned me up and told me I was a valued supporter, and furthermore, if I was a banking executive no worries about my million pound bonus.

In this day and age it’s so nice being made to feel that banks and politicians really care about you. It makes you feel you can trust them with any money you’ve got!

Okay, the idea of a German Ruhr size frog gluing assembly line in China on the backburner let me return to Glastonbury where two hundred and fifty thousand potential frog lovers come to chill out. A new approach to selling our frogs recently came to mind and was shown to have definite mileage. Why not, we thought, liven up their character by giving them a national identity? If a French guy or girl came to the stall we’d call a frog Henri, for a German we’d call it Fritz and for Italians Berlusconi! Most of our frog clientele however was English, particularly guys with blond dreadlocks or girls with ripped stockings. That said we needed names that fitted the type. George was out and you could forget Charles and Camilla. We needed cool. We needed iconic. Rooney was good and so too was Elton, but even better was Oggie. The punters just loved Oggie the Froggie!

By Saturday night the boxes were emptying and Sundays were always a landslide. A bit of bubble wrap then into a carrier. Customers lining up though customising took time. Non-stop activity with a gold marker pen. Me flogging the animals, Louise working flat out on the crystals, pendants and trees. We sometimes brought helpers. Young people we knew and counted on being reliable. Plenty of time to go to gigs, free admission onto the site, free food and a decent day’s pay. Sometimes our generosity paid off but not always. More than once on a Sunday, when help was needed the most, they’d fail to show up. Wander in mid-afternoon after unscheduled time in a tent with the drag end of a spliff stuck in an earring.

By late Sunday most of the boxes were empty and the frogs gone to good homes along with rabbits and squirrels. The slowest sellers were always the tortoises. By Monday tortoises were down to a quid. Nobody wanted the fuckers. It took an Attenborough program on the Galapagos to get a few moving and often not even then!

Frogs are always popular, tortoises are not, but at Glastonbury frogs are seriously popular. Why is that? There’s a simple answer. Glastonbury people are froggie people. Frogs, one way or another are full of character. Tortoises aren’t! Frogs are a like it or lump it species of being and if you don’t like it fuck off! They’re opinionated. When they croak they’re probably saying up yours or go fuck yourself. Tortoises are like dipping a knife in water. They’re yes we agree with whatever you say types. They’re well we really haven’t got any opinion right now but if you let us think about it for a few months maybe we’ll give you a call. In the meantime put some more lettuce in the bowl and a few pieces of cabbage.

Frogs are purposeful, tortoises don’t have any ambition. Now saying this you might think that things should be the other way round. You know, Glastonbury types being laid back unwashed hippies with a going nowhere philosophy as maximum cool. But in that you’d be wrong. Glastonbury people are keen to convey that appearance but to stick it on them as a generalisation is a major mistake. They’re mighty purposeful about their likes and dislikes and they know what they want. The laid back image is only an image, a device to convey cool but actually they’re more often full of something one way or another. Whether it’s shit or sound common sense is a matter for debate.

Tortoises on the other hand are full of nothing. They lack character and they lack oomph. They’re definitely not get up and go types. Frogs on the other hand are. They’re we’re out of here characters. Don’t like it and they’re off, same as Glastonbury types. Our Glastonbury frogs are on the rocks all right but the people who buy them know they’re only sitting there for their own convenience. They’re on that bit of rock because it’s where they want to be. They’re free spirits really like the people who buy them. They can hop off or piss off whenever they fancy and because they and their purchasers are genuine free spirits they can both do their thing whenever they like. Buying a frog on marble means two free spirits getting together in a kind of art-deco alliance. We know, and so do the two billionaire Russian oligarchs who approached us recently to set up a frog manufacturing facility in Eastern Siberia. One of them we understand owns a football club somewhere in England.

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GLASTONBURY: MISTER TOASTY AND HIS YOUNG APPRENTICE

Mister Toasty was the name we gave to the tall, thin, garrulous old bastard who ran an early morning toasted cheese sandwich, tea and coffee stall at Glastonbury Festival on the same drag as our crystals, frogs on marble and gem trees pitch. He was up and busy at five in the morning for the countless festival-goers and traders alike, desperate to wet their whistle and crunch on anything molten and cheesy. But as much as anything else his stall was one of the first places lit up in the dark and served as somewhere for people to congregate after they’d staggered out of their tents and into the portaloos for a desperate shit. Then it was immediately over to Mister Toasty’s for something equally slidy.

His early morning queues were long despite having his wife, son and daughter in on the act along with a youthful additional helper. He did good business and must have made money because next to his Mercedes was a luxury trailer and we soon learned from those in the know that he had it all worked out. Bread and cheese slices, tea bags and coffee all bought for less than wholesale, the water free and the electricity for toasting there with the rent. With his family in on the job there was almost no cost for labour. Forget fresh milk! We were talking powder at best. With a low cost, fast turnaround necessity product the man was really a genius. Did all the high volume festivals April to October and spent the next six months sunning in Spain.

Approaching his stall you faced a high business-like counter with two or three queues feeding in. Behind it was a blackboard with prices, below which were various tables, some containing urns for boiling water, others piled high with paper plates and cups. The piece de resistance however was a fully automated toasted cheese sandwich making machine. A triumph of engineering ingenuity. Set on a long solid wooden table it consisted of a set of rollers onto which bread smeared with butter was laid. As the bread moved forward thin slices of cheese with a low melting point and high stringiness factor were laid on then another slice of bread stuck on top. This now passed between two thin metal burners with electric filaments above and below, and out the other side came a perfect toasted cheese sandwich. It may not have been homeboy cheddar and tasted plastic at best but oh what a joy to the famished!

