haven't been for a few weeks, do they stock English citterns now?

No such thing as an English Cittern, WAV - at least not with the sort of continuous provenance you dream of; it's a reinvented beast along the lines of the Irish Bouzouki. Like the English Flute, it exists only in your fevered imagination.

So you were happy to get a taste of all those other musical genres, in a city of England, without any "Morris Dancers, Folk Singers" (IB)

Of course I was happy! These were all people out there, doing stuff for the love of it and very much a part of the very English cosmopolitan cultural ambience of this very cosmopolitan English city - my home town indeed, from which I now live some 130 miles distant. I was there with my wife, and my son and daughter - 21 & 27 respectively - who both still live there, and who both, though brought up in very folkie household, are avid fans of hip-hop and have no time for folk music in any shape or form! How cool's that? And, as proud as I am of them, I am proud too to be a Geordie, and never prouder than I was yesterday, soaking it all in and stocking up with Gregg's stotties and all. We also went along Stowell Street, aka China Town, the supermarkets & restaurants & buffets of which have been an integral aspect of the cultural landscape of Newcastle since my childhood - long before you fetched up with your grubby evil notions of Ersatz Englishness; likewise the Asian shops on the West Road, where back in the early 1980s we lived on Fazal's superlative samosas whilst freely mixing experimental industrial noise and Traditional English Folk Song, lazing summer days to the music of Billy Pigg or seeking out the wonders to be had on Thursday nights at The Bridge Folk Club.   

as I say, you are an extreme pro-immigrationist, and a lot of tradies, including me, would be bothered by the lack of English culture you describe,

How dare call yourself a Traddy or yet use the word to justify your racist bullshit? I am more of an English Traddy that you'll ever be, WAV - in the English Traddy stakes I could whip your sorry Aussie arse all around England and back again. You are a man who by his own proud boast has only 17 E Trads in his repertoire, and most of them sourced from an American website. Moreover, you have an expressed intention of never learning any more. What sort of Traddy is that? There are some 70 E trads in the PBOEFS; when I was fifteen I made a point of learning them all. I have been singing E trads for over thirty-three years and have forgotton more songs than you'll ever know. I'm still trying to research and learn 5 new songs at any one time; and, furthermore, I am still learning what it means to be a Traddy.

One thing I do know however, is that with the territory of being a true English Traddy goes an understanding of just what place Traditional English Folk Song, Dance and Folklore has within English Culture as a whole - that it's very much a revived minority hobbyist passion with no actual traditional currency whatsoever. For my feelings on this, please read my polemical blog The Liege, the Lief and the Traditional English Folk Song over at my Myspace page. Heavens, man - you seem to be labouring under the illusion that by learning 17 E trads you have become a Traditional English Folk Singer. In this respect I fear, you are, at best, at the beginning of a very long & fruitful journey (in which case I wish you God Speed) or, at worst, utterly & hopelessly deluded (in which case, sir, I bid you Good Riddance).

as would many foreign tourists, scraping through the haystack to try and find a needle of the English culture they intended to get a taste of.

Any tourist would find plenty of English Culture in Newcastle or any English town or city they visited; it's there at every turn. But if they wanted Trad. E. Folk Song, Dance (etc.) they'd have to adopt a more specialist approach for a more specialised taste, lurking as it does on the fringes and in the shadowy places which are its natural habitats. They'd find out about Joe Crane's first Saturday Come-All-Ye at The Cumberland Arms, and they'd be sure to find it thriving too, as the whole folk scene is; indeed doing rather better now than it ever has in any point since the revival began. But please note: it's just a revival, WAV - a minority hobby that in no way shape or form constitutes English Culture. And remember - only 0.028% of the English population are Morris Dancers, and most of them probably do Line Dancing too. I wonder what the percentage is for singers of E trads, unaccompanied or otherwise?

However, "customary whinge about modern art." (IB)...we'd agree on that one!

Don't be so sure, WAV - as well as being an extreme pro-immigrationist and extreme English Traddy, I am also an extreme modernist in respect of political philosophy, humanism and art. I whinge about modern art because it cow-tows to the simpering vacuities of the post-modern whilst maintaining its status as comfortable corporate gew-gaw on the cultural mantelpiece of the mediocre. That said, I liked Claire Morgan's Gone With the Wind exhibit at the Laing and would strongly recommend a visit next time you're passing.