Give It Some Latitude

Just back after four days away at Latitude festival so I haven’t written anything in over a week . . . . I’m a bit sleep deprived and groggy from this humidity right now (seriously, how hot is it?? I got attacked by a mosquito the size of a pterodactyl last night), and I wasn’t going to write about the festival as I always think you sound like a bit of a knob trying to describe how you had such an amazing time – “So there were these sheep painted multi-colours, and a fountain with performance art projected onto it, and we went into the woods where there was this giant pregnant torso made out of twigs and we crawled between her twig legs and birthed ourselves!” “Er, yeah that sounds great, call me when the mother-ship lands, ok?"

I WILL say that I loved the mix of music, dance, poetry, literature and comedy (and did, in fact, have such an amazing time. Sorry!). I have been schooled in the art of awesome contemporary poetry this weekend (Luke Wright and Holly McNish, I am about to become your biggest fan-slash-stalker). And that right now I would quite like to be in the knitting tent creating a communal sculpture out of wool. Or dancing in a forest under fairy lights, drinking cider with a shot of brandy dropped in (to save time queuing for the bar again, obviously) all covered in gold glitter.

I WILL say that I never thought I would get to use all the ‘traveller crap’ that I bought whilst backpacking again, but it turns out that multi coloured harem pants are totally appropriate for festivals! It is probably a good thing the festival was only four days, as I get insanely carried away by the atmosphere of wherever I happen to be – on my first day in Goa I looked at all the other travellers wearing their crusty tie-die floaty outfits and thought “hilarious!” Twenty four hours later I was decked out in ankle bracelets, harem pants and a t-shirt with the ‘Om’ symbol painted on the front. I AM A LOSER! (But seriously guys, those harem pants are hella comfortable AND practical. Just saying . . .)

I WILL say that I managed to avoid the whole ‘flowers in the hair’ thing, but only because I wasn’t convinced people would get that I was being ironic. As in “Yeah, secretly this is quite fun to wear but I’m aware of how clichéd this is, and I want us to both know I’m aware that this is clichéd, but am doing it anyway to make a statement about festival costume. In a post-modern ironic way, m-kay?”

Also, I know I sound like a deranged old bag here, but what is with teenagers wearing denim cut-offs so short that the pocket lining protrudes from the legs of the shorts??? (Yeah, I used a lot of italics and question marks there – this whigs me out so much that it makes me abandon correct usage of grammar!) Is it meant to be sexy? Because to me it just looks like their sanitary towel has wriggled free and is making a break for it down their legs, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, except with less Nazis and more feminine hygiene products.

I WILL say that you should fear the pop-up tent. I cannot stress this enough. Cannot stress this enough. Sure, it seems like a good idea at the time - arrive after a long stressful journey, and whilst everyone else is faffing about assembling poles and hammering tent pegs all you have to do is release the packaging and a tent pops up instantly, leaving you more time for buying cappuccinos and smugly watching your friends struggle from the comfort of your shelter! But DO NOT let yourself be seduced. When it comes to putting the bloody thing back in the bag again, you will be weeping and contorting yourself into strange positions, sitting on the thing whilst three of you try to compress something approximately the size of a rhinoceros into a carrier bag the size of a frisbee. Yesterday morning three complete strangers who had all experienced the Pop-Up Tent witnessed my pathetic wrestling match with a jumped up plastic bag and took pity on me, and none of them could make it work either! Not one of them could manoeuvre this thing back into its container. Eventually a couple of campers came over and advised me, in hushed tones, to go and see “The Tent Whisperer”. The Guru of Pop-Up Tents. The Dalai Lama of Camping. They led me on a pilgrimage to see this mystical being, who sat cross legged in his pop-up whilst desperate campers came and laid offerings at his feet in exchange for his supernatural tent wisdom. It took even him a few goes, but eventually, between four of us, we managed to tame the plastic beast . . .  I sacrificed my morning coffee to The Tent Whisperer, grovelling and giving thanks and praise. (Note: this is a slight exaggeration. He was a totally nice chappie who was helping people for free, and only asked if he could have a sip of my coffee as he’d run out of money. I practically pushed the cup into his hands exclaiming “Take it! Take it!” as I was so very grateful. I would probably have signed over ownership of my first born child in exchange for not having that tent-sized problem in my life anymore).

ANYWAY, I have spent far too long talking about tents, so the final point I WILL talk about is that the festival was a bit anti-Christian, y’all! Maybe it’s a result of this particular festival being a haven for middle class, Guardian reading liberals, but belief bashing was practically a sponsored activity. (I’m looking at you here, Eddie Izzard, although you’re not the only one. I used to find you quite sexy, with your confidence and your funniness and your decadent make up. But not anymore! Good luck getting over that one, Eddie!). Now, I don’t have a problem with people expressing views different to my own, and I would never want to censor artistic expression, but I do have a bit of a problem with the way they go about it – it’s just a bit . . . rude. Not just rude, but not especially clever or funny. I didn’t hear any dazzlingly insightful rifts on theology, just material along the lines of “There is no God, Christianity is rubbish and people who believe are stupid, whilst I am very clever, ha-ha!” And this gets a massive easy laugh! Throw the F word in there a few times and people are howling. It’s not exactly Peter Cook at his best, is it?

Insult my religion if you must, but for goodness sake make me laugh whilst you do it.

The Church itself is ripe for mockery, and I like a good “priest buggering the choirboy” joke with the rest of them, but mocking belief itself is just a bit . . . mean. And narrow minded. As though we’re all a bunch of Creationists who’ve never thought through the implications of belief in God, and all we need is to hear is some stand up comedian in a tent in Suffolk to make us reconsider and see the light (the metaphorical light, not the spiritual light, seen as that’s a religious phrase and we hate religion). So it’s not their views themselves that stick in my graw (Is that a word? Spell Check says no but I think it’s a word). It’s the fact that I would never stand in front of an audience and say that all atheists are stupid, because they’re not. And I would never mock their life choices, because that’s just bad manners. All I’m asking – politely, with pretty pleases and cherries on top - is that people extend me and others like me the same respect. Because we’re all just muddling along through this thing called Life and we should, you know, do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Yep, that’s from the Bible, folks. But it’s still just common sense, right?

Oops. It seems I’ve accidentally written a post about festivals.