Clearly, I need to get out more.
I was in my local Super Valu today, and I noticed a high concentration of teenagers hanging around. 
It is not normally a teenage hang-out, it being a supermarket, so I wondered what had attracted them in. I also noticed that a lot of the girls were wearing wellies. Colourful, designery wellies, but wellies nonetheless. I had never seen their like before – some had patterns, or high heels, one pair even looked like biker boots. Was this the new thing? Were they taking over from Ugg boots? I would have imagined they were a bit smelly to be fashionable. Still, I thought, those’d go down a bomb at a muddy music festival.
That’s how slow I was.
Outside was a bus loading up with young wellie-wearers, many hauling camping equipment with them. They were, of course, going to Oxegen, the HUGE festival which is taking place over this weekend down in Punchestown Racecourse in Naas, County Kildare. I suddenly felt a few years older.
Oxegen is supposed to be brilliant, and it’s on my ‘To Do’ list. But that list has been getting pretty long lately. Still, I hope it’s brilliant for them, they looked like they were buzzing already. They’ll have to keep their fancy wellies inside their tents at night, of course (they probably won’t smell any worse than their feet). I don’t know what the facilities are like at the festival – I’m sure they’re as good as they can be when you’ve got tens of thousands of people out in a field – but don’t forget the bog roll, guys.
