Doing one of my regular trawls through the musical world and surfing around the ether, coffee by my side, I've been enjoying some wonderfully funny pieces of music. Most of them are many, many years old. But I wondered - where are the modern equivalents? Where are the anarchists? Is it my jaded and outmoded memory, or were there many more of them in my youth - Tom Lehrer, the Bonzo-Dog Doo-Dah Band, Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band?

Where are the Leslie Saroneys, the Rufe Davis's (both singers of "The Old Sow") of today, for example? The Spike Jones's? The Barron-Knights - formed around 1960 - are still doing stage shows today, but I'll bet very few here, including me, have heard of them over the last few years. Remember Dr. Crock & The Crackpots? Sid Millward & The Nitwits? In Sussex, until a few years ago, we had the Harry Strutters Orchestra, and some appearances by Bob Kerr. I've heard the Bonzos still get together occasionally.

I suppose the comedy song, at its height, flourished within the music-hall tradition and in children's entertainment. One of the reasons to be grateful for folk clubs, singarounds, etc., is that comedy in song is alive and flourishing. I was at Elsie's (the Queen's Head) in Kent last night, to see the Twagger Band in action, and we had a number of songs from the company that brought roars of laughter to the room. But outside that genre of musical entertainment...? Any offers?