Zen and the Art of Mud Diving

Went to the beer festival again last night. Contrary to belief it isn't full of pipe smoking bearded men wearing chunky hand knitted sweaters discussing the merits of sparging and mashing. Just several thousand people quaffing some decent ale. In amongst those thousands were a few that should be given a good slapping. Like the guy in front of me, an older man who looked like he jotted down train numbers in his spare time, he asked for a half of "old Firkin" the guy behind the bar handed it over.
"That's not a half." said the train spotter.
"That it is." said the Camra volounteer, "in fact you've got a little bit more than a half."
The train spotter then proceeded to gently tip his excess beer onto the ground. Hardened drinkers gasped with dismay, some desperately tried to catch the beer as it fell.
Then he had a careful look at the level in his glass, still not satisfied he poured some more away. The dismay turned to anger as people made comments like "If you don't want to drink the beer you should F**k off."
But train spotter was totally oblivious to all of this and wandered off to find a corner to stand in.
We had the usual mud divers. People who for one reason or another saw fit to thrown themselves headfirst into the mud. There was plenty of that, it's like the Somme down on the embankment, people soon having to learn the Glastonbury walk to get through the ankle deep mud.
One mud diver, was covered head to toe, he was scrabbling around, couldn't find his feet, he vomitted not once not twice but three times then fell in it. He rolled around some. No one wanted to help him. Some drunk helpfully kicked him and said "You can't stay there you'll catch your death."
"leave me alone." said the mud diver.
Then the guy who came out the beer tent, proceeded to make the Japanese Bow stance for ten minutes, whilst clearing his system all over the grass, then marched purposefully back to the bar.
Oh and all the guys lined up at the fence because they couldn't be arsed to wade through the mud to the toilets. One of them was trying to ........ well we weren't really sure what he was trying to do but he put his old boy through the chain link and held onto the fence with his arms high above his head as if he was hanging there and proceeded to water the grass in front of him. AND we have the photos to prove it. Blessed are the digital cameras.
The five of us walked home, I heard someone laughing and turned to see we were now six. We'd been joined by a fellow drinker walking and chatting amongst us.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked him.
"Oh we go way back?"
"Do we?"
"Yeah way back to the traffic lights."
"Right! So who are you?"
"I'm "............ " your local conservative councillor."
"But you're pissed."
"That's right."
"You've got my vote."

Well I've got to go now. I have a gig in a few hours at The Exeter Arms in Helpston. Should be fun.
Tomorrow we're doing two gigs one in the afternoon and one in the evening at the Fox in Folkesworth. Then monday it's The Wheatsheaf in Peterborough. Come on down, it'll be fun.

Meanwhile have fun and drink sensibly, that's raise pint mug to lips gently tip and swallow, as many times as you see fit any other method may be frowned upon.

Rock on dudes