Sunday, June 24, 2007

Broadsheet round-up: Toilets and straw

With dispatches having been hitting the papers since Wednesday, the Sunday broadsheets are desperate to find something new to report from Glastonbury. The Sunday Telegraph finds inspiration with the bloke who runs the toilets, Ducan Wilbur:

At 8am I was stocktaking in our offices in Vauxhall, London. The list included 200 rubber gloves, 10 long-handled brooms, 20 buckets, 600 toilet rolls and 20 jerrycans for people to wash their hands in.

Last in the box was our giant Poo Suit. Each year a lucky volunteer walks around dressed as a poo, with a sign saying: "There's a million viruses in every gram".

Oddly, the same slogan was used by the last falafel store we visited back in 1998.

Meanwhile, The Observer reports that life is imitating Rumpelstiltskin, as people are spinning gold from straw:
'When the truck drove past this morning, I sent my colleague out three times in bare feet,' said Rachel Clements, 44, from Devizes, Wiltshire. 'If they leave it in a big pile there is bound to be a fight.'

Welcome to the Glastonbury straw-wars: eight lorries loaded with straw, 800 stall owners desperate to get hold of some. Rachel Clements was one of the lucky ones as she surveyed the Glastonbury scene yesterday. But many of her fellow stallholders were waiting nervously for the lorries to arrive with the next consignment. 'It gets political,' said Charlie, a 24-year-old lorry driver from Dorset. 'People pinch it. They come and fill their own boxes.'

Apparently, the police who will be overseeing security at the 2010 Ryder Cup are on site, picking up tips on how to manage the crowds there. If you see armed police guarding a haystack, while Tiger Woods gets his pants stolen, you'll know why.

Over in The Sunday Times, a brave, but not entirely successful attempt is made by David Cracknell, David Smith and Isabel Oakeshott (the 3AM Division Girls?) to hoik together the big political and cultural stories of the week:
Brown has promised a government of “all talents” and has already started to put up an even bigger “big tent” – to woo outsiders and opponents – than the one originally espoused by Blair.

The tent seems fitting on the weekend of the Glastonbury festival, and has already proved as muddy. Last week Brown invited Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, to join his government as Northern Ireland secretary. Though Ashdown rejected the offer, the move left David Cameron’s Tories, who have made their own approaches to the Lib Dems, reeling.

They've headlined this 'Welcome to Gordonbury'. Lets hope Gordon has got his chemical toilets in place.


No comments:

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.