I discovered the best use for a selfie stick, apart from taking selfies…

I've just come back from a hedonistic long weekend at the world-famous Glastonbury music festival. Located in the English county of Somerset, for five days this rural slice of farmland becomes the most densely populated place on the planet, with around 210,000 people squeezed into 1.4 square miles.

Along with my tent, sunscreen and wellies (just in case; thankfully I didn’t need them), I packed a selfie stick that I have in for review, figuring the festival would be a fantastic place to put it throught its paces, not to mention useful for getting a some group shots of me and my pals with the great and good of rock ’n roll as a backdrop.

I’d also bought a Bath Rugby flag to bling up my tent a little – my home team had just won the top-flight English Rubgy Premiership league title a couple of weeks previously, hot on the heels of coming top in the sport's Premiership Rugby Cup and European Rugby Challenge Cup, so I was keen to celebrate my side winning the treble. Come on, you Baaaath!

I’m no stranger to a music festival, but Glastonbury is a whole different kettle of fish. The sheer number of people can be overwhelming, and getting from A to B in a group is challenging, to say the least. One moment you have your buddies in line of sight, but in the blink of an eye, they can be gone, nowhere to be seen, and regrouping can take an age. Pre-arranged meeting is equally troublesome: “Meet you to the left of the Pyramid Stage up the hill a bit” is about as helpful as giving instructions for finding a needle in a haystack.

That’s when all the flags you see people carrying around makes sense. It's less easy to lose sight of your homies when the leader is lofting a banner in the air. Equally, finding the exact location of your friends in a crowd is so much easier when there’s a flag fluttering above them.

Well, I already had a flag. So all I needed was some kind of pole to tie it to. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to be carting around a massive, unwieldy flagpole all day long. If only there were some way to fashion a stick that I could fold up when not needed…

Then it hit me: my selfie stick. The KraftGeek JustTap Magnetic Phone Tripod extends to a not-inconsiderable five-and-a-half feet long, enabling it to be hoisted well above the crowds, yet collapses to a very manageable 13 inches, which I could stow in my tote bag when everyone was present and correct.

What’s more, as its true purpose is for use as a tripod-cum-selfie stick, I could drop it gently on its end, and its three feet would automatically pop out, so the flag remained extended and upright without me having to hold it up. It worked brilliantly for keeping everyone together as we weaved our way through the throng, and proved to be an excellent marker for locating the rest of the group when meeting up to watch a band we were all keen on.

And it wasn’t bad for taking selfies either.

I’ll bring you my review of the KraftGeek JustTap Magnetic Phone Tripod just as soon as I've recovered from my Glastonbury experience, and I have no doubt that it will make it into our guides to the best selfie sticks and the best phone tripods.