For those who take a parochial view, come to Stoke. i have had the pleasure of participating in sessions involving hardline raw folk-music from Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe so far this week. What is interesting is the unmistakable quality of folk-music. I don't mean they all sound the same, far from it. they sound wildly and incomprehensibly different. But they all have something powerful in common which is not be found in Bach, Cole Porter or the Spice Girls. And that something in common is I suppose what I mean by "folk". And others would perhaps use "traditional" or "ethnic".