balti-pie

Really depends where you’re put for your shift. If you’re on a vehicle gate or a pedestrian gate, which is the majority of positions, it can be a ten min wander to a food stall - then a ten min wait for your food - and you’ll be hot footing it back to your position to start working again, giving you precisely no time to sit down and rest your doubtlessly knackered feet. I bring stuff with me, and make sure I’ve eaten decently beforehand - I can’t be bothered with faffing on my break, I’d rather rest up a bit. in summary: bring some eats with you, because snacks are always good!

I’d be quite up for a meat free festival, it’s be fine. Loads of excellent veggie and vegan food there, let people try some different stuff, and have a window into a more sustainable lifestyle. and IMAGINE how awesome the Burger King will be on the drive home! 🤣

Get yourself in the craft and crap beer thread, a few recommendations in there! Failing that, any decent local beer shop would be able to suggest a few from their stock - I’m loath to recommend anyone go to Tesco but their craft offerings aren’t at all bad these days as well. They’ll have a couple of things nearing 10%, and dark

The bar down at the Unfairground had pint cans of a gluten free Arbor pale, they were possibly a fiver and absolutely bloody gorgeous and cold. This was 2019, and in 2022 they were only in the staff bar down there (broke Britain? I think it’s called) but they’d sold out by Wednesday I think. I hope they’re back, in greater numbers, and in the public bar down there, cos they were a magnificent find

All over the shop. More fences, more hedges, more tents, pretty much all of the greenfields, theatre and circus, the railway line, loads of spots. The arena at download is one massive dustbowl with barely a scrap of shade anywhere.

It wouldn’t be a popular choice for most cos of the low alcohol content, but it’d be just about rehydration-neutral and a cold one on a hot day is absolutely wonderful

Just got back from a ridiculously hot and dusty Download, two days at 28 degrees was just such hard work. There’s so much more shade available at Glastonbury though, it would’ve been so much easier to tolerate there. I do really yearn for some cloudy non-challenging weather at glasto though, just for a change #sorrynotsorry

Pints of schofferhoffer would be absolutely amazing 🥳

The soft roll would definitely help, but I’d prefer a much nicer cheese than Monterey Jack. A bit of stinking bishop wouldn’t go amiss, I’d say, but otherwise that sounds absolutely spot on and I would totally bung a tenner at someone for that.

14.8%! That’ll be like treacle! Is it barrel aged? I love a barrel aged imperial stout, and they are perfect for so many reasons at festivals; don’t need to be cold, can be carried around and won’t fizz up, you can deploy them at will just before a set starts and get a decent buzz by just having a good swig, and you’ll not need to head to the toilet so often like when on pints of standard 4% stuff. The choice of champions. strongest beer I’ve had was an 18.9% bourbon barrel aged macadamia nut stout from the US, can’t remember the brewer - had it at a beer festival a couple of years back, it was amazing. Sadly not canned though, cos I would defo import a couple of cans of that for stupid money, it was beautiful

£4.90 seems like an impossible bargain these days! It’d be £8 now, or £11 with artisan ingredients

CHILI PEPPERS SECRET SET CONFIRMED

The problem I guess is setting up all that network in an area that’s in the middle of nowhere, and keeping a reliable link to a network over four different entry points. That could be remedied by people being limited to only entering through their allocated gate I guess, but it’s an additional pain in the arse for a tiny number of affected people. It’s really sh*t for those people, though.

I’m at download now. Haven’t seen £7.50 for a pint anywhere but only one of the bars does Brooklyn pilsner and that’s £6.80 (at least it’s a very good pint!) and every other bar does carlsberg ffs which I’m not drinking - would rather have a pint of water for free

No VFC! Oh dear. I’d best work out how to present this news to my mate, he was there minimum daily last year. Most days twice. This is a proper addiction binge situation, I don’t think daal will hit his drunken late night filth shenanigan cravings

#teamfuzzy twenty degrees. Max. Occasional cloud cover as a break from the direct sunshine. You donuts who want 27 upwards want to try being made of Irish skin, it just doesn’t work when the sun’s splitting the stones

Tikka daal and rice at the Goan fish curry stall (with the fresh green chili sauce) is an absolute must for me. I have a completely veggie day and a completely vegan day and always love the variety. I think I might just love eating! My pal is also hopelessly addicted to the vegan chick’n burgers at VFC and they definitely hit that greasy late night spot tbf - been known to partake myself

No, they’re sort of portaloo type ones, they’re in the midst of staff camping for use by all staff. There’s lots of them though, queued for not even a minute this morning at 8:30 when I’d anticipated it being a right pig. We’re not in the middle of the racetrack (people tell me staff camping has been here before) we’re on the other side by orange and red camping 👍🏻

I’m volunteering at download, which is good - nice setup for oxfam here, showers are actually better than at oxfield glasto, but bloody hell I miss the compost loos and long drops. Portaloos just aren’t anywhere near as much fun!

The Greenpeace showers are much quieter when the music starts, so fri/sat/sun if you head by any time after about 2pm youll likely breeze straight in, or have not much of a wait. They do a deli counter style ticket system where you get a number and come back when they call it, so its not a bad idea to go for breakfast/a nearby set for an hour and then go back when its hopefully closer to your number. Wearing a hat or a kerchief would be good but itll also make things a bit sweatier and likely itchier and therefore need washing more desperately - its a decision to make. i always find having a shower makes evryone else smellier by comparison to lovely shiny new me 😃 YMMV!

Nothing to do with anything really, and obvs Jarvis isn’t to blame, but removing woodchip wallpaper from walls is such a monumental and hideous pain in the arse - I like a bit of nostalgia but the seventies/eighties craze is HORRIBLE. Did he mention artexing in any songs? That’s a bastard too.

Generally vehicle gates, and it’s beeping in/out the vendors and retailers who mostly arrive on the Sunday. Expect great swathes of bugger all to do! It goes quickly enough, it’s a cushy number - it’s just quite knackering camping for the nine odd nights the whole shebang entails

I was working the SE corner vehicle gate in 2019, with a side gate to an artists and staff camping bit with loads of caravans, and an accreditation unit etc - I scanned a few people of varying fames; Bez, Keith Allen, Denise Van Outen, Lizzo (I only realised it was her on the Monday after the festival, had no idea who she was beforehand but she was lovely) and perhaps most importantly to me, Gojira - who were all wearing black jeans and jackets on the world’s hottest day, and still managed to look cool somehow 🤣

I’d rather camp outside the fence and be right next to the car park, that way I don’t have far to lug my stuff (and I do take a decent amount of things, I want a proper sleep so there’s duvets, pillows, all that shebang) cos the bit that always pissed me off something chronic about going as a punter was carrying all my worldly possessions the 76,093 miles from car to campsite loaded like a camel! Of course getting an on-site car permit would be ideal, but there’s not a huge amount of those

Hey! its not in Pylon staff camping, we've got our own Oxfield just outside gate B. parking is in the field next door, so lugging your gear in is extremely easy - its great but you probably will get fed up of powering up Muddy Lane when you're knackered at the end of every day 😄