Sorry Ian, that was one piece of bigotry too far. Or was it two, or was it many?"

Possibly many. My point was actually relevant to the post and the overt (but genuine) view was to cause debate rather than tell you my view on something. Others had brought the Romany angle to the debate, I was trying to question the relevance.

If folk clubs are abstract entertainment, then anything goes, and let us not mix it with reality. I have a passion for Wagner, but that does not mean I am a raving nazi, I just like the music.

I used the Freeborn Man analogy to demonstrate the point. It is a beautiful song, and if I hear it being sung, I enjoy it for what it is, an impression of an idealised situation. Or escapism.

The problem is that music, and folk music especially, has a place in protest and putting views over. This is one reason why folk clubs are not so popular now. Maybe a long time ago, the vast majority of people turning up had a affinity with most others in the room? I am sure that if I were at a folk club or a labour party rally, I would be singing and saying the same, as indeed I was in the early '80s.

Times move on, and many people no longer feel they are radical, and just see a folk club as a trip down memory lane to their past.

I posted a couple of provocative comments in this and other threads in order to see if my fears were justified. Seems they are.

I stopped going to folk clubs for many years after hearing armchair socialists singing Blackleg Miner and other offensive piffle.   

I used to write songs about my life, and they were well received. After all, I was a miner, a young lad trying to raise a family in Thatcher's Britain. It was perhaps a popular thing to like them, despite the fact they were never very good on an artistic level. But, I wonder how well I would be received if I sang about the state of my stocks and shares ISA, the cost of getting my Jaguar serviced, the poor snow levels in The Rockies the other year or how downhill BA's business class has become compared to Singapore Airlines.

Still a folk club, still Ian singing about what troubles him. Somehow, perhaps not...?