Yes, I'm still around, and still paying attention to threads like this.

At first I was mainly concerned with understanding what gesture, or hand position, was actually being described, who did it, how did it originate, what was its purpose? I think this has been pretty well answered.

Then there is the further question of who uses the descriptive phrase of a "finger in the ear" to disparage a certain kind of music, and why?

Jack Campin: Your theory that Ewan MacColl's communist connections account for the scorn with which folk music is viewed by "Tories" is interesting, but I don't think Pete Seeger was ever scorned in quite the same way. Yes, he was blacklisted in the 50s and banned from TV, but he eventually recovered from that, and at any rate, it was only the politicians and TV executives who banned him; I don't think he was ever rejected by true folk-music fans.