The advantage of having a stoma is . . .

Coldplay

 Don McLean

 Paul Simon

Us

For those who might read this without knowing of Glastonbury Festival (I notice some readers from such exotic places as the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Finland, France, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, India, and Italy) I should perhaps explain this odd British phenomenon.

Every year a huge quantity of people – over 150,000 in fact, cram themselves into a farm near Glastonbury in Wiltshire to woop and scream their way through musical performances from some big and less well known names in rock and roll, comedy and caberet. This year for example: BB King, Don McLean, The Kaiser Chiefs, Pulp, U2 Coldplay and many many more.

Punters camp in tents that they bring themselves, and as it often rains they churn the entire farm into a sea of mud. They also consume huge quantities of food and drink; all of which will inevitably make it’s way through a thousand miles of guts and must, ultimately be “dumped” somewhere. The result is the messiest, love filled, “shlittle”* of humanity you have ever seen.

The purpose of this post is simply to say that having a stoma does not exclude you from taking part. For the first time in my life I am legally defined as disabled; so we could camp in the disabled field, which was less muddy and had slightly better (bigger and less dirty) loos.

Here I learned that there are advantages to having a stoma, in such a situation. One can do everything standing up; thus not having to lower oneself on to the fetid loo seat above the stinking midden of the Glastonbury bog.

It may be a little extreme to have your guts ripped out just so you can go to Glastonbury festival and never sit upon the loo, but I feel one should celebrate the positives of every predicament one faces.

There was some excellent music as well. Personally I loved BB King, the Kaiser chiefs, John Hegley, and Coldplay. U2 were slick and polished, and Elbow made a great contact with the audience.

*Shlittle is one of a number of invented words. It describes an over filled, out of control flow of any substance through a narrowing.

Life is for living.