From B3ta...
Me and my friends once smuggled an enormous Welshman into Glastonbury. All it took was some cunning, strength (both mental and physical), some human rights violations, and luck.
As you're all aware, obtaining tickets has been obscenely difficult in the past few years. 2005 was made more difficult for Welsh Battleship, Rhodri, as he'd had about 10 pints of turbo-Rosie the night before and was asleep (and unwakeable) during the 10-minute-ticket-buying window.
A glastonbury without him was inconceivable so me and my friends plotted various schemes to try and smuggle him in.
If 8 of us carried him rolled up in a big army tent, would that work?
How about carrying him in a kayak case?
These were all ridiculous ideas and it was finally midnight the night before my friend fil and I were each to drive our respective cars to the festival bright and early that the final and ultimate solution struck us.
As we sat despondently in my bedroom, head in hands.. fil noticed a larger than average suitcase in the corner. Obviously rhodri couldn't fit in it but if only we could find someone small enough... someone with a ticket... someone asian perhaps?
quite handy that we had studied computer science at university. we found someone we knew who was quite small (asian) and had a ticket. we exagerrated the size of the case by about 150% (making it sound, quite frankly, unrealistic... who on earth would have had a suitcase that big?). Anyway he said he would have to have a look at the case and then see... and he would meet us in the car park the next day. Good enough for us.
Next phase: fil was to convince Rhodri to come to Glastonbury (in the middle of nowhere) without a ticket. My job was to handle the small ticket problem.
Glastonbury tickets must be accompanied with an ID bearing the same name as on the ticket.
It occurred to us, that our abominable Welsh friend didn't not look like a 'Nathan Chong'. So not only did I have to make Rhodri a fake ID, I had to change the name and he would have to explain about a typo when he purchased it. 'Nathan ChongER', he would now be officially called. I knocked up a perfect absolute spot-on copy of a Jersey driving licence (as they still use paper cards) with Rhodri's passport photo ('shopped from a picture of him drinking a forementioned 'turbo-Rosie) and the name Nathan Chonger. I was up until 4 am but enormously proud of my work.
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CHAPTER 2
We arrived at the carpark at about 2pm. It was a stifling 30-something degrees and the suitcase was all laid out on my back seat. Inside it was a ready-and-waiting pillow and a carton of pineapple juice.
Rhodri arrived and awaited his destiny. He was very nervous. We on the other hand were entirely confident.
When Chinese Nathan arrived we took his tent off him and sent a scout team to erect it just inside the gates, where we would release him from the suitcase and into the wild.
Nathan didn't however mention that he was claustrophobic and although wasn't previously worried given the measurements of the case, was now terrified upon actually measuring the case. Due to his extreme reluctance, it took 4 of us to get him into the case. He was instructed not to talk as it might blow our cover but to comfort him we spoke to him referred to as 'the stella' (i.e. i hope the STELLA's not too hot in there, only 5 more minutes until we can get out the STELLA etc.)
We estimated (randomly) he had about 20 minutes of breathable air in there and so hurrying the heavy little bugger 2 miles from the car park was going to be tough. especially after the wheels broke off the case within 10 minutes.
Lucky bit:
We finally arrived at the gate, red, flustered, gasping, and moist. at the crucial moment the handles broke off, leaving our precious cargo right in the middle of the track looking very suspicious. luckily backup came in the form of a fil's girlfriend clanging pre-prepared (empyty) glass bottles in her back to distract the converging security. it worked and we hauled the case back up and swiftly moved through.
threw it into the tent and about 5 minutes later emerged the sweatiest chinese man anyone has probably ever seen ever.
rhodri had no problems blagging the security muppet with the typo story and he triumphantly marched through to meet us.
it's difficult to live with the fact that we shall never again achieve anything as great in our entire lives.
proof? photos:
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547035/in/photostream/
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547320/
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547269/in/photostream/
The bad news was that 2 days later Nathan was evicted from the site for not having an arm band. Sorry Nathan.
