Now that is a very acute bit of reasoning from Jerry there - even the bad things are helpful because they bring people together and help them appreciate the good things. (And I don't mean that ironically.)

One thing occurred to me the other day - it was after following a thread from which I learnt that Americans don't normally go in for baked beans on toast, one of the main constituents of our diet in the British Isles. And what occurred to me is that that is the kind of thing about another part of the world that you normally only get from paying a visit there. In a way spending time at the Mudcat is a way of visiting other places and other cultures in a way that reading papers and books and seeing films and TV aren't quite.

What I hope is that, as the automatic translation gets better and that kind of thing, either the Mudcat or spin-offs from the Mudcat will give us the same possibility of becoming more immediately involved in the music and life of parts of the world where they don't speak English (but where there is some terrific music.)