Media execs who are usually plucked and bronzed shed their straightening irons and careful designer shaving to lollop around in mud like wallowing walruses.
Unbelievably, these are the same self-styled fashionistas who pour themselves into expensive suits and restaurants to broker that media partnership of the century in the warm confines of The Ivy. And yet, here they are, quite willing to risk their carefully coiffed "signature" hair and recently bleached teeth to swill beer with pagans and hallucinate with hippies.
Chucking that BlackBerry into the "vintage" bag, clad in pink tweed print wellies and scruffy old "painting" jeans, they commit themselves to crustydom all in the name of music? Or perhaps just for a peek at a mud-splattered Kate or Gwyneth. Scornfully, they smirk when confessing they are "so sorry" that you couldn't visit their smelly little tepee in the mud, or use their backstage pass to meet the celebs or endure the snoring of 100,000 messy revellers. Actually, I'd rather shove my fist down a filthy toilet than live in one for five days just to keep up with the Joneses.
It may surprise the planners and PRs, sales guys and execs that some of us cross off the days until you trip-off in your Prada windbreaker, and we positively rain dance at the thought of you attempting to text the office from the middle of the wilderness, standing on one leg in the pigs'swill praying for a signal.
While you're up to your knees in mud admiring Coldplay from a mile back, we're having blissfully productive days in the office. That creative gets signed off, the proposal or pitch goes out and we know that we haven't been a hypocrite about the important things in life – namely, expensive wine, a clean posterior, unrivalled chance with Bob in sales and, more importantly, the coverage on TV with the aid of a blanket and comfy chair. We get into work on time because there's no queues.
We sit in our empty offices and indulge in the usual banter and bust a few salsa moves because no one can see. We get tons of work done and even have time to chant our own rather rude renditions of the principles of marketing. We send endless e-mails to you and cackle, imagining sweaty muddy paws scrabbling through bags to find that BlackBerry.
Ah yes, bring on the festival season. Very rarely in life can you get the entire run of the office all to yourself... except when it comes to Glastonbury!
Jenny Beckman is head of marketing for LBC 97.3FM and LBC News 1152AM
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