Forbes Legato takes Cambridge

It's been a long year since I had the honour of meeting Forbes Legato at the 2011 Warwick folk festival. At least it has for me - he seemed remarkably untouched by the passing of time, cocooned perhaps by his legendary misanthropy.

There he is, nose in the air.

If you remember, Legato has several recording credits to his name - honestly, he does, I'm not joking, look at the CD covers - most recently arising from his association with Pilgrim's Way.

When I ran into Forbes's business associates, Jon and Gill Loomes, at The Music Room instrument shop at the Cambridge folk festival, I seized the opportunity to ask how he'd been?

"Drinking heavily," said the long-suffering Jon, who's given up trying to conceal Forbes's alcoholism - he's over-partial to tequila - and was avoiding looking towards the nearby shelf on which the crabby cat was perched.

"He's also been swearing a lot and generally giving us a hard time.

"But there's a new Pilgrim's Way album on the way - 'the ginger gits' as Forbes calls them. The tunes are all ready to go and Forbes has cleared some studio time for it in September."

Pilgrim's Way are playing at Cambridge this evening in the Club Tent.

Just don't ask about Legato's recent visit to Catford. Loomes says Legato had a narrow escape coming across the Isle of Dogs and he's been extra antisocial ever since. The cat's back.

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Mr Forbes Legato is at the Warwick Folk festival

The other day I wrote about Pilgrims' Way and their first album, Wayside Courtesies, which I liked very much. So it was good to run into Lucy Wright and Edwin Beasant very soon after arriving at the Warwick Folk Festival - about an hour ago.

They're here for their official album launch, which is tomorrow. And Edwin is also here working in the tent belonging to The Music Room instrument company.

However, so far it's been a slightly bitter-sweet experience for me.

In my review of the album I said something about what I thought the producers, Forbes Legato and Jon Loomes as identified on the CD cover, had been up to in the studio. So when Lucy and Edwin's friend, Gill Loomes, asked if I'd like to meet Forbes Legato I said yes.

She scurried off and I wondered briefly whether she was expecting me to follow her or whether I should stay put. It turned out she'd gone to fetch Forbes.

Yes, that's right. Forbes is a stuffed toy, developed by Jon Loomes as a means of avoiding difficult conversations. "I'd love to be able to help you, but unfortunately Forbes won't let me..." That kind of thing.

And if that sounds slightly bizarre, you should hear Gill being Forbes.

I'm wondering whether this qualifies as a legitimate management technique, cos I once worked in an office in which a colleague went off to do a course called "How to have difficult conversations" and what he came back with wasn't noticeably less sensible than the stuffed cat idea.

A legend is born.

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