Glastafari

After a barrage of teasers and trailers, ‘Glastonbury Dead’ had the best possible start, managing to peak at a staggering seventy-two audience share, before falling back to a more realistic forty-nine. The opening title sequence had more than enough gory material from the show’s cataclysmic establishment to capture and maintain audience interest, while various gruesome ‘stings’, two or three second snippets, had been regularly thrown in to offset flagging interest.

With tens of thousands of humans still very much alive and kicking it was way too early to work out realistic odds on which individual would be the last person to perish, but the potential for a hugely popular flutter was much in evidence, and speculation was already rife; the main contenders being gangsters, cops, or security guards, because of their potential to be packing a piece. But various commentators had also pointed out the prevalence of axes, monkey wrenches, and kitchen knives throughout the site. It was way too early to pick out a clear favourite, but one thing was for sure; given the human race’s vast and unnerving propensity for brutal dog eat dog survival, the outcome was sure going to be messy, and highly entertaining.

Such a spectacular start had made the show’s creator, Larr, a dastardly Drako from Drakonis, the hottest player in Dark Entertainment.

To outward appearances, this big hitter in the scary dream team wasn’t so much the sassy and sexy Faye Dunaway type from that 1976 Sidney Lumet classic ‘Network’, but more the Esther Rantzen type; a TV institution that lives for two hundred years. Rather like a giant tortoise. But still as cynical as cyanide, and as focused as the Hubble Telescope. Larr was obsessed by the tube - content, ratings, audience share, spin-offs, marketing, and all that guff. Nothing else mattered. Not even her family back on Drakonis.

She had begun her career in junior soaker entertainment. This brought her to the attention of the Head of the Network, who moved her up to Dark Entertainment, where she pioneered ‘Mad Glint in their Eyes’, for peak Saturday night Soaking. Then there was ‘Famous Last Words’. The hits just came and came, and Larr eventually worked her way up to senior level. And then one evening it came to her - a deliciously wicked idea for a new show, the ultimate in sick entertainment, something aimed towards all those middle-aged Drako who now found themselves stuck indoors at the weekend with the brood - Glastonbury Dead.

But she could never relax. She was only too aware of the economy of diminishing returns upon which her industry ran; the culture of endless excess, of having to come up with something that little bit more devious and downright nasty each time to keep Drakonis happy. Drako soakers were extremely fickle, and continually craved novelty. And anyway, you could only mess with Glastonbury Festival once. Like the little Grays, the legs were short. There could be no season two and beyond, only variations on the theme, and even then, Drako soakers would soon tire of the formula. Ultimately, something completely new would need to come along, to break the mould, to generate the headlines, to get all those juices flowing once again. But Larr knew that genuine innovation was very rare indeed. That said, and for the next six or so Earth weeks at least (a penned-in Glastonbury’s estimated shelf-life), Larr would bask in the media spotlight, and enjoy life at the very top of her game. The hit-maker had clearly done it again.

* * * * *

Of course, for the 130,000 cast of this freaky show, it was as if the entire world had been shrunk to the size of a festival. Many people carried around evidence of the outside world, of their existence before they trundled down to the West country in their rubber boots - a driving license, a t-shirt from Thailand, till receipts from Tesco’s, key chubs, whatever. But as for your actual living proof of the great out there, there was nothing. No search and rescue helicopters overhead. No fire-fighters. Not even a bloke on a distant hilltop wagging a stick and shouting, “The ambulance is on the way.” The great out there had become a memory, growing more distant by the hour. Glastonbury had become ‘it’ - its own world, a closed system, at least for the foreseeable future. And ‘it’ was seriously crowded and running out of food and water and Rizlas fast.

In Babylon, burgers were not just growing scarce, they were finite. With no rescue in sight, there would come a time soon when someone would stuff the last one down their gullet. And no-one knew this more than Reg, owner of ‘Greased Lightning Burgers’, who was down to his last five sacks of quarter-pounders. That was why Reg’s quarter pounders had become a tenner a hit, a tatty makeshift sign announcing blatant profiteering to an ever growing and increasingly hungry and pissed off queue of punters.

