h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Your daily commuting reporter can inform you that the orange canopy stage is up! Also, the first young people with rucksacks & beer crates (more of the latter!) have been spotted walking towards the area...

As to the bands, I must be getting awfully old... There are a few . . . . well, some . . . . to be honest, an awful lot of them that don't ring any bells (Danish saying: "ikke en rygende fis").

If I were going, I'd probably listen to Neil Young, Palle Mikkelborg, Blue Foundation and TV-2.

(shows my age?)

Hmm - what's new?

Lots of tents already in the camping area (as seen from the motorway) yesterday, a quite long queue of cars trying to get off the motorway at Roskilde Syd yesterday afternoon.

A visible number of "strange" people in the streets - decidedly more Norwegians than on any normal day

Oh yes, naturally, road works being out up this morning over approx 3 km on the motorway leading from Copenhagen to Roskilde. If we can't avoid them, at least we can delay them , the thinking of the authorities seems to be...

Some interesting facts from TV (Source: Kanal København) last night -- the (most) local grocery store stocks up on beer. Yes!

Other surprises: Apart from beer, sales history didn't give the poor man many ideas about what would sell well and what wouldn't - apparently anything from canned meat to dry socks might be the hot sellers...

And during the 4 days the festival accounts for 25% of the tourist related turnover (in money) for Roskilde and the surrounding area. Quite impressive!

Sorry -- no Wednesday report.

I chickened out (after all, it took me 25+ minutes extra to get home yesterday) and went home by the North/East route.

It's quite lovely up there with a few looks over the fiord and a lot of exceedingly lovely landscape along the country roads -- but it most certainly does not offer any views of anything remotely near ther festival site...

Today I was brave

I took the Maglegårdsvej/Darupvej (for those of you not familiar with the Roskilde topography, these are roads leading straight past the main entrance) route out of town.

What did I see?

Loads of people walking empty handed towards town, heavily loaded with what seemd primarily to be going back. "Surprise"

Pedersen, Pedersen, Pedersen, Pedersen and Pedersen going back and forth. In other words, 5 police officers strolling up and down the street, BTW looking rather relaxed. The Pedersen (very common Danish name) thing's historical - don't ask...

A man with a rather fat golden labrador -- but he seemed local and not in any way related to the festival

No music (as if you could see that from a car passing by)

Lots of sunshine which made me somewhat worried. How's the famous "smat" (mud pool) going to come into existance...?

Oh well - on the radio they promised rain Saturday

Have a good festival!

Last report, this will be -- as there will me no more progress until next year!

I did see some progress this morning -- albeit very slow progress. I'm talking about the slow but steady trickle of very tired looking characters slowly dragging their feet towards the station, the relevant busstop or the motorway...

Gee, they looked burned out most of them. Had a good festival, I suppose

One of them still had -- at least he seemed to be a good part of the way into the day's first (?) beer already (this is at 8:25 am)

Well, that is one way of fighting the onslaught of on a Monday morning...

According to the media, the security issues have been largely well received by critics, official or self-appointed, as well as the festival'ers. One benefit apparently (I wouldn't know since I'm around third hand reporting this )has been that people who normally wouldn't go anywhere near the front suddenly has been able to -- and reportedly have had that much more fun...

And the memorial site has been very accalimed. Most other music festivals apparently tries to eradicate any memories of accidents as soon as possible -- while Roskilde has gone the opposite way and created an opportunity to stop by and honour the memory of those 9 tragically lost.

"How fragile we are" Indeed - and by recognising this, Roskilde (by some at least) are seen as showing the way forward for the festivals of the world by showing a human and caring attitude and not just talk about music and tickets sold.

And, IMHO, that is not the worst thing that could happen!

Have a safe trip home!