Almost everyone in the pub has either gone to Glastonbury to work, or gone there to play. I sort of understand it, but the idea of being in the middle of an open field with 250,000 others is my idea of hell.
Being so close - about 30 miles - it is inevitable that I know a few of the organisers. Some of them live here, and most are now fairly mature in age. In the old days, Winston Churchill's grand daughter was a key figure whose name was not Eavis. Sadly she died, but she was the image of Winston.
Everything has become too corporate these days. City bankers now spend the weekend on Worthy Farm. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a different event now than it was in 1971 with nothing but hippies and the temporary mentally ill.
It's the same with the Bath Boules event which has just finished - although on a tiny scale, of course. The Bath Boules tournament is now made up almost entirely of business people - estate agents, solicitors, property developers - all getting drunk for charity, with Bath Life magazine covering the whole thing in their society pages.
My advert is now out in Bath Life, and the phone has not stopped ringing. Ok, I made the last bit up.
As I explained to the advertising agent, my ad has nothing but words - very carefully chosen words - because I am unable to use photos of recent work due to confidentiality agreements with clients.
I was eligible for inclusion in the directory of businesses for that issue, and when I went to it to see what they had written, I found that they had, for some reason, simply made up a false website address for me. I have no website. What is the point of a website without photos?
I explained this to the agent, and said that in the unlikely event of anyone looking me up to see photos of past projects on my website, they might be a little confused - or worried - to find a notice saying, 'PAGE NOT FOUND'. He saw my point.
The upshot is that I now have a duplicate advert coming out in the next issue - sans website. Look out for it. I could be of use to you, or your house, or your grounds, or your contents...
(Note that I did indeed knock 10 years off my vast experience.)
The advert doesn't tell me what it is you actually DO Tom - unless it is in a specific part of the paper. Still - I would employ you for a couple of weeks if you lived nearer for the sheer pleasure of your company!
ReplyDeleteI thought you know what I did, Weave, but thanks for the invitation. When are you free?
DeleteThe admission fee to the first Glastonbury festival was one Pound and they gave you a free bottle of milk. I went in nineteen eighty nine and it cost me 28 Pounds. This year its 245 Pounds and sold out. How times and prices have changed.
ReplyDeleteI paid nothing. I parked my motorcycle up against the main stage.
DeleteI can remember when Glastonbury was just somewhere people drifted to after Stonehenge.
ReplyDeleteThe other way round, surely?
DeleteI pride myself on never having had to advertise my competence. However, my phone has yet to start ringing.
ReplyDeleteNeither have I, and I used to turn work away.
DeleteI have been twice to The Glastonbury Festival, each time I was admitted free of charge and enjoyed every day of it Including the first one. Perhaps being a friend of both Arabella Churchill and Mike Eavis - helped !
ReplyDeleteThey gave you a leg-over the fence then?
DeleteNo being well known I went through the main entrance.
ReplyDeleteOh really? How impressive. I am surprised they did not get you thrown off site by security if you were that well known.
DeleteI am fed up with men, straight or gay. That includes myself. All us elderly lot do here is pathetically try to big ourselves up by name-dropping or trying to keep up with the present, not that we would recognise a meaningful modern event if it stuck itself up our ample arses.
ReplyDeleteHere, here. I'm glad somebody has finally said what I was too polite to mention. xx
ReplyDeleteToo polite to mention? Who are you and what have you done with Shawn Maeder?
DeleteWait, wait. You bigged yourself down by ten years, if I took your meaning correctly. End of whatever else I had to say, Heron's view notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteThe motive for this is I don't want any potential client to do bit of mental calculation and work out that they are dealing with someone who - if he had been at all successful in his work - should have retired by now. I suppose that true artists never retire, but nobody but a handful know if I could ever be described as such.
DeleteMy father in law who was a professor of biology never stopped working even after 'retirement' from academic life. He was a consultant to ICI ( horticultal plastics), a guest expert at a local garden centre, and an author. In fact he died aged 73 before he quite finished a gardening encylopedia for which he was well rewarded (☺). In the meantime Mr G and I also continue to work at what we love and can't see giving up as long as we enjoy it. So take heart Tom x
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