Glastafari

Your typical Drako viewer, or soaker, could wallow for hours in a constant state of morbid fascination, watching autopsies and murders and fatal accidents and wars, anything with human plight and misery slapped across it. Television had long since atomised and estranged the soaking public from any real, meaningful and long-term social interactions, which had, of course, left it entirely at the mercy of those who had made it their business to fill the void with all manner of flashy gadgetry, empty lonely rituals, cynicism, and twisted desire. Any sense of compassion, community pride and connection had long since leeched away, and been programmed into oblivion. We’re talking countless generations of couch potatoes, with precious little to live for anymore except for some kind of fresh and innovative programme idea; something a touch more wicked to get hooked on, a novel way to rubber-neck someone else’s worst nightmare.

But as she stood deep within the Tor-vision Centre, watching a panel of Drako experts drool and slurp their way through the first week’s highlights, the show’s creator, Larr, was battling to contain those first nagging doubts. Overnight Glastonbury Dead had fallen to a far less impressive 28 share.

Whereas News and Current Affairs had no shortage of wars to draw upon; the depths of human depravity largely not needing any special formatting and engineering to keep the soakers happy, Glastonbury Dead was a relatively new format, with a tough legal requirement not to interfere with the reality on the ground in any way, so as to facilitate a fair gamble. To throw down a couple of walk-ins and false flag an atrocity or two just to spike the ratings (an acceptable practice within Drako News), would invalidate everything, and certainly force the plug to be pulled on Glastonbury Dead. It would’ve been like a football commentator punching out the German goalie just before a penalty shoot out. And the regulators didn’t miss a thing. Like Larr, they too were watching every slurp of that panel discussion from the floor of the Tor-vision Centre.

There’d been a bit of a wobble on the opening night when several humanoids were seen running about in alien costumes. Whilst all aliens usually find the human obsession with ‘little green men’ highly entertaining. Much like those funny little Youtube clips of dressed up pets apparently playing an instrument or spooning food into their mouths. Here, it was most irritating. As inappropriate as suddenly launching into a Marx Brothers skit in the middle of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Soakers had simple tastes. They didn’t ‘do’ offbeat.

Thankfully the costumes hadn’t reappeared. But Larr was evil mindful to keep a look out for them. In this particular gruesome People Chase, you just didn’t want any of the runners to be dressed up as a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

* * * * *

For crop-circle maker Fliss and Clash Man Keith it had actually been a close encounter of the turd kind. Fliss dressed as an alien inside one of the filthy Glast-a-bogs, plucking up the courage to spring her brother from jail. Keith busting in on her, enacting one of the weirdest ‘How I met your mother’ anecdotes in the history of human relations.

“No. You’re wrong,” said Fliss, as she sat outside Keith’s dome tent round the back of the NME stage.

It was a first date of sorts. Awkward conversation over stale crisps, whilst sitting on two beaten up old sofa cushions. The ‘your place or mine?’ option having been drastically reduced by the end of the world.

“Not REAL aliens,” said Fliss. “But cops DRESSED as aliens.”

“No. The aliens are definitely real,” countered Keith.

Beyond the ridiculous conversation and the potent whiff of something nasty coming from the Jazz Field, there was definitely something in the air between them. Call it fate, or the comfort of strangers, or even the last gasp of survival instinct before the curtain of life closes forever, but a powerful bond was forming between them. They just needed to work out some of the basics first.

“I know what I saw. And I’ve got the costumes to prove it,” said Fliss, thrusting floppy rubber under Keith’s nose, the smoking gun of rubbered up cop.

Keith had to admit that the suits looked alien, and that they were entertaining in a fancy dress sort of way. But why would Strummer go on tour halfway across the galaxy just to fudge his lyrics and ruin one of the best tribute bands in the history of punk nostalgia? But meeting Fliss had undoubtedly been some kind of sign.

As they were talking, Keith’s former band mate, Ken (aka Clash guitarist Mick Jones), entered the narrow strip of quagmire that ran between their two tents, picking his way past half a dozen terminally slack guy ropes. Keith hadn’t spoken to Ken since the big bust up, a fact Ken was clearly keen to maintain, as he completely blanked his former friend and band member and disappeared inside his tent.

