The UK's general music press and newspaper music critics all use the American shorthand that anybody who plays an acoustic instrument and writes their own songs is folk, so add a banjo and the odd accordion and beard and it's brain switch off for them. However, I read somewhere recently that Mumford & Sons have sold 750,000 albums. If only 10% of their audience went and tried some folk because they are told that's what Mumford do, and 10% of those liked what they heard and bought an album, that's 7500 sales we wouldn't have had. Best to stay "Glass half full".

Isn't nu-folk simply the latest name for what used to be called contemporary folk but isn't any more, or at least no more than what used to be called modern jazz is modern? Nothing dates faster than things so-tagged like new wave, art nouveau, new labour and so on.

Emily Portman's recent album managed the difficult trick of sounding ancient, timeless and fresh all at once, without needing any media friendly labels applied to it.