Jim Carroll has said so much over Christmas that it's impossible to respond to it all so here's a selection.

Snail:
"We don't all live in Miltown Malbay either."
Nope, you don't, but I do,

Rather my point. Lewes has two UK folk clubs, Miltown Malbay has (by definition) none. Lewes has many UK folk clubs within travelling distance, Miltown Malbay has none. I am involved in running a UK folk club, Jim is not. Apparently I have my head buried in the sand and Jim knows far more about the UK folk scene than I do because - "even if I hadn't visited one club - visited a few actually - I could get some indication from what put up on Mudcat on a regular basis." Jim has now excelled himself by using the "Blues, Shanties, Kipling, Cicely Fox Smith..." twice in one thread. Even Sweeny is beginning to comment.

Plenty of example of people who would be 'folk' enough for me - Terry Yarnell, Bob Blair, Len Graham, Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, Gordeanna McCulloch, Sara Grey, Peggy Seeger

Heard four of that list in a UK folk club in the last year. Is that enough?

Favourite quote, from interview we did with MacColl:

An excellent quote with which I heartily agree but I wonder why you post it when you are so fundamentally opposed to what it says.

Cap'n; as much as I have admired the Lewes programme of workshops (from afar unfortunately) I see little there that resembles anything ongoing for beginners - not saying there isn't anything, just that it doesn't appear appear on that list.

Thank you. Can I take it that you are no longer accusing us of "dumbing down" and "promoting crap standards"? We have ballad forums where people sing, analyse, compare and generally emote over their favourite ballads and we have harmony workshops but we don't have anything specifically for beginner singers. I run a concertina "mutual support group" and some of us run a beginner musicians session, both out of the eye of the general public.

I meant to add - and a damn sight more friendly and welcoming than some of the cliquish freemasons lodges where the regulars sit in little bunches and ignore strangers

A curious piece of nastiness even by your standards, Jim. Really needs no comment apart from noting that it is a bit of a reversal from your usual "landfill site", "anything goes" accusations.

Try pleasing all of the people all of the time and you end up pleasing no-one. I know this from bitter experience when two thirds of the club audiences disappeared in the 80s because folk clubs stopped presenting folk music, and basic standards were abandoned.

Could you just remind me who was running the clubs then? Whose watch did it all start to go wrong on?