The man had it nailed. No bacon, sausage or fry ups. This was a pour and smear rig with the rollers and heat doing the cheesing. Seventy pence for a tea or twenty more for coffee and two quid for the bread and the cheese. Sorry I meant toast! Not much more than ‘any spare change’ only when sold by the thousand it was Bill Gates eat your heart out.

What a joy to see it all work. At four in the morning countless figures wearing army surplus and boots falling around in the dark slamming portaloo doors and waiting for that magic moment of light when Toasty plugged into the electrics. Water up on the boil, crates of loaves dragged out of the trailer with the man himself taking charge of his tried and trusted regime like a fucking field marshal. It was actually a relief, a light in the dark to so many after a night of cider and spliffs. Teas and toasted cheese sandwiches guaranteed five-thirty a.m. just like a Glastonbury orgasm.

We didn’t put our own gear away at night. Just covered the stall with canvas tarpaulins held in place with powerful clamps while Louise or I stayed up watching and guarding, and boy, those nights were long. Then up came the lights of the toast stall on the other side of the drag like a welcome.

We soon walked over early morning. Mister Toasty knew who we were. The people who took all the big money doing the trees and the crystals! Yes, there he was with his wife who we’d christened Toastina and his sullen son the Toastevich. And there it all was. We could hear it. The roll, roll, roll of the rollers… The slap, slap, slapping on of the bread… And on, on, on went the slices of cheese… That could melt a heart made of lead! All of it going on at the back like a Hollywood Musical.

But what was this now? Serious ructions! Something rotten in the State of Danish Blue. Mr Toasty, warned by his wife of an infraction had turned on his trainee. Only one day gone and he’d apparently learned nothing. The youth was taken to one side. He’d been putting too much butter on the bread! This was only just short of being a capital offence. Everything in the toasted cheese sandwich making process had been worked out to perfection. There was no room for additions or additives. The butter had to be spread to an exact thickness or they’d be wasting huge sums of money. Mister Toasty had taken hold of the smearing knife. Now watch! Side run along the surface of the tub like so. Now, turn it across the bread running it smoothly at an angle of exactly thirty degrees. There, you see how it’s done. The Master himself had demonstrated. It was like so. And he didn’t want to have to tell him again! It was either the Toasty Way or the Highway.

The Young Apprentice took it heavily. His Master acknowledged. He was sure he would learn. End of the lesson. The Toastevich’s sullen eyes gleaming. The Apprentice would never last the harsh rigors of cheese application let alone tea making.

We purchased some tea, declining offers of free sandwiches, but wishing the Master all success. Early next morning however, Louise decided she’d try the coffee, though again declined a free offer, while I waited at the stall for some news. She’d been gone twenty minutes then returned to tell me all. Mister Toasty in high dudgeon. His Apprentice temporarily relegated to tea pouring duties for what was little short of insurrection! And so it would have been under the Articles of War had the toasted cheese rig been at sea. His sworn duty had been service at the end of the automated process where the sandwiches emerged through the burners, hot and lip smacking toasted before being wrapped up in cling-film. The wretched youth had apparently taken his eye off the machine and let them roll onto the floor. Dozens of them! All lying there in the sawdust!

Louise, who’d seen it all happen, could barely contain herself. The Toastina in an absolute rage. Was this how he showed his gratitude? Being chosen out of a hundred other applicants after he’d answered the card in the window? And not only being taken to Glastonbury, a privilege in itself, but also being paid. Was this the way young people showed gratitude these days to those who gave them a job? The cost of the sandwiches would be deducted from his wages. Now, could he remember how many tea bags went into an urn and how many cups of medium strong but definitely not strong tea could be made from a dozen tea bags?

Ah! No reply. Mister Toasty had waved a finger. So he’d forgotten all he’d been taught! And he’d seemed so promising a youth. It was all so simple. He was supposed to be good at mathematics at school wasn’t he? Well it could all be calculated by the inverse square law. Isaac Newton had done it. The more tea bags that went into the urn the less strong the tea got because you had to keep increasing the water. It was the same thing with buttering the bread. The more you put on the soggier it got until it became unreceptive to the cheese sitting on it. There, you see, Mister Toasty turned to his wife. The lad thought that making a toasted cheese sandwich was simple and easy when it was really full of complex technical problems that took years to understand. Which is why he needed to listen. Appreciate that what he was being taught came from someone with years of experience. Be invaluable for him throughout later life.

The young man had stayed silent, only nodding his head on occasion. There, he’d been given a good talking to. He could pour the tea for the next hour then go back to putting slices of cheese onto the bread. As Louise noted, this was extraordinary! Mister Toasty showing what might best be described as his softer side. It didn’t last. Half way through the morning we were startled to hear a high pitched voice shouting across the drag and next thing we knew the Young Apprentice appeared at our stall. He’d been banished! Sent away in disgrace! It hadn’t been his fault. The tea urn had fallen off the table after he’d put in the ladle to stir up the brew. It was only what he’d been told to do.

We commiserated. The best thing he could do was go back and apologise. Tell Mister Toasty he was sorry. Seen the error of his ways and that it would never happen again. The Apprentice smiled. Mister Toasty… He liked that!

We heard nothing more all day. By next morning all had been forgiven. The toasted cheese sandwich making process was running like clockwork with the Young Apprentice now back in charge of buttering the bread. This was a remarkable turnaround. The Apprentice fully back in favour at the head of the operation while the Toastina laid on the slices. The early morning clientele thronged. We heard it all later. The Apprentice had apparently contributed a brilliant new innovation into the process. Instead of the packets of cheese being left in the trailer fridge, he’d suggested that they be removed and placed close to the burners, thus ensuring that the slices were softened before being laid on the bread. This had resulted in a more rapid toasting process. The Apprentice, it seemed, had a genuine aptitude for the business and was beginning to take his duties altogether more seriously. Could it be that he might one day become a fully-fledged toasted cheese sandwich maker? Clearly the skill ran strong in him. He’d come close to falling off the edge into the dark side but now everything was different. His training was almost complete and with it would come his own personal knife for butter application.

