Tom - thanks for your comments on my songs.

Thanks also for a posting that has lots of points - many of which I go along with to a degrees greater and lesser - but would defer a more detailed response here as I have to get some sleep this afternoon (doing Mudcat to long last night???).

Banjiman - yes I have a done a small number of bookings where I was the guest for the evening. I don't go looking for Folk Club / Festival bookings but I have been asked to do spots at a couple of festivals over the years (which I turned down because of transport problems) and was a concert guest at a Raise Your Banners (Sheffield) weekend in the 1990s.

I do occasional spots for pressure groups and was main support for Will Kaufman last year when he brought his Woody Guthrie show to Lewes.

Not being commercially minded I'm getting a bit woried about writing a folk CV here - not my intention. Hope you don't mind if I come back to your other questions later for the same reason as above.

Stuart - probably does sound arrogant but the point is I go to folk club to share music - two or three more songs - with 8 or 9 other singers, and any listeners who like to come along. I'm not a consumer of Folk Music in the sense of paying money to see a Folk Guest.

I can't see anything wrong with that - just as I can't see no problem with not purchasing biological washing powder in the supermarket - nothing against the product - just not one I buy.

On guests at our folk club - yes we tried every few months for a while - had some excellent nights. But quite a few regular singers gave the guest nights a miss. So we're not keen as a club on guest nights and they will be fewer in the future. And I didn't like cutting singers down to one or two songs!

Apologies for a briefer than normal reply.

Ian Fyvie