We could all name people that we feel should have been nominated and are not. That's because there is a huge element of individual taste involved. My contention would be that the whole thing is a farce, that those nominated will often have efficient publicity machine behind them to see that the profile of those nominated is kept high and those who do not want to play this game - many of whom are named above - are left out.

The Folk Awards are just one sympton of the modern folk scene being drawn into the machinations of the mainstream music industry. The Folk Awards are an attempt to allow a small panel of 'experts' to tell the public who and what is good and who and what is not. Well, I, for one, would like to be left alone to make my own quirky decisions in that area, thank you very much

Last night at our club we had a large and enthusiastic crowd under the spell of a multi-instrumentalist octogenarian ex-pat New Yorker and I shall be high on what I got from that magical performance for days. The name of the person involved does not appear on any annual award short list, but I have been booking him regularly since 1969 and he has never been anything other than excellent.

Let's look briefly at the nominations in one category:-

BEST TRADITIONAL TRACK

    Lord Douglas by Jim Moray
    Tha Sneachd' air Druim Uachdair by Kathleen MacInnes
    Unknown Air by Duncan Chisholm
    Wild Wood Amber by Sam Lee

The choice is between a fiddle air which may or may not be traditional, a song sung in Gaelic selected by a panel of non-Gaels and two modern treatments of a traditional song and a ballad. Are we comparing like for like here to find a 'winner'? Can't we just these are all really worth a listen, but then so are dozens of others recorded this year?

Moving on from the Mike Harding era should be well marked by the BBC dropping this meaningless nonsense.