Late Sunday morning with sales at our stall in full swing we looked up to see a wonderful sight. There, crossing the green, walking stick in hand and wearing his cape was Mister Toasty purposefully hobbling towards us accompanied on one side by the Toastina and on the other by his Apprentice. I bowed as he arrived saying we were honoured by his visit. It was of course to have a nose or maybe hope we might offer him something. I did! Would his wife like one of our beautiful amethyst miniatures? He could forget anything bigger! Wrapped and into a carrier bag it was passed to the youth. “Sales very brisk?” Mister Toasty enquired. Well he could see all the dosh flowing across the stall and was adding it up in his head. “Nothing like yours,” I said with the required deference. One junior Master to another more senior!

“The boy’s good,” he said briskly, giving his charge a wan toothless smile. “Though there’s nothing like a bit of experience.” And then, with a quick glance around, muttered, “you must be taking a shilling.” Nosy fucker, I thought. “Yeah, it’s been very good for us this year,” I said referring to the takings. “We’ll need a bodyguard to help us get it into the bank.” Like we take notes while you only do toasted cheese coinage!

It was the last we saw of him that year as he turned away and hobbled back to his stall, one of his arms on the Apprentice’s shoulder. Maybe he was lining him up for his pimply daughter, Louise and I joked later.

We didn’t see the Young Apprentice again. With the aptitude he shown for buttering bread he was a prime candidate for recruitment to the Financial Services Sector and was by now probably running a bank!

ENGLAND’S WORLD CUP FOOTBALL PERFORMANCE - SHAMEFUL ALL OVER

So it’s over at last. No more agony for England’s millions of fans after the national team was dumped out  the competition. It wasn’t just the defeats but the way they allowed it to happen. After two long years of preparation on a fantastic salary Roy Hodgson had to field a completely new team against Costa Rica for their final game and even then they could only manage a draw! So what did he have to show after all that time preparing a World Football Cup Squad. Answer, sweet nothing. England’s worst performance ever after two years of all that so called hard work. True, in their draw against the central American side they played a lot better, but after the disgrace against Italy and Uruguay there was only one way to go. Even then, five easy opportunities were missed by their lone hapless so-called striker.

A wretched goalless draw in their last game after two excruciating defeats and two ghastly draws in preceding friendlies. That was it! All that Roy Hodgson and his players could come up with after two long years of preparation was England’s worst ever failure! Quite frankly, what was all this so called preparation about? Every time you saw the team training on television it was a bit of darting about between sticks with a bit of knees up chucked in. They looked more like a bunch of tarts out on a Hen Night than a ruthlessly fit, ruthlessly trained squad who’d been road running hills ten miles a day. Worse, the whole squad seemed to lack confidence right from the start. You could see it there on their faces. No look of cold single-minded determination like they were there for the express purpose of doing a job rather than having a jolly. No hard ruthless efficiency. Just endlessly passing the ball to each other more backwards than forwards like they didn’t have any game plan. It could all be summed up in a couple of phrases, no imagination , no will to win!

And this is what they treated the fans to after two years of training. The thousands of followers who’d saved up their money to travel out to Brazil and watch. All that money, all those emotions invested in hope. And what were they given by those whose plane fares and food and hotel rooms were paid for and who earned good money besides? What were these loyal fans and supporters given in return? Quite frankly it wasn’t just rotten performance, more like something bordering on contempt. Then there were all those millions of fans back in England with their hopes raised high. No, it wasn’t just the failure. It wasn’t just the rotten performances game after game. When it comes down to it, it was the sheer disrespect. Not only for those who sang Rule Britannia but also their country. The England they supposedly represented.

One of the very worst aspects of the whole dismal experience to my mind were the attitudes of television’s footballing pundits. Those panels of experts, joke-joke, who along with the BBC or ITV presenters came on to give us their sagely wisdom, their judgements and their assessments. However in none of England’s games was there any cold, hard, critical analysis of the team’s performance and that of its players. Literally not a word of criticism, just an endless rolling out of excuses, one after another. Their sheer variety was staggering. Like they’d been practicing making them up for years, but then what else would you expect from these footballing chums who’d suddenly become experts brought on to entertain you with their wondrous knowledge! All pretty well paid for spouting their bullshit and the whole damned lot never having won anything on the international stage between them! Yeah, good money for soft soaping the footballing fans and rolling endless crap off their tongues. For Sturridge, who missed four or five sitters against Costa Rica it was an off day or he’ll do much better next time. Yards and yards of bullshit! The fans don’t want to know about next time. THEY WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT NOW and why this player was excused for his pathetic performances in an England shirt time after time! COULD IT ACTUALLY BE BECAUSE HE’S SIMPLY NOT UP TO IT. And if that’s the case why is he playing for England?

Listening to these BBC and ITV panels of experts bordered on sickening, same as the silly patriotic coaxing of their presenters. Yuck! Viewers didn’t want scented hair gels. They wanted victory, not wretched excuses. They get enough of those from politicians who make their lives hard enough paying for the excrescences of bankers so they don’t need it from you, soft soaping their disappointment and anguish after the appalling failure of the national football team. So you bright eyed and bushy tailed pundits and presenters doing a job for the footballing business. IF YOU CAN’T TELL THE TRUTH SHUT YOUR GOBS.

