This is a picture of me taken 20 years ago at the Glastonbury Festival. (Don't I look pretty in my hat and sailing pumps?) It was my first Glastonbury, as I believe I have established. I loved it to bits, and went every subsequent year, apart from the fallow ones, until 1995. There was no festival in 1996; I made the life decision not to go in 1997 and that, I firmly believed, was it for me and Worthy Farm. I had done my time. As I have explained in a previous entry, my brother-in-law talked me into accompanying him and his regular annual camping party of mainly middle-aged men this year, and I paid my £175 for the pleasure of revisiting a heady part of my past.

It's going to be a long entry, so I'll provide subheadings in order to help you skip bits:

Boring bit about getting there and back
So, got back yesterday morning at 6.30am, after five days in the Great Outdoors, having driven offsite at 3.40am, after what turned out to be a disastrous and stressful late decision to leave Sunday night rather than Monday morning after a hearty cooked breakfast. My brother-in-law Paul's brother-in-law Ian was our designated driver, so departure time was in his gift. Having seen Blur's triumphant headliner from almost down the front, which finished, triumphantly, around midnight, I made my way slowly with the other 100,000 or so Blur fans out into the rest of the site, in festive mood and hungry (I ate some sausages and onions and fried potatoes and gravy in a cardboard tray, and a waffle with chocolate and cream on a paper plate, in short succession, and enjoyed them very much), assuming I would wander back to our campsite and get a night's sleep before an early kick-off today.

But no, I got the text at that moment saying we were leaving! (It may have been sent two or three hours before - this is the speed of texts at Glastonbury. I sent Mark Ellen a text on Saturday evening at around 9.30pm, before Bruce, and he received it at 3.3oam. Glastonbury texts get caught in the mud of time: one of the first things I learned about Glastonbury Today, as opposed to Glastonbury of Yesteryear, which is the one I used to go to.) Some on the fringes of our party had already departed at various times throughout Sunday, leaving a hardcore of seven; when I got back to camp at about 1am, a little lightheaded after Blur and all that secondhand Glastonbury smoke, and now weighed down with minced meat, potatoes and sweet sponge, the other carload of four were ready to go back to the car park, all packed up. We bid them a manly farewell and that just left the final three of us. (Actually, we received a disheartening text from them an hour later informing us that traffic leaving the site was at a standstill.) As we dismantled our tents, the heavens opened up, for the first time since Friday, and we had to work in a downpour, by torchlight, which didn't seem too clever. But we were determined to see our plan through, and loaded up the three sack barrows with all our gear while God mocked us.
Yes, sack barrows (aka hand carts); I have been part of an existing, almost militarily well planned camping party. My brother-in-law Paul and a growing hardcore of like-minded late-blooming Glastonbury fiends from the South London/Kent area have been coming en masse for four years, this being their fifth: Paul, Ian, Al (Budgie), Tony, Brooke, Susie, Steve, Del, Scott and Rob. They have the whole thing nailed: they arrive on the Wednesday, beat the rush, secure their preferred camping spot in a field right on top of the festival hub (perfectly located to avoid flooding), set up a small village with up to 11 tents forming a circle around two gazebos in the middle; they bring crates of food, provisions, firewood and a spare tent in which to "park" the essential barrows. They know what they're doing.

We set off from London at 6am on Wednesday, in a 4x4 van loaded with the aforementioned military precision; we hooked up with the second car of four at a service station somewhere on the A303 (where revellers-to-be were already crowding the toilets and the coffee queues), and drove tiny-convoy-style the rest of the way. Even though the site opened its gates at 10am, it was evident by the time we hit the traditional traffic jam that, yes, everybody else in the world had had the same idea as us. (It reminded me of my Dad making us set off for Wales at 4am to "beat the traffic"; every other Dad in the country had the same idea, thus the traffic was heavier than if we left later.) It took the usual slow-moving hour or so to actually get in, park and unload the gear onto the barrows; the trudge from Car Park East 8 across the same fields, hills and dales that we'd have to trudge back up, in the mud, five days later, took close to another hour. But we were, at that point, driven by the desire to pitch camp and start the long, lost weekend with our first beer. The bit where our party usually camp was already crowded with tents when we arrived. (Wednesday is officially the new Thursday. I wonder if next year Michael Eavis will open up on Tuesday?) We found our spot eventually and I'd say we were creating a makeshift table out of wood and gathering around it for our first sitdown beer (I'm afraid we were forced to open some cans while pitching the tents for medicinal reasons) by lunchtime.

This, then, is the first pictorial evidence of me actually at Glastonbury 2009 (I'm in the Glastonbury hat, Paul is securing the gazebo, Ian is seated, with Susie in between):

The fold-out canvas camping chair with cup holder is the very thing at Glastonbury Today. I found that out pretty quickly. Some revellers were carrying them around on their backs and making little picnic areas in front of the stages, but I never went this far. I was, however, pleased to have invested in one at Millets in a 3-for-2 offer which meant I actually got it for free.

A bit about camping
I am not a natural camper in adult life. I prefer the comforts of minature hotel shampoo and conditioner, or the clean draining board of a self-catering cottage. But when I was a boy, Simon and I used to "camp" in his tent in the back garden, and I slept under canvas a couple of times for larks as a teen. (No family camping holidays - we were strictly farmhouse.) But Glastonbury awakened something primal in me in 1989, aged 24, and I found I enjoyed the privations of being trapped in a cow field without hot water. I relished the three days without a bath or a shave or a flush or a truly sanitised undercarriage.

Three days? Pah! The prospect of the protracted, raver-length five days and nights this year did, I was happy to admit, fill the 44-year-old me with fear after a 14 year gap. My brother-in-law Paul (his full title) gave me a fantastic if very long check list, which I duly followed (and how right he was about the essential "Oasis bottle" for nocturnal emergencies). As Wednesday approached, I grew trepidatious. Would I have a latrine-based panic attack on the Friday? Would I bail out and hitchhike home? Would I end up rocking back and forth in my tent, wailing? Would I crack and seek out the solar-powered showers? Or, worse, retreat to a primordial state and never come home?

Actually, it was all fine. Our canvas "village" was a terrific and sociable base, easy to spot from a distance, always there for a "chillax" and yet another beer (our gang certainly stocked up on the beer, the others freezing it in slabs beforehand so that it thawed two days later), and a stock-taking session, comparing notes on who we'd seen and who were were planning to see, running a dirty finger down the "clashfinder", or adding a can to the decorative "beer-elier" pictured below. I was fortunate to be among such a large party. Even though I happily spent much of the festival alone (it can be a liability negotiating the food and the music with a larger group), I was happy to be able to withdraw to the safety of a group.

The music
Like everybody else who purchases a Glastonbury ticket - and uniquely among the season's outdoor gigs - I had no idea who was playing when I paid my money. This says everything about Glastonbury. It's a trusim, but it's true, that it's not just about the music. As it happens, the bill fell just right for me. None of my big favourite bands or artists were playing - Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Wu Tang Clan, David Bowie, for instance - but plenty of old men whom I'd never seen (and probably never would see) were: Bruce, Neil Young, The Specials, all of whom I was really excited about. What's great about Glastonbury, or any festival, is seeing someone you wouldn't normally see - and that also applies to people on stilts, a man dressed as Wonder Woman and teenage girls throwing mud at each other. The other luxurious factor is seeing bits of bands as you happen upon them, or walk past the stage they're playing, on your way somewhere else. The Jazz World Stage, upgraded from a tent, was the perfect spot for accidental music consumption this year. Because I like to hang out at the Cabaret Field - cleanest toilets, due to lower foot traffic and lack of proximity to major camping area! - I found myself passing through the adjacent Jazz World field, and would often stay awhile to hear the unusual likes of Linda Lewis, or Jamie Cullum, or The Streets, or Stephanie McKay.

Friday
The music officially began on Thursday, when Maximo Park played the Queen's Head Stage (a new one on me, and virtually in our back garden) at 4pm. This was a bold move, and good for their ego, as they literally stopped the traffic. It was a given; the Futureheads probably would have too. Due to being in competition with, hmmm, silence, theirs was the only gig in town and the crowd overflowed out of the tent, onto the grass around it, and up, down and across all the adjoining roads. Security had to block off the thoroughfares into and out of the site, which included the one to our camp site. Let's be honest, Maximo Park don't usually do this. I listened to them from our camp.

