Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Dave Earl
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 10:00 AM

"Artistic direction and stage management"

I thought what you were saying was that what is put on at Sidmouth make it too run-of -the-mill.

You have experience in the fields you mention?

Offer you services to the organising team and make a more constructive contribution.

Dave

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:48 AM

Why should I have a point of view on funding? It's not my area and never has been. Artistic direction and stage management, yes. How to pay for it is someone else's problem. I could formulate the arguments to put to ACE (or anybody else with dosh) but I haven't (obviously) the patience to make up budgets and try and convince people who don't care that they should ,

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Dave Earl
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:39 AM

"I . . . really . . . can't . . . be . . . arsed".

Until you can don't expect me to have any sympathy for your point of view.

Dave

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:31 AM

Could the people complaining that sidmouth is now just another standard festival please make constructive suggestions about how a return of the arena could be financed

I could. But it would be an extremely long diatribe on the iniquities of arts funding in general and I . . . really . . . can't . . . be . . . arsed.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Dave Earl
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:29 AM

"Could the people complaining that sidmouth is now just another standard festival please make constructive suggestions about how a return of the arena could be financed."

You did read this didn't you CR?

Dave

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:26 AM

In the rest of it, which you can read on the fR Letters Board, he goes on about having a lovely time blah blah blah, which I'm sure anybody could manage given the array of things to do. Point is that, like me, he doubts whether Sidmouth can be anything more than just another festival. That's not a bad thing to say and certainly not a matter for twisted knickers. Many people seem to like standardised festivals just as they apparently like shopping in high street chains. Just as you'll get the same stuff from any branch of Tesco, there's not much difference between what's on offer at Warwick, Priddy or Cleethorpes. Just visit your nearest branch for your trollyful of Watersons, Carthys, Lakepersons and Chumbawambas.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST,pragmatist
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:09 AM

I miss the arena shows and the international teams, and agree that without them sidmouth has lost some of its special magic, but let's be realistic.
The reason that sidmouth was unique in these features is because no other organisers have had the nerve, or should that be foolhardiness, to mount something similar.
Before the collapse of the communist countries many of the foreign teams were heavily subsidised by their governments. Now they have to be paid for. The Arena infrastructure was a huge expense, and in wet weather lost money hand over fist.
The present organisers have done a marvellous job to keep the folk week going, having gambled their own money on the Bedford concerts, the Lastminute ceilidhs, the Ham etc. It might not be the old festival with its special magic, but it has given a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
Could the people complaining that sidmouth is now just another standard festival please make constructive suggestions about how a return of the arena could be financed.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 09:05 AM

Sounds as though he is sitting on the fence there CR. He may have damned by faint praise, but it is very faint, as is his condemnation.
G.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:24 AM

That very nice Bob Walton has just reported on Sidmouth @ fRoots, from which I'm sure he won't mind if I reproduce the following:

Without the Arena, and all the benefits and problems it brings (the treadmill that Mrs Casey was continually tring to tame) the festival will never be the same, IMHO. Whether it can retain that unique Sidmouth atmosphere without that and the more international flavour remains to be seen: I guess there's a danger that it will turn into just another week long British Folk Festival. I sincerely hope not, but who knows.

So go and kick him instead. If you dare.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:17 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:16 AM

that's as far as it goes

Phew!

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:13 AM

That's OK Jon, but don't get led down Diane's road.

No, Lizzie, my road is different to Diane's and I think always will be. I think I have more in common with her within "folk" than I have with you but that's as far as it goes.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:09 AM

It's being inferred

Surely you mean implied: ferro ferre tuli latum, the most irregular of all Latin irregular verbs. Even that isn't quite right. 'Twas no 'implication' but a blatant attempt to impose Kinder Kirsche Kuche on the masses.

Yeah, I know who the crumpet is too. Trying to blag clogs all over the place. Why can't the little bastards buy their own?

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:02 AM

Nice one Countess ¦¬]

Lizzie I was hiding from you, and successfully it would appear. I was hiding in full view in The Bedford The New Tavern, The Swan and The Anchor, among others!
Giok

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 08:02 AM

*yawn*

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:55 AM

what the fuck is CR on??

Headache pills. To be succeeded shortly by a lot of vodka. And probably crack cocaine.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:51 AM

Uh Oh...Sweetum's woken up again! Never mind...she can have a field day in here whilst I'm having a Moor Day 'out there'....

