IT PRO: Blogs: Dave F: Cleaning up Standards

Home

Dave F's Blog

Cleaning up Standards

Posted in faith, Men and Women, music on September 2, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Sorry, I’ve been catching up at work and on the forum for Greenbelt http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/ so I haven’t shared much of my festival experience here. So I’ll share a couple of things of how technology changes the experience of such places.

Firstly, being a lanky lad I have usually been able to get a decent view at gigs. Things that stopped me were usually being held aloft - either banners/flags or people on their mates shoulders or, for those atmospheric moments, people waving their hands in the air. These days people are always waving their hands in the air holding up cameras / phones. I never think to take a camera and my phone is too old for a camera but I suppose a record would be nice, I did voice memo a few songs onto my PDA - don’t sound too good though! It is a bit of a worry that apart from the keeping a record thing people have such short attention spans maybe they just need something to fiddle with.

The other thing was a reflection on our need for electricity. I have already said their are places you can pay to have your phone charged but because this festival is at a racecourse some events are in buildings and where there are buildings there are power sockets. So, in every stair well there are groups of people sat chatting while they “steal” a charge from an unused socket. That I can cope with, eminently sensible. What I can’t cope with, as a man who has been attending festivals since the 70’s is the is people (oh to hell with ageism and sexism, lets be honest - teenage girls) sitting in the aforementioned stairwells with hair straighteners. When I was their age we hardly washed (is that something I should be boasting of?) It’s a festival, you camp in a field with one cold water stand pipe tap between hundreds. People are so clean now even I have to make the effort an wash my hair - sticking my head under a freezing cold tap. If you want to know what it feels like just grab a handful of hair and scalp and pull until your skull is fully exposed.

I guess festivals are the same as all communities - standards change over the years.