Early this morning I read the start of this thread and found it wholly unrealistic and faintly nauseous. The 'f*lk scene' is littered with self-serving arses and not so many knights in shining armour.

Back in from a day of marvellous music, I find a situation far closer to the reality of what families are: a bloody battleground over not a lot.

Bert Jansch is a marvel, the one artist who sprang up fully formed. He cannot be stereotyped and, whether you like it or not, his music embraces a wide-range of styles. For me, it's his unique guitar technique, for others his songwriting.

I've heard him maligned for unreliability and being a piss-artist, both of which he has in the past excelled at. But never for any lack of musicality. These days he's grown up a bit (a lot) and is enjoying a thriving career largely outside the incestuous, narrow and limiting f*lk scene as perceived and defined by those who seem to think it's some sort of pink-tinged drop-in centre. It's not. It's a business like any other.