Most BBC IPlayer programmes are not downloadable. The best way to preserve them is by digitally recording them. There is a thread currently running on Mudcat about recording Iplayer programmes using a digital recorder. (Sorry, I can't recall the title, or the content.)

However, that is the way I do it. I simply run an audio cable from the computer's headphone socket to the line-in socket on the recorder, then copy the programme back to the computer and carry out any editing/amplifying that might be necessary.

I dare say somebody will object, on the grounds of loss of fidelity or whatever. But when it's just for archive/storage purposes, the sound quality will be more than adequate.

Anyway, I'm at a loss to understand what all the fuss has been about with the Critics Group. I was never a part of MacColl's circle, so I can't really offer an opinion. But it seems to me that all he and Peggy were doing was offering the folk equivalent of classical music master classes.

I don't know whether that made him guilty of authoritarianism. But imagine turning up at a Rostropovitch class and telling the master you were going to ignore his teaching completely and play all the great cello compositions the way you wanted to play them.

I suspect it would be quite a while before the surgeons were able to dig the instrument out of your anus.