Finally all the talk now is about next time! Is that a joke? In recent times we had Glen Hoddle. Remember him? To get England into shape he communed with angels and tried various forms of therapy! Not long after came Sven! Remember him? Well-er… Remember the little Swede who earned himself a fortune from the FA for helping England go nowhere and certainly enjoyed his management time shagging secretaries. Then of course came Capello! On a simply fabulous annual salary who negotiated a contract that allowed him two years more money if he was out of the job. And the rewards for England during this time? NOTHING! Yes, the Football Association certainly know how to pick them! Fabulous Fabio’s been earning a serious screw from the Russians these days. Result? Goodbye Russia from the 2014 World Cup! The only question to be asked. How on earth do these people do it? I mean, do they just look at you, talk bullshit with an Italian or Swedish accent and you pay them fantastic money like you’re hypnotized or something?

And then came Roy. Good old Roy. Granny dearest! Yes, two years and he’d get an England team into shape! Well that time is up and you’ve seen the result. England’s worst ever performance. So talking next time I have a plan! Why not get some jerk-off from the Jeremy Kyle show to manage the team if Roy goes, which he won’t, and of course, no-one will push him. Some skinny little rat-arse covered in tattoos won’t need paying so much, just 100 bottles of lager a day and enough weed to fill a whole garden. Think I’m joking then think again! He can hardly do any worse than this time around! So what’s the difference between a Jeremy jerk-off and Roy?

The answer lies in the general culture that pervades our islands today. Paying the price for failure by rewarding it all over again.

One final point. Has anyone heard of an England footballer called Oxlade-Chamberlaine? Last I heard he was in the squad Roy brought to Brazil. He never played in any of the games and his name was barely mentioned by the pundits and presenters alike who as we all know will yak on about anything. So what happened to him and why did he suddenly become THE INVISIBLE MAN? If he was injured and couldn’t play why was he part of the squad? If he wasn’t injured then why didn’t he play? It’s as big a mystery as the missing Malaysian Aircraft! Nobody but nobody was prepared to say anything! It was like they’d all had their mouths sealed! Like his name was taboo right from the start and they’d all collectively been sworn to silence!

Rumour has it that Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal, the club he plays for in the Premier League contacted Roy Hodgson and told him he didn’t want him played for some reason. Was it injury? Was the man worth too much to risk him being played, even for England? Right now Oxlade-Chamberlaine is England’s biggest mystery of the Football World Cup 2014.

And England’s performance? Well that’s no secret at all!

WAYNE’S WORLD

I start this Post by extending an invitation to all my good friends and readers to join me on a visit to one of the strangest, most fascinating destinations in the entire Universe. Come and make a journey with me to that most wondrous of places… Wayne’s World.

And would you believe it! This strange Stephen Hawking like planet is inhabited by some remarkable people, but then not everyone gets to live there you know. Indeed you’ve got to be special. It’s likewise an invitation only kind of place, so let me introduce you to some of the folks who live there. Who’ve made the grade to be citizens!

Of course you don’t become inhabitants by what are generally considered ordinary means. Oh my goodness me no. Wayne’s World is a Lewis Carroll kind of place. A mirror image of everything you may have thought normal. Among its most favored residents are bankers and footballers. For bankers, credentials for entry are simple. As a Chief Executive, Chairman or Director you need to demonstrate your personal responsibility for causing the bank to lose huge sums of money, causing a major drop in its share price and the unemployment of thousands of its staff, and for doing this you receive your coveted passport for entry to Wayne’s World which is a gigantic annual bonus in cash and shares. And if you do this more than once the Government of Wayne’s World will send you an open invitation to settle.

The second but equally prominent class of citizen are footballers, many of whom have played for England and of course the England Team Managers. The passport for entry by such splendid fellows is the demonstration of gross mediocrity. That’s because Wayne’s World is contemptuous of any real professional skill like accurately passing, kicking and heading a ball, running forward with it and, worst of all, dribbling. Oh no! The criteria for entry to Wayne’s World are putting yourself about by going to nightclubs, regularly appearing in the media and having your agent constantly talking you up more than all that other silly stuff. That’s because in Wayne’s World it’s appearance that counts, not how you succeed on the pitch. In Wayne’s World that kind of success is anathema. Especially if you play for or manage England. Almost contemptible!

Whenever you see footballers on the telly in Wayne’s World, many of them looking like Mister Blobby, they’re all mighty proud of their great achievements like losing or drawing with nonentities. Oh no, you’ll find none of this boastful we’re the best in the world stuff from the footballing stars on Wayne’s World. Such worthy inhabitants of such a very strange place where everything is the opposite of what it should be. That’s because Wayne’s World, first discovered by Stephen Hawking, is down a black hole. A place where all space and time disappears and bankers and footballers and other celebrities can go on living there happily ever after. Free of all worries about being replaced or losing their jobs, and furthermore always being wonderfully paid . That’s because of who they are and what they do!

You see, Wayne’s World is such a free and happy place. There’s no criticism. No pressure on anyone to do better. It’s a place where failure is understood and respected. Just imagine banking executives making good profits and asking that a tenth of their salaries and all their bonuses go to charity. Are you kidding? They’d never get anywhere near Wayne’s World! Same as footballers who make forward runs and score goals. Leave it out! Wayne’s World is a magical place. Full of all kinds of stars. Celebrities you might call them who shine out like beacons of light! And what do most of them do? Why, they keep the great mass of unknown creatures of Wayne’s World amused and entertained. They’re the fun-folk of Wayne’s World who live in the sun. Below them is the vast army of millions who are teachers and transport workers, ambulance men and NHS workers, postmen and women, firemen, carers and cleaners. All that dark underground army on Wayne’s World coexisting with the bankers, footballers and entertainers earning fabulous salaries.

