Ian here, M17, Been reading the how old are mudcatters thread, and was fairly suprised at the number of young'ens like me. I would have expected a lot less. Whould anyone like to speculate on the reason why folk has such a bad rap among the young'ens? Could it be that they are simply miseducated from a young age? I know a lot of young folkies in the UK, and there are a lot of good oportunities for us as performers. There are a number of excellent summer schools with fantastic tutors such as Karen Tweed, Simon Thoumire, Nancy Kerr etc. predominately for the younger folkie. So why when you say the two words "folk music" to anyone over 8 years old will they burst into tears of laughter? Could television play a part? On the christmas special edition "Men behaving badly" episode, the main character took the serious mick out of our tradition, and the next day I got a load of stick from so-called "School-chums". Slighly disgruntled, Ian