WAV : ...asked about the exotic instruments you accompany E. trads with, IB, you know which country each comes from, and the way it is traditionally played there - but you can't stand the idea of England having suchlike,

IB : WAV, if we had suchlike in this country no one would be happier than I, but the fact is, we don't; only in the context of the folk & early music revival which is an entirely bourgeois invention, but none the less valid because of that, or indeed appealing. But you must understand that this music operates on a very different level of cultural / national significance here as it does in, say, Turkey. See Here for an example. Note the Kemence, aka Black Sea Fiddle, which I use to accompany various E. trads with.

WAV : due mainly to your extreme pro-immigrationism.

IB : Again, I have not stated my views on immigration one way or the other; rather I have called into question your motives behind your continuing anti-immigration stance.

WAV : Whether or not you agree with the post-war mass-immigration, it's silly to deny that England was 50 years ago a much more English place, with less than 1/2 a percent of the population being immigrants.

IB : At last! So good to read what amounts to a confession of the racist sentiments that underlie your feelings on both immigration and Our Own Good English Culture. But I wasn't even born 50 years ago, I was born in 1961 and I grew up in a multi-cultural & multi-ethnic Northumbria, with Chinese, Yeminites, Indian Hindus and Indian Moslems etc. etc. and being of Irish-Scottish-Jewish extraction myself hardly endears me to a notion of Englishness founded on such divisively racist sentiments as you evidently believe in.

Again, English Culture is but the consequence of 10,000 years of immigration, invasion, assimilation & diversification. This is the way we are, the way we have always been. There is no, nor has there ever been, one objective English Culture; to say so is to perpetuate a convenient racist myth. Anthropologically speaking, your beloved E. Trads are, with but few exceptions, no longer sung as an integral aspect the culture of the rural peasantry to which they once rightfully belonged. These days their songs are sung by way of a recreational pastime by middle-class urban professionals, a situation which is in no way, shape, or form traditional, nor yet does it constitute Our Own Good Culture. As I say, there are exceptions, but these only go so far as to prove the rule.   

WAV : And when I hear and read that for centuries English did sing these E. trads unaccompanied, or that the English cittern was once very common in taverns and barber shops, I believe it to be, at least mostly, true

IB : True up to a point, WAV - but certainly not in the 1950s! What proportion of the English People ever sang these E. trads unaccompanied anyway? Or even sang them exclusively? What we have now is a revival, a complete re-invention of the entire notion of English Traditional Music & Song a million miles away from the condition in which it originally existed. Any revival singer will tell you this, and they will also point you to the source singers, that grubby bunch of individuals whom you could actually call traditional singers. Now, whatever conclusions might be drawn from this with regard to a definition, or indeed a conception, of a Folk Music (albeit after the fact), the source singers had no more idea of such notions than does the Jackdaw of his place in the ornithological taxonomy.

WAV : rather than believe someone who also comes up with conclusions like this... "Hurrah for New Labour, bunch of mushy-mouthed motherfuckers the lot of them. Who gives a fuck what they think? It's all just spin & hype anyway."..."the lot of them"? (IB).

IB : If you're going to quote me, WAV, at least get the quote right. It is Hurrah for New Labour, bunch of mushy-mouthed motherfuckers the lot of them. Who gives a fuck what they think? It's all just spin & hype anyway. And that is my expressed personal opinion (nothing more, nothing less) on the condition of politicians in general & New Labour in particular, for reasons I've already given above. It is not a conclusion, nor is it a published manifesto; nor do I promote it as being the best way forward for humanity. Shame you seem to have taken such a particular fondness to it; another smokescreen to hide behind. As I said above - can you defend your ideas in ways that don't amount to a personal questioning of my deluded attempts at analysis? Obviously you can't.

WAV : Also, racism is where someone says they are all like this or that; or I don't mind immigrants from that part of the world, but I hate ones from there, e.g. - which is NOT my argument; I've only questioned the act of immigration itself. Please don't confuse these, and stop making false defamatory remarks.

IB : Racism is exactly the sort discriminatory crap that you publish and believe in; cower behind semantics all you will, but the fact remains, as you have shown with your it's silly to deny that England was 50 years ago a much more English place comment above, you are given to sentiments which are not only racist but also 100% bullshit. England is English by default, WAV - every aspect of life as practised & experience by any one of 50 million citizens of England amounts English Culture in terms of pure anthropology, no matter what part of the world these people are from. This is no different to how it's been at any point in the last 10,000 years; no different to how it was 50 years ago; only in the fact that the individuals are different, just doing exactly what they want to do which is their right and privilege to do so. Would you deny them that right? From what I have read, I think perhaps you would.