Glastonbury was officially officially opened on Friday morning at 11am by an inspired choice: Bjorn Again on the Pyramid Stage. Imagine: a fat Abba in the drizzle. Unbeatable, actually. The sort of act I wouldn't pay to see, but was happy to see, having already paid. (I calculated that over the four days I saw 29 acts in a meaningful way ie. I heard bits of some acts, but didn't actually see them, so I didn't count them, but I saw either the full set, or some of it, or at least a couple of songs, while paying attention, by 29 artists. That means I paid £6.03 per act, which is good value. I thought White Lies were really boring, but I didn't mind paying £6.03 to find that out.) Also on the Pyriamid on Friday, I saw Fleet Foxes, who I was actually looking forward to seeing but was pretty disappointed by. They seemed awed by the surroundings, and the ocean of people stretching to the horizon, and if they perhaps wondered if they were on the wrong stage, so did I. I still like their music, and it was certainly anything but taxing at 20 to 4 in the afternoon, in the sun, but not everybody works on that big pyramid, playing to a hill.

Lily Allen, on the other hand, was just right for the big stage, and not only did she dress up for the occasion in a dangerous summer frock with her bosoms taped to it (I don't think the Fleet Foxes took too long choosing their lumberjack shirts for the biggest gig of their lives), but she was so clearly enjoying herself, you'd have to be a true misery not to be swept up by it. (By the way, I made the trek all the way up to the Other Stage after FF to catch some of White Lies, but they weren't worth the journey, so I trekked back for Lily.) I stuck around after she'd wooed the crowd on the hill to keep my spot for The Specials, another crowd-pleaser, who must have played every track from their classic first album, and had great energy for middle-aged gentlemen. (Sir Horace, of course, is a middle-aged Gentleman.) It's odd, but Ghost Town, which is a gloomy song, worked brilliantly on this gloriously sunny early evening as the sun went down. I missed Lady GaGa on the Other Stage for the Specials, and although people raved about it, I think I made the right choice. (Terry Hall looked miserable throughout while Neville and Lynval jumped about like teenagers, but maybe it's an act. Or maybe he really likes Lady GaGa.)

Then it was Neil Young. I like Neil Young and have many of his albums and recognised most of the songs he played. I found him mesmerising throughout, this old, bent-over man with wispy hair making meaningful and discordant noises with his guitar that suggested he was a third of his age. And all those false endings on Rockin' In The Free World were pure showbiz. But I know people, my brother-in-law Paul included, who were bored and wandered off. The audience noticeably thinned before the end. This was fine by me, as it was easier to move about, and I liked the older people who remained. Someone fired a red flare into the night sky, which was pretty cosmic. I didn't know if it was planned or not, but since red flares were also fired into the sky during Bruce the next night, I suspect it was just a man with a flare gun and a sense of occasion. (Between the Specials and Neil, I caught about three songs by The Streets on the Jazz World, including a sort of cover of Billie Jean, I think, and I was impressed. Also saw some of Jason Mraz on my way home past the Queen's Head, but he didn't grab me.)

Highlight of the Friday, for me, was Fucked Up, the Canadian hardcore band, at 2pm in the John Peel Tent - whose bill over the weekend otherwise made me shrug. Thanks to Tom Doyle and the Q gang for the recommendation: Damien "Pink Eyes"Abraham is one hell of a frontman; a larger gentleman, he quickly threw himself into the adoring moshpit and at one historic stage, surged through the crowd to the very back of the tent and climbed up onto the mixing desk, singing (or gurgling) the whole time, thanks to the longest microphone lead in England, which the crowd deftly passed along for him as he moved about. It was a sight to behold, and I'm glad I beheld it. This was not even the end of their set, and to be honest, Pink Eyes had nowhere else to go after this spectacle. But God bless Glastonbury for giving me this opportunity to see a fat, topless, bearded man work the crowd.

Saturday
Slow start on the Pyramid - suddenly my new favourite Stage! - so I went to the Cabaret Tent and caught Big Beat, one of those Arts Council/Stomp-style percussion troupes who bang bits of rubbish. They did a sterling job with an almost empty tent, so I applauded them loudly. I was sad to see the Cabaret Tent so ill-attended. In 1990, I spent the whole weekend there, reviewing endless comedians, and it always had a crowd, sitting on the mats. I'd popped in here on Friday, too, and saw Rufus Hound compering manfully to a lot of empty space. He actually got off stage and came down to talk to individual members of the audience. Somehow, I missed Tinariwen on the Pyramid at lunchtime (these things happen - you get distracted, you lose track of the time). but made sure I was back there for Spinal Tap. This was odd, really, but only if you think about it: three American actors playing three English rock stars doing perfectly well-played rock songs that aren't actually that funny per se, but are funny if you buy into the whole myth. Another sunny afternoon, close-ups of Nigel Tufnel's face on the big screen, seemingly random guest appearances from Jarvis and Jamie Cullum, communal appreciation of a cosmic in-joke at a picnic with good pals - what's not to like?

I was back at camp when Dizzee Rascal started, but he was so loud and clear, it was like having him perform personally for us under our gazebo. I headed over there and caught the big crowd-pleasers Dance Wiv Me and Bonkers. Another two points for pop music at a rock festival. Missed Crosby, Stills and Nash due to an unscheduled odyssey all the way up the Park Stage to see some of Shlomo, who had DJ Yoda on while I was there, failing to find the actor Tony Gardner, who had lured me by text and then refused to leave his vantage point in a crowded field to come and collect the pint of lager I'd just bought for him. (I'd seen Atilla The Stockbroker do some cross poetry in the Cabaret Tent earlier - something like his 26th Glastonbury! - but was mainly drawn to him in the hope that he would officially mark the passing of my old NME colleague Steven Wells, the news of whose death that morning was more upsetting to me than Michael Jackson's. Atilla didn't mention Swells while I was there, sadly.)

Saturday night was the night I had been looking forward to the most, musically: Kasabian, a band I already love and have seen live, and thus a banker; and Bruce Springsteen, an artist I have very little love for, and thus a chance to be educated in style. Kasabian had the best slot in terms of light - who wouldn't want to play as the sun goes down? - but their sound was ill-treated either by the PA or the wind, and Tom Meighan's voice was actually inaudible when they first marched on, hands aloft, ready for some Big Music, which somewhat undermined the initial impact. However, about halfway through, when they played Fire, it all fell into place. I was relieved about this. They've played second fiddle on the Pyramid before, and I didn't want their set to let the side down. It didn't, in the end, and although most of the crowd didn't know the songs from their brand new album (bad timing, really), I did, having reviewed it for Word, and hearing them live made sense of some of them. The crowd went away singing the wordless riff to Fire, in groups, and it was a beautiful noise coming up from the streets.

By the time Bruce came on at 10pm, darkness had fallen and not just on the edge of town (I know that's a Bruce reference, but I don't really know where from). You could not move in the main field, and I mean every single walkway was now blocked with people from one side to the other: this was the main event. I was standing with Tom Doyle again, who knows his Bruce, and was happy to have each song pointed out to me. I only know his hits. And he wasn't going to be playing those. I sort of recognised Badlands, from the words, but I can't say I know it beyond its title. I knew Because The Night, of course. And Born To Run, but we had to work for that, as he played it at something like the two-and-a-half-hour mark, by which time he was breaking the Glastonbury curfew and costing Michael Eavis three grand. But it was worth it, they all said. I must admit, I made my exit at around midnight, having really appreciated Bruce's showmanship and drive and handsome chin, and the love he generated from the crowd, and the sheer tightness of the E Street Band, who turned Glastonbury into the biggest backroom bar in England. He was a worthy headliner for Worthy Farm, and I can see why so many people worship him, but I could have done with a few more familiar tunes, it not being a Bruce Springsteen Gig but a Rock Festival. Even Neil was more user-friendly. Again, the crowd noticeably thinned out, as younger folk went off to see Franz Ferdinand or Jarvis or Josh Wink, but this just made the getaway easier for unbelievers like me. I really liked it when Bruce pretended to be a preacher and said we were all going to build a house of music. No, I really did. It suited the occasion. And that's what it's all about: suiting the occasion.

Sunday
Funny day, Sunday. Some people leave. You see people carrying tents and folded-up canvas chairs throughout the day. I've done this in the past. But more fool them, as Blur gave us such a monumental climax. All roads led to Blur, for me. Status Quo proved a solid gold novelty act at midday, with something like 80,000 singing along to Rocking All Over The World, and one man near us dancing with his thumbs in his belt loops: nice work. (Hey, even the Quo played a consecutive run of about half a dozen songs that I didn't recognise! Such indulgence! They could have played hits for an hour, surely?) Tony Christie, the only performer I saw in a suit and tie, was the act I got closest to "the front" for, and was glad when he played Amarillo and we all sang along and marched up and down. Some formed a conga line. Cynicism is simply not welcome at Glastonbury. While Tom Jones played, I went to loyally watch my friend Robin Ince in the Cabaret Tent, arriving in time to see most of John Otway, who'd miraculously filled the tent! Hurrah! (He ended with a version of his partner Wild Will Barrett's Headbutt, a song I've always held dear.) Robin kept most of them in there with his rants about subjects ranging from the Daily Express and the Daily Mail to the Observer magazine.

