The nearest there is to popular culture Clubs are the 'acoustic' clubs where the performers are invariably young singer/songwriters of a fairly high musical standard.

Chorlton FC, last night. Last club night before Christmas and it was buzzing. 13 acts on before the break and another 8 after; a couple of people reappeared in various combinations, but there were at least 20 individual performers, several of them younger than me. One song each; by my reckoning, between a third and a half of those 21 numbers were traditional, and most of those were from these islands. Most of the rest were covers (e.g. John Prine, Wynonie Harris); some singer/songwriter stuff (mostly very good), but not much of it. Two acts had music stands and one a discreet crib sheet.

So: not all clubs are dying; some are doing very nicely, thankyou.

And: not all the clubs that are doing well are succumbing to GEFF, or using the non-horse definition. (In the past I've thought Chorlton was doing both of these, but last night made me feel a lot better about the place.)