Cob a Coaling? In the bush? A fascinating prospect, Wavy - but I doubt whinging pom-brats blacking-up would have gone down at all well with the Aborigines, but the Aussie Tradition is full of such traditional transferences, such as The Derby Ram, so who knows?

We used to sing many of these verses round the streets as nippers, and I've tried to get some of that wildness into recording I made for my forthcoming Naked Season album (Sloow Tapes, Belgium) an edited version of which has been playing on my Myspace page these past few days (and will be removed tomorrow morning, along with the squibs that fell in our backyard through the night). This is accompanied in the Traditional Manner by appropriate Rough Music, in respect of hurdy-gurdy, drum, bells, goat (sic), and suchlike mayhem & hullaballoo which is entirely consistent with the English Ceremonial Tradition; as was, as is, as will be...

Not a patch on the version sung in The Cumberland Arms on Saturday Night though, a masterful performance by Lancastrian Keith Blackburn in fine old style - ten verses at least; a calling-on song with any amount of unsavoury characters. This was at Joe Crane's legendary Come-All-Ye; ten singers and twenty students crammed into a backroom with a constant through-put of lively punters heading to the upstairs venue. A real testing ground for singers and songs alike, but when one of those singers is the truly Godlike Louis Killen, you know you're in good company!