You were lucky. I caught the whoe bloody act. Three different sized bouzoukis.

A guitar would have been a bit of light relief.

Its this basic propostion that the traddies are cleverer than the rest of us, and is such obvious bloody nonsense.

Richard Bridge is always accusing me of being an inverted snob. Let me 'fess up. I am an ex-public school/grammar school boy.

However I married a working class girl and when she became disabled I descended to the lower depths of our society. I became one of those that peter Lilley made up Gilbert and Sullivan songs about - I became the untermenschen living in te cheapest houses in England on government handouts.

To be honest, I wondered at one point in this thread if I was on the alternative universes thread.

there was that anecodote about Mike waterson singing the ballad of Tam Lin to mass aclaim in an ordinary pub.

I gotta be honest I have been forced to use musicians who were the best where I lived. They have been quite interested in the idea of playing folk music, but when they have found out that martin carthy and mike waterson are the hallmark of excellence in this field - their reaction has always been the same.

THey have all said, this is shit,

I know this doesn't worry any of the traddies. But my point is, I feel it should do.