“He really hates me,” sighed Keith. He’d told Fliss the entire sorry story and had even used up his last bit of phone battery replaying that a video of that fateful moment on stage.

“He’ll get over it,” Fliss reassured him, gently stroking the back of his hand. “There’s a lot going on. A lot for people to deal with. This is just his way..”

But before she could finish her sentence, Ken ripped open his fly sheet, and shouted, “For your information we’re starting a new band. Big Audio Dynamite.” Before sending his zip hurtling back down towards the Glastonbury mud.

“He must really, really hate me,” Keith sighed again.

“That’s a rubbish name for a band,” said Fliss, not getting the reference to Mick Jones’ Clash breakaway band ‘BAD’.

Keith quickly crossed over to Ken’s orange dome tent, knelt down, and tried to open the flap. But Ken grabbed hold of the zip, denying entry.

“Ken, whatever a group is, or was, it is the chemical mixture of four people that makes it work,” Keith said, trying to reason with Ken’s muddy flap, sounding like the desperate dying seconds of a couple’s counseling session. But in truth, recycling something Strummer had once said in a book about his legendary bust up with Mick Jones. Obviously, a bit of a risk if Ken had also read it. But he knew in his heart that Strummer’s words rang true, that he couldn’t put it better himself, and that they’d both live to regret breaking up the wonderful chemistry that they had both shared throughout the years.

“That’s a lesson everyone should learn - you don’t mess with it,” he cried. “If it works, just let it… do whatever you have to do to bring it forward, but don’t mess with it.”

* * * * *

Band dynamics were not the only thing getting messed with. The Chief Inspector’s head for one thing. Any hope he had had of making a swift and dignified exit from the Spiritual Field were soon dashed, for no sooner had they left the Krishna’s sphere of influence, than they ran into a wall of multi-coloured camouflage jackets, the Jesus Army, fifteen or so, each tooled-up with righteous indignation.

“What have you done with Jesus?” asked Captain Chuck, the squad leader, his ‘I’m gunning for Jesus’ T-shirt barely legible beneath the grime. “We saw you take him and we want him back.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about,” said Ash, momentarily startled by the riot of colour, his way back to base seemingly blocked by a militant fruit salad.

“Now stand aside,” he barked. “We’ve urgent business to attend to.”

“So have we,” said Chuck. “Give us Jesus.”

“Bumstead, have you any idea what they’re going on about?” muttered Ash. He simply didn’t have the energy for this nonsense. Why couldn’t people just stop playing silly buggers?

“Well sir,” said Bumstead, slowly removing his riot helmet and wiping his sweaty brow with a hankie. “I think he is referring to that bearded gentleman that we are holding, the one with the cross.”

“Oh, I see,” said Ash. “But surely they don’t really think that he’s Jesus? That’s absurd.”

“I know that it might sound crazy to the likes of you and I, sir,” said Bumstead. “But these people are fanatics. One only has to look at them to see that.”

“He’s helping us with our inquiries,” Ash called out, unconvincingly. He’d forgotten all about Earnest.

“Yeah, that’s what Pontius Pilate said,” protested Chuck.

“Shall I order the men to force a way through?” said Bumstead.

Ash looked about. People were beginning to gravitate towards them to see what was going on. They were a long way from base, and the last thing they needed was to have to fight a rear-guard action against a squad of hideously garish camouflage jackets all the way back to Babylon. But what to tell them?

As far as the Jesus Army was concerned, the pigs had busted the Second Coming. It was obviously the end of the world. The ultimate promissory note was about to be redeemed. Jesus Christ was booked to perform, fulfilling a two-thousand year old prophesy, and this particular bunch of Christians, of all the millions of other Christians throughout the world, had been specially chosen to be there when it happened.

“Sir, shall I order the men to force a way through?” Bumstead repeated.

“I don’t think that that’s a good idea,” whispered Ash. “It’ll just make matters worse. We need to find a way to stall them.”

