There you go again Keith. You really are far right - the constant friend of the militarist and imperialist, the defender of the conservative party at prayer, the denigrator of non-white religions. Discussions with you were a waste of time: you refused to accept information from Muslims on muslim beliefs, from homosexuals on homosexual lifestyles. If you are so centrist why do I never (and I mean never) hear views like yours expressed by anyone I meet off the mudcat (with one exception, one mudcatter)?

Sweeney - you retreat into quasi-academic bafflegab (yes, bafflegab even by lawyers' standards) on every discussion of "folk" and absolutely refuse to accept that it differed in kind rather than form from other music - the basic fact that underpinned the long standing (now no longer accepted) assumption that throughout Europe peasants had burst into song - but not in England. The researchers you dismiss as paternalist found the evidence that the assumption was untrue but the fact that the difference was in kind not form was thereby reinforced. The idea of folk music has never been contrived.