Aidan Smith: I'd stand next to a hedge-fund manager if I could be at Glasto

The last Glastonbury festival in 2019. When, in a post-Covid world, will we see the next one?

Think of something which sums up our lives then compared with now, which illustrates the joyous abandon that would result in a £200 fine if we were to repeat it today, and surely Glastonbury would be as good as any.

Now, think of something which begins small and edgy and modest regarding long-term prospects. Which becomes corporate and is invaded by the middle-classes, but no matter because not even glamping hedge-fund managers in Hunter wellies and boxfresh T-shirts bearing ironic death-metal slogans can ruin it. Which the marketing men boast has made us world leaders again. Which would definitely have to be represented in a time-capsule telling other worlds who we were, possibly using a clump of mud. Which previously you couldn’t ever have imagined not being in its usual place at the same time of year only right now you can’t see how it can possibly resume.

That’s Glastonbury again, of course, the music festival having just been cancelled for this year. Covid has done it down twice now and surely there must be some doubt about when it will return and even if it does what it will look like and whether the magic will have gone.

Sir Paul McCartney was due to headline last year, the event’s 50th anniversary, and was ready for 2021 as well. But we’re a long way from “When I’m Sixty-Four” and he’s a long way from the 24-year-old who wrote that song. If Glastonbury were to happen in 2022 and the festival took place over its traditional weekend then he’d have celebrated his 80th birthday just a few days before. Will we still need him by then, will we still feed him?

Will it be thumbs up from Macca for Glasto a few days after his 80th birthday?

Oh yes, I think we will. The great thing about wishing yourself enjoying live music once more is that you use the shuffle button in your memory to skip the experiences you might prefer to forget.

Queues, over-pricing, losing stuff, hunger, sunstroke, trench foot, assault and robbery, your tent being used as a loo, bad trips where you think your girlfriend has broken up with you, your girlfriend actually breaking up with you and what’s more during the song you thought would bind you together for ever - none of this will seem so tragic over the coming months as we near the festival season and it dawns that once again there won’t be one.

You will simply want to be back enjoying the music, no matter that your view of the stage is obscured by a sea of giant flags or a wanton exhibitionist in a bikini top jiggling about on her boyfriend’s shoulders for the benefit of the