Oxegen of bad publicity

We know that part of the festival experience is meant to be the joy of roughing it, but not to this extent: cleaners for the Oxegen Festival this week were given a stable to sleep in.

Admittedly, it was good enough for the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the 52 cleaners were understandably unhappy. Especially since the floor of the stable was concrete, and apparently there were only about one third as many mattresses as people.

It took a call to the police to persuade the cleaning company to try and sort something better out - inflatable mattresses on kitchen floors.

Of course, Oxegen had outsourced cleaning to a third party, but still, you'd expect there to be some sort of corporate shame; perhaps a sense of apology?

The event's promoter, MCD, said it "worked with contractors in advance to ensure all staff requirements are fully met." Each contractor was responsible for its own staff welfare, it said.

The cleaners sleep like the Holy family; Oxegen's promoters behave like Pilate.

[UPDATE: company boss says conditions 'better than Glastonbury']