as studious as you are

Touché! I am an uneducated lout with few formal qualifications and justly proud of it. I once made it to Durham University (1993) as a mature student on the back of an Access Course but was forced to withdraw after the first term owing to the onset of ME / Post-viral Fatigue Syndrome following a serious bout of flu that hit me after my vasectomy (I quote: "It might be a little tender for a few days."). I'm still plagued by it yet, ME that is, but it's nowt compared to my recent susceptibility to episodes of Vasovagal Syncope which is an absolute bastard...

Anyhoo - whilst it is true that you've never criticised any particular culture or race, you nevertheless persist with a mono-cultural idealism in a multicultural context. This, I would have thought, was evidence enough of at least certain discomfort on your part with the multi-cultural realities of England in 2008. Further, your criteria as to what actually constitutes our own good English culture can be proven to be entirely dependant on cultural developments that have occurred within the last fifty years, in terms of revivals of things that never were leading to the present flowering of English folk song, music and dance which is unprecedented in the whole of English history. It's all happening now, WAV - not back then. One would have thought you'd be pleased.

I can't help but love your idea of an conspiracy to keep the UK together via a subverting of the Folk Degree course, however. Who do you think might be behind this? I reckon it could be the Labour Party, realising that if ever there was such a thing as Scottish Devolution we'd never see another Labour Government in England again... In which case, as I said elsewhere, I'm gonna grab me a few tubes of Fosters and me digeridoo, dangle some corks from my hat and emigrate to the Northern Territories whistling Waltzing Matilda...