At business school Reg had learnt all about trickle-down economics, but the only thing that was trickle down about his operation was the grease that was snaking its way down his forearms. But he wasn’t completely inhuman…

“Hey, what did the Buddha say to the hotdog seller?” he called out to the wretched and the destitute, a firm believer that it shouldn’t cost anything to smile. “Make me ONE with everything.”

“Listen mate,” croaked Yvette from Essex, a long forgotten set of sparkly pink angel wings poking out from behind her shoulder blades. “We’re obviously stuck on this site until god knows when, with precious little else to eat than burgers and that, and you are clearly taking the piss.”

“What, you can’t expect me to give it away,” Reg snorted.

“Well… No.” chirped up the guy behind. “But what about on a donation basis? You’ve clearly made your money.”

Reg had indeed made his money, little realising that (to massacre that old Cree Indian saying) -

’When the last burger has been flipped,

The last onion ring fried,

The last chips dunked in ketchup,

Only then will we realise that money

cannot be eaten.′

Towards the back of the queue, two lads from South Africa were exploring the logical extension to that argument. In effect -

’Only then will we realise that money cannot be eaten..

But what about each other?′

“Ja mai bru,” said the one guy. “You may laugh, but it may come to that.”

“Ag man,” scoffed the other. “Things would have to get pretty kak before it comes to that.”

“Look what happened when that plane-load of soccer players crashed in the Andes back in the 70’s. They hadn’t even been stuck there for two fricken minutes when they started nibbling on bits of the physio and the reserve goalie.. They just went for it. It was totally mal. And it wasn’t like the bodies were going to go rotten or anything with all that snow and ice about. They just went into animal mode, just like that,” he clicked his fingers. “Animal mode. It was like they couldn’t wait or something. I tell you mai bru, just beneath the surface.”

Nothing, not even the obvious discomfort of most of the people around him, could shut him up.

“When it comes to cannibalism, obviously you’ve got to make yourself taste disgusting. And the best way to do that is to cover yourself in shit, head to foot. No-one’s going to want to take a chunk out of you when you’re covered in kak.”

* * * * *

Just inside the edge of the Glastonbury Dead Big Brother Gore-den, the Expedition party had split into three, each resigned to many more hours of inevitable slog. Security guards Spike and Wesley and the Channel Four camera crew had gone in one direction. PC’s Wilson and Stevens and eco-activist Dr Suzie Meyer, the other. Both groups given rations, a compass, and rope and tasked with trying to find a way past the double glazing, with strict orders to send up a flare just as soon as they made some kind of a breakthrough.

A puffy faced Chief Inspector Ash, Inspector Bumstead and PC McNally had begun the long trudge back to the site, the Chief keen to discover what had been going down back at the festival. As for reporting back on what they’d discovered on their travels, Ash hadn’t a clue what to say. The find had been so unexpected, so weird and other-worldly, so potentially explosive, that he figured that to simply divulge the truth must surely constitute some kind of a major breach of the Official Secrets Act. That said, it sure helped to have Greenpeace and Channel Four out of the way for a while, and Bumstead had even managed to convince Sasha Lush to hand over her rushes for safe transit back to the Green Zone. There would never be a better time to slap a D-notice, or rather a size eleven DM notice, all over her material.

Ash had been falling more and more under Bumstead’s spell. It wasn’t just the great kindness and care that he’d shown him after his accident in no-man’s land, or their ‘little secret’ from before. It was also that Bumstead seemed relatively chilled about the whole thing. There they were, faced with this huge challenge - dirty, exhausted, in the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis, and Bumstead always seemed to be able to come up with something new, a fresh perspective and a change of plan. Ash was in awe of this born leader, and more than a little envious about the effect he was having on the men. They simply loved him. Although, ‘loved-up’ by him would have been a more accurate description.

Bumstead had an old school pal called Roger who worked somewhere in Whitehall, and whenever they met up he’d divulge snippets of classified information, mostly secret contingency plans, in a hushed tone. Leaving a slightly sozzled Bumstead hooked on the intrigue and the sense of danger. The pal clearly got a kick out of playing spook the carrot-cruncher, knowing full well that the only action that Bumstead ever saw was Bristol City at home. Roger had this annoying habit of tapping the side of his nose just before popping off to the bar or the Gents and saying, “To know, is to die.” And to Bumstead these little rendezvous were the perfect antidote to the obligatory shopping spree with the Mrs, and the inevitable lame candy coated West End show.