;0)

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:50 AM

. . . I just noticed that about a million posts back I put the demise of the old Sidmouth at 1994 instead of 2004. It just feels like that long ago . . .

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:48 AM

That's OK Jon, but don't get led down Diane's road. It's being inferred that all sorts of things were meant by that comment, merely to start an arguement. I know Pudlover, very well, she has become a dear friend, purely because of Sidmouth you know! I'm sure that many other people have life-long friends because of Sidmouth too....

Yes, there was an instrument stolen from Sidmouth this year, I'm sure you read about it on here and on the BBC. It's happening all over the place, I think Annie put a piece from Steve Heap on the BBC board, saying that he's aware of these 'gangs' who are targetting folk festivals now...

Even more reason for us all to come together, as a community and as a nation, to first accept what is happening in our society and then to try and bring back some of the values and commnunity spirit that once used to be there.

And MacKenzie! Where were you hiding then????? ;-)

I'm not on Prozac...I'm on folk/roots music and Myspace! :0)

And now...we're off to Dartmoor to climb a few tors....


Lizzie :0)

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:45 AM

Well, I'm not even going to begin speculating who you are, Guest. If you actually were a friend you'd call or mail me like a normal human being. As I pointed out several posts back, I only re-entered this thread after a particularly smug and insulting post pontificating on how Sidmouth-goers should be family-orientated non-boat-rockers and status quo upholders from somehow who had just showed up and felt like preaching. In doing so I've not disclosed any details of my own lifestyle, present or past activities. Those who know me are aware of who I am, who I 'used to be' and what I do. Those who don't have no right to tell me how I should live, conjecture on how I might or - particularly in this context - tell me what I should think and do. Particularly when they can't be arsed to READ THE SODDING THREAD, but just pick out the odd word here and there. I've told no-one how they should lively up their lives (though could well have implied it) but will continue to have a lot to say to those with an appalling 'good enough for f*lk' lackadaisical approach and complete unawareness of and lack of respect for the tradition. Though not at the BBC. Haven't been there for ages since the forum got lost in MySpace. At fRoots I rip up misguided boorish anoraks before breakfast. I've reiterated several times what I used to find 'special' about Sidmouth and is absent now. Others say they are content, well, good for them. I'm not. What do you want me to do? Pretend? Lie? I don't do these things and thus retain self-respect.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:37 AM

And Jon, I'd not get too pedantic about those words above.

Lizzie, I only responded as Pudlover asked and asked in a way which didn't really reflect what she had said (OK perhaps not meant to say) at first.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:35 AM

I remember reading somewhere one of the more 'famous' folkies' Mum saying that she'd always felt that when her children were younger they were safe to wander round Siddy on their own, as there were people everywhere and so many wonderful things for the children to take part in. It DOES have a special atmosphere and the rest of the year round it is still a wonderful place for children to grow up.

That doesn't sound especially unusual to me and while I haven't been anywhere where there are "special childrens festivals", the forming of sort of "families" where people will keep an eye on other people's property, kids, even other adults if they've had a few to many... is familiar to me.

It strikes me that it might be something that is going though. A few years back, I had a Walkman stolen from some we thought to be "some of us", something you never used to dream of happening, I've read elsewhere that some festivals (and presumably larger more popular ones) have suffered from "tent thieves" who are buying season tickets to rob.

I'd like to think I'm wrong but I can't really imagine Sidmouth or anywhere being "special" enough to escape from this.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:29 AM

If, as someone said LC is on Prozac, what the fuck is CR on??
G

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:15 AM

I know who Joanie is Sweetums....leave her alone, she's doing far more for folk music than many other people....

The one thing that I've really enjoyed in this thread is reading how much everyone who DID come to Siddy HAS enjoyed it this year, and I'm really pleased about that. It'll be passed on to the people who organised it, although I'm sure many of them already have been reading what's been said. I'll bet it's made them feel great as well!

And Jon, I'd not get too pedantic about those words above. I think perhaps what was meant was merely that Sidmouth has a very special atmosphere, in that it is very safe for children and families in general...And you don't have to have children to be part of a family you know....we ALL belong to families of some sort or another.

I remember reading somewhere one of the more 'famous' folkies' Mum saying that she'd always felt that when her children were younger they were safe to wander round Siddy on their own, as there were people everywhere and so many wonderful things for the children to take part in. It DOES have a special atmosphere and the rest of the year round it is still a wonderful place for children to grow up.

