I agree with the general consensus that the man is a fool to be dissing British folk music in the way that he has. It suggests a general lack of any kind of knowledge of the subject.

Some of the comments here do bother me though, e.g.

Rather confirms my suspicion that world music is just pop music in foreign languages.

I have, over the years, have a great opportunity to see, on a more or less weekly basis, some great music from all around the world, from Central and South Americia, to various African countries, to many European countries, to the Middle East, to former USSR republics, to the Far East. I cannot support Anahata's view above, the majority of this has been superb traditional music of those areas rather than "pop music in a foreign language". Unfortunately, the "world music" label does suffer a bit from the problem McGrath describes thanks to its use by record company marketing execs but "folk music of the world" does contain some pretty amazing stuff in my personal experience.

Keep up the great work Eliza and Co!

Peace

moo