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Despair, futility, and several varieties of animal waste: anyone for camping? Despair, futility, and several varieties of animal waste: anyone for camping?
(12 days later)
When Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his 1944 play Huis Clos that “hell is other people” , it’s probably safe to assume that he had never been camping.When Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his 1944 play Huis Clos that “hell is other people” , it’s probably safe to assume that he had never been camping.
While the thought of the great Left Bank pontificator struggling to erect a tent through driving rain in a murky Welsh field is intrinsically amusing, the sense of existential despair that camping elicits is not. The futility of human existence is roundly brought home when, after pitching your tent, you get into a spat with your neighbours about toilet access, only to find that the next morning their dog has taken a very large dump just outside your tent. At least you assume it was the dog. An uneasy truce develops but, frankly, your weekend in the countryside is ruined before it’s even begun. While the thought of the great Left Bank pontificator struggling to erect a tent through driving rain in a murky Welsh field is intrinsically amusing, the sense of existential despair that camping elicits is not. The futility of human existence is roundly brought home when, after pitching your tent, you get into a spat with your neighbours about toilet access, only to find that the next morning their dog has taken a very large dump just outside your tent. At least you assume it was the dog. An uneasy truce develops but, frankly, your weekend in the countryside is ruined before it’s even begun.
I first camped in 1987 at Glastonbury, and though festival camping is not typical of the experience as a whole, it set a disastrous precedent that each subsequent trip has, to a greater or lesser degree, followed. A friend and I had hitched down, arriving at midnight to try to put up a monstrosity of canvas and wood – the type of thing that a three-year-old might draw if you asked them what a tent looked like. When I stuck my head out the next morning, I discovered one of Michael Eavis’s Holstein-Friesians unleashing a hot torrent of urine down the side of it. If this is what camping is like, I said to myself, you can keep it, and there has been very little in the intervening years to make me change my mind.I first camped in 1987 at Glastonbury, and though festival camping is not typical of the experience as a whole, it set a disastrous precedent that each subsequent trip has, to a greater or lesser degree, followed. A friend and I had hitched down, arriving at midnight to try to put up a monstrosity of canvas and wood – the type of thing that a three-year-old might draw if you asked them what a tent looked like. When I stuck my head out the next morning, I discovered one of Michael Eavis’s Holstein-Friesians unleashing a hot torrent of urine down the side of it. If this is what camping is like, I said to myself, you can keep it, and there has been very little in the intervening years to make me change my mind.
Despite this I probably go camping two or three times each summer, mostly because my partner loves to sleep out under the stars. No greater love hath a man for a woman than that he would lay down with her on a wheezy air mattress in a garishly coloured nylon coffin. But the joy of camping, the simple pleasure in it that other people seem to take, has always managed to evade me. In fact I can’t think of anything less pleasurable.Despite this I probably go camping two or three times each summer, mostly because my partner loves to sleep out under the stars. No greater love hath a man for a woman than that he would lay down with her on a wheezy air mattress in a garishly coloured nylon coffin. But the joy of camping, the simple pleasure in it that other people seem to take, has always managed to evade me. In fact I can’t think of anything less pleasurable.
A typical trip will begin with a fruitless excursion to the attic to see if that’s where we threw everything last September. A succession of minor squabbles about who is responsible for losing the mallet or forgetting to dry out the tent after the last trip ensures that you get off to the best possible start. Packing the car takes almost as long as the journey itself and, when you arrive, it’s clear that all the best pitches have already been taken. Once you put up your tent (another squabble) and unpack all the food you won’t eat and the alcohol that you will run out of, you check out your nearest neighbours: on one side is a middle-aged couple who sit at their folding table without exchanging a word as they sip their drinks, before retiring at 8pm precisely, and on the other a large, boisterous family whose children constantly kick their ball across your pitch and who have taken advantage of the electrical hook-up to have a TV blaring.A typical trip will begin with a fruitless excursion to the attic to see if that’s where we threw everything last September. A succession of minor squabbles about who is responsible for losing the mallet or forgetting to dry out the tent after the last trip ensures that you get off to the best possible start. Packing the car takes almost as long as the journey itself and, when you arrive, it’s clear that all the best pitches have already been taken. Once you put up your tent (another squabble) and unpack all the food you won’t eat and the alcohol that you will run out of, you check out your nearest neighbours: on one side is a middle-aged couple who sit at their folding table without exchanging a word as they sip their drinks, before retiring at 8pm precisely, and on the other a large, boisterous family whose children constantly kick their ball across your pitch and who have taken advantage of the electrical hook-up to have a TV blaring.
It seems almost inexplicable that someone would bring a TV with them on a camping trip, but the more you camp the more you begin to understand it. Because the big secret about camping is that it is boring. Profoundly, mind-numbingly boring. There is absolutely nothing to do. You may think you are going to spend a few days living a cosy bucolic idyll, but the reality is that you’re renting a few feet of muddy field from a farmer who’s decided to diversify by buying a prefab toilet block and pretending it’s a functioning bathroom. Once you’ve got up ludicrously early and burned your breakfast, you’re basically killing time until you can decently start to drink yourself into oblivion again.It seems almost inexplicable that someone would bring a TV with them on a camping trip, but the more you camp the more you begin to understand it. Because the big secret about camping is that it is boring. Profoundly, mind-numbingly boring. There is absolutely nothing to do. You may think you are going to spend a few days living a cosy bucolic idyll, but the reality is that you’re renting a few feet of muddy field from a farmer who’s decided to diversify by buying a prefab toilet block and pretending it’s a functioning bathroom. Once you’ve got up ludicrously early and burned your breakfast, you’re basically killing time until you can decently start to drink yourself into oblivion again.
You could go for a walk, of course, and take in the majesty of the natural British countryside, but unfortunately there is nothing natural about it. That cosy bucolic idyll is a Victorian fantasy. We flee our crowded, built-up cities and towns to pitch our tents side by side in another equally manmade environment, to live cheek by jowl for a few days with people we wouldn’t normally give the time of day to, thinking that we’re getting away from it all. But unfortunately we and our neighbours on the campsite ensure that it all comes with us.You could go for a walk, of course, and take in the majesty of the natural British countryside, but unfortunately there is nothing natural about it. That cosy bucolic idyll is a Victorian fantasy. We flee our crowded, built-up cities and towns to pitch our tents side by side in another equally manmade environment, to live cheek by jowl for a few days with people we wouldn’t normally give the time of day to, thinking that we’re getting away from it all. But unfortunately we and our neighbours on the campsite ensure that it all comes with us.
Perhaps Sartre wasn’t so wrong after all: hell is simply other people camping.Perhaps Sartre wasn’t so wrong after all: hell is simply other people camping.