There were just as many people here with their elderly parents as there were with their children, and people who were just down on there own as well...Sidmouth is for everyone, as are all folk festivals, but it is a lovely place to come with children.

And the folk festival community in general is hugely supportive, caring, peaceful and uplifting and there's nothing wrong with that. It is what our society in general is desperately short of right now...and I've said many a time that society has a great deal to learn from the folk world, for as Jan said, it IS about family (of all sorts), community and continuity....and long may that continue.....


Lizzie :0)

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 07:00 AM

Diane,
I know you to speak to - we've met in person a few times at various festivals over the last few years. However, you have just become a bully online. I know you find Lizzie annoying, but I think I speak for most people on the BBC, fRoots and this this board in saying that you are far more of an annoyance - for most readers you are only barely being tolerated at the moment. Stop belittling other peoples lives and beliefs, and stop presenting your own as fact. Nobody cares where you used to work, or who you hung out with in the 60s if you use it as a weapon to beat other posters down. Your views are no more valid than anyone elses, and the majority of your postings are simply childish insults.

I have attended Sidmouth since the 80s, and this years was easily back up in "specialness" terms. I am neither smug or MOR. I am more than familiar with both Playford and Child. I AM middle class, but through no fault of my own.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 06:32 AM

with your family around you.. Is that such a crime? Only in some quarters apparently.

No pub lover but Diane seems (admitedly jumping in with her DMs on) to have taken exception to you saying:

That is what the world of folk should be about - continuity and family.

I would normally let that pass but as you do ask, I will say this. I can't say I'm fond of that statement. It's only a "qualifier" missing as far as I'm concerned. That maybe what the world of folkmusic is to you or what you feel it should be but it isn't that to me and I don't think it should be that.

The world of folkmusic to me is diverse with people with quite different tastes, ideas and backgrounds and it represents all. Saying it should be about the family is to me, exclusive and it would cut me out for one. That it can cater for the family, that events children enjoyed were at Sidmouth are IMO great plusses but not IMO a whole way the world of folk music is or should be.

The world of folk music to me is not about political activism either. In the main it provides me a way to finding, listening to , talking with, (best of all for me) playing music with other like minded people.

In some ways, in truth, my main motivation is the persuance of my own enjoyment and interests, I don't feel as if I need be on any crusade to make converts, I am selective in what I take out of it (eg. I don't like all that may be classed as folk by some or even agree that some stuff is folk music at all, people exist in the world of folk who next to nothing in common with me except the general banner "folk", etc.)

On the other hand, if anyone is interested, I try to share any bit of knowledge, experience, etc. I've had in my own very small way and try to put back into when I can and that too from my view point is something folk music should be about - that sort of sharing.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 04:56 AM

If the crumpet on a high seaside donkey is actually making such an important contribution to the tradition as it thinks it is (even though this seems to be at the expense of a dozen other projects starved of the Arts Council funding that s/he boasts of cornering), it would surely consider with as much disdain as I do the 'continuity and family', let's all be uncontroversially smug, middle-class R2 listeners attitude of the MOR punter who wouldn't recognise a Playford tune or a Child ballad if it bit them on the arse.

But that would involve reading and comprehending the drift, not single-word-nit-picking. I re-entered this thread to shoot down someone who was being gratuitously offensive in seeking to impose said hideous lifestyle and musical constraints on everyone attending a festival. Bizarre. And I'll continue to oppose that sort of censorious crap without anyone's 'permission'. To descend for a moment to somewhere approaching the crumpet's level (at whom the criticism was not originally aimed so I can't see what the fajitas it's going on about), Sidmouth was 'mine' before it was 'yours'.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 04:32 AM

I'm not a "basher", just expressing an opinion of an event i've actually experienced. Which is more than you're able to contribute to the current debate.

Unpleasant? Honey, you've re-defined the word. My "filthy mitts" are all over the traditional music and dance you purport to love so much: I just got £17k from the Arts Council to bring traditional dance and music into local schools, delivered by some of the finest practitioners in the country. So I wonder which of us is contributing more to the health of the tradition?

There are plenty of people who know who i am and what i do - the fact that you don't means nothing. Crikey, i've totally sunk to your level and given you what you want: a fight. I'm removing myself from this now to deprive you of the oxygen of attention on which you so clealy thrive.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 04:16 AM

Ah! Now I see. A Womad basher. That says it all. Come back when you've grown up. Maybe.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 04:14 AM

Ah right. "Dislike' is the one word to be picked on, to answer my rhetorical question. What I actually said was that I DON'T 'dislike' it, meaning actually that I don't give a toss either way because I'm not currently involved in it. Hey ho.

