Overheard at Latitude

Latitude just closed up shop for another year. Four days of sun, music and face glitter in the surroundings of lovely Henham Park, Suffolk.

Suffolk. As in right down South. Seven years ago, the BBC summarised it as having “gained a slightly desultory reputation for being a festival that caters to the chattering classes”.

But I’m not one to prejudge. Is Latitude really the crème de la crème of the white middle class festival experience? To find out, I washed off the mud from T in the Park, donned my finest harem pants and set off across the country to mingle with these “Southerners” and bring you back the things I heard in Henham Park.

The couple walking past my tent within an hour of me arriving

“So it’s not all from people’s generosity, it’s from a trust fund?”

“Yeah, but that’s kind of from people’s generosity.”

Okay, this is going to be a good weekend.

The group of lads talking about their times in Southeast Asia

“It’s great when you’re young because you walk around confused and bleary-eyed, but everyone else is doing that too. It’s like Ibiza, but really poor.”

An anonymous sportsman

“If the sun comes back out, we can play a game of badminton.”

Falafel

“I hope I can find some falafel somewhere”, said a girl in the campsite. Cute.

Another girl on the way to the staff briefing

“I identify as heteroflexible, actually”.

Her again, on the way back

“I don’t like a lot of DJs. They just press a button and then stare at the audience. And not in an artistic way, in a douchey way.”

Falafel

“Oh my God, I need falafel”, said an entirely unrelated one on the way to the staff briefing.

One girl’s school leavers hoodie, adorned with the names of all her classmates

Double-barrelled surname. Penny. Double-barrelled surname. Alfred. Two Vincents. One of whom has a double-barrelled surname.

A group of literary critics on The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

“That book was so fucking sad”.

Okay, kind of goes without saying.

“It was an emotional rollercoaster.”

Wait, doesn’t that imply there were peaks alongside the troughs then?

Our generation’s James Dean

“I never really rebelled against my parents.”

“Really? You wore a suit for a year. Isn’t that a kind of rebellion?”

No. No it is not.

Someone I suspect never did too well in Physics

“The less you wear in a sleeping bag the warmer you are. Because of the radiation.”

Falafel

“If I don’t find some falafel, I will actually freak” came a third.

Come on guys, why would there be falafel at a fes—

The girl who’s working on more levels than you even know, on her bright gold bumbag

“I hope nobody thinks I’m wearing this seriously. I hope everyone knows I’m wearing this as a joke.”

The modern hunter-gatherer

“Have you ever eaten pigeon?”

“Yes, Daddy used to bring it home all the time.”

“Did he shoot it?”

“No, he had other people to do that.”

And finally, fucking Jonathan

“Jonathan, why does your essentials bag have brioche in it?”