Having never met MaColl nor heard him sing live, I've always been torn between admiration for his enthusiasm for and wholehearted approach to traditional ballads, his radio projects, and at least a part of his output as a songwriter, and - on the other hand - a distaste for his (reputed) didacticism and the more theatrical aspects of his singing style. But I'm afraid that the piece of criticism he unleashes at 20'34" on the unnamed composer of an anti-Vietnam-War song (apparently not the Vietnam song spliced into the programme immediately beforehand) has pushed me several degrees towards the 'anti' camp.

"It's a bore... it's a bore because it's dishonest - this is the main thing." Uttered with staggering, deadpan, matter-of-fact arrogance. Whatever the quality of the song itself, presenting personal opinion as incontrovertible fact in that way is contemptible. I hope the songwriter punched him.

"You have to be absolutely clear," he pronounces grandly, "...that you are writing from the outside - that you're not pretending that you're there." Huh?? So what was he doing when he wrote 'Shoals of Herring' or 'The Iron Road'?

Glad I wasn't around to be a member of that set-up!