He’d learnt a lot of stuff in the snug of the Frog and Lettuce. All about secret underground tunnels. How ring roads like the M25 would be used to lock off entire cities. How hardly anything was grown locally anymore, so that any amount of inner-city turmoil would invariably burn out in a matter of days because there wouldn’t be any food. His mate Roger even had a name for this thing. It was called ‘Operation Brave Defender’.

So, as they trudged back to the site, Bumstead found himself telling Ash all about what Roger would say and what Roger would do, seeing that huge expanse of shattered landscape as every bit as controlling as an orbital ring road bristling with tanks and sniper rifles.

“Find a way to control all the munchies on site,” said Bumstead. “And you then control the people.”

* * * * *

“I’ve had some crap jobs in my time,” Wesley whined, taking his right hand down from the side of the Glastonbury goldfish bowl and rubbing his shoulder.

The only way to stay in touch with the thing had been to constantly run a hand along its surface like some permanent display of ‘I’m a little tea-pot’, a painfully slow and surreal process.

“Will you stop your bloody complaining!” snapped Spike.

As an ex-military guy, Spike soon saw this colossal sheet of glass as the enemy, and the unrelenting task of finding its edge and a way out, as a long and arduous battle of wits, of mind-numbing tedium, of a hectic cramp in his arm, the like of which he hadn’t experienced since puberty. He certainly didn’t need Wesley’s constant whinging.

It was amazing how they had all grown accustomed to the presence of this freaky phenomenon. They didn’t have a clue what it was, or how it had got there and why. They knew it must’ve had something to do with why the greatest rock festival in the world had turned into a Mad Max sequel. It wasn’t electrified or radioactive, or shooting out deadly rays or anything, but it most definitely posed a hazard to anyone wishing to get passed it, especially anyone in the form of Help.

To be honest, they’d all grown bored with the thing, no doubt in much the same way as those apes would’ve eventually grown bored with that huge black obelisk in ‘2001 – A Space Odyssey’. Those apes wouldn’t have been able to sustain that level of hysteria and aggression against an inanimate object indefinitely. They would have eventually calmed down. Perhaps found a use for it as some kind of funky back scratcher. So it was that Spike and Wesley and the Channel 4 crew also found themselves leaning up against the thing, taking a sip of water and mopping their sweaty brows.

Sasha Lush was already dreaming of Cannes. She just needed some kind of break-through, a full-on rescue sequence, plus half a dozen quality interviews to sow-up what would undoubtedly become the story of the century. She’d been torn as to which group to tag along with, but Spike and Wesley were far more eye candy than the two cops. Spike had this Jane Austen vibe about him, even with the large plaster slapped across the bridge of his nose. He was dark and broody like a wilted bunch of red roses. While Wesley was gullible but loveable and would play well to US audiences. She was so glad that the rushes were safe. The Inspector had been a real darling to carry them back for her, and amazingly had even tucked a gram of coke into her jacket pocket. Sweet man. But unfortunately for Spike and Wesley, that had meant a lot of verbals.

“It’s one of the biggest nights in the showbiz calendar, right?” gushed Lush, as Wesley continued with the ‘I’m a little Tea-pot’ routine. “The whole world is watching. And Julianne Moore’s feet look like a pack of mini chipolatas. It was incredible!”

“Incredible,” muttered Spike. Caught between Wesley’s endless moaning and some kind of audio book version of Heat Magazine, his tactic was to simply toss back each last word like a soggy dog chew. “Scandalous.”

They’d been nearing Glastonbury Tor for some time; seemingly the only remaining structure in the whole of Western Europe. Spike secretly hoping that God’s windscreen didn’t extend all the way up that crazy incline.

“I’ve got a best friend called Tor,” said Lush. “Well, not actually a best friend..”

Wesley suddenly yelped and pulled his hand away from the edge of the goldfish bowl.

“Bro, check it! There’s blood on dis ting.”

