matt milton - enjoy being still youngish and living in a big city as long as you can..

I moved out of London 20 years ago to be closer to my recently widowed mum.
I was also only 40 and fed up being too skint to enjoy much of what appealed to me in the city nightlife...
..and it was getting near impossible to dodge ticket inspectors and railway police
on the tube line from the farest reaches of East London where we could just about afford to live.

I'm now 'retired' to a depressed west country town,
isolated with no easy affordable public transport to the regional cities.
City gigs would realistically need overnight hotel costs.

So the last time we could afford to make the effort was Bellowhead,
and as good as the band were,
the audience were a bunch of loudly over talkative smug middle class dicks
who spoilt the occasion for me.

Our town does have a small cramped poncey trendy student cafe that occasionally books lesser known touring acoustic acts,
who probably need the work and are swallowing their pride to gig in our town.

It's an expensive cliquey place for a miserable aging malcontent like me to enjoy spending an evening.
I suppose it's alright if you like cakes instead of rough cider...???

There used to be a proper good old fashioned pub with folk/blues sessions that went on into late night lock ins,
but it closed years ago.

Buying power of the wife's public sector salary has increasingly shrunk after 10 years of austerity,
while pints of cider have become a rare luxury...

That's when/why I gave up on the cultural desert I'm stuck living in,
and instead enthusiastically took up the worldwide joys of late night internet music
on the comfort of my own sofa..

"The current state of folk music in UK" is only something I'm really aware of to any extent,
by reading mudcat threads...