“I’ve got it,” said Bumstead, stepping to one side and calling out. “Alright, now listen here. If you’d like to make a statement then we’ll be happy to receive a small delegation, say one or two of you, down at the station tomorrow morning. Okay?”

“Is that wise?” whispered Ash, not liking the idea of inviting these particular headless chickens round for Sunday lunch.

“Alright,” said the fruit salad reluctantly clearing a path. “Tomorrow morning it is, then. But you’d better be treating him right or there’ll be hell to pay.”

* * * * *

“Who made God?”

For Earnest, the man at the centre of this busted Second Coming, awkward questions came with the territory. At one stage, everywhere he went he’d bump into someone who was either reading, had just read, or had just been talking to someone who had just read ‘The God Delusion’. The world, it seemed, had been waiting centuries for Richard Dawkins’ razor-sharp attack on religious fallacies and false doctrines. And of course, Earnest had been the perfect candidate upon which to test drive some of Dawkins’ more formidable put downs.

He’d lost count of the number of smart arses that had come up to him over the years and said things like, ‘Why label your ignorance God?’, or accuse the Bible of being “a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents” or throw in a quick, “Intelligent Design is just Creationism in a cheap tuxedo”.

There’d also been a number of books and documentaries showing how the Bible had simply rehashed large chunks of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, making Earnest more of a Horus, the sun god, than a Jesus. Horus had also been born of a virgin on December 25, accompanied by a star in the East and three gift-bearing kings. He was also known as ‘the lamb of god’, had twelve disciples, walked on water, got betrayed, crucified, buried, and then, after three days, resurrected. Earnest was essentially a Horus Freak.

Even so, he avoided getting drawn into an argument, realising that, as in art, it was down to the individual how they interpreted his presence in any given situation – a red light district, a war zone, a turkey farm. Some people would get it, or rather get something out of it, whilst others would simply shout abuse or throw stuff. But at least, he told himself, he would have provoked some kind of reaction, and planted some seeds.

“Go on,” said flappy arm man, Blim, refusing to let go. “If God made everything, then who the hell made God?”

“Erm?” Earnest floundered, feeling more hemmed in than usual. He missed his cross. You could always hide behind the cross. Bury your face in the INRI and plod on regardless.

“Why don’t you leave him alone?” said DJ Nimbles, who liked to think of himself as a bit of a God on the turntables.

“So, you believe in extra-terrestrials?” Blim pressed on.

“I suppose I do,” Earnest sighed, all too familiar with the route down which Blim was taking him.

“Well, God’s one,” said Blim, growing frustrated at the lack of struggle from his victim.

“How do you work that one out?” said our resident Ufologist Dan Sykes, unable to resist blurting out his first sentence for many hours. Silence may have been the best policy, but it just wasn’t in his nature to keep it buttoned for long. Especially when someone mentioned Extra Terrestrials. His eyes had long since grown accustomed to the light, and he was now very much aware that everyone was staring at him. As a former son of God, he could fully appreciate Earnest’s predicament. He was so much happier now that he had ditched God for a more malleable delusion.

He’d spent most of his now lengthy incarceration collecting various bits of paper and cardboard that he could find dotted about the cell; chewing and working his spit into torn up and creased festival programmes that he’d found on the floor of the cell. He seemed to be creating an array of weird and random papier mâché objects, and sticking them together using the pack of King Sized Rizla that he carried around events like Glastonbury to use as surreptitious post it notes - coded messages to fellow Light Workers that could be concealed among the general festival detritus. No-one had a clue what he was making, a mystery he himself had often experienced during his short career as a children’s television presenter; when he’d often found himself desperately trying to conjure up a convincing Father’s Day pen holder out of toilet rolls, whilst roasting under the harsh Studio Four lights.

“God’s an extra-terrestrial,” said Blim, turning to Sykes. “Think about it, man. He doesn’t live in a flat up the road, does he? He’s up in space somewhere looking down. That makes you an extra-terrestrial in my book.”

