Just remembered another one:
This gig had filtered through a number of people until it arrived at me. I was told by a "friend" - "If you can't do it can you find someone who will?" Not knowing too many people (I'd not long moved into the area) and the ones I did know had already refused, I thought I'd take it - reasonable money and they wanted a folk singer. When I got there I found that it was a gentleman's Round Table type of do and what they actually wanted was someone like Mike Harding, Billy Connolly or Jasper Carrott. What they didn't want was me singing some gentle love songs, or songs about cotton mills, Whalermen on the ocean, or what steam railways were like to work on. After an awkward few minutes where people were looking at each other and wondering what was going on, I managed to get a few of the more humerous songs that I do together and carried on. The phrase "Take the money and run!" was never more appropriate.
Why does folk music have this image of rude songs and stories with some people?
I've done a few things in my local pub recently but I've made damn sure that the people sat around me were people who actually wanted to listen to me.

Cheers

Mark