Field music

I have been on a field trip this weekend, deep in Hyde Park, under the al fresco celebrity patronage of Stevie Wonder (Saturday) and Paul McCartney (Sunday). It was extremely kind of both these very busy men to arrange large-scale concerts purely to facilitate my work.

Here I have recorded my findings.

WARNING! Contains Level 2 swearing, specifically 'piss', 'twat' and 'wanker'.

1) A surprising number of women have undertaken the formidable fashion challenge of the jumpsuit. Well done, you plucky number. Apologies for expecting you, any minute, to break into some belly-dancing evening class dance-of-the-veils (for the strapless voluminous versions) or inhale sharply through your teeth and assert that you won't be able to come back and finish the job for more than a week as these boilers are notoriously tricky to source parts for (for the rest). I'm not very 'fashion' these days. (You see how I have carefully seeded the wholly erroneous impression that I once was. Smoke and mirrors, my friends, smoke and mirrors.)

2) The mass uptake of maxi dresses has become an epidemic. I'm yet to be struck down with total conviction, despite having bought one from New Look recently to wear to a wedding on Saturday, at which I anticipate there will be at least two other women in the same dress, all much, much more tanned than me. Not such an achievement since I am definitively the whitest woman in Europe, and thus, most likely, the world. The lure of the maxi would appear to be that it hides the now proverbial multitude of sins, but I fear that for all except the most willowy, it makes you look like you are all sin, giving the effect, from the neck down, of a Dalek in a valance.

3) When it comes to sun cream, more would appear to be more.

4) Sweet, sweet wanker-related schadenfreude is an intoxicating drug. Example: mouthy, beer-and-sunshine-marinated moron, balding, mid 30s – let's call him Pork Pie Hat Twat – attempting to persuade a much younger, cooler bloke to share his spliff (my lexicon of drug words is approximately at the level of Cliff Richard, probably), because we're alike, you and me, even though you are much younger and better-looking. I get you, you get me, yeah? We're just vibing off each other. My weed is your weed. Even though this is mostly your weed. We're like brothers, right? And no one's gonna stop us smoking a very small amount of soft drugs right in the middle of a 50,000 crowd of people and thus far from the eyes of any kind of authority whatsoever.

It has come to my attention through my recent concert-going history that the unsociable troublemakers at such events - testing the staff, vexing their meeker counterparts in the audience – are not 17-year-kids attempting to shrug off authority pre-adulthood, but despo 35-year-olds trying to assert that even though they now have a middle-management job at HSBC, a gold membership at Fitness First and a gas barbecue, they are STILL PRETTY REBELLIOUS. YEAHH! I'M TOTALLY STANDING ON MY SEAT, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN TOLD TO GET DOWN BY A SECURITY GUARD! SCREW YOU, 'THE MAN'! I AM INVINCIBLE!

Urgh.

Anyway, Pork Pie Hat Twat's phoney, stoney bonhomie was slapped down with such a gratifying look of 'Seriously, mate. Not. Cool,' by the younger man smoking, it was a privilege to witness it. There followed a short but embarrassing scene of begging which was dealt with mercifully swiftly.

(By the way, Pork Pie Hat Twat, Sainsbury's called. That white raffia trilby you're wearing belongs strictly behind their deli counter, on the head of someone who slices up finest breaded ham, and occasionally their own digits, for a living.)

5. In happier findings, it has now been proved that it is possible for me to emerge from a gig in Hyde Park without someone else's piss on my feet. At an REM gig a few years ago, in the so-called Golden Circle (sometimes the jokes don't even need writing), the man next to me pissed on the ground twice, showering my toes in splashback. On Saturday, Pork Pie Hat Twat's friend pissed in an empty beer bottle in front of me, set it down on the floor, and almost immediately knocked it over doing the type of dancing favoured by overweight men at Oasis concerts, sending a shallow tide of human waste towards my sandals. Luckily, this kind of thing doesn't seem to happen at a Paul McCartney concert. Some members of the audience would probably rather be voluntarily catheterised than have to urinate in a public place, or, in some cases, even use a Portaloo.

6) If you are a blind 60-year-old soul-funk pioneer, derided for some saccharinely commercial hits later on in your career, and now filling out those spangly, slightly tribal smocks a little more than you used to, I would suggest that performing an elaborate keytar solo lying down on the floor of the stage, during the very first number of your set, is a pretty cool way to prove that you've Still Got It.

7) All the Autumn Sunset hair dye and Frog Choruses in the world could not stop me loving Paul McCartney. Nor any amount of 'groovy' dad-banter:

'Who's ready to have some rocking fun tonight?'

Answer: ME.