Glastonbury isn't the real thing any more so here's why you're better off not going

And so to the Wimbledon of the popular music calendar, Glastonbury. No longer the annual hippy mud bath of yore, where onsite refreshments were limited to warm tins of Party Seven and five-quid deals from a bloke in a van called Dodgy Bob, Glasto, as the BBC's team of usual-suspects presenters calls it, is now so swank it comes with helipads and penthouse-style villas, butlers, drivers, Pimm's bars, wicker baskets of fresh strawberries and free wellies. (I only made the last one up.)

At least it does for those that can afford it. But that's not the Glasto the BBC want you to see. Their money shot is a wide pan of the never less than "vast" and "spectacular" crowd where shirtless semi-bearded males are required to carry shiny-faced, multi-tattooed females on their shoulders, limbs waving, mouths earnestly mouthing the lyrics.

Then zoom down onto the stage where whatever right-on musical madcaps happen to be cavorting convincingly. Hopefully with several giant balloons bobbing over the crowd and onto the stage. What japes!

Cut back to the suitably rustic-looking onsite 'studio' where Jo Wiley, 60 in July, Zoe Ball, 55, and Lauren Laverne, 46, lead the new kids of the Beeb's Glasto coverage - Nick Grimshaw and Clara Amfo, both 41.

Every summer the BBC rolls out the red carpet for Glastonbury. A whole weekend of numerous BBC TV and radio channels online and elsewhere.

Like Wimbledon, you can pick which court - I mean, stage - you want to watch. But bad light never stops play.

There are so many themed tents and stages the only way to sample them all is by not going to Glastonbury and watching it on telly.