>>But how does it relate to the people who Jim and the Captain would say should not sing or play?

One of the difficulties that I have - and so others also may have - is to know what people mean. If your local singaround happened to regularly have (say) Martin Carthy, Stefan Grossman, John Etheridge, Martin Simpson and John Renbourn playing they would probably have a very different set of expectations of a general standard than many other places. The reason I put an example up is that it is representative of a standard that I am used to hearing around where I live in places I go to. It happened to be at a gig in a pub but I'd do the same sort of stuff on a Wednesday down the pub. The fiddle playing is higher than most but there are some decent fiddlers I bump into around the area.

I'm not sure where other people are putting their benchmark for people who should or should not play. If it was set as high as the fiddle playing then that is one thing - if it's set at the level I sing at and play guitar that's another. The thing is that I don't know what people are saying is an acceptable standard - I think the two things I put up are acceptable but others may disagree.

I play and sing at a number of pubs/sessions/singarounds where there are many better singers than me; I come across a lot of people in pubs and singarounds and sessions who are of a similar or higher standard to me on a guitar. I'd just be interested to know what people mean by 'an acceptable standard' - we might all be assuming that others are talking about a lower standard than we think.

Now it's possible that someone may come and listen to what I put up and say "well I wouldn't accept that in my club/singaround or whatever" and we'd know where they set the standard where they are. It's just to try and make it something tangible.

I could as easily put up some unaccompanied singing or different things to get an idea of what sort of common norm we are talking about.

I went to a thing this week and there was a truly terrible singer. He's funny to hear once (I'm unsure whether unintentionally or becuase he likes being the centre of attention - and no it wasn't WAV) but good grief I'd be off to the bar (probably at a different pub) if I had to put up with him again.

As Dave said I was at Swinton recently and I've pm'd him about someone who was there who had a negative reaction from the others in the pub but luckily it wasn't a regular! But the standard there was decent generally.