Hello Mike

Just a thought - isn't there a risk of having to be sort of a state-approved artist in order to keep the care home / nursing home / school work coming - at least here in the UK, where agendas for crude political correctness and political orthodoxy always seem to creep into working procedures for most state operated or state-regulated service industries.

ALthough I can't think of anything particularly inflamatory or treasonable I might want to do with my guitar, I think that I'd want to exercise a fair degree of self-censorship if I'd found the particularly rich seam of work that you describe and wanted to keep working it.

I wouldn't be singing "my brother sylvest" in its unexpurgated form for example. The ex-servicemen might love it, but the junior care assistant might not, and might report me for singing it. More subtly, I'd have to think carefully about doing old rebel songs and trade union stuff. Not to mention the bodice-rippers. I know we all try to pick stuff that suits the audience best, but perhaps one's selection might also be influenced and limited by the fear of giving offence to the official view.

Do you think that this risk of censorship (if state regulation flourushes where you are) would confilct in any way with your principles as (presumably, like me and most of the other musicians I know) a free-thinking freedom of speech type of person?

Seamus