HIGHLIGHT of the BBC’s endless Glastonbury coverage arrived, day one, with the appearance of some dingbat called Marina Abramovic, who planned to: “Heal the universe with seven minutes of silence.” An inspired idea, I thought. But why stop there? Try eight, nine, ten and keep it going right through Shania Twain ’s hour in the traditional “tax exiles” slot, if that’s what the healing process takes.
With one hefty clang of her assistant’s gong, though, Marina got what we both craved. No blether from the BBC studio. No abattoir noises from the Pyramid Stage.
Nothing but heavenly silence. And then — CLANG! — it all started again. Conor Curley, from Fontaines DC, told BBC Two viewers how happy he was to see “so many Irish and Palestinian flags”, and I remembered all the reasons why I sincerely despise everything about the Glastonbury festival.
It’s a resentment that starts with the level of BBC imposition and extravagance, of course. So vast is the coverage, in fact, that it’s almost impossible to work out exactly how long it lasts, but still safe to assume that, with 90 hours on the Beeb iPlayer alone, there’s hardly a Portaloo turd that goes unrecorded. Likewise, estimates for the number of BBC staff varies between 500-1,000 and don’t even include the likes of Oxbridge-educated, public schoolboy News presenter Ros Atkins , who’d wangled a drum ’n’ bass slot that would’ve had the BBC squealing “cultural appropriation”, if he was.
