It's interesting - while you were having your roadhouse supper last night, I was out with the ceilidh band, playing at a party in a large village hall down here in Sussex. Our band line-up comprises guitar/mandolin, bass, drums, fiddle, mandolin/guitar & melodeons/saxes. It's fairly in-your-face and loud when occasion demands it, but the repertoire is a solid diet of English, Scottish, Irish and some Cape Breton tunes. It's actually a rock band playing solid traditional tunes - and I don't mean in the Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span style.

Our audience was composed of several groups of young an not-so-young ladies comprising *stoolball teams in the area - and the occasion was their annual gala get-together. And could they drink! The evening was wild. When Tony (our caller for last night) said, "Now the bottom couple make an arch", some of the young ladies were making arches with their tits... Wild screams, leaping dance steps - ladettes at the ready - with just the right kind of rocking music to get them sweating.

Now, that's what I call an evening of folk music!

*stoolball: a sport that dates back to at least the 15th century, originating in Sussex. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders, in fact Stoolball is sometimes called "Cricket in the air". Traditionally it was played by milkmaids who used their milking stools as a "wicket".