“A chat window and a badly-shot DJ stream is not the same as being in a field full of mates, mud and Mandy” exclaimed everyone.

Virtual Festivals grew in popularity in March this year when the low-level gangsters and corporate mobsters that control the planet’s festivals were told they were no longer able to gather large groups of Gen Z’s behind a fence and sell them pints of Carling for £7 a go.

The answer was to move the experience online – but as the internet has discovered, the experience is as authentically festival-like as a forced work-drinks Zoom call.

“The festival experience” one punter told Wungerground “is not about watching a screen showing an EDM DJ playing a pre-recorded set. Well, OK, maybe Tomorrowland is, but that’s not what I meant.” 

“I want to queue for two hours to be grope-searched, have a sunburned nose and welly-singed leg hair, I want to pay £10 to have access to the set times and I’d like my only meal to be a tray of noodles and a little bag of nonsense”

“If I wanted to replace an exhilarating, life-affirming real-life experience with the deep regret that comes after staring soullessly for an hour at dead-eyed wankers performing in their bedrooms… I’ll stick with Porn Hub.”

Despite no known incidents of violence or disorder, the media has described the men as “angry”, “bald” and with a look that suggests they are “unhappy with what our country has become”.

“There was always going to be one demographic most excited about the prospect of sitting two metres away from the nearest stranger” said an anonymous onlooker. 

They continued: “Comfortable enough to slag-off youngsters, foreigners, labour voters, gays and the Chinese from the comfort of their bar stall rather than behind the image of a Union Jack flag and pitbull on Twitter.

“Perhaps at 24 I’m too young to understand the appeal of pubs? But I can certainly tell you the prospect of sitting amongst what looks like every single man who has been an extra in a shit UK gangster movie does not an attractive proposition to me or any of my friends one bit”.

Wunderground managed to obtain a comment from Brian, who claims to have been waiting “forever” for this day to arrive (since the end of March when he was last in the pub): “I walked to the newsagents this morning and got my copy of the Daily Mail, then down Nell’s Cafe for a full English which I devoured on a park bench, and now I’m here queuing with my pals. Real life has resumed and I love it.”

Behavioural experts employed to monitor British drinking trends and new-normal pub culture are believed to have been told “there’s no more work” and “prepare to be furloughed again because of these piss-heads”.

Speaking from a Wetherpoons beer cellar, behavioural expert team leader, Jeremy Jones, spoke to Wunderground about the experience: “We’ve all seen how Brits act in Magaluf and Ibiza, so this was to be expected. 

He continued “With no more booze, no cunt wanting to drink J2O or Appletiser, and us not having the intelligence at hand to monitor other common watering holes such as park benches, car parks, outside McDonalds or random alleyways – I told the team to go home and prepare for the worst.”

One reveller was keen to share her annoyance at the situation: “It’s a load of bollox if you ask me – running out of booze on day one. I only had forty-seven pink gins, five bottles of Prosecco, thirty-two Jaeger Bombs and nine pints of Guinness. How the fuck did they run out when everybody was taking it as slow as me?”

Festival-goers, undoubtedly some of the most alert people on the planet for the duration of the event, have been given the full confidence of the government due to their extreme alertness; and so festival licences will now be allocated as per usual.

“We understand that fighting the virus is all about staying alert at this stage,” a government official said. “It’s not really about staying home and containing the virus, even though thousands of people every week are still dying. The Prime Minister is under considerable pressure to open up the economy, so we’re going to chance this ‘stay alert’ thing and see how many people die. If the death rate gets too high we’ll simply distance ourselves from the stay alert thing, excuse the pun!” chuckled the insider. 

“We’re confident staying alert will work. We’re not sure why we even bothered with social distancing or respirators, or any of that kerfuffle. Enjoy your drinks, sniff your sniff, just stay alert and if you see the virus, give it the finger from me!”

Prime Minister Boris Johnston last night announced the beginning of the ‘stay alert’ phase, and in the coming days, the government will publish a health and safety booklet to be delivered to homes throughout the UK which will outline the methods you can use to stay so incredibly alert, that if traces of Covid-19 are hovering invisibly in the air, you can quickly dodge them and run to safety. 

“It’s very important that if you see Covid-19 while practising extreme alertness, that you do not confront it” continued the Prime Minister.

“It’s an unwelcome foreigner and it’s extremely dangerous. You cannot see it, but I presume it smells funny, like curry or soy sauce or something. Be especially careful if you see a virus carrying a LIDL or an ALDI bag, and don’t under any circumstances venture inside a Chinese or an Indian without your wits about you.”

“Stay alert and dodge the virus if it comes near you. Carry a baseball bat perhaps. Or some Nunchucks.”

Well… do if you can, and don’t if you can’t. You get it by now.”

“Thousands of girls are waking up with plain looking lips everyday – it’s such a frightening time to be alive” said one former trout-face. 

The announcement of a further three weeks of lockdown has sparked enormous backlash from females across the country, with many claiming they’d “happily catch coronavirus” if it means getting their lip-fix.

“I’ve had crabs, chlamydia, piles and cold sores in the last year, coronavirus wouldn’t even touch the sides mate” said 28 year old hair technician, Vikki, from London.

Multiple crowdfunding pages have been set up, along with an organised show of support due to take place this Saturday at 10pm “I think it’s only fair that the general public show us some support like they do NHS workers” continued Vikki.

“10pm is peak time as well, coz this is when we’d usually be pounding Prosecco, getting on the packets, sloshing around some swanky bar looking for lower league footballers, local DJs or former Love Island contestants to try and suck off”.

The government update also confirmed a further strain on the NHS in the form of a number of incidents involving “self-lip-growth”, including a 36 year old lady shoving her face into a beehive, a 19 year old girl with a nut allergy eating peanut butter, one girl repeatedly punching herself in the face and over 1,000 women sticking their mouths inside the hoover hose, all with the hope of getting that blow-up doll look.