Take your time there, Richard - no one's hurrying you. Meanwhile you might like to check out Bob Trubshaw's Explore Folklore (Heart of Albion, 2002) (though skip the chapter on Folk Music where, as I recall, his exemplary thesis falls apart in a consideration of Revival Idioms rather than everyday traditional folkloric musical experience which should include Karoake, Tribute Bands, Steel Bands, Brass Bands, WMC singers, the George Formby Society, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Drum & Bass, and even X-Factor style competitions... Folk Clubs would get in too of course, but not in the ways Folkies might think!) or Bob Pegg's Rites and Riots (Blandford 1981). That said, I'm still a sucker for the more Mudcat Friendly Museum of Folklore approach to such things - in Lancaster Oxfam yesterday I picked a copy of Charles Knightly's The Customs and Ceremonies of Britain (An Encyclopedia of Living Traditions) (Thames and Hudson,1986). When it comes to dressing up, the human capacity for ritual, ceremony & misrule is as innate, instinctive and communal as our capacity for language, and, indeed, music.

Listened to the video, Les - that whole Tradition has be beguiled anyway, though it does make me feel rather old. I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Village People yet though - those arch Mummers of the Disco Tradition whose moves have been absorbed by a myriad communities and passed on generation to generation. Altogether now in one glorious refrain (with actions): Y M C A...

Don't confuse Folklore with Folkstyle. Folklore is what people do as a matter of course in their every day lives, communities & routines both collective and individual, both mundane (domestic / workplace) and special (on holiday / nights out ) and in between (Xmas / Funerals / Weddings). Folkstyle, on the other hand, is part of the religiosity of Revivalist Folkies and is, as such, only relevant to maybe 1% (at best) of the (mostly white, middle class) population of the UK (and former colonies thereof), and even then it remains perfectly flexible, hence all these What is Folk? threads which invariable revolve around the 1954 Definition and Richard Bridge telling us how legally binding it still is. Again, and with respect of the current thread, let's remind ourselves of the aims of the International Council for Traditional Music (formerly the International Folk Music Council which gave us the 1954 Def. in the first place): The aims of the ICTM are to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries.

Amem. Amen. Amen. Amen.