Les,
I agree absolutely with your last comments on the quality of the several discussions on Bert.
I have to confess, when I saw the first one, my instinct was "oh no; there goes the baby and the bathwater", but this has proved not to be the case - a refreshing change.
It gives me hope that perhaps one day we can discuss MacColl's work without first having to clamber over the shit-mountain of name change, finger-in-ear, war record... and all the other nonsense that is instrumental in preventing us from finding out what the man was really about... that we should all live so long!
A warning; I'm off on holiday on Monday, so should anybody start such a thread they will be visitated by plagues of boils, and wake up to find eggs buried in their garden!
Jim Carroll