Tootler's description is a perfect explanation of why the folk scene as we know it will vanish up its own backside. Little cliques of friends singing together with nothing to encourage outsiders become interested.

It wasn't cosy little singarounds with nobody caring that I am folk music's answer to Jeremy Hardy that made me interested. It was clubs run by people like Nic Jones with floor singers to match. Yes, once I was interested I was happy to have a go myself and discover my own limits as a singer in an appropriate venue, but if my first encounter had been that sort of singaround then I woudln't have come back.