Come to that my dad was mandolin player - that's neither here nor there. Of course people have played the mandolin since the year dot. My Dad didn't do what Phil did though - make albums that would aid the development of other mandolin players.

As I remember he made a triple album - specifically for players who had learned a few tunes and wanted to make the next steps forward.


Anyway if SOH don't say they're folk, i WILL.

Some plonker in the Arts and Crafts movement restarts a pie thumping competition - complete with the pie thumpng song (that hasn't seen the light of day for six hundred years) and you buggers are queueing up hand out arts council grants and do special features on it.

SOH write about a real festival like the Cheltenham Gold Cup or the recession in the poorest county in the realm - and its not folk music.

you're enough to give a saint the screaming habdabs!