I once had a young chap at a session/singaround I run look up a song he obviously had never heard of before on his smartphone. He then proceeded to sing it to a tune of his own devising. It was awful. Everyone there cringed. At the the of the session I spoke quietly to him and said that it wasn't on - he was welcome to the session, but had to have the courtesy to us all of being slightly prepared for it. And that was the end of him.

And that's the only time I've ever had to do that. I accept music folders and music stands at my session - after all its about getting together and making music in a social way, not a performance - but I don't particularly like it. And I hate it at clubs when floor singers get up with music stands or read/play from sheets. It's something I've never done. And my answer, to those who say they have difficulty in memorising words for a club performance, is: Tough. If you're not in a position to perform properly, you shouldn't be doing it. If you were a member of the MCC, you wouldn't expect a god-given right to play if you didn't have the skill. Why should music be any different?

As to the argument that orchestral players use music, that's a no-brainer. The difference between the skills needed to play a long and complex and probably annotated score - given that most conductors will dictate that the score be played to their interpretation - and the skills needed to perform a couple of floor spot songs - is immense.

Can someone explain to me why, forty and fifty years ago, no-one ever used a music stand or music folders or books or other aide memoires in folk clubs - at least, not in my experience? It just wasn't done. If your response to that is that it's the same population, just forty years older, who've grown geriatric, then my answer is the same. You may like performing as a floor singer in a club, but if you're incapable of doing it properly, then you shouldn't.

Come the day when I'm incapable of playing or singing or performing as I have done over the years, then that's the day I jack it in. I just hope I have the common sense to recognise when that day comes and the guts to apply my own principles to myself!