“Don’t move an inch,” Spike ordered, launching into CSI mode.

“Quick! Quick!” snapped Sasha Lush, clicking her fingers towards her cameraman, Roy.

Shoulder height above the ground, suspended in mid-air, stretching a few metres up towards the Tor, a thick smear of blood dipped and rose like some kind of macabre flow chart. It could have been a power point presentation from the squeegee merchant of death himself.

“It’s blood, man. I’m telling ya.”

It was the first sign of life they’d come across since leaving the site. Perhaps the frantic last movements of some pathetic wounded animal. For Sasha Lush, perhaps the breakthrough that her epic story so desperately needed.

They immediately combed the entire area looking for clues, battling to stay upright on the steep incline, the apocalyptic Tor looming overhead. Sasha Lush clinging uncomfortably to the edge of the hill, racking up the tension and immediacy with a piece to camera. Her cameraman managing to frame-up both her and Wesley, as he searched around higher up.

“A breakthrough at last,” reported Lush. “Signs of life. Or possibly death. We’ve found traces of blood on the Glass Wall of Doom.”

Suddenly Wesley straightened up in the background, holding what looked like a large silvery nugget. As Lush repeated her piece to camera, swapping ‘Doom’ for ‘Terror’, Wesley tentatively opened up his find and sniffed the contents, immediately luxuriating in the exotic pungency of Daryl the Dealer’s highly prized but sadly lost tin foil stash of quality Kiff spliff from the Mountains of Riff. He smiled and quickly popped it into his puffer jacket pocket.

“..traces of blood on the Glass Wall of Terror,” Lush continued.

Wesley then spotted Daryl the Dealer’s lost Clipper. It was covered in a cheesy pastel portrait of Bob Marley, the patron saint of puffing.

“..now combing every inch of ground for clues,” Lush said. finishing her second take by gesturing up the hill.

Lastly, there was Daryl’s pipe, poking out from under a tuft of roasted turf. It was toughened glass, stubby, and dappled in lurid colours. Like some desperate fool had made a futile glass peace offering to the merciless Glass God that now trapped them all. Wesley looked very pleased indeed. There was no need to tell the others. He could just take a sneaky puff now and again. Put a bit of pot into that tortuous session of ‘My little Tea Pot’ to make everything seem a little more bearable. Where was the harm in that?

Then he spotted it. A dirty great hole. A stab wound in the side of the Tor. Their way in to the heart of the labyrinth. The entrance to human history’s greatest ever secret.

* * * * *

“Top Secret?!”

Inside the festival’s makeshift police station, Chief Inspector Ash had just finished summing up the results of their fact-finding mission to an early morning gathering of increasingly frustrated festival organisers and media.

“What do you mean, Top secret?” asked the landowner, Mathew Beavis, catching a sneaky sideways glance from Inspector Bumstead.

“I mean, regrettably, in the utmost interests of state security, I simply cannot divulge our findings at this present time,” said Ash.

“So you did find something?” said Beavis.

“I am not at liberty to say,” said Ash, palming the air.

Beavis was about to blow. Worthy Farm had been in his family for over three generations. If something had gone seriously a rye with his pasture fields he clearly had a right to know. He’d wanted to tag along with the exhibition but they’d convinced him that it made more sense for him to stay behind. But to now be kept in the dark because he hadn’t signed the Official Secrets Act, well, that was really too much!

“I am sorry Trevor, but that’s simply not good enough!” he said.

Over the years, the two men had shared a long and at times quite intimate working relationship. They’d first met in 1975. Ash had been a lowly PC when he’d been called out to Pilton High Street to investigate a human turd in Bert Scrutton’s front garden. Bert was blaming the hippies and had threatened to shoot Beavis. And Ash had promised to “have a word” with the dairy farmer come rock promoter. Thousands of words and countless complaints later, the two men had become sort of friends. Mrs Beavis had even passed on her recipe for bread and butter pudding to Ash’s wife.

Deep down, Ash was actually very uneasy about fobbing Beavis off, but what could he do? Even if he could find a way to articulate it, he wasn’t authorised to tell the world what he had seen. He’d come to the conclusion that whatever the hell it was, it had to constitute some kind of a secret to somebody. Someone out there, at the heart of officialdom, had probably had to cancel their entire holiday to sort this shit out, and it was more than his job’s worth to second guess them.

