Tim, I've expressed this before, but I'll say it again, mostly because I'm rather fond of the sound of my own voice.

Folk as a genre is, I think, almost impossible these days to quantify or put parameters around. It's come to mean different things to different people, from contemorary singer-songwriter stuff to artificial media constructs like "nu folk" and "twisted folk", right though to traditional music. Now, traditional music is much easier to define: it's music or songs without an identifiable author, and it's usually got a history of being passed down orally, often through many generations.

Looking after traditional music is like looking after any other aspect of our heritage. It's a legacy that is a living one, as so many people still sing traditional songs. How you interpret them is open to debate, but personally I love the whole range of interpretation, from the most stripped-down,unaccompanied singing right through to Eliza and Salsa Celtica's version of the Grey Cock. It all keeps the tradition alive.

One of the issues that has really wound me up in this whole debate about the White Hare is that it seems to undermine the very concept of traditional music. The BBC has ONE award in its whole arsenal that has been specifically created to acknowledge traditional song...and if it will defend the right of a song which is clearly not a traditional song to be nominated in that category, it makes a mockery of the category itself. And if you love traditional music and feel that it has a right to be acknowledged within the BBC Folk Awards, that makes you rather sad. Well, it makes me sad, anyway.