In the spirit of the opening post, Dave, let's indulge in some completely unjustified stereotyping, parody even. Us folkie types use beaten-up old guitars that can't be tuned, two-quid Generations, ancient hand-me-down Echo harmonicas that Grandad used to play and singing voices that have been exposed to decades of fags, coal dust, cloth ears and gallons of Double Diamond. We exercise our craft in the most dingy of smoky pub back rooms with flaking paint and condensation running down the walls. The bogs have no lights and, well, forget hand basins. We listen to the same songs we heard last week, each of which is preceded by the same tedious over-long spiel you've already heard fifty times, but at least it's democratic and everybody has a go. There's a raffle at half-time in which, if you're lucky, you might win a cassette by someone you can't stand (it'll turn up again in next week's raffle, don't you worry). There's no free beer, the thump of the jukebox in the saloon bar drowns your tempo out and if you want a pint you have to go through two doors, one of which jams all the time, so forget trying to carry more than one pint. As you listen to the same old, you notice the stuffing is falling out of the seat that's so sticky you just know your trousers won't do another day.

That's enough to turn even Norman Tebbitt into a leftie! But of course Norman doesn't go to folk clubs. Big knobs like that will be dining at the Ritz or falling asleep at Covent Garden during an opera that they are pretending to understand but haven't a clue about. The twain don't meet, not really. Well, a few working-class folks do go to the opera, though never to sit in those boxes, not to show off but because they understand and have a deep appreciation of what's going on. It could well be that the occasional public school bod nips into a folk club now and then, but you wouldn't know because he'll be in disguise and he would never willingly tell you.

I'm going into hiding now. A posse would be useless.