"There was no bar in the folk club in the" cellar upstairs"
Didn't say there was Dick, but the night we were there there was an exceptionally loud juke-box thumpng through the floor.Nobody suggested yo sang from a song sheet - why is it, d'you reckon, that whenever I come in contact with you I get visions of flamingos being used as croquet mallets?
"You responded with personal attacks on me calling me belligerent and arrogant."
And you approached what I had put down with contemptuous aggression without having the courtesy to say why
Sorry Hoot, don't recognise the 'certain gentleman' you describe - it wasn;'t the 'certain gentleman' I knew from the late sixties onward - as I said, I hope nobody ever takes me to task for my behaviour a lifetime ago.
I never remember that "certain gentleman" shouting down a Irish speaking woman singer because she took the trouble to explain her songs, or tried to wreck one of anybody's radio programmes by sending fake recordings of field singers, or humiliating someone on stage by pinning "I am a twat on the back of their chair" or persuading a well-meaning elderly lady to post snails to anybody's house by pretending they were needed to feed a pet hedgehog, or lying on television by claiming that album notes claiming certain approach to folk song, were written by them or shouting down audience members at a public discussion on folk song.
The revival in those days was a bit of a snake pit in those days and a hell of a lot of people tried their hands at snake charming - it seems complaints of bad behaviour are still as selective now as they were then.   
The C.U. was as I described it - half empty - a thumping juke box (from the bar) and poor performances.
A cellar downstairs wasn't much better on a previous visit (though with more punters and better beer on that occasion.
Well - there we go - Bryan's name (I used to think it had something to do with 'The Magic Roundabout' before he kindly put me right) - The Cellar upstairs, half-a-century old urban legends, and the usual bout of corpse kicking - anything rather than a discussion of the work and ideas MacColl left behind, "If winter comes, can name-changes and army records be far behind -
What is it with you people - is a rational discussion on folksong really that difficult?"?
G'night all
Jim Carroll