'5000 Morris Dancers'

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 04:06 AM

Like this maybe?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:09 AM

To Spaw - I do know a bit about it (partly through E. trads) but think Romany Man, if he doesn't mind, would be better at detailing how their lifeways have survived in cooperation with what might be called mainstream English culture over the centuries.
PR! - "What cultural tests would you apply to pink-skinned, English-speaking immigrants?"...it's New Labour that have, after a decade of strongly promoting immigration/diversity, recently brought in cultural/English tests for immigrants. But I don't think they have mentioned skin colour and neither have I - in fact, your obsession with it seems somewhat unique. As I say, I'd increase the regulation of immigration/emigration the world over - including making FUTURE economic/capitalist immigration/emigration illegal; and genuine asylum seekers would be helped to their nearest (especially in terms of CULTURE) safe country, etc.
IB - we were taught in anthropology to refer to peoples in terms of culture not race/skin colour - more in line, in this case, with the modern American way ("African Americans", etc.), rather than the modern English way of "whites" and "blacks". And I thought you would have accepted by now that it's culture not race that I've always referred to. (It's some of the pro-immigrationists here that keep mentioning race.)
Also, 2 months is a tad early, but I don't get that many visits so, if I posted "Cob a Coaling" here say 2 weeks before Bonfire night, hardly anyone would here it. (Similarly, I intend to put my carols up at the start of Advent.)

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:26 AM

I've just received a PM calling for what amounts to sending Walkaboutsverse to Coventry, mistakenly assuming I'd be all for such an idea. Nothing could be further from the truth; this is an open forum for a frank and free exchange of ideas no matter how awry such ideas may - or may not - be perceived to run from whatever sort of orthodoxy people assume to be the correct way of thinking.

No doubt others have received such a PM and I sincerely hope they too oppose such an ostracisation, which amounts to the worst form of discrimination there is - i.e. the persecution of an individual because they happen to hold a different opinion.

In this matter I am as alarmed as I am bitterly disappointed.

Meanwhile, back to the merry fray!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:36 AM

...never been to Coventry...any nice parks there worth a walkabout?...any nice folk clubs for a singaround..?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:00 AM

...or, more to the thread, any Morris sides there worth watching..?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:08 AM

I did not ask you HOW, I asked if you would consider the Roma and their songs and instruments as English tradition ?
["So since they have been in England for many years, you would consider the Roma and their songs and instruments as English tradition?"]

Just a yes or no will do.

Spaw

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:10 AM

IB - we were taught in anthropology to refer to peoples in terms of culture not race/skin colour - more in line, in this case, with the modern American way ("African Americans", etc.), rather than the modern English way of "whites" and "blacks".And I thought you would have accepted by now that it's culture not race that I've always referred to. (It's some of the pro-immigrationists here that keep mentioning race.)

You can't separate issues of culture from issues of race & ethnicity, especially in the context of a multi-cultural UK. We all know what is meant by terms such as African-American with regard to ethnicity, though culturally it might not be so straightforward. If this was the case, then you would accept that the cultural make-up of these North Atlantic Islands has been defined by 10,000 years (and more) of immigration. This process continues, making us what we are; what we have always been, but you continue to question it. Why?

Also - you have said on numerous occasions that your ideal England was that which existed before the immigrations of the 1950s, giving very clear indication of the sort of immigration you're referring to. It is these notions, and admissions, coupled with your somewhat bizarre notions of what constitutes Our Own Good English Culture (i.e. a stereotypical folk culture which is almost 100% revived and in no way shape or form reflects the actual cultural concerns of the English people, rather the recreational indulgence of a tiny minority of same) and your professed militancy in this respect that would certainly suggest that your ideas run a good deal deeper than the cultural.
   
Also, 2 months is a tad early, but I don't get that many visits so, if I posted "Cob a Coaling" here say 2 weeks before Bonfire night, hardly anyone would here it. (Similarly, I intend to put my carols up at the start of Advent.)

You get a lot more visits than we do, WAV - having some 6027 friends & some 72 plays already today. I know it is the English Way to start celebrating too early (the first Christmas lights should be going up as I write)but in the world of folklore, revived or otherwise, such festivities are very specific & that specificness should, I feel, be respected, otherwise you lose the ceremonial & ritual focus that is carried in the entire sense of the song - especially regarding Myspace, which can be changed at a moment's notice and is ideal for such seasonal merrymaking. We're still in BST; still some eleven days off the equinox, so in terms of a song essentially tied to a cross-quarter fire festival supposedly derived from the moveable / lunar Samhain, then maybe you should wait until October is well under way. I know you take great pride in such things, as well you should; they mean a lot to me too, part of my entire appreciation of Folk Music is the seasonal context in which such ceremonial songs occur, thus do I say a tad pemature. I agree with putting the carols up at Advent though; just as long as you don't take them down again until Twelfth Night.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:44 AM

