"For me E MacC didn't really come across on those recordings as particularly arrogant or bullying, just a man expressing his opinions frankly in a situation where such frankness was apparently encouraged."

Well, Raymond, I've just listened to that section again, and got angry again. Nothing wrong with frank opinions or criticism - Harry Boardman used to offer plenty of both in days of yore, and I never got angry with him. It's the aloof and dessicated certainty with which EMC pronounces some poor sod's song 'dishonest' that I can't stand. Whatever happened to 'IMO'? I'm reminded of an infamous workshop in which a virtuoso player of a particular specialist instrument (to say which would give it away) reduced a female participant to tears by telling her rudely that the instrument she'd brought along (and no doubt spent much-needed cash on) was a pile of crap. That and the MacColl passage are plain rude.

And of course what he says at this point is utter bollocks anyway. "You're trying to get us to accept the fact that you are a Vietnamese..." Really?? Was there a funny accent, make-up or perhaps a bandanna and set of jungle fatigues involved in the attempted deception?

MacColl states baldly the nonsense that writing a song from another person's point of view is "dishonest" and "a hoax". Dear me, all the times I've heard singers in folk clubs earnestly pretending that they actually are Sam Hall, Jock Stewart or William Hollander! Sounds to me like he is making up the law off the cuff just to put an inferior in their place.