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The other day on the programme, I played a track by .

Many of you will remember Noel as one of the funniest men in the folk world; the man who invented Draught Porridge, and had a banjo player called Shaggis in his band.

He gave a great night wherever he went and I'm more than happy to report that he is fit and well, living down in Cornwall and has a new double CD out called 'The Quality of Murphy'.

Listening to those live CDs set me to thinking about the old folk scene and the present day version.

One of the things that struck me is that, whereas there used to be a mix of trad/contemporary/comedy in the clubs, there now seems to be little or no comedy in the mix.

There is no doubt in my mind that the present generation of singers and musicians are wonderful and I feel that, in their hands, the folk scene has a great future - but I do miss the laughs.

There were always curmudgeons who hated the folk comics - who saw them as the ruination of the clubs. I believe that the comics were needed as much as the trad singers; for every there needed to be a , for every a .

June and Nic are up there in my pantheon of great folkies of all time, but I think both of them would admit that they were never "patter merchants".

(who can chant a trad song as good as anybody) once said he would tear telephone directories in half if it kept the audience happy.

Most old traditional singers had a comic song or two under their belts because they too realised that songs like 'The Manchester Molecatcher' could sit quite happily alongside songs like 'A Fair Maid Walking in Her Father's Garden'.

Yin and Yang, darkness and light all part of the whole.

But where, I wonder, are the Murfs, the Capsticks, the s, the s, the s of today?

They can't all be doing the surely?