A quick detour to see Roots Manuva, who was a little repetitive in his patter like the rap singers sometimes are, but his songs are strong and righteous, then Robin joined me for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the sundown slot, and we fully appreciated his gorgeous, well-dressed, mournful goth-cabaret, especially a ferocious Mercy Seat, a sort of Amarillo for serious ex-NME readers. I admit, the secondhand dope smoke in the air was welcome at this point. (I don't wish to get the festival closed down, but some people smoke the marijuana in cigarette form at Glastonbury. In fact, most people do. They sell cigarette papers and tobacco at the shops there; it's almost as if they are encouraging it. However, the police, who are visibly onsite, don't appear to arrest you for smoking it or possessing it, which is perplexing. Because of this, you don't actually need to waste money by buying it or the Rizlas, as it exists as a permanent layer of aromatic smoke around head height. To not inhale would be to die.)

Now, unlike Bruce and Neil and the Specials, I have seen Blur countless times in venues tiny and huge, including Mile End Stadium, Ally Pally, Wembley Arena and Reading Festival (the year they stole the night from The The), although I missed them at Glastonbury both times. So this was a big night for all five of us. They did not put a foot wrong, delivering a set of the old (She's So High) and the not quite as old (Tender, Out Of Time), a proper audience-friendly performance - less than half of which was allowed to be shown on telly, I understand - during which Damon Albarn sat on the drum riser and cried. You could see the relief and gratitude in their eyes as it became clear that they were just as loved as they used to be, in fact, a sort of heritage act already, but there's nothing wrong with that - ask The Specials, ask Madness, ask Paul McCartney. The total absence of new material was what made it so entertaining and uplifting. They earned our love. I was about six or seven bodies from the front, but under one of the screens rather than in the middle, surrounded by fans young and old, raising their hands in the air without being instructed to do so; singing along without being implored to do so - this was magic.

After Blur had done, and we'd all sung along to The Universal and believed in that aromatic, sunburned, flag-waving moment that it really, really, really could happen, people sang all the way back to their tents, or to whichever faraway field they had discovered that played music all night and served tequila. I went back to camp and then to London town, as we have established. I have missed so many Sunday night Glastonbury headliners in my time, but they didn't used to put anybody decent on in the olden days. Now, people with jobs take the Monday off, and Sunday is the new Saturday. I couldn't have written a better bill for my one-off, midlife crisis, reliving-past-glories Glasto: some old men I've never seen, some slightly less old men I've never seen, some men around the same age as me I have seen but not here, some British rappers, a few uncool types I was allowed to enjoy (Jamie Cullum a good example - Gran Torino sounded tremendous with a cup of pear cider), and a big, fat Canadian man surging through a tent.

Some thoughts on the Glastonbury experience:

The food
I've always loved "outdoor" food. True, pretty much everything sold is in a wrap or a bap (there is even a stall called Wraps & Baps), but whether you're vegetarian, vegan or meat-eater, the sheer global variety of fillings remains a joy to behold. Apart from an unusually disappointing haloumi wrap (mainly iceberg lettuce, and the haloumi was cooked to a crisp), I ate very well for five days, and the extended run gave me the chance to try out more stuff, including a nice "snack box" from the Goan fish curry stand in the Park field and a large pot of Yeo Valley organic yogurt for £1, bargain of the festival (Yeo Valley were big sponsors of it but still). My favourite stall was Chai Wallahs, which was undercover and had its own live entertainment and provided rough benches and low tables to sit on, and served so many nice things they actually had printed menus: a vast array of chai teas - and a restorative ginger, apple and honey infusion with bits of root ginger floating in it which I had on more than one occasion with my morning Guardian (another sponsor). They also did hookah pipes, but I didn't go that far. The vibe at Chai Wallahs was so Glastonbury: on the Thursday morning, spectacularly hungover but unable to sleep in my hot tent, I had an organic breakfast roll and ginger tea at about 8am. The next morning, it took them about an hour longer to actually get their hippy arses in gear to cook anything. Go with the flow. And there were usually a couple of bodies asleep on the benches from the night before. I enjoyed watching the staff dutifully sweeping the tables, as if working in a normal restaurant, except what they were sweeping up was tobacco and roaches and the general detritus of not-illegal smoking. A special mention to the coffee stall next to the big orange, with just one member of staff who took as long as she liked to make perfect coffees and took a particularly appealing age to make me a hot chocolate on many an occasion: totally zen.

The people
Despite the hippy-dippy, jester-hat, post-enlightenment, left-of-liberal, wishy-washy, tree-hugging, mud-loving, nuclear disarming, developing-world-helping atmosphere, it's still the Whitest Festival In The World. If sixth forms and universities had their summer holiday in April and May, the site would be virtually empty. If you live in London or any big, cosmopolitan city, this can be disarming. My guess is that racists are thin on the ground, however. It's the ultimate irony: music and audience that "see no colour", and yet very little in the way of skin pigment to actually see. Still, I'd say there were more black and Asian faces this year, and one of two foreign accents, so 14 years of progress and broadsheet/BBC coverage have not been totally in vain. The percentage of "lads" doing the equivalent of a stag weekend has risen, I'd say, but not to the degree that there is anything threatening in the air - certainly not like the start of the 90s, when the men in balaclavas hung round the gateposts selling Es and whizz and rumours of shootings abounded.

The feeling is still one of unlikely togetherness, and you get the idea that townpeople wouldn't step over a dead body in Glastonbury like they would at home, even though you do have to step over quite a lot of inert scrumpy enthusiasts. As an early riser, I enjoyed wandering through the site before breakfast and meeting the young ravers with their salmon-pink skin and wide eyes as they came home. I sometimes effected a slight stumble out of solidarity. It goes without saying that you end up chatting to people you don't know. I wore the I AM VIRGILIO ANDERSON t-shirt once and had to go back and change into a t-shirt without words on because so many people shouted out, "Hello, Virgilio Anderson!" at me.

The rain
It rained, pretty constantly, from about 9pm on Thursday to lunchtime Friday. This is just about traditional. Having enjoyed a full, dry, sunny day on our arrival, we felt we were lucky. What you forget about camping is how noisy rain is. You may be dry under canvas - except for that bit where you didn't stake your outer layer far enough from the inner layer and they touched, allowing a leak in - but it doesn't mean you can sleep, unless you're really self-medicated. Wellies are a must, and once you're tucked into them, the mud is do-able. Yes, it becomes a quagmire where the heavy foot traffic churns it up, but you can usually avoid the worst by walking along the edges. And, in true Glastonbury style, even the worst of the mud had dried out by Saturday, leaving that familiar sight of brightly coloured plastic lighters trodden into the hard ground, ready for archaeologists to find in 100 years. [Picture above: Brooke, Tony and Ian dealing with the inclement weather. It's what we do in this country. And Brooke is Canadian.]

Michael Jackson
I found out he'd died in the middle of the night on Thursday, as some kids talked about it in the next tent. (One of them didn't believe it, saying a similar rumour about Amy Winehouse had "gone round" in a previous year; another wondered if we'd get a "public holiday".) Counter to what they told you on the news, Glastonbury was not grief-stricken about; we were just shocked, mainly. It's surreal when a big bit of news makes it way around the 170,000, this time by text and then word of mouth. You feel so cut off in there; it's almost an affront that a news item should penetrate so. It wasn't long before the food stalls were blasting out Jacko tunes, and many artists worked in tributes and covers. But it's not as if it was Paul McCartney.

The personal disaster
After a spiritually nourishing wander up to the Stone Circle field on the Wednesday night, which might have been virtually deserted on a Wednesday in previous years but wasn't this year, my brother-in-law Paul and I happened upon the Brothers cider stall, selling just Brothers pear cider. (The only queue that was bigger than theirs all weekend was the one for the Orange mobile recharging chillout lounge, for obvious reasons.) Brothers pear cider is lovely; it is also 7% alcohol, which is almost twice as much as the Magners pear cider I drink in the town. We drank a number of pints while sitting happily cross-legged on the at-that-stage still dry grass, as the sun went down. It was glorious. However, I do not remember the next two hours, or getting back to my tent. I'm told I went off to get another drink and never came back. I have no idea how I found my way back to a tent I had put up about six hours earlier, but I did. The human body is an amazing thing.

Anyway, it was good to let one's hair down, and chat with a valued member of one's family, and better to become insensible here than in a town. The joke is, I woke up the next morning, safe, and with all my belongings. I appear not to have sent embarrassing or incomprehensible texts to anyone. My brother-in-law Paul had forgiven me and we laughed it off. Then I went off for a spiritually nourishing breakfast of spinach and cheese crepe with coffee, and while sitting on a bench to eat it, I cracked the LED screen of my fancy touch-screen mobile phone! At least if I'd done it during my lost few hours, there would be a story attached. But no! I did it while ordering a pancake.

