To pick up on Mr Padgett's point about the need to take the music more seriously now and less of seeing folk clubs as drinking pits..

I see your point Ray, but in the day's of holding Capstick steady to stop him falling down, and mad scramble to the bar in beer break, the music was indeed important. It was someone with an interpretation of a trad ballad followed by a couple doing harmony, then a monologue, a fiddle with Shetland reels followed by giving Tony smelling salts so we could hear his "Bonny Bunch of Roses."

If it is more about the music now, why do so many "clubs" comprise of people putting their reading glasses on and singing Fields of Athenry, pausing to turn the page?

Folk clubs as outlets for people to make a living have drifted somewhat and there are less. Yet the people who encouraged them to risk everything in the first place claim the concerts at festivals, (where they ply their trade) are too something or other and make a point of setting up fringes as they call them.

Weird, truly weird.