The bucket list is slowly diminishing. One off the roll call is watching 'the Goat’, Lionel Messi, in his spiritual home the Nou Camp this summer. The match tickets have been purchased and all I have to do now is work out how this Cinderella is going to get to that ball.

One wannado, which is, sadly, a never-will-do, is my long dreamed of weekend at the Glastonbury festival. It was always the annual teenage outing of choice: camping, getting grimy, listening to some mega recording artistes, sampling copious beverages and maybe finding some romance as you pulp yourself away in a field somewhere, alright.

Sadly, I can never darken Eavis’s backyard due to hayfever. Glastonbury is the peak of my pollen season and, try as I might, I am aware that spending the weekend in a huge field without bathing facilities as I sneeze furiously, cough relentlessly and act like a red-eyed Oscar the grouch would be no picnic.

That said, I am an avid follower of the festival on television and am amazed at the changes undergone over the years. It is now a circus with an array of non-musical, experimental, new-age claptrap to ‘enjoy’. Aware I have missed the boat, I am no longer regretful. My idea of fun is not standing in the baking heat with a teenager’s armpit in my face as I listen to Eavis introduce the millionaire Corbyn before the multi-millionaire headline act takes to the stage as they urge us comrades to reject the corporate powers that be.

In its original guise, it was huge attraction culturally, but it has now lost its sheen having turned from a celebration of rock music into a cash cow charging teenagers £220 a pop. At the princely sum of £1 entry during its formative years, visitors could enjoy the types of act on which reputations are built: T-Rex, Bowie, The Smiths, The Cure, along with U2 and the Stones, as the reputation grew and grew. But, despite a hiatus in 2018, the signs have been visible for some while that it is on a downward trajectory.

The Foo Fighters put on arguably the greatest headline show of all time and brought the magic back for a while in 2017, but they were but a build up for the next night's headline act, the bed wetter’s dream, Ed Sheeran. The moment he took to the stage was the moment Glastonbury died. It was as out of tune with what the festival should be about as it was some years previously when Rolf Harris, pre-chokey, publicly murdered Led Zep's Stairway to Heaven with a didgeridoo.

And then we have this year: Kylie and Stormzy. Now, the grime overlord is no doubt a big wheel on the scene and is extremely charismatic to watch due to his well-honed stagecraft. He should also be lauded for breaking the mould by becoming one of the first black headliners to play the old lady, which, as a progressive festival, should really have happened decades ago. The truth is though that his music stank. He has star quality, but this was not the forum for him, He has a back catalogue as long as your fingernail, no one knows the words as his music is still predominantly underground, and shots of the crowd showed that as much as they mustered the impression that this was the best thing since sliced bread, it patently wasn’t.

As I sat safely on the sofa with a cold Coors in hand watching the box, I found myself longing for the Stones, The Who, or, my god, even Foreigner, to show me what love is.

Eavis needs to drop the politics, move away from the mainstream and do what the festival has become synonymous with: rock music. Reputations are hard gained, yet easily lost and it has long since forgotten its roots.

The first Glastonbury originally billed itself as a ‘pop, folk and blues’ festival, yet moved away from that soon after. For what it’s worth, my advice is to drop the grime, get some leather in and leave the political posturing for those in a position to posture.

A ticket price of £220 makes the shebang a middle-class youth event and he is unashamedly is playing to the crowd. As a footnote, I find it hard to disagree with Stormzy who put it so eloquently in his hit: "You’re getting way too big for your boots, you’re never too big for the boot".

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher