Mabel from the chippy mumbling Sheaf and Knife over her half moon glasses, pausing to turn the page, or Carthy singing a Noddy Holder song?

I know which one of those two I'd prefer, too. How about an unaccompanied singer rooting you to the spot with a rendition of a song you've heard a hundred times before, vs sitting in an audience listening to a tediously predictable protest song about saving the whale?

The stuff about people reading the words, "three-chord songbooks" and the rest is interesting, though - in my experience that laid-back attitude to amateurism is much, much more common in anything-goes FCs than in the more traditional settings. Once saw somebody do Johnny Mathis's version of "When a child is born", complete with spoken interlude - all of which she openly read from a music stand. To be fair, the MC did comment on this; her reply was on the lines of "I haven't got time to learn songs!"