Sir jOhn - with remarks like that no wonder Azizi sometimes finds the 'cat abrasive.

Musically speaking, however, officially the 'cat is a folk and blues forum, but there is little discussion of blues other than the occasional thread on Robert Johnson. The blues, plainly, is an American form, but it is specifically African-American form - to the extent that although I find it very attractive to listen to I have to concede late in my time at university, that it was inappropriate for me to perform it, that I would be a cuckoo in the nest. I am sometimes surprised that so few African-Americans either carry that form forward, or wish to discuss its past (on the performance front Keb Mo and Guy Davis being exceptions).

I am not surprised that African-Americans are largely uninterested in discussions of English farm traditional songs, or songs about the Highland clearances, because those are not their roots and there is no obvious reason for those themes to be relevant to them.

But conversely it is well known that there were both fighting ships and cargo ships largely crewed by black (intentional distinction from African-American, because some were African-British) crews and I would not be surprised if there were not African-French and African-Dutch crews as well. Both the shanties and the forebitters of those traditions I would expect to be relevant to African-Americans, as relating to a history in which they participated, and in which Lloyd remarks that they had a distinct musical tradition in that (he asserts) the white crews sang shanties in unison whereas the black ones sang in harmony - a divide still found (although not along racial lines) between shanty crews.

The tradition generally of Americana I do not appreciate so clearly, but surely there are a wealth of traditional American songs of poverty and exploitation, both urban and rural, that although applying to communities that were often segregated, speak of a common experience. Perhaps the experiences of segregation and slavery divide the traditions there that are relevant to African-Americans from those that are not. I merely speculate.

Morris dancing, however, and its relevance to the death-rebirth cycle (the tree in the bog, if you like) might seem potentially cross-cultural, but apart from the story of the Baobab tree (that everyone knows) I know very little about African traditions so maybe I am wrong.

What I don't at all see is why modern African-Americans should find "below-the-line" threads irrelevant.

Maybe we might ask what it is that the specifically African-American online communities (I think there was a mention above) do discuss. I remember a long time ago there was a very pretty girl indeed working in a law office of a firm in which I had just made partner, and she was in the word-processing department. Some light bandinage revealed by chance that she was a qualified Jamaican attorney but not admitted as an English solicitor despite some mutual recognition protocols. Anyway, I got her at least working as a paralegal for the firm, which would have counted as equivalent to "articles" (solicitor's apprenticeship) with a view to her eventual admission as an English solicitor, and we bumped into each other with some frequency.

We both fancied each other - at times the air almost crackled - but neither of us could find a ready avenue of communication with each other (this was not helped by the fact that she was an enthusiastic Christian attending a Baptist church while I had a pretty jaded view of the Church of England). We both painfully and obviously walked on eggshells while hopefully trying to make conversation (so alas it never came to anything).

I wonder if there is something like that here on the Mudcat (not helped by those so ready to make insensitive remarks).

If we can square that circle, maybe we can also institute a protocol for painless communication between the Irish (and Irish-Americans) on the one hand, and the ENglish (and other British) on the other...