Askew Sisters - Bellowhead - Jim Moray - The Owl Service - Bella Hardy - Rubus - Jim Causley - Grinders Misfortune Society - Jackie Oates - Nancy Wallace - Pumajaw - Speirs and Boden - Chris Wood - Martin Simpson - Lauren McCormick - Jenny McCormick - Jon Loomes - Matt Milton - Mary Hampton - Crazy Man Michael - Venerium Arvum - Alasdair Roberts - The Accidental...

And that's just for starters - off the top of my head - in two minutes. I'm sure you can all add plenty more.

Folk rockers... trad singers... nu-folkers ... songwriters.

Some of them on the folk club scene, some playing art centres, some organising their own gigs, some out in the big bad world... some doing all or more.

A healthy number of sessions and singarounds. Hell, even a load of thriving folk clubs. A buzzing festival scene. Ceilidhs by the bucketful. Some fantastic albums. EFDSS on the up and up.

Sometimes all you seem to get from the UK folkies who come here is pissing and moaning about how rubbish things are and how its not like it was in my day and its all a stitch up and yaa yaa yaa... here we go again.

I'm starting this thread in order to beg - vehemently - to disagree.

Things are bloody marvellous.

I love the soundtrack to my life and its getting better all the time.

Glass half full? You bet. And its a great big glass.