Glastonbury new-agers protest WiFi

Claim ley line interference

The new-age residents of Glastonbury are up in arms about the council's deployment of WiFi, claiming the wireless networks are interfering with their chakras and generally getting them down.

The news comes courtesy of The Telegraph, which reports local hippies are up in arms (well, placidly protesting) about the already-deployed network which they claim is interfering with local ley lines and damaging their health despite their deployment of Orgone-based generators: to absorb the negative energy obviously.

The network was deployed in May and cost the council £34,000 with the hope of helping business and encouraging tourism, but local new-agers are complaining of the usual headaches and hard-to-pin-down symptoms that are endemic where wireless technologies have received sufficient publicity - though strangely absent where publicity hasn't been so forthcoming.

In a stunning display of ignorance a spokesman for anti-radio campaigners Powerwatch states: "Unlike the food and drink industry whose products have to go through extensive pre-market trials and testing, there is no safety net for wireless devices," which comes as a shock to those of us who've crouched down salt mines trying to get electrical equipment though CE testing.

The council reckons the deployment meets all appropriate laws and regulations and will be reviewing the project in the new year, so the future of the deployment will depend on what proportion of Glastonbury's 9,000 inhabitants feel threatened by radio waves.

But perhaps those sensitive to radio signals are drawn to Glastonbury, though perhaps they should be heading for Millom, where stranger things are afoot. Presumably such people make themselves scarce before Glastonbury-festival-sponsor Orange turns up and puts a bloody great base station in the middle of a field for the duration of the event. ®