""Of the three clubs we visited, one closed long ago - the audience must have been every bit as bored as we were and have come to the same conclusion we did.""

Of course, you didn't like it, so it collapsed and died of shame!
Or could it have suffered the most common form of demise, namely "Change of Management"?
But you weren't around at the time, so you can conjure up your preferred ending. Bottom line?......YOU DON'T BLOODY KNOW!

""Cold, unfriendly atmosphere, jukebox thumping its way up from the bar below, a crap guest who looked as if he didn't want to be there, around twenty people huddled in their seats who wouldn't have been out of place in a Beckett play.""

I've seen bad nights too, at a number of mediocre, and also some very good, clubs, but I'm a little more wary than you about how I interpret and extrapolate, and it usually takes a little more evidence than that to put me off.

""The third one might just still be going - we've got the details somewhere if you want to try for a booking, it gave the impression of being the sort of place that would put up with any old crap.""

Monumentally unhelpful, no evidence at all, and an additional gratuitous insult to me, whom you have never seen, or heard, perform.

And on the basis of that, you profess to know folk clubs. If you can ever get your head surgically removed from its current position in your fundamental orifice, do take another look round. You might be quite surprised at how things have progressed since you got it stuck up there.


""And I get the very strong feeling that if you had a head-cold you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a fart and a folk song.""

I think it is you with the cold, mate. I was singing traditional folk songs at the age of six, in primary school, and have never stopped.
I also write my own material, and I write music for other peoples lyrics (strictly in the "folk" idiom). I don't sing using a crib, because I have been blessed with a very good memory, but, unlike your good self, I have the humility and tolerance for others, to recognise that some are not so lucky.

I have heard many superb performances, by people reading from a sheet, which would, if people like you had your way, never have been heard. I have encouraged and persuaded many beginners who have gone on to earn money performing, who would not have found that improvement in performance and stagecraft sitting in front of a bathroom mirror.

So don't waste your breath any more in showing how little you know about me. I've been patronised by experts, and you just ain't cutting it.

I think that Crow Sister, who is somewhat newer to this than you, has more inbuilt instinct for what folk music should be in her little finger, than you have in your whole overinflated ego.

Don T.