They all inhabit a special island on Wayne’s World called England, and no-one knows how that great army of ants got there, but I do! They were the original inhabitants don’t you see? The ancient aboriginals of Wayne’s World! All the people who worked hard and struggled. Who built and who mined, who taught adults and children and treated the sick. Who worked so hard to provide decent service, only because they actually cared, it wasn’t enough. And then came the time of the bankers and footballers who didn’t. Those and the celebrities who created the New World. Wayne’s World! Where failure and putting yourself about became everything.

And so my friends, welcome to Wayne’s World! Why, don’t you recognise it? Don’t you recognise the shit-hole you live in? Where millions of decent hardworking people earn so little for doing such important and valuable jobs and useless hapless rascals earn fortunes for failure.

ENGLAND WANKERS DUMP ON SUPPORTERS

A brief message to all those misguided followers and fans of England’s football team. It is as I’ve said in my recent post about England’s chances in the World Cup. After last night’s game against Uruguay perhaps you’ve now got the message. A two-one defeat and almost certainly dumped out the tournament. I’m sorry, I really wish it wasn’t the case but that’s how it is. It’s almost certainly not entirely the fault of the players who in last night’s game showed some spirit. Trouble is their passing and shooting skills were often woeful and they gave the ball away more times than I care to remember. And I’m talking about basic professional skills for which they earn so much money. Furthermore if I’m talking about woeful and inadequate it’s because that’s what they were. A huge but entirely predictable disappointment.

Let’s face it, it was all on the cards. Two pathetic pre-tournament draws with Ecuador and Honduras, teams they should have beaten out of sight, should have told us the worst. Then a pathetic defeat by Italy after which the signs were so big on the wall that it could have been Banksy. True against Uruguay they at least showed some fighting spirit only it just wasn’t enough. There was no sign that coach and management had sat down with players to seriously work out what had to be done. Victory was everything and in order to achieve this a serious assessment had to be made of exactly what was needed. Into this equation the return of the brilliant Uruguayan player Suarez had to be placed foremost. Blot him out and their opponents would be reduced to the kind of team who were thrashed by Costa Rica. Allow him to run free and do what he liked almost certainly meant doom and that’s exactly what happened. Two opportunist goals by their unmarked star player and it was all over.

Question then. Why wasn’t Suarez who’d shown such deadly form playing for Liverpool in last season’s Premier League not man marked? Tracked and followed by at least one defender? Two would have been best! After all, Uruguay had already demonstrated that they were virtually useless without him. The man was not only a devastatingly skilled player but also inspirational for his team and a talisman. With this more than clear and a victory in the game so important for England’s ability to progress in the tournament a serious risk assessment should have been made and appropriate action taken. The result of this failure is there for all to see. What we are looking at here is a serious lack of professionalism by coach and management resulting in a dreadful disappointment for all the millions of fans at home and those who paid large sums of money to go to Brazil.

I don’t need to imagine the pain and disappointment, the ghastly frustration. I myself not only felt it but knew it would happen. All the signs were there weeks and months back. All the millions of fans full of high hopes and led to the trough only to taste mild and bitter. We’re talking of professional players who earn serious dosh turning out to be unimaginative, semi-skilled dilettantes, indulging in the lazy habit of too often passing the ball backward. True, it was better than the fiasco against Italy, talked up as a great performance by television pundits earning great money whose job it is to do just that. Talk up rotten performances for the great army of hopefuls. So already defeated by Italy something had to be done. Aggressive, adventurous positive play guarding against any danger, the only real one being Suarez! And the result of this appalling failure… to carefully consider the circumstances, carefully analyze and realistically assess exactly what had to be done… was the real possibility of defeat. Exactly what happened.

Imagine what the players felt? All the talk on the television, all the endless talk in the press. In this kind of situation there’s no room for tactical error let alone that of strategy. England never had a united consolidated team to begin what with all the chopping and changing of players over the last year but some had shown themselves to have skill, like Lallana and Barkley. So exactly how prominent a part were they given?

And then what was the other result of it all. Millions of hopes dashed and endless rowdy liquor fuelled parties of people maybe somehow edging just a fraction closer to reality. That England’s performances over their last four games, two friendlies and two deadly serious were rotten. Sorry, never mind how all the talk it up boys are talking it up. Their play was plain rotten so let’s go away and face up to it all. Forget about a great qualification miracle. Beating Costa Rica ten-one and maybe progressing. I don’t even want to think about it! England’s progression doesn’t depend on them anyway! No, there’s only two things that need to happen when they get back. Firstly Roy Hodgson resigns, which he’s already said that he won’t! Secondly, that those with the power in the business go and talk to Harry Redknapp, get down on their knees and beg him to take over. That way in four years’ time millions of English people will have something to celebrate.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that!

THE SUN AND THE MILLIPEDE

This is a tale of the Sun Newspaper and the Millipede aka Ed Miliband and takes the form of an open letter.

Dear Ed Miliband, I write to you in connection with the photograph you posed for holding the free issue of the Sun Newspaper on the front page of which was a montage of living English people over the block capital headline THIS IS OUR ENGLAND.

I note immediately that you have publically apologized to the people of Merseyside for this in view of their natural sensitivity about the filthy lying reportage by this paper in respect of the Hillsborough Disaster and implication that those who’d died had behaved badly and brought their demise on themselves. Your conduct in posing for this paper holding the full page deepened a great insult to all the poor and working people of the region and beyond.