Croppy Pete gave a little yelp. All this talk about aliens was starting to get to him, releasing some pretty disturbing memories from the concussed fug that smothered his mind like a Ripper smog.

“No Fliss!” he yelped, beginning to relive the terror of having his shape-shifting sister chase after him. “No!”

* * * * *

“Fliss, I can hardly breath,” muffled Clash man Keith, the tight rubber playing merry hell with his inner thighs. “Are you sure that this is a good idea?”

He and Fliss were about to carry out an audacious alien visitation on the police compound. Their plan? To abduct Fliss’s brother Croppie Pete from the Glastonbury holding cells disguised as aliens, and.. Well..?

“What happens if we get caught?” Keith muffled some more.

“We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Fliss, trying to re-arrange his shoulder blades.

The clincher in the whole real alien / fake alien debate, had been when Fliss had shown him PC Brown’s name and number felt tipped inside the back of one of the suits. Strummer must have got it wrong.

“So, the State has to be up to its rubber neck in it after all,” Fliss had explained. “Obviously hoping to confuse the hell out of any eye-witness accounts. You do know what a false flag is, don’t you?”

In truth, Strummer’s rap hadn’t done Keith any favours. He’d hated all that rejection, and the way people had looked at him. He was actually quite relieved to find another crazy version of events to follow, however crazy it would be in practice. Though he still had some doubts.

“But is this a good idea?” he muffled again as they approached the festival’s makeshift cop shop, and the point of no return.

Fliss seemed to think so. Ah, the lovely Fliss! Keith owed her so much, so much more than the mere benefit of the doubt. He had been ready to collapse into a pile of leathery roadkill, and just give up. Fliss had given his life new meaning, even if that did mean dressing up as a B-movie extra and attempting one of the most far-fetched prison breaks in British history.

Okay, so far so good. There’d been a slight puzzled look from the desk sergeant, but once Fliss had revealed her face and demanded as authoritatively as she could to view all the prisoners, he’d actually agreed.

“We think our man is trying to slip under the radar,” she explained. “Don’t worry about him,” she said, gesturing towards Keith. “His face is Highly Classified. One stray glimpse could ruin a five-year, multi- million pound investigation.”

Fliss watched way too much TV, thought Keith, his heart pumping like an industrial revolution. How could anyone fail to see his terror through that thin rubbery membrane? He felt like a walking boil in the bag TV dinner, each nervous breath steaming up his tinted alien eye sockets like a sauna window.

The desk sergeant was kind of wondering what the undercover drug squad were up to proceeding with their case load when the entire world seemed to have come crashing down around their ears, but his was not to reason why. Perhaps a giant meth lab had exploded somewhere? As he led them across the compound where Fliss had last seen her brother being frog-marched away, she was amazed to see a large crucifix leaning up against the perimeter fence.

“Wooh!” she gasped. It was the one that she and Pete had scrambled over.

“Oh that,” said the sergeant, following her gaze. “He’s apparently helping us with our inquiries,” he laughed. “We kept tripping over it.”

Before she could find out more, a PC ran up to them, also apparently in no way phased by the sight of people dressed as aliens. To Fliss, further vindication of state collusion.

“Sarge, the Jesus Army are outside,” said the PC, trying to stifle a grin, knowing full well that his sergeant was about to go ape.

“Christ! What the fuck do they want!?” snapped the sergeant.

“They’re demanding to see Jesus,” the PC replied, unable to stop a tiny giggle. “They say that they have an appointment.”

Glastonbury had always played host to some pretty weird scenes, even before the apocalyptic meteorite shower that had ruined that year’s main stage line-up. So, the onward crusade of Christian soldiers marching as to war, in search of the Second Coming, was a sight that could so easily have fallen below the freak show radar. Even with the riot of multi-coloured Jesus Army camouflage jackets, and the odd makeshift placard that read, ‘Free the Gethsemane One’.

“Okay,” sighed the Sarge, rolling his eyes at Fliss in that ‘all in a day’s work’ kind of way. “We’d better inform the Chief.”

