Good old Don! He leaves his guitar out of tune for one song and the whole folk world has worked themselves up into a tiz. My God! I know folksingers who've spent their entire playing careers out of tune - and scorn the use of digital tuners to boot! (I don't need one of them! I prefer my own ears! I trust them better than that thing!- you can write the script.)

I've always been a fan of Don. I even like his voice. Derek Brimstone once said to me - I like what he does, but I can't stand that bloody voice.

The thing is I'm grateful to guys like Don and John Denver - i love their songs - you can sing them in a pub and the whole room just joins in. Along with You made me Love You and By Bye Blackbird -they are far more deeply embedded in the English tongue and psyche than the Dowie Dens of Yarrow, or some such. those songs have helped me earn a living as a musician.

On the flipside - don't we all head for the toilet when some arsehole turns up at the folkclub, puts American Pie on a music stand and commits (I won't say performs) the full version - complete with hesitations to see where his fingers should be on the guitar.

What do other people think?   Isn't there a strata of songs - perhaps not folksongs in the strict sense - but the English public have taken to them now for forty years, sixty years and seventy years in the case of jazz and wartime songs. And these songs have such a place of affection in English hearts.

Don has an honoured place in that pantheon of songwriters? Who wouldn't want to be there beside him..... and Ewan for writing The First Time Ever?