IB - your last sentence is, indeed, what I did last year. And, closer to Bonfire night, I'll move "Cob a Coaling" to the top, from 4th place, where it is now. Also, did you notice last year the fireworks were not quite as early as previous years?...so perhaps more folks are starting to agree with the respect for seasons you mention.
I've stopped doing it now, but I used to post a couple of examples of my poems on every single Friends profile, which led to quite a lot of Visits, etc. - for an amateur musician and poet. At the moment, I'm spending less time on there (doing the same with just New Friends), and more time working out how to play the tunes to my own Chants from Walkabouts - I play a line, sing a line, play a line, and eventually get there, I think, at something of a snail's pace compared with some of the folkies I've known (i.e., minutes or even seconds to play a tune they've only just heard played and/or sung.)
Spaw - from what I know, their ways have fitted in closely with English traditions over the centuries - peripatetically selling carved pegs, trad. songs, or tinkered pots and pans to farmers/cottage-dwellers, etc. But, as I say, RM, could answer this better than I.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: romany man
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 10:32 AM

Positively my last entry, Yes WAV we do try to fit in and have done so for hundreds of years.
However for the same amount of time we have been slagged off, kicked off and generally **********about. We dont just sell bloody pegs and, mend ***********g pots forget the romantic crap of being free to come and go as we please in highly decorated wagons pulled by gorgeous black and white cobs, the fact is most in the early days lived in bender tents, made a living how they could mainly even up to the last war, following the harvest, or doing odd jobs or things other people would not do.
The wagos came in as we started to get a bit behind us, but that was recent really in history, by victorian times we had come full circle, some gaining wealth enough to buy beter wagons the horses generally were a cross between a heavy mare and a lighter draft cob typ horse, the locals even then only wanted us around when something needed doing, after the war trucks and vans became available so we got mobile, going further ,faster, earning as we went, more money better things, so the wagon started to go and the trailer was born, now they could be fancied up and were, vickers , roma, cobdale , all saw a niche market and started to produce purpose built vans some costing more than a house at the time. Oh but then the roaming laws came in, oh joy, we fought a war to stop this kind of thing, but hey ho they are only gypsies, easy way to stop em, ban the towing of that length of trailer, the people who made them tried to shorten them to meet the new rules but nothing fitted, now of course the likes of hobby ete make an excellent living wagon and to your spec if you ask them. However where to stop. All the old aichen tans are gone, if you stop the gavvers and bailiffs are on you as quick as a wink, we try and try to fit in, but we as a race are being torn apart , yes we get up to all sorts of things there are good and bad all round, a very few people know what ive personally been through, and the support ive had from my non romany folky mates has been great, my romany friend equally, but and there is always a but,n i have even since coming back from sunny knockholt had anti romany crap come my way. so Wav it is hard and we all try our best but when councils can take away charter land and build factories that remain empty for years, yet we cant live on it, today, tuesday, i heard of another friends failure to get permission for a mobile home on the 20 acres he has owned for thirty years, yet if he sold it to the council for twenty thousand pounds they can build 100 detached properties on it . (rabbit hutches) tell me that is not discrimination, he has been fighting for ten years now. so when things get better all the gypsies will be gone . Make someone happy wont it. I will no longer be adding to this thred as its going nowhere and to be honest i dont feel comfortable withit.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Master Baiter
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 10:57 AM

I have enjoyed poking some fun at WalksaboutVerse from time to time but I have also quite clearly stated what he appears to be saying. People like Catspaw don't seem to get it but once again, here we go.

I think he's saying that he sees and believes in the value of any culture continuing to carry on past traditions. He also feels that folks deserve the right to a sovereign existence and to hold cultural values within a territorial area characterized by the groups own laws and customs. Wav maintained his cultural values while in Australia but is better back in England. He thinks it could be better yet. It takes but simple logic to see that for a people to survive as a distinct cultural group they must have their own land so that their own ways can be furthered to the exclusion of alternate ways of life within that specific geographic territory. The alternate ways need to exist in their own territories as well.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Golightly
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 11:22 AM

And there was me thinking the London bit of the Beijing closing ceremony was a witty, ironic homage to Spinal Tap's Stonehenge, what with the musicians towering above the cut-out London skyline.

Whatever London chooses for the 2012 opening ceremony, you can be sure it will not reflect the way we see ourselves. If it were me, I'd just show Live Aid again. London was a world leader that day and it did it through real music, not contrived marketing images.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 01:06 PM

Yes, Golightly, Live Aid was "real music" to the extent that they played live, rather than miming; but they were singing their verses in the framework of American, NOT English, genres such as pop and rock. Loving the DIFFERENCES between nations, in line with what MB just said, I do hope for a good serving of folk music, song, and dance in 2012. Also, whilst checking the last few posts, I watched a Sky News anchor-person interview a couple of pop acts in contention for the Mercury Award - without hearing from Rachel Unthank waiting politely in the background...still, at least her quite-folkie band are there.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 01:15 PM

WAV: As I say, I'd increase the regulation of immigration/emigration the world over

Yes, I know that's what you'd do if you ruled the world - you've mentioned it already, once or twice. My question was about what changes you'd like to see to immigration into England. You want more English culture and less of all the other cultures: how would you actually achieve that? What 'cultural' tests would you set would-be immigrants, so as to satisfy yourself that Bob from Trinidad and Gurvinder from Uganda and Wally from New Zealand were genuinely English (like you)?

