Deadbeat 14

So here we are, three festies in to the 2007 season. Headcorn was brilliant and, surprisingly, improved after noise restrictions turned the volume down. Somehow the magic grew as the loudspeakers quietened. It surprised me, and no mistake.
Sunrise was fun, but then I wasn't working (and not expecting to be paid) and I didn't mind that there weren't enough punters to pay for it (andruin it). No-one parties like the crew anyway.
Glastonbury was a bit damp and muddy. Your Intrepid Reporter only left the Green fields once after the rain started.
Overheard at the sound desk, No. 1:
Man with beard: Is it Friday today?
Woman with beads: Why, do you want fish?
Overheard at the sound desk, No. 2:
Man with dreads: Do you want one of these for later?
Woman with Mud: Who are you calling felater?
Overheard at the sound desk, No. 3:
It's 4.00 am, a sound engineer is wearily coiling up wires on the stage between acts. A young woman is standing in front of the microphone with a guitar hanging from a strap round her neck. As she bends down to plug in her guitar lead a Daft Customer, a latter-day Munter Gabbler, approaches:
Muntered Punter: 'Hello, are you Rachel? Are you going to play some music?'
Sound Tech: 'No mate, she's going to make us all chip butties.'

One of my heroes, George Melly, died this week. As a fond gesture of respect I offer the following ancient memory.
Many years ago I knew George and Di slightly, well enough to go to George's house-cooling party. He was selling because, twenty years previously, he had bought a couple of paintings (for a couple of hundred quid) as a favour to a struggling artist, a chap called Magritte. They were now worth so much that he was forced to move to a
more burglar-alarmable place. Hence the house-cooling.
The tone of the evening was set as I was on my way into the house, barging a scrawny geezer aside to say to a very tall and beautiful women "Congratulations, I have just decided to give you my Bum of the Month Award! Well Done!" This was greeted with such icy disdain that I have Polar Regions which are still frozen, some thirty years later. My next social gaffe occurred when I spotted my mate Jamie talking to a woman who was standing with her back towards me. Thinking it an hilarious idea to queer Jamie's pitch I whispered into her ear "Look, I don't know you, but you mustn't talk to this guy. He's an evil bastard and does up chicks, like, twelve a day. No chick's ever been known to hold him." (This was a nearly perfect quote from a comedy album by Murray Roman - I didn't actually talk like that. Honest.) Never has a good joke bombed so quickly - a look of horror came over Jamie's face as the woman turned around and I was introduced to a not-at-all-amused Joan Bakewell. Never spoke to her again.
After a while in George's study, admiring his Magrittes and the 24 carat gold cast of Roman Polanski's dick (Given to Di as a donation to Release - she was their main fundraiser - bought by George for the scrap gold value and thereafter used as a paperweight) my increasing inebriation led me to have a little lie down on the floor of a quiet room. Consciousness, of a very woozy kind, began to reappear to the strains of a really excellent Hi-Fi playing fine trad Jazz. This I enjoyed, with my eyes closed, for four or five songs. Eventually I opened my eyes, and there in the corner was a five piece jazz band. Standing with one leg each side of my prone body, and bending over so that he could look into my face was George. He was holding a microphone to his mouth, and I thought to myself " Wow, that is REALLY clever, he is moving his mouth in exact synchronisation with the words of the song.... " Then I noticed everyone else - the entire party, in fact - standing around watching George and the Feetwarmers doing their stuff.
It was later pointed out to me that my 'Bum of the Month' winner was a woman called Penelope Tree (at that time THE top model in the world). And the scrawny geezer?
He was David Bailey.

More next month...