The summer season is nigh and numerous festivals are approaching, so while you festival virgins pack your toothbrushes, dry shampoo and packets of Ryvita into the lime green rucksack your mum once took camping, be aware of these things NOT to do in order to maintain your street cred.
Wee on someone
As fun as it might sound to you hilarious owners of ‘wee-pistols’ out there (because, let’s be honest, how many times have you been weed on by a girl?), my left welly-booted foot was NOT appreciative of the carefully-aimed, warm, wet wee confidently swirling in between my toes. It’s not funny. It’s not clever. And it’s certainly not cool. In fact it’s lukewarm and disgusting.
Assume every group of boys with an acoustic guitar is Bombay Bicycle Club
Ok so I didn’t know what the members of Bombay Bicycle Club looked like, and what. Are they even that recognisable?! Rumours were going round that they were doing a casual acoustic set in the campsite, so, naturally, I ran around frantically pointing at complete strangers and shouting ‘JAAAAAACK!!! Play us that one about shaking your loose blues!’
Try to rescue your phone/bag/vaseline from a festival cesspit
When is this ever a good idea? You either reappear bedraggled and smelly while your friends run away screaming “IT’S THE BLOB!”, or, you sink to your death as your imminent gravestone reads “Drowned in a pit of festival poo while trying to save her Carmex”. No amount of hand sanitizer can save you now.
Buy ‘vodka and pills’ from a naked hippy
It’s amazing what some people will do for a fiver. Despite her attempt to convince us that she was a bona fide retailer employed by Reading festival, wandering around naked with a wicker basket, enticing people to get high on shots of water and 19p Boots paracetamol hardly constitutes a career. I might be being cynical but, drugs at festivals are never a good idea, especially bought from a naked hippy.
Wear fringing
One moment of my life I’d love to forget was getting the fringing on my top caught in a fat man’s flies. There I was, thinking I looked pretty cool as I swayed along to Darwin Deez’s ‘Up In The Clouds’, when my impractical, unnecessary, all-in-the-name-of-fashion fringing goes and gets stuck in a fat man’s zip. He peered down at me, sniggering in a highly unsavoury manner and said “Need some help down there darlin’?” Think: Monica from Friends and the cornrow incident, but in a sweaty man’s crotch.
Pretend your friend’s fainted to get out of a crowd
A disastrous turn of events is being stuck in a crowd at the end of Dizzee Rascal’s set when your friend suddenly decides she’s claustrophobic. A sudden panic ensues, and the only thing I can think of is to grab my friends and elbow everyone else out the way shouting ‘MY FRIEND’S FAINTED’. Probably not the best idea, however, as I turned around to see my five friends all in hysterical tears, counting on their hands and trying to work out which one of them had fainted.
Flash while on someone’s shoulders
You might think that you’ll have the opposite sex scrambling towards you like moths to a flame, but I can assure you, it’s a recipe for disaster. It’ll probably end with the person your sitting on leaning forward to take a cheeky peek, causing you to fall backwards with your boobs waggling around in the air aimlessly, while you hope to God that someone will throw a bin bag over your larger-than-average-sized nipples.
Enter a Rage Against The Machine mosh pit
You’ll die.
