Credit: Found On Internet

Rewind to April 1st. I’m sat on a stationary train, somewhere between Southampton and London Waterloo. Hundreds of thousands of people are ringing the Glastonbury ticket line, and jamming the internet with their online ticket purchasing attempts. All I’ve got is a mobile, and the battery’s just run out.

“Can I borrow your tent?”, one of my flatmates asks when I finally get home. The misery of failure is further compounded by the fact that she, and every other person I have ever known seems to have bagged a full compliment of tickets. My own festival equipment – tent, sleeping bag, the works – is quickly looted by the lucky few.

But in this age of digital television, there’s no need for me to miss out on the Glastonbury experience. The BBC is boasting about its multi-channel, cross-media coverage. The weather in London is almost as wet and miserable as it is down in Somerset. I’ve got a fridge full of non-descript European beer and about 200 moody cigarettes. I set about getting the closest thing to Glastonbury as I can get, without leaving my own home.

Sadly, even Music Towers scribes have to work for a living, so I miss the first few hours of the Friday cooped up in the office. My mobile rings. “I’M WATCHING WINEHOUSE!” My flatmate is shouting so loudly into her phone that it comes out my end as some kind of bestial digital roar. My boss is less than impressed. I guess this is the Absentee-Glastonbury-Experience equivalent of being stuck in traffic on the way to the site.

That night, I’m six cans of special brew down and I’m heckling Kasabian. Okay, so they’re on the TV and they can’t hear me – but if I was staggering around half-cut in the crowd they wouldn’t either. But their sound does seem a bit quiet, even after I turn the TV up so loud the neighbours start banging on the front door.

I order some takeaway food, ignoring the good place we usually order from and picking that slimy greasy kebab joint that seems to do pizza as a side-thought. That way I’ll be ripped off, possibly get some kind of bowel parasite, and have rubbish food, all at the same time. Which as close to genuine festival grub as you can get in West London.