When I last went to Glastonbury, there were no mobile phones. I survived every Glastonbury without the ability to contact anyone except by carrier pigeon and it was fine. However, I was looking forward to the luxury of texting this year, and for a moment there, I found myself looking down the barrel of an excommunicated festival. How would people get in touch with me? How would I get in touch with them? I wandered forlornly up to the inspiring Green Futures area and paid 50p to the nice people who work in the information tent to charge up my phone by solar power, to make certain that the crack was all that was stopping it showing anything. It was. I logged on to Twitter on their cute little green laptop, again solar powered, and sent out emergency messages via the great comedians' noticeboard. I enjoyed this moment of technological emancipation, powered by the sun. It felt OK.

Then, back at camp, I transferred my SIM card into a spare Nokia phone and, although none of my contacts seemed to be on the SIM but trapped in my dead touch-screen LG, I was able to receive new texts and store the numbers as they arrived. Phew. I was back on the grid. It was a nasty moment, and enough to make me borderline bereft for an hour or so, but a cautionary tale about how reliant we are on little machines to go about our business, even at Glastonbury. I hate my touch-screen LG phone now. It is rubbish. It is not even pancake-friendly. (As it was, I had a lot of fun texting home during the big headliners, who were on the telly almost concurrently. Although as I've mentioned, texts to and from other revellers took hours to get there.)

In 1989 and 1990, although I was writing for the NME, I had no backstage access. I didn't care. However, once I had been corrupted by this privilege the following year, I could not imagine life without a VIP wristband, handed out like sweets to music journalists. Suitably accredited, we used to drive all the way onsite, into the backstage paddock, and camp there, or sleep in the car. From this area, you can emerge just to one side of the Pyramid Stage, or to one side of the Other Stage, which cuts out a lot of trudging; also, you can be sure of a sociable time, if you like hanging out with other media folk, as I used to. This year, I made no overtures in that direction. I paid for my ticket and was camping with other ticket-holders. I stuck to this, even though it meant that I couldn't appear on the Word podcast, as planned, because I didn't have the accreditation. I met up with a few Q and Word pals, and Sarfraz Manzoor from the Guardian, and Robin Ince and Phill Jupitus (the latter by pure, God-given chance), but mostly I was with my fellow campers, or by myself.

The toilets
Ha ha, the toilets! Glastonbury virgins are shocked by the toilets. I was, 20 years ago. But it's an outdoor site, with 170,000 people living on it for between three and six days. They all need to use the toilet, at least once a day, more if they are eating spicy foods of the world, and only less if they have taken Immodium, as some do. The toilets do not flush. They are holes, just as they are holes in about 40% of the world. That means they smell of what's in them, even after a lorry has sucked a day's worth out of them. Get over it. I'd say the toilets this year were more plentiful, and there were more sinks with cold running water than 14 years ago; also, soap, provided I think by the charity Water Aid, who also laid on volunteer toilet attendants, who often wore masks and mainly mopped the seats of the toilets with a mop that they then used to mop the next toilet seat along, without rinsing it in between. Good on them and everything - and they did also use long picker-uppers to pick up "things" and pop them in the bowl where they should have been popped by the disgusting user of the toilet - but you're still in a low-comfort world of sanitation. And if it rains, there is no roof on most of the cubicles. But you quickly get used to it, and if you don't carry toilet paper with you, and wet wipes, in a sealed bag, you are mad.

On the Sunday morning, I actually found a half-full resealable bag of what I believe the young urban people call "weed" in one of the cubicles, clearly left there the night before by someone rolling one up before bedtime. No, I did not steal it. I may be many things, and I may have returned to a primal me, but I do not take drugs that have been left in a toilet. I wouldn't even take them if they were left in my toilet at home. (I bet the bag of "pot pouri" went pretty soon after that.)

Conclusion
I loved it. It has taken me almost a day to write it all up, so filled was my sojourn with memorable moments. It was an unusual five days without comforts, and without wi-fi, and without my beloved laptop, and without the ability to take my own photos (stupid LG phone!), and without television or radio, and without VIP status, and without any work to do. Good. You need that sometimes in your life. When I finally got home, at 6.30am yesterday, unshaven, spaced out, suntanned in the way that bench winos look suntanned (I could actually be mistaken for Asian now, which is ironic after my demographic survey), and smelly in the way that people who haven't had a bath or shower for five days are smelly (my guess is that I smelt of wet wipes, rural England and hat sweat), I actually felt too dirty to enter my own house. I thought I might spoil it. That's Glastonbury. I've watched a couple of bits of it on the red button, but I don't need to see it on a small screen, really. It's not the same. Would I go again? No, I don't think I would, but then that's what I said in 1995. Either way, I wouldn't swap this one for the world, and I thank my brother-in-law, Paul, for presenting me with the opportunity and making it happen. I might never have gone without him. And thanks to his brother-in-law, Ian, for driving us there and back, and staying awake on the way back. And to Al, Tony, Brooke, Susie and Steve for the company. Peace and love.

PS: Many of the more general photos are taken from the official portfolio at the Glasto site by Jason Bryant, Darren Cornwell and others. See them all here. I hope Glastonbury don't mind me recycling them, but I don't know if I mentioned this, but my stupid LG phone broke on a crepe.

I will be in a field, with some other people, until Monday. Please do not be alarmed if you leave a comment and it does not appear. It is because I am in a field, with some other people, until Monday, and I don't expect to be able to access the Internet during that time. (This is a good thing: I need a holiday.) I have not been to Glastonbury for 14 years, so for all I know, there are free laptops for every reveller, and wi-fi generated by cows. But my phone is too primitive to get me Internet access, so see you at the other side. Unless you are in Glastonbury also, in which case, look out for the Reni hat and the I AM VIRGILIO ANDERSON t-shirt. Enjoy the long weekend, wherever you are.

PS: I believe the photograph above was taken at the Glastonbury Festival in 1990. The hairstyle and trainers suggest this.

In our 69th!!!LOL podcast, we lament the locking down of not just our own Wikipedia entries, but also Duncan Norvelle's, while discussing in great detail the political leanings of new Speaker, John Bercow, assessing the form of all eleven Doctors Whos, pondering Jordan's crude tattoo removal, looking at my Glastonbury hat [pictured], recalling with great fondness and inaccuracy the 1980s public share issue campaign, and asking, yet again, WHO IS VIRGILIO ANDERSON??? And all sponsored, once again, by the Rhythm Festival in Bedford, who have helpfully kept some tickets back to be sold, unlike Glastonbury who greedily sold all theirs. Typical. (If you would like to hear, in full, the Nathan Jay and Amber Gambler remix of Richard singing his own version of the Alesha Dixon song, with no prior knowledge that Chris Moyles did it ages ago, it's here.)

Richard Littlejohn: you couldn't make him up. Here's the lead story from the thundering self-parody's column in today's Mail about "the tarmacing community" (ie. gypsies), a phrase that was bannered right across the front cover. Even if you can't be bothered to read it to the end, please do enjoy the funny cartoon that accompanied it in which a pipe-smoking gypsy fortune teller with a very cross baby and hairy-faced husband who can't do his shirt up properly are trampling a DECENT TAXPAYER in their rush to get preferential treatment at YOUR DOCTOR'S SURGERY. There's an online poll asking, "Should the NHS allow gipsies to jump the queue?" and, due to intense Twitter distribution, the "YES" vote currently stands at 92%. Join in. That should ruin everything.

Collings & Herrin Podcast 68 is upon us [or will be soon] - and still sponsored by Bedford's Rhythm Festival. I had come hotfoot from reviewing the newspapers on Nick Ferrari's breakfast show on London's LBC, a non-stop commercial talk station ("London's Big Conversation"), and thus I had read all of the newspapers, cover to cover, that's all of them, including the "X-rated" Daily Star. For once, it's all news, and no nonsense or housekeeping or catchphrases or plugs for things we are doing or Richard complaining about being tired: the redacted MPs' expenses, the Wheelie Bin Revolution, the difference between Alesha Dixon and Arlene Philips, Sir Fred Goodwin's chimney-sweeping pennance, the "Tarmaccing community", Jordan's "X-rated" romp, the allure of nappies to the urban fox, and the great fluoridation debate. The one question we don't answer is, "Who is Virgilio Anderson?"

