14.45 by the old quartz digital, so time for a break & to catch up on the morning's events on Mudcat, and to dare dip a toe into the turbulent waters of this particular thread where everything seems to be quiet enough (for now) despite WAVs ongoing reluctance to actually answer any of the questions being asked of him.

It's a curious thing, WAV, but, having stopped writing poetry, and travelling, presumably, have you also stopped thinking? I don't mean this derogatorily, rather you seem to have done your writing, hung up your knapsack, learnt your 17 folk songs and your 17 hymns, reached your conclusions and now it's just a matter of somehow promoting this life's work. No matter what anyone says here, you continue to quote from your conclusions, repeating the same stuff over and over without ever actually entering into any sort of discussion at all. These are your stock answers, your canon, your absolute rule, against which you dare not transgress, no matter how wrong it can be proven that these rules are. You persist in this wilful ignorance (how else can I describe it?) despite anything you are told - your bit on fiddles for example, or English Instruments - a little tweaking here and there, as with the poetry, but otherwise, nothing changes. You might have written it in stone.

I'm just observing here, not criticising, out of a genuine curiosity, trying to get the measure of the frustration you seem to engender whenever you open a thread, as well as trying to understand why you approach things the way you do, in the hope that maybe others might come to understand this too, and perhaps avoid the sort hysterical hullabaloo than usually transpires when you opens a thread.

As for your racism, you have a stock answer for that too, derived from a far milder interpretation of racism (as mere ethnic stereotyping) than anyone here would understand it, and so you respond accordingly, thinking, no doubt that all is well. But England is very sick rose indeed, WAV; racism is the invisible worm that flies in the night in the howling storm, its dark secret love does our life destroy. This sickness is endemic, it infects and effects us all, it effects society by infecting individuals, it effects individuals by infecting society; it bites at the core of humanity, reason, and love, and tolerance, and thus the invisible worm flies on, and on, and on, and the only cure, alas, is outing it wheresoever we find it, in the oft vain hope that enlightenment will, at last, prevail. Seldom, however, is it ever so simple...

I often wonder why you have chosen to settle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne rather than Manchester, the place of your birth; why in your love of a multi-cultural world you wilfully avoid the multi-cultural regionalism which divides England just as much as the nominal borders with Scotland and Wales. If I consider this in relationship to the above, and on the evidence of your attitude thus far on these threads, then the answer might seem clear enough. If we go to the website of The Commision for Racial Equality we find that in Newcastle the diversity index score is 0.18, with 93.1% of the population being white, whereas in Manchester (England's third most ethnically diverse city) it is 0.44, with only 80.9% of the population being white. The North-East is England's least ethically diverse region in England, and whilst Newcastle is the most ethically diverse city in the region only three ethnic minority sub-groups - Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese - are statistically better represented here than the national average. It's a good site, WAV - I advise you strongly to add it to your favourites.

Meanwhile, I'm off for a sarnie - Laughing Cow and some of that boiled calf's head left over off last night's authentic Victorian repast.