Aah, Reg. When Les Barker wrote "Nobody's as old as Derek Brimstone", he obviously didn't know about Reg. If we had any sense he'd be listed as a national treasure.

And as for Bingham, I've yet to experience a more welcoming club in such a potentially bloody awful venue. It's modern, utilitarian and with a bar in the room. Fortunately, it has organisers who appear to go back to the sixties and carry that etiquette with them, and when you get on your hind legs to perform there's a really appreciative audience.

In any field, there will always be the self-serving, the arrogant, the bullshitters, and in the arts in particular, those with a great deal more attitude than ability. When they club together, it only gets worse. Let them be on their way; fortunately, they do not constitute a majority.