Thanks for the birthday wishes Rapaire, and good luck with the new medication. I get night-time leg cramps from time to time, and what makes mine go away is Magnesium tablets. It's only when I've been forgetting them that the cramps start to reappear, and once I start taking them again, the cramps go away. Horrible things to wake up with!

I suspect Jerry might be right about pop-deafness being widespread. I know I had my fair share of loud concerts in the 60's and later. I've noticed that even at folk festivals, the volume is unnecessarily high in the big marquees, so that even when they are placed well apart, the sound bleeds from one to another. Not good. Requests to the organisers of these festivals to address the problem seems to fall on deaf ears (so to speak). Everyone these days seems to equate loud with good. Is this a sign that I'm an old fart?

None of that stuff at my folk club (North By Northwest) and my friend Sandra's folk club (The Loaded Dog). We have two of the best venues in Sydney with marvellous acoustics, and not an amp or microphone in sight.