This letter however is neither about your conduct shameful as it was nor your apology. Neither is it about the ghastly expression on your face, a compendium of pride and publicity opportunism with the visage presented plain horrid. No, what I want to talk to you about here are two other matters connected with this incident. One being your personal political character, the other about the kind of people who appear in the montage and what they represent.

Now I’m aware of course that you are a self-declared social democrat with a middle class educational background and values that go with this. That you are certainly no socialist and are much closer politically to Nick Clegg than Nye Bevan, founder of the National Health Service. I am also clear in my own mind that you are unlikely to understand what I am saying here. Not because you don’t want to understand but because you’re simply unable to because of the political creature you have become as evidenced by the kind of advisors you have surrounded yourself with who had doubtless suggested that here, on the cusp of an England national sporting day, with the leaders of the two other main political parties offered substantial national publicity to show them standing at one with the public, the opportunity offered by this long time Tory paper could simply not be refused.

Well if you’d actually had the courage and conscience you could have said NO, but with an eye on publicity value you were simply too afraid of the consequences  i.e. of antagonizing the powerful Murdoch Press in the run up year to a General Election. Just another part of your political soul sold and your values compromised for the sake of expediency. Another small step on the road to becoming a clone of Dark Gordon, your dark master in whose calamitous Government you so faithfully served.

This letter then isn’t about what you did, your gross insensitivity, your judgement or personal character all of which I find wanting. It is in fact about what you saw in the composite and how you judged it. So what did you note in the photo the Sun presented of OUR ENDLAND? It was indeed the newspaper’s England, those who “sum up the essence of England today.” Okay Mr Miliband, let’s see who they are. Well, they’re mainly politicians, royals, and people from the world of sport and entertainment. Many are television celebrities. These are the broad classes with a few businessmen like Philip Green and inventors like Berners Lee being exceptions. So, the Sun’s view of England, and yours, because of your pose with the composite signifying your acceptance, is of an England best represented by entertainers and media celebrities and it is this Mr Miliband that is so deeply offensive and the fact that as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party you should believe it.

So what kind of person are you actually who believes that the essence of English people, the English at their best, is made up of entertainers, politicians, sports people, royals and media celebrities. Well you see I believe that the page should have been BLANK. A tribute to the countless unknown people of great heart and generosity of spirit who do vital work helping others in countless situations and places… those who struggle against poverty and injustice on a daily basis, those single parents and families who struggle to make ends meet, those people who silently and anonymously do great and valuable science research work and last but not least those who tirelessly work in the NHS to protect the health of the nation. ALL OF THESE ARE OUR ENGLAND, who represent that which is best of the spirit of the nation. Whose lives and conduct are altruistic rather than the crowd of busily self-promoting celebrities you posed with. It is the former, those whom Rudyard Kipling once called ‘the mere uncounted folk’ that the Labour Party once cared for but whom you and your wretched advisors now deem to be unimportant. And it is this fact that in itself reveals what you are politically and where you stand. That in posing for the photo same as Clegg and Cameron you are basically no different to them in your values.

This has been recently confirmed by your statement that a Labour Government if elected next year will take away any financial benefit that unemployed young people between the ages of 18 and 21 receive to live on and help them find work. Unemployed young people are among the poorest and most needy in our country. They face daily disadvantage and cheap labour, unregulated employment prospects. They are among the worst off and most put upon, often coming from highly disadvantaged family circumstances that are surely no fault of their own. This often depressed youth needs an arm to help them rise not a slap in the face to punish them. TAKING THIS SUPPORT FROM THEM, AS YOU SAY, TO HELP REDUCE THE SO CALLED FINANCIAL DEFICIT WHICH FOR GOD’S SAKE WAS CERTAINLY NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN IS A HATEFUL THING TO DO AND REVEALS EXACTLY HOW LOW YOU AND YOUR PARTY HAVE SUNK.

IT IS VINDICTIVE AND MALICIOUS AND HAS ALL THE SMELL OF ANTI-WORKING CLASS TORYISM ABOUT IT.

I won’t be voting for you at the next General Election Ed Millipede. It’s because of what your photo with the Sun revealed about you, and because you then immediately confirmed what you are. Someone who’s values are twisted and rotten. That you only care about the privileged, the rich and the famous, not most of our youth… the anxious and troubled, the hard up and desperate, the homeless and poor.

PEOPLE WHO GO TO GLASTONBURY

ARE YOU GOING TO GLASTONBURY FAIR… STINKING TOILETS AND NOXIOUS MULLED WINE

People who go to Glastonbury are mellow souls. They need to be for the money they pay to get in. And there collecting it all is farmer, Michael Eavis, that mellowest of men! How-de-do dude and those mellow vibes of yours. See you at the mulled wine stall at Glastonbury. And no, it’s definitely not made of those 4 litre plastic bombers you get at Sainsbury’s for a couple of quid topped up with piss. The stuff’s genuine man! You can taste the cardamom and cloves so see you at the big one man!

Okay, Glastonbury! Are you going this year? Well better make sure your bird is taking her tampax because a leaky lady in a small nylon tent is a recipe for, well, a perfect Glastonbury experience when it’s combined with deep mud, having your tent robbed, buying a joint from a plain clothes policeman – and there are large numbers on site for just that purpose who’ll take your money then immediately arrest you for dealing, listening to the group you really love and always wanted to hear live only something goes wrong with the sound and can’t be fixed till tomorrow, eating vegetarian food that’s not really veggie at all ‘cos it’s got maggots in it, oh yes and the toilets stink, I mean really stink because the people supposed to be emptying the latrines haven’t turned up and you’re literally sitting on shit only it’s someone else’s. Well, ALL the above is quite okay and you don’t mind any of it because you’re a Glastonbury person you see… and if you’re not, I mean you’re Michael Gove with those glasses he wears these days trying hard to look like Clark Kent in the Superman comics, well it doesn’t matter because you only go to places like that once a year and it’s for the experience of it really. I mean you’re only doing it once aren’t you so you can tell your friends how much you loved it having somehow suppressed all those unsavory memories!

