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

Compared to trying for about four hours last year and getting nowhere, I got through after a mere three-quarters of an hour of trying simultaneously on landline, mobile and t'internet.

Good on ya...

Mind you, I've still not received email confirmation yet - getting a little bit worried. I got an internet page after placing my order, but forgot to print it out and closed down the window and lost the page and can't find it in my history.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/capture.htm

So who is getting the second ticket? Assuming your booking has gone through of course.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F106404?thread=475471&skip=24&show=26

I always wanted to go there.

I never got to Strawberry Fair either, even tho I lived in the heart of Cambridge for a few years.

Then there Global Gathering I think it was called in Luton, never made it there either.

Slightly worryingly, I'm not sure how many times I've been to Glastonbury... I *think* it'll be my fifth. But I can't quite work it out. Can't really remember who headlined or anything. I can think of lots of good bands I've seen there, but not necessarily which year it would have been. It all blurs into one...

I went to Reading once... 73? 74? The bands have blurred into one. I'm told that Thin Lizzy played that year but I'm buggered if I remember seeing them though I do remember 10CC, Alex Harvey, Focus, and George Melly though

On Thursday we met this fantastic geezer in a pub by the river in Hammersmith who'd played drums for the likes of Alex Harvey and Wayne Kramer out of the MC5

If me and my housemate Dan ever get some material together, he says he'll play for us for a couple of pints and the tube fare

I really ought to go and try and write the last couple of verses of 'Islington Girls (Won't Talk To Me)'

West London's full of old characters like that

I've worked it out now, basically by working out which cars I'd been driving when I went.

First one was when I was 17 and had only recently passed my driving test and went down with three mates in my first car, a battered old Renault 12. That would have been 1992, the first year back after they'd had a break in 1991 and weren't sure until they did that there was going to be another one. The weather was great. I remember buying 5 litres of scrumpy cider at a roadside stall somewhere near the site, and that carried me through the weekend nicely.

Then I went with my first proper girlfriend in my purple Renault 15 coupe, in 1994 - another hot one. The Cure played the main stage.

Next one was 1997, in my second second year at University. A whole gang of us went down, mostly crammed into my old Transit camper, which we parked near Castle Cary station and got the free shuttle bus to take us on site. That was my first wet one... ankle-deep mud, and on the first night my mate Matt and I had all our cash stolen from our jeans which we'd unwisely left in a heap by the front door of our tent. Fortunately they discarded the jeans about 20 metres away, as the keys to the van were in them and we'd have been in right trouble if those had gone missing. But we had to go into Shepton Mallet to get some more cash, and I bought a pair of blue corduroy trousers from a charity shop to get me through the weekend.

And then the last one was in the year 2000, with my last proper girlfriend and one of my future housemates (he hadn't got a ticket and jumped the fence, which was I think the penultimate year in which such a thing were possible). It started wet but the weather got nice from Saturday onwards - amazing how many people you saw mysteriously turning up on site from that point on. And surely people who'd paid £100 for a ticket wouldn't have only elected to turn up when it stopped raining Went down in the camper van again and this time stayed in it on site. Nice to have civilised things like a fridge and cooking facilities...

So that's one as a single bloke, one (in 1997) when I'd just met my girlfriend but was there without her, and two as part of a couple. I think the ones where I didn't have a girlfriend in tow were more fun, on reflection.

Also, thinking about it, I saw so many bands the first couple of times round. As time's gone on, I've been less and less concerned about catching bands unless it's someone I was really keen on, and devoted more and more time to getting off my face

And now there's this year. We shall see.

Oh, and I looked up that drummer bloke on the internet. His name's George Butler, and a UK-specific search for 'George Butler drums' has revealed that he has indeed walked it like he talked it

Dang

I had no idea Larry Wallis had been so prolific either - I only knew of him from the Stiffs Live Stiffs a;bum Never got into the Pink Fairies.