3 days at the IOW Festival. Not sure of the attendance this year - numbers up on last - maybe 70000 +. The festival crowd is pretty middle of the road - plenty of oldies too. I would guess just about everyone is in work or a student.
A few social observations :
At a time when there is much debate about intolerance you would be hard placed to find a more tolerant bunch of people. There is an unwritten festival code of course. Thousands of people milling around - going in all directions - picking through those sitting down, lying down, dancing around. In all the years I have been going I have never seen any nastiness. People are forgiving, considerate, polite and reasonable - even if they bang into you - ha! It sort of gives you hope that UK society can hang together despite those who are trying to cause division.
The battle against smoking has been won. A big generalisation - but by and large young people do not smoke. I think it might be a uncool to smoke now.
The battle against obesity is being lost! Shockingly so - and it seems so quickly and with no shame. There are plenty of overweight men - but can also see there is a man culture thing going on which is about the gym and working out. The girls however - so many seriously overweight. So many with no muscle tone - so much fat on display - because the girls are still wearing skimpy shorts. Actually it is quite incredible. It will be a hard road back for a lot of young ladies when they try and decide to do something about it. For now it seems it might to be cool to be fat in the world of laddish girls.
Something is going wrong with our food culture - not a pastie to be sold on the site! "Curly" fries though. Liquorice is weirdly a big seller it seems.
Ticket touts are a gruesome lot - scary. I would love to know how many they actually buy and sell and what sort of money they make. They always seem up against it.
Woman can dance - not many men can and look at ease.
It is easier to be a man at a festival. It is a scandal how long the queues are for the poor girls. (another down side of drinking pints!)
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