Ladies and Gentlemen of Glastonbury 2010 ... use wet wipes.

If I could offer you only one tip for the festival, wet wipes would be it.

The short term benefits of wet wipes have been proved by scientists; whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice, now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your wellies. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your wellies until you get there. But trust me, when it’s all over you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much mud lay before you and how fabulous they really looked.

You are NOT as knackered as you imagine.

Don’t worry about swine flu; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to go to the cash machine when nobody else is. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 5am on Sunday morning.

Do one thing at the pyramid stage every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s guy ropes, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Text.

Don’t waste your time on queue jumping; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The crowds are big, but in the end, we all have to eat.

Remember the good bands you see, forget the bad ones; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old wrist bands, throw away your inhibitions.

Shout.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know which bands to watch.. The most interesting people I know didn’t know after 5 festivals which bands to watch, some of the most interesting veterans of Glastonbury I know still don’t.

Get plenty of water.

Be kind to your cars, you’ll miss them when they won’t start.

Maybe you’ll get back stage, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll take children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll walk around at 4.00am, maybe you’ll dance in the Dance Village on your 75th wedding anniversary.

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your flag, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance.

Even if you have nowhere to do it but in the the Silent Disco.

Wear the head phones, even if you put them on backwards.

DO NOT read direction signs, they will only make you feel confused.

Get to know where your tent is, you never know when it’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your neighbours; they are your best link for orientation and the people most likely to stick with you in a flood.

Understand that bands come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the more days that pass, the more you need the people you knew when you arrived.

Visit the stone circle once, but leave before it makes you hard; jump in the mud once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Walk.

Accept certain inalienable truths, ticket prices will rise, festival goers will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young the music was better, festival goers were friendlier and everyone respected the farm.

Respect Worthy farm.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you.

Maybe you have a gazebo, maybe you'll have a six birth tent; but you never know when either one might be under six feet of water.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time it’s Sunday, it will look like shi*

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing a contact lens from the mud, wiping it off, spitting on it and sticking it back in your eye for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the wet wipes.

Copywrite Neil Templar (www.pilton.com) 05 05 2009.