firstly this an interesting discussion but the thread has got too long - mycomputer takes ages to load it - could the moderators help us to continue it on a new thread please?

secondly - please stop talking to me like i'm sort of heathen. i have made it clear that i have spent the last fifty years passionately interested in folk music. i am not a mental defective because i don't agree with you, Jim.

I understand you position - i think. i am willing to be corrected on this point. politeness costs nowt.

i get so much shit from traddies. every time i see Paul Downes, he goes on about me singing 'in an American accent'. Bollocks! My mum sang in American accent. Ian Cambell's Dad did. His idol was Al Jolson. God knows what my Mum's singing mentor was but I can see her now when I was a kid singing as she did the chores Slowboat to China. Martin Carthy has his family traditions. I have mine - and they go all the way back to my parents. which I bet is more than he can say.

Itry to deal with the world as is. And I want people to sing and dance to my music as naturally as they breathe air. When I write a funny song. I want them to laugh because its funny - not because its 'funny song' like some bloody ossified joke from Shakespeare, that some bloody twat behind you at Stratford laughs very loud at because he wants to tell the world that he's been clever enough to recognise a joke! Think Bread and Cheese, the Molecatcher......

And Dick, I love the fact that you squeezebox boys have so much dedication that you spend thousands on instruments! I once asked Keith Kendrick about his two machines. One was an anglo - he'd spent about eight grand on that. he looked at the other one suspiciously and said , well that one WAS expensive.......