Me and my friends once smuggled an enormous Welshman into Glastonbury. All it took was some cunning, strength (both mental and physical), some human rights violations, and luck.
As you're all aware, obtaining tickets has been obscenely difficult in the past few years. 2005 was made more difficult for Welsh Battleship, Rhodri, as he'd had about 10 pints of turbo-Rosie the night before and was asleep (and unwakeable) during the 10-minute-ticket-buying window.
A glastonbury without him was inconceivable so me and my friends plotted various schemes to try and smuggle him in.
If 8 of us carried him rolled up in a big army tent, would that work?
How about carrying him in a kayak case?
These were all ridiculous ideas and it was finally midnight the night before my friend fil and I were each to drive our respective cars to the festival bright and early that the final and ultimate solution struck us.
As we sat despondently in my bedroom, head in hands.. fil noticed a larger than average suitcase in the corner. Obviously rhodri couldn't fit in it but if only we could find someone small enough... someone with a ticket... someone asian perhaps?
quite handy that we had studied computer science at university. we found someone we knew who was quite small (asian) and had a ticket. we exagerrated the size of the case by about 150% (making it sound, quite frankly, unrealistic... who on earth would have had a suitcase that big?). Anyway he said he would have to have a look at the case and then see... and he would meet us in the car park the next day. Good enough for us.
Next phase: fil was to convince Rhodri to come to Glastonbury (in the middle of nowhere) without a ticket. My job was to handle the small ticket problem.
Glastonbury tickets must be accompanied with an ID bearing the same name as on the ticket.
It occurred to us, that our abominable Welsh friend didn't not look like a 'Nathan Chong'. So not only did I have to make Rhodri a fake ID, I had to change the name and he would have to explain about a typo when he purchased it. 'Nathan ChongER', he would now be officially called. I knocked up a perfect absolute spot-on copy of a Jersey driving licence (as they still use paper cards) with Rhodri's passport photo ('shopped from a picture of him drinking a forementioned 'turbo-Rosie) and the name Nathan Chonger. I was up until 4 am but enormously proud of my work.
===================
CHAPTER 2
We arrived at the carpark at about 2pm. It was a stifling 30-something degrees and the suitcase was all laid out on my back seat. Inside it was a ready-and-waiting pillow and a carton of pineapple juice.
Rhodri arrived and awaited his destiny. He was very nervous. We on the other hand were entirely confident.
When Chinese Nathan arrived we took his tent off him and sent a scout team to erect it just inside the gates, where we would release him from the suitcase and into the wild.
Nathan didn't however mention that he was claustrophobic and although wasn't previously worried given the measurements of the case, was now terrified upon actually measuring the case. Due to his extreme reluctance, it took 4 of us to get him into the case. He was instructed not to talk as it might blow our cover but to comfort him we spoke to him referred to as 'the stella' (i.e. i hope the STELLA's not too hot in there, only 5 more minutes until we can get out the STELLA etc.)
We estimated (randomly) he had about 20 minutes of breathable air in there and so hurrying the heavy little bugger 2 miles from the car park was going to be tough. especially after the wheels broke off the case within 10 minutes.
Lucky bit:
We finally arrived at the gate, red, flustered, gasping, and moist. at the crucial moment the handles broke off, leaving our precious cargo right in the middle of the track looking very suspicious. luckily backup came in the form of a fil's girlfriend clanging pre-prepared (empyty) glass bottles in her back to distract the converging security. it worked and we hauled the case back up and swiftly moved through.
threw it into the tent and about 5 minutes later emerged the sweatiest chinese man anyone has probably ever seen ever.
rhodri had no problems blagging the security muppet with the typo story and he triumphantly marched through to meet us.
it's difficult to live with the fact that we shall never again achieve anything as great in our entire lives.
proof? photos:
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547035/in/photostream/
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547320/
www.flickr.com/photos/philchambers/22547269/in/photostream/
The bad news was that 2 days later Nathan was evicted from the site for not having an arm band. Sorry Nathan.
