Jesus Lizzie. I think you ought to stay out of the sun! Let's just ignore all the invective and all the crap about bullyboys for a moment.

Let's consider instead the reverse side of the coin. I have been involved in folk music for about fifty years now and I am a dyed in the wool straight from the wood traddie. I am not interested in contemporary singers, music hall singers, comedians, country and western cowboys, or people who use floor spots to unravel their own particular neuroses. In other words, I regard myself as being pretty much what it's supposed to say on the folk revival tin - someone who sings traditional folksongs in a reasonably authentic manner.

Yet I long ago lost count of the slings and arrows and carping and criticism and snide remarks which I have had to suffer from contemporary singers, music hall singers, comedians, country and western cowboys and people who use floor spots to unravel their own peculiar neuroses.

NB. I am not intolerant of people who choose to work in other musical genres, only of those appallingly bad performers who seem quite happy to inflict the direst drivel imaginable on their audiences, and who show no desire to learn or to improve.

Why? well it turns out that said sling and arrow merchants usually criticise me so because:-

- They don't like long boring ballads.
- They don't like Irish songs.
- They don't like unaccompanied singers.
- They don't like folksongs.

Honest. I have had people come up to me in folk clubs and tell me that they would rather not have to suffer The Seeds Of Love or The Outlandish Knight or whatever. Yes, I know. it makes you wonder what they were doing in folk clubs in the first place.

In other words, there is a large measure of intolerance in the folk revival and it is directed towards traditional song and it largely emanates from contemporary singers, music hall singers, comedians, country and western cowboys and people who use floor spots to unravel their own particular neuroses.

In other words those people who make carping remarks about folk police would do well to take a long hard look in the mirror.

BTW. Are you having trouble with your keyboard? It keeps setting bits of the text in capitals for no apparent reason.