Funny that. The Betsey Trotwood is almost next door to where the Guardian used to be and the Sunday Times was just round the corner before the Dirty Digger uprooted it to Fortress Wapping. When I went there recently I found its dreary alt shambolism depressing and underwhelming and I'm appalled that the OP should be propagating a wicked rumour that this is all that's happening in the English "acoustic" field. But as I remarked previously, it's not all horrendous: Mumford & Sons is quite nice but fairly irrelevant. What's sad though is that just over the Farringdon Road is where the Metropolitan, home of a fabulous English session, used to stand but, hey-ho, there are plenty of vibrant others arising from the resurgance since the mid-90s which is entirely unrelated to and indeed preceded the current ripple of pseudo-Americana.

"Traddie" is absurd and divisive and "f*lkie" (yuk) even worse. Labelling participants is just as bad as strict delineation of genres. And it doesn't stop the unwashed from sometimes turning up for a ceilidh in checked shirt, cowboy boots and shrieking "yee-ha".

The OP complained earlier that I shouldn't be talking about just English music but music played in England, as though it was me that was being exclusive. Not so, I was once in an Old Timey band and will always seek out authentic visiting mountain musicians. And we do have our resident treasure, Tom Paley. What is at stake is excellence of execution and performance and an understanding of where the music is coming from. And there's plenty of that.