Don’t smile at me, idiot

I don't like music festivals. They're always full of idiots in jester hats who come up to you while you're trying to mind your own business and say stuff like, "Hey mate! Remember to smile!"

Well, excuse me if my default facial expression isn't a gigantic beaming grin. Frankly, it would be weird if it was.

Who would you find more approachable: a bloke with a look of vacant indifference on his face or someone with a big, dribbling, inexplicable smile? Exactly.

Anyway, this weekend I accidentally wound up at Bestival on the Isle of Wight. It was full of people smiling for no good reason. It was also full of mud.

As the best man on my mate Hack's stag weekend, I hired a luxury campervan to protect us two from the horrendous, unsanitary conditions.

I hadn't accounted for the other twelve members of the stag party rejecting their washed-out tents after the first hour and relocating to our motorised refuge.

For 48 hours, these mud-caked animals crammed into our humble van, eating our food, drinking our beer, setting fire to our curtains and generally making our lives a misery.

I almost cried myself to sleep on Friday night. Then, on Saturday morning, I carried a plastic tank containing ten litres of their lagery urine across a muddy field and disposed of it down a portable toilet covered in other people's crap.

As I was walking back across the field, a bloke dressed as a giant lobster bounded over, tried to kiss me on the cheek and said, "Cheer up, it might never happen!" I pushed him over, kicked some mud in his ear and strolled back to the van feeling just a little bit better. ·