Dunno who this unpleasant crumpet is so have no idea if it's 'full of shite' as it assumes I am. But no, I don't want a fight, but need very much to counter the patronising crap dished out by those who wish to impose their reactionary, drab and complacent view of music and indeed life on others. Sidmouth ain't special now. It's OK but ordinary. You like that? Keep going and wallow in the dreary awfulness of the Marlborough's open mic with the cornishpasties of the world. Just keep your filthy mits off the glorious trad music and dance that's been my passion for decades.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 04:02 AM

There's no Flame because people got quite badly injured while doing it. But as long as it was in the name of your amusemaent, CR, I guess it's all good.

I did Womad for three years. Overcrowded, overpriced nonsense full of musical wallpaper with a campsite like a refugee camp.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 03:58 AM

You can't dislike it. You haven't been, and have no evidence on which to judge. Anyone with more than "limited intellect" knows that, in order to defend a position, you must present evidence for your case. Despite others giving you numerous examples of why what you say is simply not true, all you can do is keep repeating "it's no longer special. It's the same as any other town-based festival."

The reason you cannot defend your argument is because you have no experience of the event. All you want is a fight and to engage in pointless one-upmanship, which is clearly why you enjoy goading Lizzie so much. You may need a place to let off steam, but I wish (and I think others would agree) that you'd find somewhere else to do your irrelevant and baseless ranting.

Have you considered some sort of help? Anger management classes, maybe?

BTW, I was one of those up till dawn every day and left my "brat" at home with her dad. And I still think you're full of shite.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 03:50 AM

The Offsprings? Black Swans? Yes, fantastic. Though absolutely not 'acts that it is impossible to catch elsewhere'. They're everywhere and have been for years. It's not necessary to go to Sidmouth to see them. They're at or on their way to your local venue now. But there's no 'Flame', no 'Fanfare For The South-West', no fabulous international dance displays, no Shooting Roots. Thus, it's not special any more. I've got to have a really good reason to wend my way to an awkward corner of this island, providing it doesn't clash with Womad as occurs some years. And there isn't one.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 03:28 AM

I'm not seeking 'support' from most contributors to this thread: I'd be horrified if the narrow-minded, 'good-enough-for f*lk', nuke- family-friendly dumbdowners approved of my stance. As it is, only the Socialist Worker seller seems to get where I'm coming from, which is really quite amusing. I've said all along that it was a miracle that those who strove to cobble together something or other from the ashes of Sidmouth achieved anything at all. I wished them well (though with incredulity) in 1994 and have continued to do so, but it's written down nowhere that I have to actually like the overall result. I don't dislike it either but as the new Sidmouth has nothing to distinguish it from any other town-based festival, I consider it only worth attending if there's nothing better to do. It's no longer 'special'.

As for my assessment of the level of intellect of some contributors, this was based on their inability to extract more than a single word out of many and thus misrepresent the context. That's 'limited'. And selfish. Though possibly not mischievous as in most cases they appear to lack the wit. Wonder which word they'll pick from this post. No, only joking. I don't care.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 03:26 AM

"rather than confront the reality of how glorious Sidmouth was once (which they never knew), rather than what it is now: a clone of any other run-of-the-mill festival."

Well, i may not have been to the previous Sidmouth, but I have lots of friends who have been going for 20 years and are delighted with its present incarnation. You have never experienced Sidmouth as it is, but still feel qualified to judge it based on second-hand information. Maybe both of us should keep our mouths shut. But as for it being a clone of any run-of-the-mill festival, i gave you several examples earlier of why this isn't the case, none of which you were able to respond to because you WEREN'T THERE.

"To me it was workshops and seeing acts and specially-staged spectacles it was impossible to catch elsewhere all day followed by ceilidhs then playing all night"

apart from the spectacles, that's EXACTLY what Sidmouth was this year. That's what people have been trying to tell you. And despite the lack of specially-staged spectacle you still got great, smaller-scale stuff like Morris Offspring and Black Swan doing the spots during the LNEs - spectacle indeed, if the response of the crowds was anything to go by.