For Fliss, they had come oh so close. The finishing line was just beyond that port-a-cabin door. Whoever the Chief was, he’d more than likely be in on the actual planning of the false flag operation, and he’d more than likely be the one to come out with awkward questions, like, “Who the fuck is she!?” Fliss had one of those faces you’d remember.

“Sergeant, if you don’t mind,” she said, motioning towards a fat bunch of keys hanging from his belt. “The Chief stressed that this is Top Priority.”

“Okay,” the sergeant agreed, reluctantly, clicking open a carabiner and handing over a smaller bunch of keys. He hated handing over control of any threshold, especially the cells. But he hated getting a dressing down from a senior officer even more.

“You can use interview room two,” he said, storming off to meet the Jesus Army. “Make sure I get them back.”

Fliss was trying to cross out that cross from her mind. She and Keith needed to focus on springing her brother from jail. But the sight of that familiar looking crucifix had really thrown her. Did it mean that the Jesus Freak who’d saved them from certain death, hadn’t perished after all? Was their saviour still alive?

They entered a maze of port-a-cabins, mess rooms, briefing rooms, interview rooms, but no cells. The makeshift nick was deserted, apparently all hands having been ordered to the deck of HMS Glastonbury as it listed violently towards total disaster; the Drako no doubt hoping that the passengers didn’t so much re-arrange the deckchairs but rip them apart and use the pointy bits as vicious weapons.

They passed a small window facing on to a narrow courtyard, a section of fence flanked by two large shipping containers. Suddenly, the entrance to one of the containers flew open to reveal something quite unexpected. There, in the middle of various straw bales and buckets, stood a cow. Quite a pretty and docile looking cow, with what looked like a garland of garish plastic flowers hanging round its neck. A rather furtive looking uniformed cop was pushing its head back inside, trying to shut the solid metal door.

Keith gave Fliss a look, somewhat lost behind the shades.

“Why would fake aliens bother to abduct livestock?” he said, sounding a little bit like Darth Vader under the rubber. “Everyone knows that real aliens have been doing that kind of shit for donkey’s years.”

He shuddered to think what kind of hideous experiments they were conducting inside that container.

* * * * *

Inspector Bumstead finally managed to shut the metal door, hoping to slip back before anyone noticed, especially the Chief. It sure helped that the station was now deserted most of the time, and that people rarely ventured round the back anyway. Never mind the Holy Grail, he and a few colleagues had now secured the sacred cow of meal opportunities, a four-legged insurance policy called Gita. In a world of scarce munchies, the ultimate bargaining chip. An army marches on its stomach, and Gita would be their tactical retreat from the relentless advance of famine. And why not? Surely the forces of law and order had to remain strong, for the sake of the people?

* * * * *

Back at the compound gate, the Chief was being reacquainted with the Jesus Army. He’d forgotten all about Inspector Bumstead’s foolhardy invitation for them to send a small delegation down to the station. This was in no way a small delegation, more like the entire battalion.

“What can we do for you?” he asked the riot of colour.

“What have you done with our Lord?” demanded Captain Chuck, his ‘I’m gunning for Jesus’ T-shirt now reduced to the grimiest and faintest ‘gun..’ and ‘..us’. “We saw you take him and we want him back.”

“I can confirm that we are not holding anyone by that name,” sighed Ash, determined that this would be his very last Glastonbury. In fact, by the look of things, everyone’s last Glastonbury. “We did apprehend a gentleman who could be mistaken for being Jesus, but who is most certainly not the actual real life Jesus, and he is helping us with our enquiries.”

It was like trying to teach computer skills to the Iron Age.

“Now, if you don’t mind.” Ash said, motioning as if to part the Rainbow Sea.

Captain Chuck had spent years praying to JC, asking for help with all manner of things. He wasn’t going to let the second coming pass him by.

“He is lying,” he told his troops. “We are not leaving until you bring us our Lord and Saviour.”

“Officer Brown, go and find Inspector Bumstead,” Ash snapped, clearly pissed that Bumstead wasn’t around to clean up the righteous mess of fruit salad that he’d helped to spill all over their doorstep.

