I've been listening to one or the most fiendish god-awful records I've ever come across, Peter Bellamy's Wake the Vaulted Echoes (Free Reed - 3 CDs, 1999)

I previously only had the one Bellamy record, Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate from 1970 ago. That was ok as I had plenty of time to really get all its subtilties over the past 30 year.

This sucker is a different matter - at 3 full-up CDs (3-1/2 hours) it may take me years to digest the whole thing. I keep listening repeatedly & then I have to listen again. Who's got the time?

I cannot recommend that anyone here contact Camsco (1/3 the price I've seen it for elsewhere) and get it or that any Europeans contact "Free Reed Music" - http://www.free-reed.co.uk/ [Do Brits consider themselves 'Europeans' these days?]

Anyway, in spite of nearly 60 songs and a 70-page booklet, they left out "Frankie's Trade" which I've only heard by (Geoff Kaufman maybe) of the Mystic Seaport Chanteymen but noone else. Now that's a brilliant song & not even on the record. So there you are - don't bother with it. Well, there are 10 or so other Kipling songs including the terrifying "Looking Glass" but that just proves the point.

Excuse me - gotta go. I wanted to hear a couple of songs on CD-1 again & make sure I heard them quite right.