""(far more sinister than any threat to English culture from Europe, Don).""

I think you misunderstood me Ian.

Visit almost any European state in the summer, and you WILL at some point be entertained by local people playing music of their tradition, or performing traditional dance. That can only be described as entirely laudable, and nobody in those countries laughs at the musicians or the dancers.

I utterly approve of the fact that the bulk of Europe reveres and protects its diverse heritages and cultures. There is NO threat to us FROM Europe, but rather from our own stupid government who seem to think that, in order to get a general consensus to enter a federal European superstate, it will be necessary first to rid us of ideas of Britishness, in the way that they have already half destroyed the concept of Englishness.

It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that we can enter Europe as far as we wish, with our culture and heritage intact, and without submerging our National identity, so that would seem to imply a lack of mental capacity in our politicians.

That, as usual, is where the danger lies.

If I had MY way folk lore, music and dance would be part of the core curriculum for all primary schools, with some degree of education in the folk traditions of other cultures. The more you know about foreign people, the harder it is to be xenophobic.

Don T