Please VT - don't elevate me to any sort of guru. I just believe that folk music is important and deserves to be researched and replayed and re-arranged and enjoyed - and that we should all do it as well as we can, trying to do better, keeping life in who we are and where we come from. That does not include stopping other people from doing it.

I am deeply saddened to see one who does deserve to be a guru (at least in terms of research and scholarship) want to shut people out.

I am not surprised to see some others pour acid. They do little else.

As to the rest of you - the bulk of you - I remind you of the prayer of the Pharisee. "I thank thee Lord that I am not as others". Get over yourselves. AFAIK Martin Carthy can always find something nice or encouraging to say. 99.99% (or more) of you are not as good as he is. That includes some of you who seem to think you are. Wake up. Smell the coffee. You aren't. What qualifies you to judge others?