I'm reminded of Tracy Emin being asked why her unmade bed was "Art". "Because I'm an artist. I went to art school."

Here in Lancashire, Granada once had daytime TV show called Brit Art Challenge, inspired by the popular Watercolour Challenge, and aimed at the same general demographic, albeit those with more conceptual inclinations than the rural picturesque. In one episode Mrs Delia Fairhaven, 73, of Lytham St. Annes, won the prize simply by neglecting to make her bed that morning - and in another Mr Albert Cockerham, 68, of Knot End-on-Sea, nearly scooped the gold almost quite literally having replaced the water in his goldfish tank with formaldehyde. The prize was snatched from him when the RSPCA intervened and given to runner up Miss Joyce Clitheroe, 60, of Great Eccleston for another post-Emin homage entitled Everyone I've Never Slept With - 1946-2006 - a symbolically white one-person tent with no names in it whatsoever.

Tunes made up by rough working class youths with electric guitars, or young rappers, somehow doesn't make the grade quite so often.

That would come under the general heading of Traditional Music & Ethnomusicology rather than Folk Music per se, although here the 1954 Definition fails once more because it doesn't allow for the given Tradition be in any way Creative, or else essentially improvisatory, as is the case with much popular & traditional musics the world over. I'm glad to see the remit of the ICTM (formerly IFMC) is to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries. Just a shame those who cling doggedly on to the 1954 Definition in the name of Folk Music can't do likewise.

We had some young rappers in a folk club recently - The Kingsmen of Preston I think - many of whom didn't look old enough to be in the pub but who danced like madman all the same.