georgiansilver: Well, the truth is I am a bit touchy about jokes such as Time Leaning's, rightly or wrongly. I have had too much experience of people laughing at singers such as myself who prefer to sing unaccompanied. You must have heard them; even after so many years they still go on: the ones where we are described as jumper- and sandal-wearing communist beardies who stick our fingers in our ears and wail incomprehensibly (yes, I have actually had to face some-one imitating in what they thought was a satirical manner their own idea of what my singing sounds like, before they'd even heard me - if they were members of the BNP taking the mick out Muslims at prayer they couldn't have been more insulting, and I kind of let them know it). The fact is that the majority of people in this country have been educated by the mass-media, and by the education system - I was a teacher for twenty-five years,so I know - to ignore, even despise, its native musical traditions. Thankfully, at least in my experience,the great majority of people who discover them for the first time are immediately appreciative, even enthusiastic; but of course,some aren't. One reason for that is they simply don't like what they're hearing, which is fair enough, can't complain about that. But the other reason (and I base this on my long experience of folk-clubs, sessions, morris-dancing and so on) is that many who'd liketo get involved soon learn through hard experience that a significant number of the people who inhabit the world of 'folk' music are profoundly insular, turning their backs (all too often quite literally at many of the pub-sessions I have been to) on any-one who isn't part of that world, and all too ready to openly slag off other performers who don't match up to their idea of what's hot and what's not. So yes, I'm sensitive to jokes such as Tim Leaning's, and whether my comment was appropriate or not is moot: but I hope you can appreciate where that sensitivity comes from. Ta.