I just checked, and of the first 20 threads on the Forum page, there's only one that isn't about music (apart from this one - which is in it's way about music after all), and rthat's about flu, and is full of folk remedies, and has one song link so far.

It just isn't the case that there is an enormous excess of non-music threads, call them BS or OS or whatver. They tend to go on longer, so it takes time to read them and keep up with the discussion, but that obviously should only effect people who who like going to them (including of course a few people who seem to spend an awful lot of time saying how they hate them, which seems a bit inconsistent - and I'm not putting Shambles in that category.)

I find the key to saving time and chasing up the things I'm looking for is to make good use of the Find facility on my browser, and the Trace and Detrace facility and so forth. I think that some kind of user's guide to the Mudcat might be useful for people who don't like trying to find out the wrinkles themself.

What is going to change the Mudcat is that it's going to become bigger, and that's going to bring problems of crowds and oldtimers feeling pushed out to the edge. And that's likely to be painful.

In a way it's a bit like what happens to folk festivals in England anyway - they get bigger and less persoanl, and little festivals grow up to provide what the bigger ones have lost, and the big festivals develop sub-festivals inside them. I reckon something like that will happen with us.

In the meantime I think we're still in what in few years people will be talking of as a Golden Age. Which is just what people are saying about the Mudcat of a couple of years back.

And I'm sure they're quite right. Just check out some of the great threads to be found in the SuperSearch - but when you look at the dates you find that some of them only date from last year.

We've got a very foreshortened sense of time here. I'm reminded of a TV show I once saw about skateboarding. "And here comes one of the real veterans, the Grand Old Man himself" said the commentator. And out rolled this bloke aged 28. Twenty-Eight - and he could still get around unaided!!