AT this year's Green Man Festival someone forgot to turn off the shower, pull back the curtain of cloud and plug in the sun, as the heavens opened up on Thursday and dropped a deluge that pretty much strutted its stuff over the course of three days of music, mayhem and majesty in Glanusk Park.

Yet damp and drenched though it may have been, dismal and despondent it was not, and one festival goer who certainly had a flaming time and did his best to set the night on fire was the wicker Green Man himself (Pictured), who kindly offered to share a few words with Chronicle reporter TIM BUTTERS, before he was ritually set alight and disappeared in a puff of smoke on Sunday night.

Sitting perfectly silent and stock still in a field like some curious freak as the unrelenting rain beats down turning all before it into a sea of mud that laps at your feet is not the best festival experience.

Add to this a horde of bemused strangers who surround you excitedly whilst taking a series of unending pictures documenting your predicament and the tide begins to turn even more in the direction of misery and woe.

Yet I think the final straw would be, the knowledge that come the end of the festival you are to be set fire to as fireworks fly and gathered crowds cheer.

Such was the fate of the sacrificial wicker Green Man who sat stoic and serene on his throne of fallen trees throughout the mellow and triumphant 2010 Green Man Festival.

Warm and inviting as the event itself, and with a dry and weathered voice as old as the surrounding mountains that backdrop the main stage perfectly, Mr Man explained to the Chronicle, "It takes more than a drop of rain to dampen the spirit of the 'Green Man', and despite the downpour, or perhaps because of it, people pulled together to make this the best festival yet. And I intend to burn all the more brightly in celebration of this."

When asked what particular highlights of the festival sparked his interest and fuelled his fire,

Mr Man said, "I particularly enjoyed the thunderbolt from the blue that was the UK premiere of long-lost Leonard Cohen film, Bird on a Wire shown on Thursday night which is a warts-and-all journey documenting the crooning troubadour's 1972 European tour.

"Saturday night headliners The Flaming Lips and their potent brand of pantomime, pop, and poetry got my pulse pacing and my heart racing. Glitter gathering, smoke spewing, bubbles brewing, and confetti cannons discharging, whilst thousands of people howled like wolves and meowed like felines. What more could I ask before my annual cremation?"

Aside from the Flaming Lips, Mr Man also expressed fond memories of Billy Bragg's barnstorming set, which was, "rousing, roaring, inspiring, incendiary and shook me to my roots."

As far as Sunday was concerned, Mr Man found that the crest of the wave Mumford and Sons are riding at present to be nigh on overwhelming and alongside thousands of others, 'just went with it like driftwood' as the 'posh Pogues' drew the weekend's biggest crowd with a blistering and impassioned performance.

The Green one added, "Moving away from the music, Punk poet John Cooper Clarke was also in fine fettle with his firecracker form and explosive energy in the literature tent."

Before popping off to meet his destiny with the naked flame, Mr Man explained, "When it's all said and done I found the festival to be another surefire success. Besides which, I quite like the rain you know. It makes things grow - like trees."

Turning his thoughts to his ritual sacrifice, the Green Man told the Chronicle, "I don't want any of the gathered assembled to fear of my demise.

" I am not in thrall to the laws of the mortal realm. I shall rise again from my fiery bed like a phoenix from the ashes and return once again next year, bigger, badder and greener than ever before."