“If this keeps up, we are going to run out of food and water,” said Beavis. “We’ve already just about exhausted our medical supplies.”

“I’m glad that you brought that up Mathew,” said Ash, momentarily flicking his gaze towards his Inspector. “That’s why we need to immediately seize and contain all the food and water on site. Seize and contain.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” snapped Beavis. “Commandeer Babylon and order ten thousand falafels to go?”

“Look, we don’t know how long we are going to be in this mess,” said Ash.

“Or indeed what kind of mess we are in, in the first place, thanks to you,” Beavis persisted.

“So, we will need to ration until we do,” said Ash, straightening up and turning to his Inspector. “Set up that visit to the Hari Krishna’s. We need to commandeer their kitchen.”

* * * * *

Dr Suzie Meyer and PC’s Wilson and Stevens, had also been feeling their way along miles of improbability. Apart from announcing that their investigation had hit a glass wall, the eco-activist didn’t have the faintest idea what she was going to tell people when she got back to the site. It would be like trying to convince the world of the existence of Chem-trails, or any other water muddying roadkill that people loved to scrape off the information super-highway and serve up as scientific fact. What did this all mean? And even if she did know, it was likely that a large number of festival goers wouldn’t believe her anyway, simply because it was Greenpeace speaking. If a mountain of evidence couldn’t convince people of the threat of climate change, then no amount of peanut butter smeared on a mega shower door, would convince them of.. Well, what exactly? None of the evidence made sense. What the hell was she supposed to say?

One thing that had become perfectly clear though were the impacts. This was undoubtedly one of the biggest environmental disasters she had ever encountered. Settling on a sound scientific reason would just have to wait. The harsh reality was that for things not to get far worse for the tens of thousands of fun seekers trapped back at the site, everyone would need to pull together and dig deep to survive.

It was fine to rough-it for a weekend. You could always head back to civilisation, with its hot showers and fresh towels on the Monday morning. But what if there was suddenly nowhere to head back to? What if that nylon nightmare that you had planned to dump when you left the festival, especially now that it was soaked and covered in mud, became your permanent home? What if Glastonbury Festival was it, and you had to make do with what Armageddon had left you? Greenpeace could power a field or two with renewable energy, and part of the Main Stage, but what about all the rest? How do you sustain the lives of 130,000 people, crammed into 900 acres of land, with just a few token organic veggie patches, a small and already highly polluted river running through the site, and a smattering of privately owned solar panels? Like the wider society from which it sprang, Glastonbury’s sustainability was woefully inadequate, its ecological footprint now clearly stubbed on the sharpest table leg of realistic long-term survival.

They were about to call it a day, when they saw something in the sky. A distant flare. Spike’s team was sending word of something, over towards the Tor. Could it be the breakthrough that everybody had been waiting for?

* * * * *

“Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare”

Chief Inspector Ash was also searching for some kind of breakthrough - on the munchies front. Trying to convince the Hare Krishna’s to hand over their entire catering operation into state control. But the Krishna marquee was rammed, practically every inch of floor space taken up with refugees. A team of 25 devotees were working flat out serving up plates of rice, subji, and halavah to the hungry and destitute, all for the price of having to listen to the same bloody song (apparently a former Czechoslovakian no.1) being played over and over again at 38 Hari Ramas per minute.

No-one was supposed to crash out in the temple. Like McDonalds, the Krishna’s preferred a quick turnaround with their ‘sanctified’ happy meals, the optimum amount of bums on bales for their harinams. But seeing as many of the devotees had at one time or another lived on the streets themselves, they didn’t have the heart to turn people out, especially now.

Of course, the thing about the Krishna’s is that their whole set up only really looks and feels the part at a sunny Glastonbury. All those flowing robes and banging drums and enraptured faces, that always seem to look way too contrived for Oxford Street, really came into their own at a sunny Glastonbury, with wholesome food and the gentle jingle-jangle of a sacred cow to encourage a spot of Krishna semi-unconsciousness.

