Tom Hodgkinson and photographer Chris Floyd wandered purposelessly around Glastonbury 2024

“I think we’ve done well,” said Chris Floyd as we drove out of the festival after our two-day wander. “We managed not to see one single band.”

True. We did attempt to see Dexys Midnight Runners, and Chris mentioned he was interested in LCD Soundsystem. But somehow it never happened. And we were very happy to ramble.

We parked the car and walked for about an hour. Our destination was the press tent to collect our passes. Here we bumped into Crispin Hunt, friend of the Idler, who some of you may have seen at Idler festival areas, giving talks on the meaning of pop music

Crispin was slightly famous in the nineties as lead singer of Longpigs, a band which also comprised Richard Hawley, Idler 97 cover star.

On Friday morning we wandered past Strummerville on the south side of the festival en route to the Crow’s Nest where I was introducing an event at 11am.  It was something of a first: a classical DJ set from Radio 3’s Georgia Mann. This idea was conceived at last year’s Idler Festival. Georgia, who spoke there and has now joined the Idler as columnist, asked me whether I could help Radio 3 get into any festivals. I called my mate Simon who runs the Crow’s Nest, a small talk venue up the hill beyond the Park Stage. He said yes, and so it came to be.

Georgia presented a lovely programme of Sibelius, Bach and many others. It was a fantastic hour and I hope will be repeated next year. There really should be more classical music at the festival.

We drank a beer and headed down the hill, looking for food.

We walked past the Park Stage and alongside the Tipi Field, pausing to take a picture of two friends.

The food queues were enormous so we decided to head for the bar in the press area for grub.

Here we bumped into Louis Eliot of Rialto (and Port Eliot Festival) fame. Looking at his snaps, Chris said, “Look at Louis – he just won’t take a bad picture.” Then we had a quick chat with the extremely brilliant, beautiful and busy Rachael Webb, Glastonbury press office supremo.

Dexys Midnight Runners were playing at the Park stage at 6pm, and thither we were bound. We paid a visit to Murray Lachlan Young on the way. For many years, he’s been setting up his tipi in the Glastonbury tipi field. He arrives two weeks before the main festival begins, and stays for a week afterwards. The “real” tipi field, where Murray lives, borders another tipi field where tipis are rented out to wealthy festival goers. Strange how a housing solution for poor nomadic peoples has over the years turned into a high-status, high-cost glamping option. Same goes for yurts.

We chatted with Murray and drank beer. He read us his new poem, “Backpack Dancer”. The time seemed to slip away. We heard the distant strains of “Come on Eileen” coming from the Park Stage, but were too happy to move. After a couple of hours we stood up from our reclining positions in the tipi, stretched our numb limbs and strolled back towards the Park stage.

At the Park we met my groovy brother Will and his wife NJ. Will was reporting from Glastonbury for The Times, where he’s chief rock writer. He’s got a new book coming out in September, a portrait of Lawrence, the never-quite-made-it pop star. Will went off to see Dua Lipa on the Pyramid Stage. We sat down at a picnic table and carried on drinking beer and not seeing any bands.  At one in the morning we wended our way home, up the hill. We paused to take in the beautiful scene below us.

We’ll be printing a selection of Chris Floyd’s Glastonbury ’24 pics in a future edition of the Idler.

Georgia Mann, Will Hodgkinson and Murray Lachlan Young appear at the Idler Festival 2024.

Our July/August 2024 issue is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.