In my recent experience, the old-style resident group has largely vanished. So there is no longer the focus and continuity. There is also no longer the same faithful support from paying punters. I see a connection.

Again, I've only got in-depth experience of one club, but I think this is wide of the mark. The club I go to works on very much this basis - a roster of regular floor singers, who can expect to do two songs any night they turn up on time, or one if there's an act on. But the audience divides pretty evenly between performers, performers' partners and friends, and listeners - and some of the non-performing listeners are there week in, week out. It's not either/or, in other words - having a lot of floor singers doesn't mean you don't have a lot of non-performing punters. I'm more concerned about the low number of performers who use their spot to do traditional material, but that's another discussion.

To some extent I think there's also a difference between what gets the punters in and what appeals to performers (apart from 'the chance to hear the sound of their own voice', obviously). I remember one guest night I went to where it looked as if the club had had an audience transplant - I was just about the only regular floor singer there. The act was this highly professional band who played contemporary material in a tasteful pseudo-Irish style - they were highly polished and professional, but (at least to my ear) they were bland and they were dull. On the average singers' night you don't see very much that's polished and professional, but you don't see anything dull. I can understand the non-performing punter occasionally wanting something that slips down a bit easier, but I don't think the rest of us can really be blamed for giving this kind of thing a miss.

There are, of course, performers who can do a skilled and professional set without lapsing into blandness - but in my experience they're pretty thin on the ground. I think this is another effect of the decline of the old folk clubs - anyone who's tried to make a living out of this stuff in the 80s and 90s will have had to pitch to audiences well outside the folk circuit, so it's not surprising if some acts end up sounding a bit Radio 2.

I guess John's strictures on floor singers aren't entirely unfounded. I remember our MC talking about one of the first acts we had at the folk club in very excited tones - It'll be a bit different, it'll be £3 in and we'll give him the whole evening, it'll be brilliant! Three quid in and I don't get to sing? Sod that for a game of soldiers, I thought.

Which is how I missed seeing Tom Paley.