Hey, I posted the message that caused all this grief, and I do apologize ~ I apparently failed to make myself understood in the way I had intended.

As I recall, I was responding to another correspondent who had ventured the opinion that folkies in the US were a small embattled minority in contrast to those in the UK, who seem to be more well-established. I was trying to say that, as far as I can see, folk music enthusiasts are in about the same situation on *both* sides of the ocean ~ to wit, NOT part of the pop-cultural mainstream.

In any event, I didn't mean to compare the folk-music communities of the US and the UK to each other so much as simply to assert that both groups are pretty damn invisible to the mainstream popular cultures of the respective countries.

Actually, I have the impression that folk music is *more* alive and well in the UK than in the US, but that it's the province of a smallish and aging group in both places.

The 200 was a number I pulled out of the air, guesstimating the number of British Mudcat regulars. In retrospect, it *was* a pretty low number. Sorry to have offended the other x-number-of-hundreds of y'all.