I'm not actually sure why, but out of the blue I have been accused twice this week of deliberately trying to increase "traffic" to my blog by touching on "contentious" issues (fluoridation; political self-interest; the ownership of a health drink company by a large fizzy drink company), specifically by Edd and Adam Smith (who doesn't have a Blogger profile or website to link to, and I assume is not my good friend Adam Smith the film writer). The term "trolling" came up on both occasions. I have looked this word up, as I wasn't sure what it meant, and Urban Dictionary says:

Trolling

1. Being a prick on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it's the internet and, hey, you can.

2. Trolling is the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards. When done in a moderated internet community, this can result in banning.

3. Act of appearing on internet forums and boards with malicious intent.

OK, well I certainly haven't done any of that. Also, the implication of "trolling" is to annoy others behind the accepted safety of a forum pseudonym, something I have never done, and can't very well do on my own website. I'm pretty sure posting a blog entry on your own blog about something that may cause debate is called "posting a blog entry on your own blog about something that may cause debate", and is allowed - some may say encouraged.

For the record, then (my favourite phrase), I present above the graph monitoring unique visitors for the past couple of days. As ever, it averages out to around 180 visitors a day. You'll see that the fluoridation entry (Monday 15 June), lively though it turned out to be, had no appreciable effect on visitor numbers, other than the usual moderate spike after the weekend lull when people are either not at their work computers, or they're out in the fresh air, as I am. Equally, there was a spike on Tuesday 9 June, even though I didn't post anything between Friday 5 June and Thursday 11 June. So, if I wish to increase traffic, which I don't, the best thing for me to do is post nothing. I'd better get on to the advertising department and tell them the news.

I know this is boring, but it's the first time I have been accused of doing something as cynical as trying to increase traffic to my website. Maybe this entry will finally do the trick and take my visitor numbers as high as 221 and I'll be able to put my rates up.

Anyway, those Iranians, eh, trolling all over the place, trying to encourage a debate.

Or at least, do drink the attractive-looking, ubiquitous, heavily advertised Vitamin Water, in all of its lovely flavours with dynamic names (Spark, Revive, Defence), if you want to give money to the Coca Cola company, who manufacture it but - oddly - don't make a very big fuss about the fact that they do on the drink's website. Presumably, this caginess is connected with the fact that they don't wish to put off the kind of trendy, health-conscious modern potential customers who think themselves a cut above the Coke-swilling masses and ordinarily despise the sort of monopolistic multinationals who have been accused of but categorically don't employ paramilitaries to intimidate union organisers in South American countries and deplete the water table of countries like India and increase the toxicity of the water supply with liberally applied pesticides.

++++++++++++DISCLAIMER++++++++++++
I did not go to the bother of putting this blog entry up to increase traffic to my website by touching on yet another "contentious" issue, or indeed to congratulate myself that I am the first person to spot that Vitamin Water is made by the Coca Cola company. I live in London. Yesterday, one of our free newspapers, the kind that are thrust into the hands of commuters in order to sell advertising, was "wrapped" in a colourful advert for Vitamin Water, selling it as a refreshing but healthy elixir in a plastic bottle. I got sick of seeing it, left on train seats and strewn all over London's streets, so I thought I'd pass on the information above to anybody who doesn't look into this type of thing. I have no interest in increasing the traffic to my website. It carries no ads. It earns me no money. I only write the blog because I enjoy it. By using Google Analytics, I can monitor every single visitor and hit, and I've been hovering between 150 and 250 visitors a day for as long as I can remember; this only went up when I wrote about The Apprentice, and when Mark Kermode mentioned the website on Five Live. Then it went down again. I don't care. I do care about large companies buying smaller companies to make their shareholders happy by literally buying into something they consider good for their image. Clearly, in buying Glaceau, the company who manufacture Vitamin Water and other energy type drinks, Coca Cola thought they were doing this, but you'd be hard pushed to find that fact out on the Vitamin Water website. That is all.

I bring this story to your attention merely so that you may consider it. It comes from Saturday's Times:

Andy Burnham, the new Health Secretary, yesterday urged health service managers to press ahead with the controversial fluoridation of water supplies. Speaking at the NHS Confederation annual conference, Mr Burnham, an enthusiast for fluoridation, said: "I feel we've been too timid at times on the public health agenda. So let's press ahead with water fluoridation, given the clear evidence that it can improve children's dental health."

Mr Burnham stepped down yesterday as honorary vice-president of the British Fluoridation Society after inquiries by the Times. He cited his desire not to carry a perceived conflict of interests into the fluoridation debate.

The Collings & Herrin Podcast is herewith sponsored by the Rhythm Festival, which looks like a very nice, modest music festival suitable for families and held in a place near Bedford, August 21-23. We have done a deal with them, whereby we promote the festival and for every weekend ticket sold, they GIVE US MONEY. Well, they give money to our chosen charities, Scope and Thomas's Fund. So go and have a look at their website. This has to be one of the worst sponsorship deals in the history of capitalism: we do all the work, and only our charities profit. But that's the kind of guys we are. We will be rewarded at some other point. And the man running the festival seems very nice, and we trust him.



In our 67th podcast, sponsored by the Rhythm Festival, blah blah blah, we discuss the electoral victory of the BNP and whether it's OK to have a go at Nick Griffin because of his face, celebrate the showbiz camp of Colonel Gaddafi, ponder the advantages and disadvantages of the head massage, admire Caroline Flint's shoes, assert Duncan Norvelle's heterosexuality, debate the spyhole, and, in the newly-shorn Richard's case, aim for two new catchphrases, one of which really belongs to Arnold Schwarzenegger. (British Library pencil sharpener pictured.)

OK, let's just get it out in the open. I like hanging around with comedians. I always have done. In the Edinburgh entry below, I explain how I hung around with medical students, including the future Harry Hill, in the late 80s after I'd left college and stowed my way into their amateur dramatics group, appearing in and co-writing their comedy productions, one of which we took to Edinburgh. (The only play I ever wrote solo was performed at St George's, Play It Again, Woody - it was a huge thrill and really gave me confidence to write.) It was around the same time as all this theatricality - we also made a short film called Heads Together - that I landed my first job in "the media", laying out pages for the NME. This, as you probably sick of hearing by now, led to me becoming a professional journalist and writer, after constant badgering of section editors.

Because future-Harry and my friend Rob were at that time courageously trying out a nascent double act, the Hall Brothers, on what was then called the London cabaret circuit - a thriving scene in the late 80s after alternative comedy had opened it up like an oyster, and by then moving out into other cities - I went to an awful lot of comedy gigs in rooms above pubs: the Banana, the Chuckle Club, various nights run by Screaming Blue Murder, Jongleurs of course, rooms that I've forgotten the names of. I was captivated by the constant stream of comics I saw, some of whom went on to be famous, most of whom didn't. It was a heady time. American comics, like Bill Hicks, would appear in West End theatre package shows - I saw one hosted by an unknown Jack Dee, and another by Phill Jupitus, then moving away from this Porky persona. And, as a known comedy fan, I was often asked to review these gigs for the NME. Just as record companies sent out tapes of bands, I was starting to get PR-ed about new comedians, invited to meet them, go to recordings, review their comedy cassettes etc. I wish it had been me who observed that comedy was the new rock'n'roll - they were on the money. It was.

Avalon, one of the emerging new players of the comedy industry, saw me as a way in to music press coverage for their newer acts, such as Rob Newman, David Baddiel, Stewart Lee, Jim Tavare and others. I struck up a good relationship with them. I remember seeing Mark Steel at the Garage in Highbury (he had a moustache then), thinking he was really good, and interviewing him for the NME. Just like that, really. Same with Mark Thomas. And Eddie Izzard, who I'd seen playing for free in the street in Edinburgh in 1989. (James Brown, then features editor, also liked comedy, but he had his sights set much higher, on the crossover potential of Vic Reeves, so he was happy to let me do the indie stuff while he went off on tour. Nobody else at the NME cared much about comedy. Good.)

When the ill-fated but well-meaning Vox magazine started, I was given my own comedy section to run for a while, and indulged myself by setting up interviews with those comics who were now finding fame on Channel 4 - I remember going up to Paul Merton after a gig at the Banana and getting his phone number; I went round his house (he lived near me in Streatham) and we sat in a bistro on Streatham High Road. In the piece I wrote for Vox, I had to explain that he was the one who wasn't John Sessions or Mike McShane on Whose Line Is It Anyway? (I believe the headline was, Paul: The Other One.) I even wrote an early feature about Harry Hill for the NME, at a point where he was just about to sign with Avalon and go big time. He actually asked my advice. I said do it.