I programme a year-round venue and a festival. I taught Arts Management at university level for 3 years. I know what the current committee have taken on, and what they've achieved is, quite frankly, a staggering success in such a short period of time. I really don't know what people like you hope to accomplish with your whinging. Event management is a thankless task: people take for granted all that runs well, and crucify you for everything that doesn't (whether it's your fault or not).

This "limited intellect" will continue to enjoy Sidmouth for many years to come.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Dave Earl
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 02:58 AM

We know that Sidmouth is not what it used to be when Steve Heap/Mrs Casey Music ran it.

Thats the whole point!

We think (you obviously don't) that the new organasing team, some of them are personal friends, are doing a good job under difficult circumstances and have produced an excellent festival that provides what we enjoy.

You don't'have to like what the Festival is now and harking back to what it was, and may never be again, is not helpful.

If you want to start a campaign to get the festival back to what it used to be feel free but I don't think you will get much support from people on this thread and you will have only yourself to blame!!

Who do you think you are to question the level of intellect of the contributers? And as for being whimps who retire early - some of us have jobs and families and need a reasonable amount of sleep.

And so Diane - I expect you have been told before - you are entitlted to your view of things and life in general but way you express yourself around this part of the web doesn't impress me

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 01:58 AM

I see there's been much stretching of limited intellect by the arduous extraction of single words per post in typical 'Cat fashion while I've been out. To remind those of scant attention span, the 'boring wimps' reference was addressed at those who sodded off to bed early, rather than confront the reality of how glorious Sidmouth was once (which they never knew), rather than what it is now: a clone of any other run-of-the-mill festival. If you would care to rewind and actually READ THE THREAD, you'd recall that this saga began after I'd taken issue with some particularly nauseatingly patronising and smug declarations (which certainly would be more at home on the bland, dumbed-down, MOR, Cambridge-backing BBC forum where the aforementioned 'faerie' is campaigning for a Morris ban, than here) that Sidmouth is about 'continuity and family' and music that was safe, bland and non-political. Like hell it is (or was). To me it was workshops and seeing acts and specially-staged spectacles it was impossible to catch elsewhere all day followed by ceilidhs then playing all night. If these are not activities that appeal to today's just-appeared-out-of the-woodwork-whingers, they could hold their continuous pub singarounds absolutely anywhere or amuse their multitudinous offspring on a different beach which actually has sand. And stick their heads in it while they were about it. Or join 'lizziecornish' in her latest deluded campaign to inflict the dregs of the MOR fakesong singersongwriters onto R1 so that if she succeeds, the population at large will say 'so THAT'S f*lk music?'

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 10:40 PM

Just to clarify a bit- of the prom list I only joined the Western swing group. The others, of course, I just listened to--and, if buskers, encouraged with a pound or 2.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:55 PM

Admittedly I may be more impressed by a wealth of great squeezebox players than a Briton or Irishman might be. But I loved to hear all the concertinas, melodions, etc. all over Sidmouth--(despite being warned in "The Melodions are Coming" that "This is the way the world ends--all in the key of D.")

Not to mention--just on the prom--balalaika orchestra, George Fornby songs, Trinidad steel drum, Irish band, autoharp group, Paraguayan harp, accordion orchestra (Dorset group of mainly older women), Appalachian fiddle and clogging, Western swing group--just impromptu--which I joined. Boogie-woogie piano. And on and on.

I had probably the best Sidmouth ever--in large part due to renting a viola from Glen Titmus--at a more than reasonable rate. So I could just walk into any informal group and throw a low harmony into the mix--if that seemed welcome. As well as sing some songs. Walked into the Swan to join in singing Daisy, Daisy and wound up playing 4 hours in the Swan with a spectacular concertina player. The tunes kept tumbling out--Irish, English, Scottish, Russian, German, American. And he liked a low harmony.

I did try to get into 2 concerts. No luck--sold out. So--back to the prom--and the York and Faulkner, the Volunteer, the Middle Bar, the Swan, etc. Not exactly a hardship. Sorry I didn't make it to the Theater Bar--I meant to.

Only one major problem--like Lizzie, I found the cloning workshop wasn't developed enough to let me be everywhere at the same time.

Saw old friends--and met a lot of new ones.

Highlights--far too many to list--but just a few:

Being serenaded every day between 8 and 8:30 by a wonderful 79-year old Dutch melodion player just outside our hotel window--with the sounds of the surf in the background. Having heard him play Lili Marlen in 3 different keys, I went out, met him, and sang D-Day Dodgers for him.

