Imagine ...
... if you will, a Guardian reader who doesn't give a fuck about what's happening at the Hay Festival. (Equally, any newspaper reader who doesn't give a fuck about what's happening at the Cannes Film Festival, or the Glastonbury Festival, or the Edinburgh Festival, or whatever other festival the newspaper has done a cross-media promotion deal with, or else they're covering it because all the other newspapers are covering it, and it's easy copy.) I bet it's smashing if you're there, but what if you're among the 99.9% of Guardian readers who are, let's say, at work?Why do they never invite me? Why-oh-why-oh-hay-on-wye?
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:46 AM
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17 Comments:
Quite right. It does my brain in.
The Glastonbury coverage in the broadsheets is particularly awful.
It was fine when it was the domain of the Melody Maker and NME, putting out festival guides for students with taglines about mud and beer. That was aimed at youthful studenty types - who are quite within their rights to drink and dose like lunatics and sprawl around in mud.
The same festival is now marketed at fully grown office workers with the same kind of copy. It just seems slightly pathetic. When the Observer's fashion barometer is recommending designer wellingtons, it's time to take a step back, I feel.
Ah yes, the designer wellies made an appearance in today's essential Hay Festival G2!
Good Lord... and I haven't seen the G2 yet. When things are that predictable you wonder if they write copy in their sleep.
Nope, I don't give a fuck about the Hay festival because I saw Public Enemy last night! I'm still bouncing off the walls and twitching. Even tea and Radio 4 cannot calm me down. I might still have Flavor Flav's sweat on me! Just imagine...
As for Glasto, I always read every article I could find about it as a kid because I so desperately wanted to go there and be just like a female child version of John Peel. I've been to every Glasto since I was 17, so I still hunt out all the articles and special pull-outs 'cause I like recognising the muddy people being sick down themselves, then pointing and shouting, "I gave him a cuddle!" to anyone who'll listen. I really am that annoying.
xx
Hay is a minority festival for faux-intellectuals..who gives a *&%$
re: Glastonbury coverage..people only really want to know if it is really muddy and unpleasant so they can laugh at the poor unfortunates who are wallowing in effluent whilst the rest of us watch higlights from the comfort of our sofas and are safe in the knwledge they can get to their comfortable beds wothout having to wade through a river of poo.
I always vaguely fancied going to Hay, but reading today's ghastly coverage of it made me feel rather ill and resolve that I will never, ever go there voluntarily. It would be like listening to The Archers without being able to turn it off, ALL DAY.
Mind you, the Jarvis thing at the Brighton festival does sound brilliant, I'd have loved to see that.
I notice Hay is getting special coverage on the Sky Arts channel, complete with 'sexy', Mariella-voiced trailer. Good grief.
Just had a flick through the G2. What a waste of space. I'm sure they all had a lovely time, but why do we need to know about it?
Yeah I just had a look at G2 and there was nowt to read for non-Hayfever suffers. Reviews of readings by authors are even less use than gig reviews.
Festival coverage is tedious if your there god knows what's like if your not. Being told it's muddy when you sinking in the mire isn't news. Shall we play glasto cliche bingo:
the somme, Revellers, mud, middle class, "best festival ever" "lack of teenagers"....
I am slightly bitter about it all having been to most Glastonburys since '87and never once got me picture in any of the papers mainly because I'm not a mud crusted crusty or a bikini clad ravey girl cutey.
I've never been to a festival. The Fleadh is a festival-y as it gets. I'm not one for camping.
Do you really want to be invited to Hay? You're already an accepted part of the literary world. You've nothing to prove.
F-C - I know someone who lives there and it would give me the excuse to go and see them!
Am I allowed to say how much I enjoyed Roger Waters at the 02 last week? Thought not.
AnonoNick
re:tellygirl. I think you're wrong about that. It'd be like listening to Quote/Unquote all day without being able to turn it off.
I may be a prematurely curmudgeon but I'm quietly dreading the Edinburgh Festival. I used to enjoy it many moons ago as a student, but now I'm working for a living...
Can I check, if I'm not too late, that this is concerning the coverage of the Hay festival, rather than the festival itself? I haven't seen the offending coverage, but I was in Hay over the weekend and thought it was good. I saw Simon Armitage with John Harris and that was very jolly. I was aware of his work before, but never really paid much attention, but I bought Armitage's book about music - "Gig" - as a result of going to the live event. That's what these festivals are about.
So what's your take on the incessant plugging that your chums at The Word magazine give to the unashamedly middle class and seemingly uber-smug Cornbury Festival, Andrew?
David, Liverpool
Joyfeed, I have no problem whatsoever with this or any festival, I'm just bored of the blanket coverage of these things in the newspapers. If an author moves, it's reported in the Guardian. I understand that the Guardian are "media partners" and that the festival expects a certain acreage of coverage, but it doesn't make it any less dull for the reader who isn't actually at the festival.
Are Word involved with Cornbury? I think they might be.
I keep checking this blog entry because I want to see what other people think of all the festival coverage. Yeah... Just in case you wonder why I'm still lurking around this area like a weirdo.
Urgh, Simon Armitage... I had to study his poetry for GCSE English. Just the thought of that intense boredom is giving me a tedium-induced panic attack. ;)
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