When I moved to Select magazine in 1993, I used all my comedy contacts to write a big feature about comedy being the new rock'n'roll, calling upon Eddie Izzard, Sean Hughes, Phill Jupitus, Stewart Lee, Punt and Dennis and Jon Thoday of Avalon to help build a picture of the industry. We virtually made Sean Hughes Select's pet comedian, and put he and Mark Lamarr on the cover. I did a lot of hanging around comedians then, and many of them came to the same indie gigs we went to. I recall having an intense conversation with Steve Coogan after a Blur gig at Wembley, because we'd interviewed him for the NME with his more famous brother, Martin of the Mock Turtles! (As Stuart and I made headway into radio, and then TV, we met even more comedians, and fantasised about being comedians. Well, I did. When Clive James asked us to be his sole co-writers on his final ITV end-of-year extravaganza, we felt like real comedy writers for the first time. I suppose by definition we were. Whether we were a comedy double act is more debatable, as we never "played" live, merely presented radio shows in an amusing manner, but we certainly developed a comedic rapport.)

It was a fine line to tread. I must admit, I did make the mistake of thinking Rob Newman and Sean Hughes were my friends around this time, because I'd been to their houses and to a football match with Sean. Maybe I just picked the wrong two comedians, but both kind of let me down. There are no hard feelings, and I've seen Rob socially since. But I learned my lesson: comedians are fun to hang around, but have a unique set of character traits that make them high maintenance friends. Perhaps both sensed that I was hanging around them. (Rob certainly didn't like the criticisms I made of the Mary Whitehouse Experience book in an NME review, although to be fair, they were mainly criticisms of the sub-editing.)

When Stuart, David Quantick and I boldly took our show Lloyd Cole Knew My Father up to Edinburgh (and subsequently performed it at the ICA in London, and at the Cathedral Arts Festival in Belfast, and at a private party for the Rockin' Vicar at Yo! Sushi), it was clear to all that we were just playing at being comedians. No threat to anyone, in other words. But audiences were very kind - as were the comics who came to see us, including Coogan - and it mean that, due to a transfer to Radio 2, we got to do our own radio comedy series at the Drill Hall. We even had our own "token woman" to provide the female voices: the great Amelia Bullmore, who was better than the material we had given her. We did a 20-minute version of the show at the Bloomsbury Theatre, supporting a solo Lloyd Cole - at his kind invitation - and we felt a little bit out of our depth, I think. But good to give these things a crack.

Because of my EastEnders apprenticeship, I became known as the writer who could be brought in to work with comedians on sitcoms. First, Simon Day, then Lee Mack - since which I've been set to work with Jason Byrne on a project that never saw the light of day, and am in preliminary talks for another comedian who might have a project that needs a co-writer. I'm basically hanging around with comedians for a living now. I hope this is allowed, and that I don't at some point get found out. My relationship with Mr Richard Herring is a fine example of where hanging around a comedian can get you (although at least he knows exactly what's been going on and keeps me in my place). I had a lot of comedians as guests on Round Table when I was at 6 Music, as they are usually far more entertaining than musicians: Rich, Stewart Lee, Coogan, Dave Gorman, Scott Capuro, Steve Merchant ... the station itself liked to hang around comedians, in fact, giving early shows to Sean Hughes and of course Phill, and getting the likes of Bill Bailey and Iain Lee in to dep, with Russells Howard and Brand, and Merchant, later given their own slots. (Merchant was given most of my slot, in fact!)

On Radio 2 I was drafted in as the straight man to Robin Ince and Jon Holmes on The Day The Music Died, but again, it gave me the chance to play at being a radio comedian. I'm not quite sure why Avalon picked their former NME journalist to present Banter, but I'm bloody glad they did, as it meant that for three series, I got to hang around some of the best comedians in the land: Arthur Smith, Sue Perkins, Barry Cryer, Chris Addison, Dillie Keane, Lucy Porter, Lee, Miranda Hart, the emergent Russell Howard, Will Smith and on and on. For the pilot recording in Edinburgh, and over the subsequent three series, I "warmed up" the audience, which was nerve-wracking, as it felt a bit like stand-up, and I experienced material failing, which was horrible. (Equally horrible having four professional comedians listening from behind the curtain.)

And now, Robin Ince, almost singlehandedly, has been responsible for getting me up on stage to try and be funny for an audience, through his Book Club and School For Gifted Children evenings, as well as the Bloomsbury gigs at Christmas, where I appeared on the same bill as such luminaries as Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Mark Thomas, Chris Addison and Tim Minchin, and told some jokes. Last night, I appeared on the bill for a Book Club Reunion at the Cross Kings in King's Cross, for our old pals at No Sweat. Once again, I found myself alongside such professionals as Josie Long and Natalie Haynes and Howard Read, and, on this occasion, the legendary Simon Munnery (who, when he first saw me there, reminded me that I used to be his "boss" - in that I commissioned a weekly column from Alan Parker, Urban Warrior for the NME back in the early 90s) and - from an even grander strata of comedy - Alexei Sayle. It seems faintly preposterous that I should have been on a bill with Alexei Sayle, but I was. And it was all down to the good vibes of the comedy circuit, which is not a closed shop after all. I spent the evening hanging around with comedians. And I liked it.

Don't tell anybody.

Tickets are now available for the Collings & Herrin live podcasts in Edinburgh. We're appearing for five days only, August 19-23, at the Underbelly at 12.2opm (just before lunch at the Tempting Tattie). The pic above is of the satisfied audience from last year's live podcast at the Underbelly, although they didn't have to pay. This year, it's £6, because we are professionals. If you're at the festival, why not book your tickets here. Equally, I would expect you to book tickets for Richard Herring's show Adolf Hitler And His Funny Moustache, which is also at the Underbelly, but in the evening. I shall be booking mine this afternoon.

This is all very exciting for me, as I was planning to take my Mitford Sisters show up this year but I did the sums and it was just too risky for a relative newcomer like myself at what is a financially challenging time. (I made the decision not to go before Not Going Out was cancelled, so it turned out to be an astute move.) Maybe next year. I may do the ten-minute version while I'm in Edinburgh if somebody will let me. I'll keep you posted about that.

I love Edinburgh. Here is a picture of me in 1989 outside the venue where we staged our first ever show at the Fringe - 20 years ago! - that is, Renaissance Comedy Associates, a theatre group founded at St George's Medical School under the aegis of one Matthew Hall, then a student, but later Harry Hill. The show was called President Kennedy's Big Night Out.



Any excuse to run a few of the old snaps. Actually, here's the first, unpublished draft of a short piece I wrote about the experience for Word in 2005. It explains everything.



I'm not a doctor, as the man in the white coat used to say on those adverts. But in August 1989 I played a vital part in taking a medical school drama production up to the Edinburgh Fringe for a frantic, heady, penny-pinching week of costume changes, dodgy digs and self-promotion that indirectly helped launch the mainstream TV career of Harry Hill. When I say I played a vital part, I drove one of the cars.

The other, a 1968 Vauxhall Viva which went halfway up the A1 with a flat tyre, was driven by my pal Rob, an art teacher. It was through him that I came to join Renaissance Comedy Associates, the self-appointed amateur dramatics society of St George's Hospital Medical School in Tooting, South London. RCA's leading light was the urbane and witty Matthew Hall, modest linchpin of many a student revue. For his first self-penned play, game show spoof The Ted Duffy Show, he'd cast old schoolfriend Rob in the title role. (The pair of them had dipped a toe in the London cabaret circuit as The Hall Brothers.) As I played the drums, Rob and I found ourselves enrolled, without paperwork, as surrogate medical students.

Having successfully staged two subsequent comedies in St George's impressive Monckton Theatre, Matthew and I collaborated on the over-ambitious political farce President Kennedy's Big Night Out, which traced the trajectory of the "magic bullet" via a Wichita-set subplot about a Reader's Digest-obsessed hick - played by me - seeking unethical surgery to turn him into a teddy bear. At its climax, in homage to the Laurence Olivier hologram then appearing in the West End in Time, a huge moon face of JFK (composed of A3 photocopies pasted to a board) descended to tie it all up.



Without previewing this technical nightmare at the Monckton, we packed ourselves, costumes, wigs, teddy bear ears and musical director Matt Bradstock-Smith's Rick Wakeman-like keyboards into two cars and set off for Edinburgh, festival virgins all. Having won the Fringe poster competition with Rob's design and seen it reprinted in the Independent, we thought perhaps this would be our big break and we'd be discovered. It wasn't. We weren't.

Playing seven nights at the Theatre West End (impressively named but actually a long, thin church hall run by Imperial College), my most vivid memory is the panic of setting out all our props and costumes while the previous show finished and clearing them all away before the next one started. That's the Edinburgh arts conveyor belt. On opening night, Matt's keyboard malfunctioned; although he expertly salvaged the music for Matthew's links as lounge singer Val DeMere, it put us all off our stroke. We never played to an empty hall, but audiences did make use of a dramatic blackout during which Kennedy was shot to sneak out.



