Big Green Gathering

I've now been inaugerated into the ways of the British Festival -- well, sort of. We were only there two nights over the last weekend (as opposed to five) and it was a pretty fluffy festival (so I'm told), but good times were had nonetheless.

Summer is festival-time in England. The famous one is Glastonbury, but there are tons of others, too. We went to something called the Big Green Gathering, which was more focused on eco-friendly-ness than music -- tho there was a lot of that, too.

Aside from fields and fields of thousands of tents and camper vans, the festival was full of all sorts of crazy, flakey, hippy-shiznit, including booths for massage and gong baths and zero balancing -- whatever that is -- and rock circles and tea tents and lots of shops of clothes and accessories for the modern hippy (who, judging by this festival, is as commerical as the rest of us).

The best bits -- for me, anyway -- were the horse drawn carts (because: pony pony pony pony) and the music everywhere. It was just nice and relaxed no matter what you were doing.

But how -- some of you may ask -- can a festival of music, ect, be eco friendly? Think of all the energy going power amps and lights and speakers and stuff? Oh, but they thought of that. All the power used was generated by sun, wind, and in some cases, legs:


Safest way to cycle when drunk! In order to power the speakers and lights at this music tent at night, people had to cycle. If too many people got lazy and stepped off this contraption, the music faltered and died, and everyone groaned. But then someone (including myself at one point) would hop on, and it'd be good happy party times again.

I want -- really very much -- to start a club powered in this way. Imagine the bikes, up on platforms above the crowd, sort of like dancers in cages the way some dance bars have. And then just hire some hotties of both gender, put them in skimpy outfits, and make them cycle for the night. Maybe have a few cycling contraptions for the public to use, too -- and they will, 'cause it's actually quite fun. Anyone care to fund this?

Amusingly, on the way out, the bus from the train station broke down. Not so amusingly -- as we were filthy and sunburnt and exhausted and had to work the next day -- Amir's car broke down on the way home, just down the hill from Stonehenge. I blame the druids.

More pictures (of the fest, not druids) are here.

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Also some photos of the weekend before, when we escaped London to go celebrate Pier and Leila's birthday's at their new house, which is just outside a small town, which is just outside Salisbury -- ie, the middle of nowhere. But, it should be noted, the middle of nowhere is often a very pretty place and very nice place to be.