And if you just happen to see Nigel Farage there, which of course you won’t, just give him a wave and say Hi man, how yer doing? And neither will you see Michael Gove! Nick Clegg on the other hand is a much better possibility! You know, being Nick Clegg and showing how much he’s in tune with everyone’s needs.That he’s easy going and mellow, and that you can actually talk to him ‘cos that’s what he wants more than anything. Showing people how much he likes them. That he’s not one of those Westminster politicians after all but really and truly just like anyone else so if you run into him maybe you can buy him a mulled wine or something very Liberal Democrat like a salad with organic ‘leaves’ which reminds me… Exactly what kind of people go to Glastonbury?

Well ask around. People who go there like talking, especially if you tell them that you support the Green Party and you’re very pro-Palestinian. No, better if you tell them you’re anti-Israel and been busy supporting the Free the Occupied Territories Campaign! Yes, and that you really hate UKIP and for good measure chuck in the Tories! People who go to Glastonbury all have their definite likes and dislikes and you’ll find most are the same. Quite a few have upmarket ambitions like doing something in IT or that they’re already at university, most ‘doing’ politics, media studies, psychology or something in the arts. Not many into engineering or the sciences. Their aspirations go hand in hand with a mellow mentality and for now, for the Glastonbury experience, they’ll tolerate the rough. Being unable to wash or clean themselves up properly unless it’s a cold shower tap. Walking around with crusty arses and eating shit overpriced food like stale humus that last saw a fridge two weeks back. Everything nicely calculated to give them diarrhoea. That’s why you need a cast iron stomach to get fifty feet of the portaloos but then if you’re a Glastonbury type either you simply don’t mind or simply don’t care, or alternatively you’ve somehow psychologically acclimatised yourself and you feel all brave and heroic ten days after it’s over because you know you put up with it all and from a distance in time and space you’re aware you’ve survived what can best be described as a serious filth job!

Yes you’ve been there and done it! You’ve been to Glastonbury and it wasn’t so bad after all, but of course, while you were there the nature of your existence changed and you reached a new low. But it wasn’t all that low really. Not really, you tell yourself then. Anyway, you bought a necklace with a crystal on it with points at both ends to make you at one with the generalised karma along with one of those Glastonbury hats you saw everyone wearing and wanted to be at one with the crowd. Besides, now you’re back home with a fridge full of food! What kind of people go to Glastonbury? Well all-sorts. But some are Glastonbury types more than others. They’re people who can deal with the toilets, the food, the strange characters, the cold dirty nights in a tent, the deep mud that’s more there than not because much of the site is basically an un-drained swamp. It’s a place for people with easy, mellow views about everything. Nothing that’s seriously thought out. Just something to be for the moment!

If they’re under 20 and they don’t like you or something about you then you’re a dick, a dickhead, or nob. If they’re adults, guys with beards and their ladies in floral dresses or shorts and sandals, and it’s something similar then you are just unpleasant and troublesome! I mean like letting it be known that you support the English Defence League and are definitely anti-immigration! What I’m saying is that people who go to Glastonbury are very predictable types more often than not with very definite social and political views. It’s a place for generalised dissent where dissenters of whatever kind will find kindred spirits and be mellow and at one with similar views! As long that is, as it’s acceptable rather than nasty dissent! It’s definitely not a place for hard-nosed Tories or Daily Mail readers. Neither is it a place for the lower middle class generally speaking. You won’t find thousands of adults from Essex there for example but maybe, just maybe a few of their kids who’ve heard enough about garden patios to last them a lifetime and want out once in a while! So they go to Glastonbury wanting to be mellow and escape their semi-detached existence rather than having to endlessly listen to their permanently uptight fathers!

You often meet the same people at Glastonbury that you met the year before! Hi man, what have you been doing. Long time since we saw you. Now they’re definitely not likely to reply, Hi man, long time no see. I joined the police since we met up! End of conversation! That’s because the police represent authority rather than generalised mellow and despite the silly faces they put on at Glastonbury pretending they’re cool easy dudes, no-one would ask them to puff on their spliff, speaking of which the Festival’s awash with drugs more often than not. Mostly weed of various sorts but sometimes pills that are nasty along with dangerous powders. The former often brought in by Afro-Caribbeans the latter by East Europeans.

The Festival though is mainly a place for those young and white or middle-aged hippies still living the seventies. It’s not one for Asians, especially Muslims. It’s too spaced out for the bearded faithful or ladies in burkas. Wrong faith, too uptight. Men with beards need to be mellow! In that respect compliance with a certain code or creed is also worthy of note, namely to the faith of coolness. In order to enjoy the music and atmosphere you are required only to worship at the altar of mellow, not on a carpet unless it’s your birds!   

Glastonbury’s a great place for a very special experience. It’s the Glastonbury Experience. Something outside normal life like having to work and pay bills, having to listen to your arsehole of a supervisor or employer, or hearing old people talk about the War and others going on about the Sixties. You know, going on about the past all the time or talking about boring things. No, for a few days once a year you can seriously chill, listen to the beat, wave your arms around at the Main Stage Arena with tens of thousands of others before you puke up the mulled wine you guzzled earlier on your way back to your tent, if you can find it that is without mistakenly breaking in on an oldie blowing her husband… whoops, wrong tent… then eventually finding your own and looking up at the stars while Brenda pulls off her bra.

