Festival tips

Short, sharp, essential lists for part-time field dwellers.

Signs that you've overdone it:

• You're naked and body-painted from the ankles up;
• People start calling you 'Moon of Orion', and you dig it;
• You mix the dance tent up with your own tent and camp down for the night next to a massive speaker stack;
• You arrange to meet friends outside the recovery tent;
• You're in there shouting 'More maestro!' when The Kooks leave the stage.

Signs that you're under-doing it:

• You're up at day-break, clear-headed and hungry;
• After the final act, you head for your tent and tuck up;
• Friends keep asking you to look after their valuables;
• You spend more time under the showers than in front of the stage;
• You keep phoning home just to find out how things are.

Always in the pocket:

• Money (cold hard cash if you can. Guard credit cards with your life);
• Sun-block (it might help urge the rain away);
• Plastic bag (useful should rain hat/pillow/shoe protector things get muddy);
• Condoms (useful should rain hat/pillow/shoe protector things get muddy);
• Mobile phone.

People to avoid:

• People who don't blink, ever;
• People who reek of patchouli, including their children;
•  People with dark glasses and earpieces;
• People in Take That T-shirts;
• People who stride about shouting: "Jesus says this is all wrong!"

People to seek out:

• Naked mud wrestlers (because it isn't big or clever, unless someone else is doing it);
• Your mates (six hours wandering by yourself can get lonely);
• People who live in tepees (from a distance. Don't go in, you'll never come out);
• Bar staff that recognise your thirst and like you;
• Backstage security that look the other way for the price of a pint.

Ways to ensure people think you're a twat:

• Wear a jester's hat (Do we even need to mention this?);
• Sling handfuls of mud at passers-by;
• Rope off a 20 metre-squared area round your tent for "privacy" reasons;
• Smile smugly from the VIP area at the great unwashed;
• Talk ridiculously loudly into your phone about how you've just been hanging out with your great mate Beth Ditto/Rob da Bank/Faris Badwan etc.