Bellamy covered Al Stewart's Nostradamus to not very great effect - or maybe I'm biased against the song itself, much less the subject? It's cringe-making (apologies) to hear him sing the line about Hister with such earnestness.

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there is no "folk music of England" any more. First there were pianolas, then there were wireless sets, then there was the telly, and by the mid-1960s basically nobody had to make their own music any more.

I bet you a pint, Phil, that there are more Ordinary People making, playing, creating & experiencing music in 'England' right now that at any other point in its history. The Tradition of Vernacular music making is thriving undaunted across a myriad of idioms in a glorious abundance unprecedented even in my young day when to use things like synthesisers we had to book into the local arts centre on a Saturday morning. These days, you can buy a top-class Moog (the Sub Phatty comes to mind) for a fraction of the price you'd have to pay for a half-decent concertina (but then again Folk Revival was seldom concerned with Popular tastes or pockets). For a fraction of that, you can have all three of Korg's amazing new Volca range and plug directly into the heart and soul of pop hauntology, dance and sonic possibilities as yet undreamed of. And for a fraction of THAT, you can buy a Korg Monotron Delay and have access in your palm to a sonic palette defined by 100 years of analogue tradition. The possibilities are as endless as they are vast, and, for the most part, unexplored. The beauty of it is - the best it ALWAYS yet to come; and it's coming, thick and fast, the more democratised music making becomes.

All recorded music does is INSPIRE people to create, cover, invent, and transfigure. Spend a few months exploring YouTube or Soundcloud or go into any music shop on a Saturday afternoon (careful to avoid the ukuleles) and just listen - you'll hear it right there in abundance. As for the Folk Process, I was showing a Japanese kid in Dawson's Liverpool the other week how to play a workable approximation of Pink Floyd's On the Run on a Korg Monotribe having seen someone do it on YouTube. It's worth noting that you can buy a Monotribe for the price of a half decent tin whistle; I know which one is more relevant to a sense of cultural continuity, process, identity and tradition even if the former is less reliably with respect of tuning, which just adds to the - er - authenticity of the thing.

If, as Richard Bridge is forever telling us, the last thing Folk Music is about is IDIOM, then the notion of FOLKS playing any sort of MUSIC at all - much less one that springs from the vitality of their own culture, community, history and soul - is cause for objective rejoicing, surely? Even if (especially if) precious little of it will be of any interest to your common-or-garden Folk Enthusiast.