Hey, thanks for the Guthrie plug, Martin - much obliged.

As for the wee little drummer, well, we haven't met, but he seems to think that he knows a lot about me - everything from my retirement plans to the hardness or softness of my hands. He sits in judgement about my Guthrie project, which is both 'faintly ridiculous' and 'a bit sinister' - 'faintly ridiculous', I assume, because of my soft hands and my retirement plans which, I repeat, he knows nothing about; a judgement based on a ludicrous and antique perception of the class divide in an era when some of the poorest wage slaves are dressed in shirts and ties and are chained to computer terminals. My project is 'a bit sinister' because Guthrie is dead and because my programme isn't about Jack Hudson ... well, my job and my avocation is to teach American history - and to try to do it through interesting ways, such as live song - and since I'm dealing with history, the odds are that I'll often be dealing with dead guys - sorry. (No disrespect to Jack Hudson, who I'm glad is alive and well and whom I hope to hear in person some day.) As for the wee little drummer, if it's indeed his habit to introduce himself to perfect strangers by mocking their good intentions and efforts, then I can't really say it's a pleasure to meet him.