It’s Glastonbury time again! These days we can dip in and out of it with all the BBC coverage without suffering trenchfoot or sunstroke or being woken in the early hours by someone stumbling into your tent.

Ah, all the hordes on the hillside for the headliners at the Pyramid Stage. First time I went as a young moose back in ’87 we could drive right into the site and pitch our tent by the car on that hillside. I remember it had been raining before we arrived so by 6 o’clock Thursday evening the ground was already well churned up from cars getting stuck. Glastonbury mud, there’s really nothing quite like it. The trick is to just accept it as part of your being, it’s gonna be with you til at least the following Monday night, revel in the squishiness.

After that I returned twice more in ’89 and ’90, spending more time in the comedy tent. There I saw the rather scary Chris Lynam finish his act by marching up and down the stage with a lit firework up his bum, really, I wasn’t hallucinating! I also saw him do the banjo duel from Deliverance on tubas in one of the music tents. Friends were duly enticed along when he turned up in Edinburgh in a Fringe venue on the Cowgate.

The last time I went the Madchester sound was seriously taking hold, and I hated it. I remember one night someone in a nearby tent kept playing the same few tracks by the Happy Mondays et al through the night. Now I was a dawn riser and so rose with the sun, enjoying a short while of peace and solitude and much snoring. Then I decided it was my turn to share the music – so I put on Iron Maiden’s Phantom of the Opera, loud. Cracking track that is.