Ah, the joys of a Saturday night at Glastonbury. Meanwhile you came across an old friend. One of the stallholders selling those Gem trees of his. You bought one for your Mum last year and she really loved it to pieces. Yes, they’re back again this year. That really nice couple who make them and those little animals on marble they do. They’re old timers. Part of the Glastonbury scene these days. Mind you, Brenda says the guy’s full of shit. Doesn’t know how his wife puts up with him. Such a nice lady too!

Well actually you’re talking about me you sonova bitch blogger! One more remark like that and I’ll cut your dick off… Sorry mate, I thought what I was saying was private… No worries man! It’s Glastonbury! Loosen up! Chill out like all the rest of us!

That’s another more recent part of the Glastonbury Scene. People taking their Tablets along. Tens of thousands of people with Tablets and I don’t mean the ones that take you into another place man. One of the best places these days is the Television Presenters’ Tent. Channel Four and BBC2 have resident presenters on site these days, each competing against one another to sound maxi-cool dude. That Krishnan Guru Geezer being breezy with questions about why we go so we just tell him any old shit. Put it on posh like we’re from Eton and tell him that Daddy’s someone well in with Labour! It’s so easy, those people from Channel Four’ll believe just about anything!

Well got to be going man. Mister Toastie’s waiting for me at his mulled tea stall with his magic toast making machine. Meanwhile it’s pissing with rain and someone’s making a fortune selling black plastic bin liners a quid at a time. Nothing better to keep off the rain. As for the mud. Tough shit! We’re all going Abbo now, dancing to the sound of a didgeridoo in our bare feet. It’s really great man. You know, back to primitive nature and all!

Talking about the types of people who go to Glasto, as many of its aficionados call it, we mustn’t forget the traders. From the food, drinks and clothes people to the jewellery and crystal crowd. For the big rigs like food the set up prices are stunning. We’re talking thousands. And for those who trade in such it’s not just the swingeing start prices but also the cost of staff, electricity for refrigeration and then the cost of ingredients. The jewellery, crystals and gifts stalls are very much smaller. A metal frame and a few tables at best, therefore cheaper. Everything depends on size and location. Pitches on A and B sites on the drag to the Main Stage are royal and much coveted, rather like those on the drag up to the Green Fields, the place where hopeless hippies hang out trying to make a shilling.

For the big timers the three days max is a serious business. We’re talking finance capital here not industrial though the selling of cooked foods, mainly burgers or pasta, or salads with pasta or rice is a highly mechanized process very much on the lines of conveyor belt production. In Glasto terms it’s the equivalent of big money with everything else the province of small timers. Scuzzy dudes and their molls who finish at eight and give themselves to the music. Most traders, big or small, sleep on the site of their pitch in caravans, camper vans or tents The food and drinks boys stay open well into the early hours mopping up the late night hungry who drift in from the stages. Most others cover their rigs with plastic and have someone stay up all night on guard duty because thieving at Glastonbury is serious business and the police, eyes wide shut as ever, don’t give a monkey’s.

Few small traders stay open all night but we did, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and it did make a difference. Mainly because we were well lit with powerful spotlights, the whole of our rig shone out in the dark so that late-nighters and insomniacs came to look and tell us their life story. Sunday and Monday mornings they often came back to spend. Yes we were there to make money so after packing up and leaving midday on Monday, still taking money while stragglers where drifting out, we drove back to Bath, made for the bank then spent the next three days sleeping it off.

Hard-nosed traders like ourselves and the food, drinks and clothing mob were worlds apart from all the rest who took little money, and the genuine music fans who often had little to spend most of which went on food. Anything left over we worked hard to take and often did. Most of them we liked, mellow as we were to take money from people, same as George Osborne or any other self-respecting Tory Chancellor, Well actually you can chuck in any of the Labour Creeps too. Especially Dark Gordon!

Large numbers of youths who go to Glasto are simply plain skint. Any dosh they had mopped up by the price of admission or paying to climb a strategically placed ladder on the security fence by Caribbean get rich quick operators who quickly move to other sites once they’ve been sussed by the security patrols. Such pickings are only lucrative for very smart operators, ultra-fast on their feet who can smell a blue-bottle half a mile distant! They’re also a part of the Glastonbury scene. It’s private enterprise man! One minute they’re helping people bunk in, the next they’re Chief Executive of an Energy Company or a banker working some filthy swindle or other. Both so beloved by Liberal Democrats.

Glasto itself is full of artists. Whether cooked food or veggie performers, the piss artists who perennially surround the mulled wine and cider huts, those who strut the stages screeching out noise and guitar twang that can barely be recognised which doesn’t matter at all for audiences out of their skulls one way or another for whom the main thing is being there to see their favorites play and finally the few genuinely creative artists up on the Green Field Site who make things in wood or metal. That’s not to discount the big handmade craft fraternity most of whom will soulfully tell you how they struggle to make it themselves back home in their workshop when it’s actually carried home in a rucksack from Nepal!

Yeah, we love you too baby. You and your addiction and bullshit!

But then why be so cynical? None of these traders and fans do any harm. One way or another they’re only there to enjoy. To escape reality for a short while and after all, most of that reality is made up of rotten cheap labour jobs or fast vanishing benefits with Top Tory Ian Duncan Smith’s name written all over them, but then Glastonbury isn’t the kind of place he’d be seen dead in. For someone like that it’s the equivalent of hell!

That being the case lighten up dude. Put a little conical gold hat on your head then give us a twirl so that the white pom-pom on top jiggles about! That way you’ll learn to chill. Learn to be merry and smile!