"Folk Club of the Year? The concept is a joke! I am a friend of Sam Lee and a great admirer of him but really The Magpie's Nest is just at the beginning of what it can achieve. How about, for example, Ted & Ivy Poole who have now been involved with the running of the weekly Swindon Folk Club for 50 years? No, Sam and The Magpie's Nest have a more "sexy" media-friendly appeal."

I don't disagree with you Vic, but I think you've got unrealistic expectations of what you're going to hear on Radio 2.

I think it's a fact that you simply couldn't HAVE a folk awards ceremony existing on Radio 2, with that kind of money behind it, with that kind of media profile, if it really did understand, acknowledge and reward the grassroots folk music scene. It's on Radio 2. It's always going to be a bit Mike Harding, a bit Smooth Operations.

There's certainly a place for an folk awards ceremony that has its ear to to the ground. But that place is never going to be Radio 2.

Would it make much difference to me if those awards ceased to exist, or had never existed? Probably not. But it'd be a shame if they were to vanish. Nancy Wallace was nominated for a Horizon award. Messrs Kirkpatrick and Gaughan won awards. That's good enough for me.