Heard on the radio yesterday: "Dave Jones [manager of Sheffield Wednesday] will be talking about his future, and that will be coming up very shortly..."

One thing about the future: from a certain angle it looks very like the past. Back in the 70s, "Genial" Jim Lloyd was eased out of his Folk On Two slot and replaced by a programme called Folkweave, presented by Tony Capstick. This was the same Tony Capstick who was one of the most fluent and hilarious performers on the folk scene at the time, but for some reason he became stiff, tentative and mirthless whenever he sat in the Folkweave chair.

Spool forward twenty years or so, and there's "Genial" Jim Lloyd again being eased out of his Folk On Two slot and replaced by a programme called The Mike Harding Show, presented by...you know the rest. At the time, MH had earned himself a well-deserved reputation as being one of the most fluent and hilarious performers on the folk scene, but his weekly bulletins from the cowshed over the past fifteen years have been, with grisly regularity, stiff, tentative and mirthless.

So my prediction is — Mark Radcliffe? A mere stalking horse. Expect within the year the glorious return of "Genial" Jim, 95 but still firing on all cylinders.