The Square Festival, Borth, 24-26 July 2009

This job over with, I thought I’d make myself some lunch, and also offered the security guys a sandwich each, gratefully received by three of them. It occurred to me that, despite the constant moaning, there could be far worse places to be parked than right next to security. The next thing that happened was so funny it couldn’t have been scripted. Certainly not by Alanis Morissette anyway. After the topic of their pay had dominated their conversation for the previous half an hour, who should come along next but someone in charge of finance needing to get on to the site. Like most others, this poor man, despite being a fellow member of staff was shouted at and abused. He could not have come back with a better line, though, when he reminded them that he was the person in charge of their pay! Reluctantly, the security relented, and he was allowed on the site.

I then set about putting out the stuff of my “stall” – the books, magazines, posters, and t-shirts – before putting up the tent, something I’m never much good at doing, and a couple of calls to my brother, the tent’s owner, were required. I also met my neighbouring stall owner, a man by the name of Jean. Jean, his wife, the guy on the stall next to him, Nick, and his wife, became good friends over the weekend. This was despite the fact that Jean was a little peeved that, like him, I was selling orange t-shirts, but at around half the price of his! For this reason, I was dubbed Nasty Nick, while the other Nick was Nice Nick. It was all in good humour though. Jean, who will shortly be having an interesting-sounding book published, had a knack of telling not especially good jokes, but laughing so heartily that you couldn’t help but laugh too. And what made it all the more funny for me was that he looked just like a friend of mine!

Due to some problems with health and safety clearance, the public weren’t allowed onto the site until around 3 hours after the scheduled time. I decided I’d saunter down to the queue, and try and rouse their spirits by selling them magazines and t-shirts. A few people wanted shirts, but they all wanted XL, which I didn’t have on me. Billy the Badge, who sells badges and t-shirts at Cardiff City games, had been right when he’d told me XL is usually the most popular size, but at least I had an idea that the shirts might sell.

It was between 8 and 9pm when the first punters approached my stall, so not many sales on Friday night. The first shirt was sold to an entertaining guy called Barry who sported a fantastic rainbow coloured hat. Also, a very cute couple wanted one each. The conversation was brief – “I’ll have an orange one”, “Ok, I’ll have a blue one then”. After promising to be back tomorrow with the required cash, they left to go and have a good snog a few yards away. I was quite happy to have been in some ways the instigator of this romantic moment, and pleased when, next day, they came bounding back up to me to buy the shirts.

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