The delightful puppeteer at the Blackmore garden (after the Sidmouth Town Band--also very impressive). He (a Middle Bar singer, I'm pretty sure), did by far the best Punch and Judy I've ever seen   (Jan, who's English, seconds this). Wonderful rapport with his young audience.

Sillier Songs, March to the Sea--more of us than I've ever seen before--and then Gloom and Doom. All just on Thursday.

Playing in the band for the 25th annual non-existent ceilidh at the ford. First time for me.

Spectacular fireworks--in some ways better than the those on the Washington Mall on the 4th of July--in Sidmouth they came thick and fast--no gaps.


And, and, and--as noted--far too many to list.

Sidmouth truly sparkled--literally even--on the sea. The best weather I can recall certainly helped--but based on the enthusiasm and crowds I saw most places, the festival seems more hale and hearty than ever.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Declan
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 08:10 PM

For all the sensible and sane people who haven't been to Sidmouth.

Don't let this nonsense put you off. It's a great festival. And if you're lucky you probably won't meet the headcases on this thread who are doing their best to ruin this and other threads for everyone else.

And they are now back on the BBC board as well. At least one is and the other is sure to follow.

Can the two of you not set up a site of your own where you can slag each other off and leave the rest of us in peace?

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 07:31 PM

"shower of boring wimps"? Why are people wimps who have come here for a reasonable discussion and don't find it fun to get in the middle of your vitriolic, misanthropic mudslinging and Lizzie's prozac-laced whimsy?

This has got old VERY fast.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Chris Cole
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:56 PM

ANYTHING?

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:49 PM

What a shower of boring wimps. Off to bed already in their middle-England, middle-class, redbrick-little-box semis. Now, will I go out? (You can get anything you want down Green Lanes y'know) . . . or just phone some real people?

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Chris Cole
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:40 PM

Sleep tight...
with your family around you.. Is that such a crime? Only in some quarters apparently.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:37 PM

Diane, if the bus is filled with the Moaning Minnies...it's definitely a CharaBANG!

Now my Horlicks is calling me, as are my bedsocks and cosy hairnet...I have to go.....

;0)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....zz.z...zzzzzzz.....zz....z..

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:34 PM

And on that Smiley Note....it's time to say "Adieu Sweet Lovely Guesty" for 'tis way past my bedtime now and I can't stay up all night long merely to keep you entertained.

After all....I have a whole new world of young people to tell about folk music on the Radio 1 board tomorrow!

Do you know they even have a 'Dance' board on the Radio 1 messageboard!...It's filled with people I've NEVER heard of...so I told them about the Peatbog Faeries, Lunasa and Flook....I'll bet that half the Radio 1 audience is dancing to those Myspace links I gave them, even as I type... ;0)

Well....Goodnight My Lovelies....I shall leave you all to it...

Sleep well and pleasant dreams...I'm off to dream of the First Week In August 2007.....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lizzie :0)

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:31 PM

Good grief, no. no, no, not faerie. The only thing that gets up my nose more than the pasty and the pudding is the flaming faerie.

(btw it's a CHARABANC, not 'bang' (though maybe if it squashed the foodstuffs van . . . )

Thing about the pasty, Guest 06.12, is that I don't know it at all, certainly not 'inside out' (jeez, what a disgusting thought). Tonight apart, obviously, I no longer nowadays frequent these timewasting message boards peopled in the main largely by those who don't want to know anything anyway but are merely using up a month's free subscription with their latest ISP, other than to answer the odd question or announce something, because as you remark, reasonable discussion with those who actually know something of the subject rapidly becomes impossible.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:27 PM

Oh yawn!...don't start up with The Troll business again! For heaven's sake...I'm a Trollop NOT a troll......how many times do I have to remind you?????

;0)

Go off and get thee a rollicking good sense of humour! Jim Causley will be able to help..he's got the best I've seen in a long time! He can't stop grinning! We LOVE Jim Causley!!!

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:21 PM

"I didn't bait actually, I merely 'responded'..hell of a difference there"

Lizzie, you were the troll doing the baiting. That is why you called it fun.

Subject: RE: Sparkling Sidmouth!! :0)
From: Lizzie Cornish
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:17 PM

Uh Oh...the Radio 2 Moaning Minnies Away Day To Mudcat Charabang has just turned up...possibly with a faerie on board....

I didn't bait actually, I merely 'responded'..hell of a difference there.