I thought some might like to read of one of the weirder reaches of official paranoia, involving our very field of music, some of it folk. Richard Norton Taylor of "The Guardian", on Friday 21st January, 2000, wrote a piece under the title Irish eyes sent MI5 wrong signal which some of you might find interesting and amusing. I expect the full item can be found at the Guardian website at www.newsunlimited.co.uk.

He tells how BBC monitors, one of whom was Edgar Lustgarten, alerted MI5 and MI6 to requests played on Radio Athlone, such as When Irish Eyes Are Smiling played for "grateful patients" in an Exeter hospital after So I pulled Myself Together by Arthur Askey, and with the most suspicious I Saw Three Ships A-Sailing. Moonshine was broadcast for a listener in Whitehall, and there was "an extraordinary episode" when A Wild Irish Boy was interrupted by an announcer for a short topical number, Floating Sea Mines. After 3 months, a security memo noted no significance in the titles, so asked that they not be reported any more.

So what cryptic messages could be sent now in titles?

Penny