Our insane week revolved around that intense nightly hour of graduate comedy. The entire cast and crew, including nurse Sue (who played a Welsh Jackie Kennedy), Suzi, Helen, George and Matthew's brother Rodney, handed out flyers by day and retired to the members-only Fringe Club at night, where we saw an unknown Rob Newman doing Ronnie Corbett impressions. The same year I saw Eddie Izzard unicycling for free in the street.

Our sole review, in The Scotsman, called it "an inconsequential mish-mash" with "some very dull material" but presciently singled out Matthew for praise. Returning in 1990 with another RCA play Dog Murder One, he gave up medicine, changed his name to Harry Hill and won the Perrier Best Newcomer award in 1992. The rest is showbiz history.

His abiding memory of '89? "Rob keeping the prize money from the poster competition, which still irks."

I'm going to the Glastonbury Festival. I have bought and paid for my ticket. It's got my name and face on it. What was I thinking? I've bought a tent. Next, I'm going to buy a sleeping bag. And a little fold-up chair. For five nights, I am going to be sleeping outside. During the day, I am going to be watching bands play. I haven't done this for 14 years. It's all my brother-in-law's fault! He and his friends have been going for the past few years and creating a kind of male midlife crisis village, and they invited me along. I said yes. (I was drunk. It was a Christmas party.) There's something appealing about going back. I know it's changed. I know it's more civilised now. People didn't even have mobile phones when I last went. That's a paradigm shift in itself. You can now watch it on telly, all weekend, as it happens, on various platforms, which I do, happily, every year. There's no need to actually go! But I'm going anyway.

My first Glastonbury was 1989. I was a 24-year-old cub reporter at the NME. I had already bought my ticket when I was asked to sit in on the Glastonbury meeting, and when this arose, I was seized upon: how quaint, an NME employee who'd paid for a ticket! I was commissioned there and then to write a piece about what's like to be "an ordinary punter"! It was, as anybody's first festival experience should be, a mindfuck. This was the year the NME inaugurated its first ever branded merchandise stall, and I put in a few hours behind the trestle table, selling cassettes and t-shirts with the rest of the staff. I camped. The sun shone. Suzanne Vega was not shot, despite a death threat. I ate vegetarian food, as I was a vegetarian, and was photographed for the paper in a vest and sunglasses.

I was a convert. Never having been camping as a kid, I enjoyed being under canvas far more than I expected, and the food was just lovely. In 1990, I stopped paying for Glastonbury tickets, and was sent my first car pass. That year, I was charged with reviewing the Comedy Tent - the first one? - all weekend, and because it had rained, I didn't even pitch my tent, preferring to sleep in the car. Because of my comedy duties, I missed the Cure and Happy Mondays, but was happy to have such a cool job.

There was no festival in 1991.

In 1992, my last as an NME journalist, it was sunny all weekend, but I was working. Working really hard. This is all told in detail in That's Me In The Corner, but in order to turn the copy around "overnight" (ie. deliver it by Monday morning in time to go to press), for the first time ever, the reviewing duties for the entire three-day event were split between myself and David Quantick. We had a good time, but had to stay up all night on the Sunday at my flat, deciphering our notes and typing it all up. The coverage, in glorious black and white (you couldn't print colour at that stage in the olden days), was impressionistic, to say the least. It almost got our editor sacked, because Select, new kid on the block, managed to turn around a full-colour supplement within a week. It made us look like amateurs.

In 1993, I was working for Select. Again, I was involved in covering the entire festival - from Velvet Underground to Lenny Kravitz - and we were all at our computers by Monday, laying it all out, but it remains one of my favourite Glastonburys, not least because Stuart Maconie, who was there to review the food, hightailed it out of there in the back of the Tansards' minibus after one day on duty, with half his face sunburned and the other half under his famous fringe. I felt like a real old veteran, who could handle anything. I slept in a hire car backstage, now my preferred VIP method of camping.

In 1994, another hot one, we had a great weekend, watching Manic Street Preachers, Orbital, Galliano - although I gave the editor of my new employers Q a fright when I appeared, live, on Channel 4's inaugural TV coverage, very late at night, and gave a "refreshed" interview to Mark Radcliffe, during which I asked him to touch my hair. Fortunately, they captioned me as "Andrew Collins, Radio 1" and not Q. Not my finest hour.

In 1995, the weekend was dominated by Pulp's magnificent appearance on the Pyramid Stage, replacing the Stone Roses. By now, I'm afraid to say, I was spending the majority of the time backstage, in the ever-friendly paddock, where Robert Sandall of the Sunday Times would have his picnic basket, and a jolly time was had by all. No rain. Slept in the car again.

And that's it. There was no festival in 1996, which was probably a good thing for my health, as Glastonbury can be a punishing experience; I was in my thirties now, and ready for retirement. I felt I had done my time by 1997 - six Glastonburys in eight years, and a number of Readings - and opted not to take the usual free ticket and car pass. And it pissed down that year, the first of the real horror stories, so I must admit I was relieved to be sat in front of the TV.

And now, 14 years later, I'm going again. Voluntarily. Part of me is looking forward to going back, seeing if I recognise the old place - I'm certainly happy to be seeing Kasabian and Blur and even Bruce Springsteen, someone I'd never normally pay to be in the same room as. Another part of me is dreading the deprivation of it all. I'm 44. I'm not reviewing it for anybody. I don't have a backstage armband, nor am I seeking one. I don't have a car pass. I won't be picnicking with Robert Sandall. And, due to the admirable commitment of my travelling companions, I'll be heading down there on the Wednesday and leaving on the Monday morning. Must buy some wellies and some waterproof trousers too.

Grrrr. It's Collings & Herrin Podcast Number 666 ... actually, 66, which is less significant. In what is a "small gift from London", we bring you breaking news of the latest Cabinet resignations which will inevitably be out of date by the time you hear them, but then again, it's not a news programme. We admire the leopard in Hertfordshire who licked the rat, indulge in pointless speculation about the sad but possibly fruity demise of Kung Fu star David Carradine, reveal how we voted in the Euro elections in order to influence indecisive people, fail to stop swearing in order to get back on the radio after last week's brief morning in the spotlight, and I am graciously allowed to tell an entire pencil-based anecdote. But no Mitfords.

So many people now ask me which Mitford Sisters book is the best place to start (Graham McCarey being the latest - hello, Graham), I thought I'd do a public service and put them in some kind of useful order.

1. The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters
Edited by Charlotte Mosley
The first Mitfords book I read (when it first came out in paperback last year), and the one that started the Mitfords ball rolling. This is why I recommend it to any other virgin: the letters span a century, from Nancy's earliest efforts as a gel to the final fax sent by Diana to Debo just before she died in 2003. The symbols used to mark the sender of each letter - swastika (Unity), moon (Diana), spoons (Pam, the least-known, unpublished Mitford), hammer and sickle (Jessica), quill (Nancy), crown (future Duchess of Devonshire, Debo) - are what sucked me in. It just struck me that the Mitfords really were extraordinarily interesting, and all so different. You really get their voices this way, too. Mosley, who is related to the Mitford line by marriage, is the estate's de facto official archivist and gives good biographical detail before each chapter. If you're not in love with them by the time second youngest Jesscia gets hold of the notepaper, you never will be.

2. The Mitford Girls
Mary S Lovell
By far the best straightforward biography of the whole lot of them. If the letters have pulled you in and you have no wish to get out, this is the best all-round book.

3. Unity Mitford: A Quest
David Pryce-Jones
You may wish now to home in on your favourites. I put this relentless, almost forensic biography of Unity (the Hitler groupie who shot herself in the head when war broke out and died in 1948, a sad shell of a woman) at the top of the pile because it's packed with so much detail - too much, at times - you get a pretty complete picture of the most misunderstood of all the Sisters. The original secondhand edition I have of this features of photograph of Diana on the cover - surely one of the greatest publishing cock-ups of the century!

4. Diana Mosley
Anne de Courcy
Much harder to like than, say, Decca or Debo, Diana's story is nonetheless fascinating and well told by de Courcy - you'll be amazed at the way a woman so intelligent and vivacious allowed herself to be absorbed into the life and work of her second husband Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. She was so devoted to him. On her deathbed she refused to condemn Hitler. Imagine being her son, Max.

5. Love From Nancy: The Letters Of Nancy Mitford
Edited by Charlotte Mosley
Because Nancy was the most famous Sister, a bestselling novelist at 30 despite never have been to school, it's a joy to see her acid tongue and way with words develop from girlhood. She was a right bitch, at times - or a tease, if you prefer - and apparently always ended her letters at the bottom of a page. The footnotes are sometimes longer than the letters.