Muddy Glastonbury’s, on the other hand, seemed to make the whole Krishna thing look totally sad, those garish renditions of Vishnu and Shiva all soggy and curled up at the edges, those vibrant flowing robes splattered with filth.

Whereas a truly apocalyptic Glastonbury.

By the entrance Ash spied this young girl. She had apparently been sitting there for hours weeping, staring at a paper plate that had been thrown on the ground, watching as it became slowly trampled underfoot, its once proud whiteness smothered by muddy footprints, the festival gradually crushing and soaking and tearing it apart. Perhaps she was taking comfort from the fact that at least someone had once filled it with goodness and warmth, kept it on an even keel, had set it down somewhere gently and really appreciated it.

Further inside, across a sea of forlorn faces and sodden kneecaps Ash caught sight of Soodha, banging two tiny brass cymbals together, chanting, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna… Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,” over and over again. He looked almost the spitting image of His Divine Grace Swami Bhakti Vedanta (Krishna Consciousness’s number one pin up who passed away in 1977), especially when he looked up at the sky. But despite the calm demeanour, he had a reputation for being quite confrontational.

On the Thursday night, before the shit had truly hit the fan, he’d had a bit of a run-in with a guy called Chuck, a captain in the Jesus Army, as they queued for water. It had been, in effect, the theological equivalent of “Did you spill my pint?” Something Soodha, formerly known as ASBO Terry, used to ask quite regularly in the bars and clubs of Birmingham. It had gone something like this -

SOODHA: So… What is the meaning of the word ‘Christ’?

CHUCK: Christ comes from the Greek word “Christos” meaning “the anointed one”.

SOODHA: Ok. So “Christos” is the Greek version of the word Krishna.

CHUCK: (Nervously fumbling with the lid of his water butt) Er… Well…?

SOODHA: When Jesus said, “Our Father, who art in heaven, blessed be thy name” - that name was Krishna. Don’t you agree?

CHUCK: I think Jesus, as the son of God, has revealed to us the actual name of God - Christ.

SOODHA: Yes. “Christ” is another way of saying Krishna, the name of God.

You couldn’t slide a Rizla past Soodha’s world view. So, whenever the temple did gigs like Glastonbury, he was placed very much front of house, dealing with logistics, issues of security, and anything else that popped up. Things like senior police officers on the blag.

“How desperate can you get?” Bumstead muttered, taking in the whole scene.

“Excuse me. Excuse me,” waved Ash, trying to catch Soodha’s eye.

Soodha looked over and smiled.

“Can I have a word?” Ash mouthed, his vocals washed away by a monsoon of temple devotion.

Without missing a “Hari Rama”, Soodha merely stuck his left palm out and carried on nodding and smiling away to the wretched masses.

“Sir, I think he wants us to wait,” said Bumstead.

“No kidding,” said Ash, feeling undermined.

Sixteen “Rama Ramas” later, Soodha finally made his way over.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” said Ash, not wishing to waste any more time. “Under the present circumstances, and because of the growing scarcity of food and water on site, it would make me very happy if you would hand over control of your operation to us.”

But however easy Ash had thought it would be to appeal to the Krishna conscience, he hadn’t bargained for Soodha’s slavish adherence to Krishna consciousness.

“Firstly, I beg to inform you that without pleasing the Supreme Personality of the Godhead no-one can become happy,” Soodha replied, breaking into a cheeky grin. “Secondly, by pleasing the Supreme Personality of the Godhead, we please everyone, and there is no question of scarcity.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” said Ash, suddenly becoming very much aware that he was attempting to appeal to the better side of somebody dressed not unlike Wee Willie Winkie. Not only that, attempting to do it beside a huge freakish rendition of what looked like Barba the elephant. On a good day he’d have no problem handling a situation like this. But this wasn’t a good day. And the lack of sleep and endless stress was making everything seem very strange indeed.

“I am simply saying that a diseased man cannot live simply on the strength of the help of an expert physician and medicine,” said Soodha. “If this were so, then no rich man would ever die. One must be favoured by Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If you want to perform relief work simply by handing out food, I think that it will not be successful. You have to please the supreme authority, and that is the way to success.”

