Day Five - our morale was higher, but we had entered the delusional world of the festival survivor. There was carnage all round us - burning portaloos had become smouldering lumps of plastic. Tents were covered in a fine layer of white ash that didn't bear thinking about. The fields were, by the time we got up, half empty. We didn't fancy staying around any longer with the pervading air of doom, so we made our excuses and left. As with any great military retreat, there were casualties. In a shortsighted move which was to cost us later, bottles of water were discarded. Also buying it were several varieties of food (mainly bloody Nutrigrain ©) and the mandatory leftover loo rolls. However, there was no bloody way we were leaving beer behind, so onto our backs went the full crate of Stella that somebody bought on Sunday morning.

Climbing Damon Hill, choking on carbon monoxide, we listened to our Argos radio on a rucksack. The queue for busses was less freestyle than previous years, as it was caged in by fencing. By the time we reached the front we were gasping for a drink, but our water bottles were three fields away. Using Paul's excessive cheekiness, we managed to cadge orangeade off a young couple ahead of us. We tried to swap some Stellas for them, but by Tuesday we couldn't even give our beer away and had to pay in the international currency of comedy.

Russ in his grumpiness disowned our group, while everyone else marvelled at our fund of crap jokes. "Comedy all the way", as we were heard to say an annoying number of times. Possibly though the compilation tape on the bus was a mistake - after a weekend packed with the world's best bands, who wants to hear a tape containing Northern Uproar and Audioweb? By the time the world's most packed train arrived at the station, we were flagging. Sleep was snatched on the journey, but rolling into Sheffield homesickness took over. As a final show of their now considerable mercenary talents, Dave and Glenn "acquired" the beers we had nursed home. If they're reading this, can we have them back now please?

So, that's about it then, the story of how we survived the ups and downs, the mud and fires, the burgers and hot dogs. We saw some great bands, we saw some not so great bands, and some of us saw Oasis. We had a laugh too (Friday evening 2314 hrs I've been informed). And although festival going is increasingly a young man's big money game, we reckon we've still got a career left - what we lack in speed (and cannabis) we more than make up for in festival spirit - Aquavit.