So, there you have it in a nutshell.

Folk clubs are dying because the average age keeps tabs with the calendar, as I said above.

HOWEVER, I did then pose the question that if that is so, why do we have the likes of Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy, Spiers & Bowden etc? Surely something must be right?

So the thread continues mentioning Long John Baldry, Bob Dylan, Barbara Dickson.... No wonder younger people feel they are intruding on other's nostalgia. The above were long past folk clubs as a career move when I started going as a teenager in the late '70s.

(Our local bits included Barbara Dickson used to play here. See him over there? He refused Paul Simon a gig in 1964 etc etc etc etc.)

I love folk clubs for the inclusive and spontaneous singers nights, for the platform they provide for emerging talent still awaiting that big contract in mainstream circles, for the many mates over the years; but please don't expect me to actually enjoy a sandalled weirdbeard sticking his finger in his ear, crooning through every key known and then some, about the hardships of being a Norfolk reed cutter.

Mind you, I will applause politely, make a mental note to have an empty glass ready the next time he gets up and tell all the others at the bar why I still have an infinite capacity for turning up.

I watch football, but don't expect the manager to throw me a shirt, (although this season....) but folk clubs aren't like that. I never saw them as a spectator sport. Far more inclusive than that.