I went to Cambridge Folk Festival yesterday with my kids.
The tickets were expensive and my kids weren’t interested in seeing any of the music.
We spent the whole day in the children’s areas.
It was pretty good – but I think there’s probably cheaper ways of entertaining the kids.
Some of the characters were caricatures.
One guy rocked up to a children’s session, the purpose of which was to elicit children’s contributions to a song that a song-writing convenor put together. The theme was favourite meals. The guy’s son was determined not to contribute anything. So the convenor asked the father, who was regaled, from what I remember in white trousers and a Hari Krishna like top, but whose rather deadpan facial expression suggested a misery that belied the joy of his clothes, what his favourite food was. Previous contributions, which had already been integrated into the song had been lasagne, steak and kidney pie and paella. ‘Falafel’ said the father looking as bored as and only slightly less bemused than his son. I imagined falafel to be a family staple. It didn’t get included in the song.
Later on another one of the staff was doing a sterling job engaging a mother and her son around a mock camp fire. The staff member imagined roasting sausages on the fire. ‘But he’s a vegetarian’ said the mother. Staff member broke into a sweat and did his best to speculate on how well vegetarian sausages might work on a campfire.
The crowd was pretty mellow. Part of me was thinking it would be tempting to go all in with them and rocket off to some distant planet in an unreachable solar system, where we could start this whole human society thing again.
A world full of introverts, like a festival full of introverts.