"I've been asked to go to these knitting circles," he said, "but somehow - it was probably convenience - I've never been able to make it."

One woman described knitting circles as "the new book group - only you don't have to pretend to talk about the book, which we never did anyway."

For the poetry world, which makes headlines about as often as philosophers' guilds and knitting circles, the dust-up has led to bitter recriminations and charges of slander or worse.

It felt like a portent of a Twitter-dominated future, in which book clubs will be as esoteric as knitting circles.

Let's bring back poetry clubs and knitting circles, village bakes and children's Sunday clubs, too.

The club meets every week and takes the same format as many other knitting clubs, knitting groups and knitting circles as a place for knitters and crocheters to come together socially to share and enjoy the craft.

Jolyon visits a project in Stirling which has set itself the ambitious challenge of talking face to face with 35,000 people, through existing social groups like rugby clubs, knitting circles and art groups.

Suneaters purposefully eschew traditional live performance venues, opting instead to perform at events or unconventional locations such as leftist political rallies, knitting circles, flea markets, film festivals, tournaments, independent retail establishments, meadows.

Mothers organized knitting circles to make socks for their sons and sent Christmas-parcels (that invariably contained rusks and a Bible) to a mysterious 'front' somewhere up north.