What I find really distressing is the folk establishment. The way it looks down on musicians who do other gigs than folk clubs.

Who is this "folk establishment?". How do you know they look down on musicians who play other gigs? I have a folk musician friend who plays loads of ceilidhs, Festivals, Burns nights, blues, country and western and in a rock band occasionally - if asked.

He's never told me anyone has looked down on him.

Speaking as a radio DJ - albeit after two whole weeks and four hours of shows - I don't look down on anyone. I might not play their music - but that is a different thing. Some of the people whose music I am unlikely to play include the huge folk stars.

And the criteria is the music, nothing to do with where they play. So far I have played people who have done the Albert Hall and also people who have sung in the pub just down the road from me.

For what it is worth I stopped going to folk clubs on a regular basis because they were full of people who were singing the teenage diary they wrote twenty years ago and now their marriage had broken up (or stayed as everlasting love) they wanted to trace the roots of that break-up (or whatever) by singing in public about it. Those singing traditional songs were not very good and were totally introspective.

Why on earth would anyone want to spend their evenings listening to a string of people like that? I used to go to folk clubs knowing that there was a good chance I would hear someone who was good.

The chance of that happening nowadays is remote - apart from professionals and wannabe professionals.