___________________________________________________________

Anyone not familiar with the ‘Science of Realisation’, might be forgiven for thinking that Soodha was showing an almost callous disregard for the present circumstances, preaching spiritual conceits in the face of widespread suffering. They might, therefore, be shocked to learn that the Krishna’s spiritual leader, His Divine Grace Swami Bhakti Vedanta, gave practically the same response to the Andra Pradesh Famine Relief Fund Committee back in 1972.

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“Okay,” said Ash, very slowly, his frazzled nerves beginning to tug on his left eyelid like a floppy sock. He looked across at his Inspector and caught the tail end of a smirk. Of course, Soodha’s deep Birmingham accent wasn’t helping matters.

“So how does one please the..?” he faltered.

“The Supreme Personality of the Godhead,” said Soodha, with all the patience of an experienced kindergarten teacher. “That is easy.

“For you maybe,” mumbled Inspector Bumstead, catching a look of bewilderment on Ash’s face.

“I therefore request you…” Soodha continued, touching the Chief Inspector on the shoulder. “…as a leading member of this society, to join this movement. According to Bhagavad-gita [3.21], what is accepted by leading men is also accepted by common men.”

“What are you saying?” said Ash, suddenly finding himself in the grip of a Wee Willie Winkie recruitment drive.

“I am simply saying that there is no loss on anyone’s part for chanting the Hari Krishna mantra, but the gain is great.”

Suddenly, another devotee came up to Soodha and whispered something in his ear.

“If you will excuse me for one moment,” he said, and walked away.

“Sir, I think he wants us to join the Hari Krishna’s,” said Bumstead,

“That’s quite absurd and out of the question!” barked Ash. He couldn’t help but wonder whether Soodha had an attitude problem, that deep down he was rather enjoying all of this. He certainly looked happy, as did all the other devotees, who had long since taken their seats on the plane of Spiritual Understanding, flying in the face of reason, bound for Deliverance. “Can you really imagine me attempting to sing that terrible song?”

“It can’t be any more demeaning than doing the samba at the Notting Hill carnival,” Bumstead laughed.

“That may be so,” said Ash. “But I wasn’t wearing riot gear at the time. Anyway, think of the men. I’ve already made a fool of myself on more than one occasion. I’d never live it down.”

“Sir, as the man said. There is no loss on anyone’s part for chanting the Hari Krishna mantra,” Bumstead said, smiling. “But the GAIN is great.”

Ash noticed a sudden look of hunger in Bumstead’s eye. He followed his gaze. There, behind the marquee, serenely nibbling on a pile of straw was the temple’s resident sacred cow, Gita.

“Oh, I see,” said Ash, getting a mouth-watering vision of home, of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding smothered in thick gravy. “Are you mad?” he said, suddenly remembering who he was. “That cow is private property, and also highly revered by Hindu cults the world over.”

“Consider it a perk of the job,” said Bumstead, his eyes widening like a freak show hypnotist. “God knows we’ve earned it. A policeman cannot live by pita bread alone.”

“Look, there’s no way that I am going to indulge these idiots!’ said Ash, managing to wriggle free of Bumstead’s crazy notion. “If they’re too stupid to realise the mess we’re in then there’s nothing we can do. I am sure that when the mob starts looting their stuff, they’ll soon come running to us for protection. But I’ve had more than my fair share of…”

“Look out, here he comes,” Bumstead interrupted.

“Sorry about that,” said Soodha, shaking a scattering of flour from his robes. “Where were we?”

“Look, I simply haven’t got time to stand here and listen to you rabbit on about supreme whatnots,” Ash leapt in. “Will you help us out or not?”

“The Sankirtana Movement of Krishna consciousness is very important,” said Soodha, brushing aside Ash’s impatience.

“Yeah, so you keep telling us,” Ash interjected.

“Therefore,” Soodha continued, rising above Ash’s obvious irritation like a waft of Basmati rice. “Therefore, through you I wish to appeal to all the people of Glastonbury festival to accept this movement very seriously and give us all facility to spread Krishna consciousness throughout the site.”

“Which means what, exactly?” said Ash, cocking his head to one side.

“It means.. Give us the Main Stage.”

* * * * *