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Bless them for they have not sinned, unless not washing and eating lentils is cause for a few Hail Marys, but rather praise them for they have spent large amounts of cash bankrolling a smaller, much more select festival in the Suffolk boondocks.

Once again this year the festival will lose money and yet it shouldn't be seen as a charity case. Latitude is not a mewling baby trying to grow up in a world of Goliath-like festivals.

Moses was a basket case too but he turned out to be a born leader, and it will be the same for Latitude.

You see Latitude's slow rise to maturity is being subsidised.Ìý But who would be kind enough to support an event for the Annabelles and Tarquins from the good local shires so they can be waited upon by uniformed hired hands and watch their trendy Indie bands in peace?

Well it's the muddy masses in Somerset, the 80,000 who'll be at Reading this year and the 70,000 at Leeds.

They deserve a big thank you, for it is they who allow the Latitude festival goer to gambol over the green fields of Henham, gaze upon the multicoloured sheep, listen to the fiddlers suspended from oak trees and drink their smoothies without encountering a querulous queue.

Size matters

Numbers at Latitude are - for the time being - being kept artificially low.ÌýTwenty thousand are coming and yet the site could handle a lot more, but does anyone really want that?

Melvin Benn takes it easy

Certainly not Melvin Benn, the head of the organisers Mean Fiddler. He seems almost proud to be losing money on this festival set as it is in one of the most beautiful sites in Britain.

This is his personal dream of what a festival should be. And for him size really does matter.

Inspired by the more genteel continental affairs, Latitude effortlessly seeps into your pores with a mix of contemporary music plus the best in art, comedy, cabaret, film, literature, theatre, performance art, dance, sculpture, workshops, restaurants and bars...

If you go this year, just take a breather at some point and remember it the way it was.

Mammon will have his day, profit must come, and even Mr Benn has to wear his banker's black suit after his adventures in the changing room.

One day Latitude will become too big, too popular and too commercial, but not just yet. Stuff the profit for a while longer and let's have waiter service, lemon teas, Pimms on the grass, massage huts and, oh yes, a few bands and comics as well.
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Guy Cambell is the Waveney reporter for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio Suffolk.