Well, Eric and Old Man, when you and your elitist cronies peg out, who will continue to perform and promote the 'traditional music that's done very well for the past few hundred years thank you very much'? Your Sad Old Ghosts? Are you trying to tell me that youngsters are flocking to your clubs in their thousands because of their congenital love of traditional music and their admiration for your determination to keep those clubs 'pure'? In your bloody dreams pally.

If it were so simple no-one would be more delighted than me, but it ain't. As your FN-ism seems to have rendered you incapable of understanding a simple premise, I'll try it again in simple phrases and without using any joined-up writing:-

1. One day, you and I are going to die
2. When we die we won't be around to sing the songs and play the tunes any more.
3. That means someone else who hasn't died yet will have to sing and play them, otherwise they will be forgotten and the tradition will dia as well.
4. Young people probably won't die as soon as old people.
5. Therefore the young people will have to start singing and playing the songs and tunes.
6. But it's not easy to get young people into Folk Clubs because they think Folk Music's boring and the old people who like it are sad old bastards.
7. So we have to show them it's not like that.
8. How?
9. By allowing them to come to our clubs, letting them show us what they can do and showing them and their music a little respect.
10. At the same time we show them what nice people us sad old bastards are, and let them hear what we do and what effing good stuff it is.
11. Then, although some of them will still regard Folk Clubs as boring, and us as sad old bastards, some - maybe just a talented few - will respect what we do and want to become a part of it.
12. Then when we die, they will be around to sing the old songs and play the old tunes.
13. That's how traditional music has survived and evolved 'for the past few hundred years and done very well thank you very much'. Each generation has brought young people in and, if we had the means to look back over those years, we'd almost certainly find that those young people have put their stamp on the music.

There - simple enough for even a Folk-Nazi to understand. And what you also need to understand is that it's your miserable, intransigent and arrogant attitudes that are proving to the kids that they're right and driving them away. Without them Folk Music and the clubs WILL die, so if you've got a realistic, workable and fool-proof proposal for ensuring a continuing healthy influx of young people whilst sustaining your pure, musically 'ethnically-cleansed' clubs, lets hear it.

I'm waiting with great interest - I bet this will be real good!

Johnny :0)