That Winnipeg idea of punching holes on the tickets to stop you buying more than four beers a day sounds weird. Do they frisk you for cans? I suppose you could bring along a few non-drinking cronies to ensure a bit of spare capacity.

Nobody has mentioned the Irish Festivals yet. The Fleadh Ceoil is different from any festival I've ever seen in England. When I've been there it's basically been a combination of very competititive competitions mostly fort young peiople, and a confusing range of sessions in every pub in town - with a brilliant singing circle tucked away somewhere, if you could find it. Plus a crowd on the street, and the Guinness Gig Trailer belting out the strangest combination of music for them. (And one idea I'd like to see tried out elsewhere is that the Fleadh is peripatetic - a couple of years in one town, and then it moves on to another for a couple of years.

And the other festival that is really different that is in England is the "National", held in Sutton Bonington, near Loughborough, Leicestershire in April, in an Agriculturtal College - and that is more like a university conference than anything, with lectures and seminars as well as sessions and cobncerts and dances, but enormously enjoyable. I'll be there I hope - any other Mudcatters planning to get along?