I'm afraid there has been a blurring of the parameters of art.

A lot of it has to do us becoming part of an international community. There are universities in some countries where Agatha Christie is considered a cultural heavyweight like Dickens. Its been coming on for fifty or sixty years. Byron, for example, whom we regard in our more generous moments as a second echelon romantic poet, in France - he is rated far above the rest of the boys in the band - Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge.

We've got used to the idea.

If John Williams, after a lifetime of selfless dedication, can not just countenance , but welcome the democratisarion of guitar playing. It tells us something about the nature of the world we live in.

We don't appear to be folksingers. But we are. In three hundred years our communities will doubtless look as fucked up and brainless as when we watch The Tudors. We may not bang on goatskins and record our stories in thirty verse ballads - but we are of our time. Why wouldn't we use ipads for our folk music. Ipads are more integral to our communities than bloody goats.