Billy Bragg at the Tonder festival on the EDL's expat branch

It was the pithy banter, the total absence of mumbling and the way in which there were approximately no notes out of place that rooted me to the spot. I'd always thought of Billy Bragg as politically less subtle than Ben Elton during his standup days and yet - with the flawless stagecraft as a runway - the realisation unfolded last night that, like Peter Tatchell, he is a man with whom history has caught up. My plan to slope off for a dose of Lau evaporated.

Although he should always be thought of first and foremost as the milkman of human kindness (because it's a phrase of genius), he's recently morphed into something of a silver fox - lucky bloke - and in the context of the equal marriage laws, his song Sexuality has finally ceased to be a slightly boastful paean to shagging ("I've had relations, with girls from many nations") and now wears the glamour of a prescient civil rights song. That's the odd thing about progressive politics, I guess: if you hang around long enough there's a distinct possibility that you'll end up in the mainstream eventually.

Tonder flipping loved him anyway. More to the point, he mentioned during his set that he'd recently heard that the English Defence League - best known for its racially inspired violence - has, wait for it, set up an expat branch in Spain.

"This is a party that is fundamentally about hating immigrants," he explained to his Danish audience. "So this latest development was a bit of a surprise."

I caught him later and he explained that he'd heard about the irony-free expat branch on tour to Barcelona a month or so ago.

"It crossed my radar on Twitter, where I follow a few anti-EDL accounts. The thing is that you can tell this story in Barcelona and you can tell it in Sweden and everyone will think it's hilarious. And yet the EDL don't see the inherent lunacy of having an expat branch. It shows them up for the humourless idiots they are."

Still, it gives the rest of us a chuckle.

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Admiral Fallow experience some exchange rate difficulties at Tonder festival - and a princess

I'm in Denmark, for the Tonder festival - which is pronounced "Tonner" apparently - and got here via Hamburg airport and a festival mini bus which, apart from me and my rucksack, also contained Kate Rusby and band, Admiral Fallow and a cool box containing beer. Just the facts.

In between noticing that southern Denmark, against expectations, bears a strong resemblance to Lincolnshire, the time simply flew by. 

"I only realised Denmark isn't in the euro a couple of days ago," I admitted. "I need to find a cash point as soon as we get there."

"Yes," said Joe Rattray, bass player for Admiral Fallow. "We've had some issues with that. Our manager sorted out the PDs - per diems - yesterday and he came bouncing in saying 'I've got €750 here.'"

Denmark isn't in the euro.

"There was this awkward silence before someone pointed out his mistake. In fact, if you retell this story can you say it happened to Lau instead? It's OK though: there's a guy backstage who's changing the money for us."

Other news from Tonder includes that the festival's patron - a princess, no less - will be arriving today. Since this is the Danish royal family - which takes a different approach to monarchy to our lot - it's not entirely surprising that one of them should be a folky. Apparently she was French originally and married the younger of the two Danish princes. I've been told that if I run into her I should ask about her brother-in-law, the Crown Prince, who successfully completed an Iron Man competition last weekend. Honestly, I'm not making this up...

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Spectator interview with Eurovision winner's folky mentor, Fraser Neill

Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, is a wise man. When he watched the Eurovision song contest the other night and saw Emmelie de Forest win he wrote this piece, suggesting that Denmark takes folk music seriously - its own and everyone else's - and this is why it won.

I got a call early on Monday asking if I would try to track down and interview the man he mentions in that blog - Fraser Neill, the Scottish folk musician who's been playing and performing with Emmelie de Forest in Denmark for the last five years - for this week's magazine.

24 hours later it was done, mainly through the magic of Twitter. I'd like to thank everyone who retweeted my request for information and particularly the person who runs the Tonder Festival's twitter account, because they directly facilitated my conversation with Neill.

And what a delightful man Neill is. The pride and admiration he felt at Emmelie de Forest's Eurovision win shone out of him during our 30 minutes or so on the phone.

Here's the interview in the Spectator that resulted. It appears as the arts lead in the this week's Spectator magazine; if there are any glaring errors I can try to get them fixed online.

I'd like to wish Fraser Neill the best of luck finding a deal for the unreleased album.

* You can follow the Tonder Folk festival on Twitter here.

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