6. Decca: The Letters Of Jessica Mitford
Edited by Peter Y. Sussman
My favourite Mitford, in that her politics are closest to mine, and what a natural wit. The "red sheep", she exiled herself from the family, eloping with second cousin Esmond Romilly to the Spanish Civil War, then living in a slum in Rotherhithe, and ending up in America, running a cocktail bar in Florida, joining the Communist party, and turning herself into an investigative journalist. (She married the civil rights activist Robert Treuhaft after Romilly was killed in the war.) Unlike the others, she did a day's work.

7. Hons And Rebels
Jessica Mitford
A must. No-holds-barred memoir of the sisters' early years, brilliantly told by Decca. There's a follow-up, too, A Fine Old Conflict. Hons and Rebels is the most quoted in all the other books, as Decca's quips are so spare and unsparing.

8. The House Of Mitford
Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness
Test your Mitford obsession: you've read one book about the family, but can't stop yourself buying another one when you happen upon it in a bookshop in Dublin, even though it may affect the weight of your luggage on the flight home. The Guinnesses are also related to the Mitfords (he's the son of Diana and her first husband, Bryan Guinness, whom she cruelly and publicly cuckolded, without much complaint from the stout heir). More here on the earlier Mitford relatives.

9. Rules Of The Game/Beyond The Pale
Nicholas Mosley
Gripping, and entirely personal, account of the life of Oswald Mosley, by his son. The first book covers his first marriage to the tragic Cynthia, the second his marriage to Diana Mitford, their dalliances with the Nazis (they were secretly married at the house of Josef Goebbels, naturally), their internment at the start of the war, and their attempt to lead a normal life after that. Mosley is a larger than life character - you couldn't make him up - and infuriating, but Nicholas's honesty from the son's point of view gives the writing real heart. Highly recommended, if you can handle all the jackbooting.

10. Noblesse Oblige
Edited by Nancy Mitford
You'll have to seek this one out in secondhand shops, but look how beautiful the original Penguin editions is! A slim curio, it's a collection of essays from 1956 about class, of which Nancy's own on "U and Non-U" is the keystone.

Then there's the fictional work of Nancy, most famously the post-war Love In A Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, which are handsomely packaged. She basically recycled her home life and created vicious but amusing social satire, on a par with her friend Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies (which, of course, she didn't rate much), it's all Bright Young Things and the shifting sands of social progress. Frankly, a working knowledge of the Mitfords' background is really handy for seeing where she's coming from.

And The Pursuit Of Laughter by Diana Mosley, by which point we're into non-essentials for completist fools only. A collection of Fascist Spice's writings. I bought this in hardback and have yet to read it. Debo, the youngest and still alive, has also written many books about Chatsworth House, but I admit I have not read them. It's always good to have something in reserve when you have gone nuts.

Over the past year I have invested in all the books listed here, and more, new and secondhand, depending on whether or not they're in print. There really isn't enough I can learn about the Sisters. And once you're into the mindset and the period, you can move sideways to confidants James Lees-Milne and Evelyn Waugh. I have tried to contact Charlotte Mosley via her publishers, HarperPerennial, but have heard nothing back*. I just want to tell her how her Letters changed my life! (And let them know how much publicity I have been doing for this book, unpaid.) *They are still ignoring me after two emails. Well done, that press office!

I hope this answers any questions from the back. Read the one at the top of you'll soon be using the Mitford catchphrase, "Do admit."

I asked if anybody would like to hear my solo Mitford Sisters lecture from Thursday at the Duke Of York's Picturehouse, Brighton, from the pre-interval warm-up and offered to put it out as a mini extra bonus podcast if there was "any demand". Well, you fell for my evil plan: even one person expressing an interest would have counted as "any demand," so here it is. Please don't expect a regular podcast, it's just me, standing on a stage in front of 250 people, explaining why I love the Mitford Sisters for ten minutes. Thanks to Chris from the Picturehouse for recording it for us through the desk. And thanks to all of you who demanded it enter the public domain. We're calling it Collings & Herrin Podcast 65a, to avoid confusion. Don't tell Richard, obviously - he'll be furious.

Podcast 66 will be out this Friday.

PS: The Mitford symbols are reproduced, without permission, from Letters Between Six Sisters, edited by Charlotte Mosley, but I don't think they'll mind, as I must have sold so many copies of this book by recommendation over the last year.

I can't say I have been a devoted viewer of Britain's Got Talent, but I have seen a few key moments on YouTube, and I did watch one whole episode, the one where a Welsh man who claimed he had never sung before came on stage and sang really well, despite looking like he might be sick with nerves. I also saw a young boy go on and sing a song, and Simon Cowell stopped him in the middle of it and demanded that he sing a different song, and there were gasps from the audience and his fellow judges, and from the young boy's mum, and Ant and Dec, and the second song turned out to be a better fit for the boy's voice and everybody agreed that Simon Cowell was a genius.

There's no point in being snobby and patronising about mass entertainment - I'm actually glad ITV has found a massive audience for something and a new revenue stream; I do truly believe we need ITV to survive its financial woes - but I think we would all do well to just admit that it's not a talent contest, it's a drama. And a cost-effective one, as you don't have to pay the actors, and Simon Cowell gets to make money out of anyone who gets through with actual talent. (A costume drama costs a lot more to make than one in which the actors wear their own clothes, and pay for their own transport to the set in the early stages.) They make it open to all talents from juggling to passing wind and enticing animals do unnatural things as if perhaps we were still living in medieval times, but it's only ever going to be singing talent - or dancing talent - that's worthy of the top prize, because that's the marketable kind of talent.

It was impossible not to be drawn into the Susan Boyle story, the true parts of which seem to be that she really has lived her life without having sexual intercourse, which is fairly unusual for a 48 year old outside of holy orders, and was deprived of oxygen when she was born. She looked after her mum until she died in 2007. She has always sung and auditioned for Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of People, but was rejected, it is thought, because of her appearance. She's taken singing lessons, and has, it is said, appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe. (I assume videos of all her early public appearances our out there in the public domain - I don't have enough interest to seek them out.) Anyway, the producers of Britain's Got Talent are not looking for talent, they are looking for stories, and Boyle's was a humdinger.

It's true: if she'd been even moderately good looking or conventionally attractive, there would be no story and her perfectly serviceable voice would have never been heard by millions. It's all in the apparent disconnect between what society deems to be a good looking face and body and how nice a singing voice is that comes out of that face and body. Ha ha, Susan Boyle is a funny looking middle-aged woman from Scotland who pretended she had never been kissed but later played that down, and who lives with her cat (double ha ha for living with a cat, apparently).

Now look what's happened. The global digital media now moves at such a pace, Susan Boyle, a woman off a talent show on ITV1 in this country, became a world icon in a matter of days. Remember, nobody - apart from the producers of Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of People (who must now feel like the man who didn't sign the Beatles) - had heard of her on April 10, 2009. Now she is so famous, Matt Lucas can dress up as her in Heat - ha ha! Unfortunately for Susan Boyle, and fortunately for Britain's Got Talent and ITV and Simon Cowell, she lost on Saturday to a group of 80s dancers, who all fell over when they found out. The Sunday papers said her dream was over and dishonestly ran pictures of Susan Boyle looking grumpy and weird and severe, which she did until the result was announced, when she relaxed and smiled and wished the 80s boys well and then did a crazy dance and lifted her skirt high enough for millions of people to see the top of her thigh.

And yesterday, while the papers said her dream was over but that also she stood to make eight million pounds in the first year of her professional career (and probably the last year of her professional career, but who cares?), she checked into the Priory. Whoever's writing this script should be delighted with the way it's going. How much of it is Susan Boyle's understandably fraught behaviour (swearing at the telly in a Wembley hotel, for instance; threatening to quit the day before the grand final), and how much of it is a fiction fed to the media and gleefully reproduced is always going to be hard to divine, even when her autobiography is rushed out for Christmas, as I understand it will be. (Those of us who have written books and waited years for them to actually get in the shops will be especially cheered by this.)

Of course I feel sorry for Susan Boyle. Richard and I had some cruel fun at her expense on the podcast last week - much of it deriving from her tabloid nickname "the Hairy Angel", which is offensive on just about every level, a bit like when they called Jade Goody a pig. But making fun of Susan Boyle is not making fun of an actual person, it's making fun of a partly fictional creation. I feel sorry for the actual woman underneath all the "hair" of her myth, but it's too late for my sympathy now. Her ludicrously fast rise from obscurity (or wished-for fame) to disproportionate fame must be a bit like "the bends", which divers get when they come to the surface too quickly. I'm glad it's just "exhaustion" - that's a relatively small price. She is, after all, a blameless individual; all she wanted to do was sing for people. At least she already believes in God, so will not have to find Christianity while in rehab.

I'm surprised Simon Cowell has any skin left on the palms of his hands - he must be constantly rubbing them together. In all of this, he is the one man who can't lose. Mind you, he looks and sounds like a dick, and no amount of money can repair that. At least Susan Boyle can sing a bit.