Don't be put off, theleveller - it's all in good humoured passion for much the same thing on various levels of Devil's Advocacy which was ever the Platonic way (or something) - or was it Zen? Either way, whatever differences any of us have here, they are outweighed by the similarities - or am I being overly optimistic?

As for Venus in Furs, did you know John Cale flattened the bridge of his viola so it would sound like he imagined the old crwths would have sounded? These days we have the modern Crwth Revival to show us that he was more or less right of course, but even so I've had Crwth Purists telling me my Welsh Pattern crwth isn't a crwth at all, even though it was made for me by Tim Hobrough in 1987 thus predating the Modern Crwth revival by several years - and my Medieval Round Crwth was made for me (again by Tim) in 1983! Ho hum. Revivalist Fantasy? Makes you think, eh? But what dies as one thing, is reborn as something else entirely. In fact, it might be said, it might not be reborn at all because the main thing that defined it in the first place is irretrievably lost to us, so all that remains is the ghosts. That's okay by me, BTW, nothing like a good old seance, is there?