Jim I agree that the forces you cite have certainly been at work. And I admit that I plucked my 60m figure from thin air - but I was basing on a world view. That world view has been coloured by a decision made in the US (where roots, not being so deep in local soil, perhaps, are seen differently, and where clearly indigenous art is celebrated whatever its age) in the 1950s and 60s to accept contemporary songwriters who present in a particular style as folk musicians. The route between UStrad, Guthrie, Dylan and Denver is well travelled, and whatever we may think of the wisdom of applying the same criteria on this side of the pond too; it happened. I'm sorry that you can't accept it but the broad, confusing, annoying, misleading application of that word across the English-speaking world IS a fact of life - and we'll get nowhere until we take that fact on board.

Yes we must decide how we're going to deal with the problem, because this ill definition lies at the root of the issue we're discussing here - confused 'brand' identity. Because you're completely right when you say "success or failure of the music depends on being clear on what you are trying to present."

If we didn;t use the saem word to describe all of Dave three types of club, you'd not have a problem (as long as the word folk was only applied to the type which fidded your understanding of the word. But it's not your word. It belongs just as much to those who use it to describe a community activity as a repertoire. The clubs where any kind of music goes as long as it's presented in a particular way, and accepted by that group.

A world dictator needing to solve this problem might be tempted to insist of different words for each type of club - and there are clearly more than 3. I just tried jotting down all the different permutations and gave up at 15.

Yet all these permutations can and do go under the title of 'folk club' - and even those who carefully avoid one or both of those words are called folk clubs at times.

So we have two challenges.

1) How more accurately to brand the gatherings we host in the UK, so that people who come to the door will know what to expect and not be disappointed.

2) How to stop everyone laying claim to the same two or three words while applying completely different meanings to them. Because without 2 we're surely never going to achieve 1).

We are not re-siting deck-chairs. We're down in the bilges fighting to the death over who owns the bloomin bung!

Tom