Bestival 2010

Shitty weather, astronomically priced cider and fifty thousand people so fucked they can no longer think, this is what British festivals are all about. And so it was this year at the smugly named Bestival on the Isle of Wight. Presumably the locals are used to the annual invasion by now, but it must still come as something of a shock to the elderly residents, who’s quiet, quaint little island is brutalised like in the time of the Vikings.

The attendance this year was increased to fifty thousand from thirty five, which resulted in the camp site looking and feeling more like a refugee crisis zone than somewhere people have paid to stay. Space between tents was non existent so laying awake at night you would become intimately involved in the sketchy, bullshit conversations going on next door. It also meant that navigating your way through the mire of pegs and ropes was like a pissed version of the crystal maze. That I didn’t fall through one of the things onto someone and get accused of attempted rape was itself a miracle.

The music was great, but was probably secondary to the fact that we could legitimately wake up and immediately start getting hammered. The frantic intoxication added to the surreal nature of the whole event, with bikini wearing girls on stilts, giant robotic spiders spouting fire and thousands of strange costumes not helping. On the first morning on the way to the already hellish toilets I saw a midget in a clown costume vomiting onto a fence. I had to stop and think long and hard about what I was seeing.

The first day went as expected, with everyone getting too excited and over exerting ourselves a tad. By which I mean I entirely lost my grip on reality and failed to sleep. Returning to the tent in the early hours I attempted to join a circle of neighbours, but ended up staring at them in silence, occasionally blurting out something that had absolutely no relevance to the conversation. The next day, running on fumes, I had to take it fairly easy so stopped partying around 2am after a quiet day of comparatively minimal, but varied, narcotic abuse.

Best act of the festival, up against contenders like Dizzy Rascal, Hot Chip, The Prodigy, and Rolf Harris, were four blokes wearing cricket outfits doing covers with ukuleles.

After four days I was ready to go, having had about as much fun as is physically and chemically possible. With washing having consisted of a wet wipe, and having collecting grime, sweat and blood in serious quantities, the bath I took once home looked like the BP oil spill, but was a screaming relief after dancing in mud like a tit non stop for the majority of the time. It did take some time to adjust to using a proper toilet again though, instead of just pissing where ever I stood.