* * * * *

Of course, neither the son of God in question, Earnest, nor his cell mate Croppie Pete, could have any idea that campaigns were underway to free them from police custody.

None of the prisoners had spoken much since an ugly incident over their cell’s last remaining loo roll the previous evening. It had been between the former son of God, now born-again conspiracy theorist, Dan Sykes and one time flappy-arm stage sensation, Blim. Sykes had crossed the line by unravelling all the single ply just to get at the cardboard roll, apparently just to resource his weird and quite frankly irritating paper modelling obsession. It had been such a key component of his creation, that he’d actually been prepared to take a bop on the chin from Blim, who detested unraveled loo paper, because “It’s wasteful and it spreads fucking germs, you muppet!”

* * * * *

Outside, just beyond the confines of that awkward silence, a new threat to Ash’s sanity had arrived on the scene - the Hari Krishna movement.

We’ve all witnessed the Krishna’s on the move - those enraptured glowing faces, happy feet, and soothing pastels. This time, their whole vibe was more like “Don’t fuck with the baldies!” The entire temple was in a very foul mood, as they had hurry up Hari’d their way down to the cop shop. Overnight, someone had abducted their sacred temple mascot, Gita. And Soodha, their Brummy leader, had more than a sneaking suspicion that it had been the cops.

“Give us back our cow!” he shouted at Ash, as he elbowed his way past the Jesus Army to the front. “You’ve stolen Gita, I know you have. Give her back!”

Just to be clear here. Gita wasn’t so much sacred to Soodha, as Taboo. But Taboo Cow doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Killing a cow for food is considered taboo, actually equal to the killing of a Brahman, and anyway, devotees like to look on them as being one of the family. All be it, a family member who you routinely milk, and whose shit you regularly heat your dinner up on, and ritualistically dab onto your forehead. Soodha was actually wearing a fraction of one of Gita’s bowel movements on his forehead at that very moment.

“We have evidence,” he screeched, ushering forward a fellow devotee who appeared to be carrying a cow pat. “There... See?” he said, grabbing the dung pancake and thrusting it under Ash’s nose. “Boot marks. If I’m not mistaken. And I am not. Police issue boot marks.”

Ash looked down. It did indeed carry a boot mark not dissimilar from his own.

“Lots of people wear that type of boot,” he said, growing nervous, as he suddenly remembered a recent conversation that he’d had with his Inspector in the Spirit Field. “Loads of people could have left that footprint, especially at Glastonbury. Punks. Goths. Half of Camden High Street. This proves nothing.”

“Okay, then,” Soodha continued, grabbing hold of Exhibit B. “What about this then..?”

* * * * *

Fliss and Keith finally found the cells. Four of them, each with its own peep hole. There was no time to lose. Pete had to be in one of them, and Fliss’s keen eye left no corner un-scanned.

Keith had begged to have his mask pulled off for a few minutes just to get some fresh air, but Fliss said it was way too risky. As he stood back to one side, watching this intriguing young woman probe the dark smelly recesses of each cell, he couldn’t help but feel a little silly looking; like some stag-night entertainment that had gone horribly wrong. Fine within the context of a drunken bar, but now long since funny, and in fact potentially quite damaging to someone’s sanity, especially Croppie Pete’s sanity.

* * * * *

Inside Pete’s cell, everyone had been alerted to the unmistakable sound of widespread commotion outside. No one could quite make it out, but it did seem to involve someone called “Harry”.

“Is that you?” Earnest asked Pete, gently. “Are you Harry?”

“No,” Pete replied meekly, rubbing the back of his head, his first smattering of post-apocalyptic cognisance making everyone sit up. They’d got nothing but pungent odour, terror night sweats, and the occasional yelp out of Pete since he’d arrived. They didn’t even know his name.

“What’s going on?” he turned to Earnest. “Who are you?”

“Believe me son,” quipped Blim. “You don’t want to know.”

“What is your name?” asked Earnest, taking his cell mate’s smelly hand.

“It’s Pete,” Pete answered, returning a faint smile.

