If I go to a club or a singaround or a session - which I do several times a week sometimes - I go in the expectation that (if I'm lucky) I'll be asked to perform anything between 1 and 3 numbers. So, a day or two before I go, I run through the same internal processes:

1. What's the style and character of the venue - and therefore...
2. What's appropriate to perform?
3. What numbers did I perform at that venue last time I was there?
4. What, more or less, will I do on this occasion?

Being a musical tart of many years standing, I have a large rep that I can call on fairly flexibly. Nevertheless, I'll run through 3 or 4 numbers that I know my audience won't have heard (for some time at least) and get those to a standard that I know I can do as perfectly as possible on the night. And I might change my mind at the last minute, depending on what's gone before.

If the worst happens - and very occasionally it does, and a line goes astray - I'll play through it until it comes or I get to a point where the words reappear. I never stop at verse 5, say, "Oh dear, I'll have to start again"! That way madness lies...

I'm happy to forget all that just for the sheer pleasure of waving a large folder in Vic's face on 26th, spending precious minutes assembling a music stand, leafing through the folder - dropping some pages as a I do so - finally choosing a song, tuning up interminably, starting off in the wrong key and then changing my mind, losing my place while performing, staring at the music and ignoring the audience meantime.

Now, if that's what MacColl was faced with, I can understand his forming the Critics Group in a bid to remedy the situation - but I don't remember this sort of thing all those years ago.