You don’t need a four-star hotel when you’re making merry, says Tom Hodgkinson

Greetings from the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts where Victoria and I are living in some comfort, having rented a converted delivery van, which has double bed, table, running water, hob, oven, fridge and solar panels on the roof. It’s all you need, really, and it’s fun. It makes me think of the Idler readers out there who have embraced #vanlife as an alternative to the nine-to-five grind. There’s certainly a sense of autonomy.

And living in a small space, even temporarily, allows us to express our inner Diogenes. As you know, the Cynic philosopher of ancient Athens spurned convention, lived in an upturned wine cask, dressed in rags, spat at the rich and had no possessions.

Every one of the 250,000 people at this vast, sprawling city of fun is living a bit more simply than usual. From pop-up tent to yurt, everyone is downsizing. I guess that Neil Young will be staying in a luxurious tour bus, but it’s smaller than his farm.

There’s the teepee field and acres of pre-prepared tents of all sorts. We’ve seen fields of bell tents and plastic tents. There is an area called Worthy View which houses 10,000 people in prepared tents and offers a village with hairdresser.

As far as hierarchy of living goes, I think yurt may be at the top of the list. This affordable housing solution for nomadic people has undergone an amazing rise in popularity over the last couple of decades, and is now the rich person’s choice of festival accommodation. Rumour has it that people spend £20,000 to rent a yurt at Glastonbury.

People at home are puzzled as to why anyone would spend hundreds or thousands of pounds to live like a homeless person, wandering tribesman or medieval peasant for five days. But they’re missing the point. It’s a festival and is, essentially, about merry-making. In ancient and medieval times, festivals were built in to the calendar. From Rome’s Saturnalia to the 12-day blowout of the medieval Christmas, a festival was a time for setting aside the workaday world and indulging in dancing, singing and eating instead. The Puritans in Blighty cancelled the fun and now we make our festivals, albeit in a commercialised and contained setting. Glastonbury has a wall around it, like a medieval city, and the guards won’t let you in unless you can prove you’re welcome.

I love it. I love the suspension of toil, the neighbourliness, the energy and the amazing creativity that’s on display everywhere. And the smiles.

There’s a philosophical side too: the sort of talks and debates you might have witnessed in ancient Athens.

We’ll be reporting back in a future issue of the mag.

Live well,
Tom

PS Preparations for own festival are gathering pace. It’s a little smaller than Glastonbury, 1/250th of the size, to be precise. But, we reckon, beautifully formed. Book tickets here.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Please add your thoughts in the box below.

Sir: Much happiness to you both in your simpler life, and your merry-making; which is the point! And I trust that no-one is tempted to gob on the passers by….
Steve Bithell

Sir: Sounds great, but no toilet?
Jason Palmer

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