“Try not to rush things,” cautioned Earnest. He knew all about traumatic amnesia, having once got bricked by an Israeli settler on the West Bank. How long it lasted usually depended on how severe the injury was, and it wasn’t wise to aggravate the wound with too many awkward questions.

“So, what the fuck happened to you?” Blim interrupted, forcing Pete to retreat into his shell.

“Sssshhhh!” hissed Earnest.

“Alright, keep your thorns on mate,” said Blim. “I was just asking.”

* * * * *

Outside, the Krishna’s and the Jesus Army were beginning to push it beyond the asking towards the demanding and taking back. Things were getting truly ugly, and they were, as a Drako Glastonbury Dead studio guest might concur, “About to get a whole lot worse”.

“Oi, pal! Step aside!” shouted Beer Gut Barry, one of the Barmy Army’s ‘Top Boys’, pushing his way past the Jesus Army and the Krishna’s, with a huge inflatable Cross of St George in one hand, and a real vicious looking claw hammer in the other. “We’ve come for some mob justice,”

That whole hooligan crowd that had been so cruelly denied the spectacle of an England World Cup win (that exquisite feeling of stuffing the Germans proper after so many decades of humiliation), hadn’t gone away. They’d just got more and more drunk and wound up. If it wasn’t enough that the game of the century had gone tits up, but the entire Glastonbury weekend was looking like a major tragedy too. And the thought of all those weeks of mind-numbing tedium and drudgery in some soul-less air-less industrial estate in the middle of nowhere just to pay for a fuck all festival, was simply too much to handle.

Not only that but losing sight of that other great love of their lives - their cars, the main car park having been declared a no-go area. Plus getting punched and maced by the cops at Gate Two. There was a lot of deep-seated anger and hostility towards the situation.

The cops had given them someone to blame for it all - a ‘man taken in for questioning’, some kind of religious fundamentalist fanatic, apparently. Unfortunately, not the Muslim ‘terrorist’ towel head type that they were used to hating, but the white hippy scum ‘one off nutter’ variety. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and the Barmy Army was sure going to make sure that some Jesus Freak begged them for mercy when they finally got hold of him.

“This is my good cop, bad cop routine,” Beer Gut Barry announced with more swagger than a Haitian washing line, while all around him his ‘boys’ gave it ‘the large’.

“If you are a good cop, and hand over the terrorist to us, you get a gentle tap on the head with this.” he said, suddenly slapping Soodha on the side of the head with the inflatable. “But if you’re a bad cop..”

“Listen mate,” Soodha protested. Why did people just assume that it was alright to keep slapping you on the head like that? “We were here first.”

“No, you weren’t,” Captain Chuck weighed in, not knowing that the Barmy Army were looking to crucify the ‘Jesus’ bit of their name. “We were here a good half hour before any of you.”

So, then it just kicked off big time. A four-way punch-up at the gates to the cop compound. The forces of Law and Order versus the Jesus Army versus the Hari Krishna’s versus the Barmy Army. It was like the craziest Bruce Lee fight scene ever. Saffron slap head pitched against soccer hooligan. Riot cop under attack from the Jesus Army.

For Chief Inspector Ash, this was a serious escalation; the worst breakdown in law and order thus far, and a major challenge to his authority. While over on Drakonis this was a real boost to Glastonbury Dead’s daily ratings.

By the time Inspector Bumstead finally returned from the meat section, the convoluted 4-way riot had coagulated into a general expression of All Copper’s Are Bastards. Everyone was pushing together against the narrow cordon of riot cops that barred the way. Everyone was either trying to save Earnest or crucify him, rescue Gita, the sacred cow, or slap her onto a plate and smother her in thick gravy.

“Where the hell have you been?!” snapped Ash, cursing the moment that he had ever decided to use Earnest as a delaying tactic, Exhibit A, one of Gita’s sacred turds, scoring a direct hit on his riot shield.

“Sorry sir,” said Bumstead, drawing his baton.

“This is complete and utter madness!” Shouted Ash, barely audible over the rabble. “Bumstead, we need to get this gate shut immediately. They mustn’t be allowed to get past that gate.”

* * * * *