Luxe, Calme et Volupté

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Why am I largely unmoved by the Glastonbury Festival phenomenon? Everyone else seems to deify this event in almost religious terms. Have I ever been? No. Not from a lack of love for music in all its manifest variety, that's for sure. Have I ever been to a festival? Just the one: Pink Floyd in Hyde Park, 1970. Did I enjoy it? Yes, but what I rather less enjoyed was the presence about me of 120,000 other people, something I found claustrophobic and frankly annoying. I never thought about attending another like event after that day, as much as I enjoyed the music. I guess one of the reasons we left Birmingham for North Wales in 1980 was motivated by our growing unease among crowds: I was always more comfortable, both as a child and as a young adult, with the gentler pace of the countryside. Even as an adolescent I gravitated to the quieter parts of the city I grew up in, venturing into the crowds only at night to drink to the early hours. Do I miss the throng? Not a bit of it: my frequency in life has for many years now been as low as I can make it, choosing wherever possible, to avoid the fraught and busy. It's better for the soul that way.

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