I see the Folk Britannia series is being repeated on BBC4. The first programme was tonight.

I can't say that seeing it again really changed my mind about it. A few observations.

Peggy Seeger's comment about there being no singing tradition in England that has been passed on grated as much this time as the first time. She was probably right about the urban tradition as the Industrial Revolution brought huge disruption but I think she was totally wrong about the rural tradition - I suspect the style did not conform the the ideas she and Ewan had. Anyway I think there was an element of the pot calling the kettle black.

Martin Carthy's singing of "Georgie" was spoilt by the accompaniment. It made very clear the comments made by some of the old singers about accompaniment getting in the way. Martin should have put his guitar down and sung unaccompanied and the song would have sounded superb. The song would have stood alone and it showed that the English folk song tradition is essentially one of unaccompanied song.

While it was nice to see a little feature on Irish traditional music and some mention of Scotland, no mention of continuing traditions in the English Regions. No mention of the Copper Family, no mention of a continuing tradition in Northumberland where musicians such as Willy Taylor, Will Atkinson, Joe Hutton, Jack Armstrong would organise dances on a Saturday night and would directly influence musicians such as Alistair Anderson and Kathryn Tickell. I am sure people can thing of other examples.

It is still quite clear the BBC producers had a very narrow focus and basically got it wrong in so many ways.

What they came up with was a set of cliches about folk music in Britain.