MB: It takes but simple logic to see that for a people to survive as a distinct cultural group they must have their own land so that their own ways can be furthered to the exclusion of alternate ways of life within that specific geographic territory. The alternate ways need to exist in their own territories as well.

Yes, I do think that's what WAV is saying. And I think the 'simple logic' of this "we live here, you lot live over there" mentality is racist at best - a recipe for ethnic cleansing at worst.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Don Firth (my computer's in the shop)
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 01:47 PM

Gad, sir, WAV is right! If we are to preserve true English culture, we must bring Colonel Blimp out of retirement!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 02:55 PM

I just had a quick look, Don-on-the-local-library-shop-floor?, and see that character is pro-British and probably imperialism, etc. - which is certainly NOT the WAV way. And I did answer you, WR, as the same applies to England. Also, the Unthanks did, thankfully, get a guernsey on both our local news broadcasts here in NE England, regarding the Mercury Awards tonight.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 03:07 PM

of American, NOT English, genres such as pop and rock.

WAV - how many times? These genres aren't American in any sort of sense other than one that might be vaguely geographical, given the African, British & European cultural diasporas by which they came about & continue to come about. To some extent one might say Jazz is American, albeit African-American, but ignore the universality of such a music, or yet the universality of its relevance, at your peril. Like folk, these genres are but part of an ongoing process of musical & cultural coalescence of such vast complexity that it might not make much sense to you given your somewhat narrow remit on such things, but it can be just as traditional & English if not more so as any of the folk music you're always banging on about.

By your definition Joy Division played American music, which just isn't the case. I urge a rethink on this, WAV - seriously.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 04:49 PM

You didn't answer my direct question, WAV, but then you never do.

Please, if you don't want to be ostracised by at least one Mudcatter, answer these two questions.

1. Who do you want to bar from coming to England?

2. How do you recognise those people?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:43 PM

A musicologist may drop by, IB, and confirm that pop evolved from American religious music; and rock from American blues and country, etc. But, yes, they are certainly globalised forms now - as are many American ways. That's why I've often put globalisation/Americanisation. Elbow just won the Mercury Prize, by the way - the lead man talking with an English accent but singing with an American one.
PR - 1: Economic/capitalist immigrants (from now on, i.e.) but NOT genuine asylum seekers to which England is their nearest safe country, etc. 2: self explanatory from answer #1.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 05:51 PM

You'd bar yourself, then?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 06:15 PM

A musicologist may drop by, IB, and confirm that pop evolved from American religious music; and rock from American blues and country, etc.

I think first of all your musicologist would confirm that American religious music & American blues and country evolved from the music of the African, British & European migrants (willing or otherwise) who brought it with them as part of their respective cultural identities, which is why I say these things are part of an ongoing process of musical & cultural coalescence of vast complexity and not an aspect of the globalisation you are rightly wary of.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,sinky
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 07:27 PM

Can i just add that morris dancing is the saddest geekiest piece of shit on earth

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 08:10 PM

No, that'd be Wavy Dude...............

Spaw

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 04:56 AM

IB - The Beatles, e.g., knew they were copying an aspect of American culture (which they were obviously good at), and even tried speaking with American accents. The Americans tried to get their OWN back by forming The Monkeys to beat The Beatles. Meantime, wiser English folk were turning and tuning up at folk clubs - performing their OWN culture to the best of their ability; or, Sinky, turning up at Morris sides to dance their OWN. The world needs a cultural revolution - folks everywhere appreciating the cultures of other nations but practiSing/performing their own.
Thus, from the 12 in the abovementioned Mercury Awards, the WAV Award of 2008 goes to "Rachel Unthank and the Winterset", for sticking much more closely to their own culture, with good quality to-boot.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 07:47 AM

The world needs a cultural revolution - folks everywhere appreciating the cultures of other nations but practiSing/performing their own.

WAV - What you think of as Our Own Good English Culture is, in truth, the consequence of the hobbyist & recreational concerns of a small minority of the baby-boomer middle-classes who did nothing to engender, encourage or yet inspire a second wave until their own offspring had come of age, thus assuring that Our Own Good English Culture remained the reserve of an even tinier elite. The Folk Revival wasn't a revival as such, rather a whole sale invention on the part of certain individuals and only very loosely based on what only academics ever called Traditional Folk Music. Taxonomy is only ever the study of the thing, and NOT the thing itself, and once removed from its socio-cultural context, it becomes something else entirely. Like your singing of Cob a Coaling; in actual anthropological terms this is a very different matter from your mistaken assumption that in so doing you are, in fact, practising, much less preserving, your Own Good Culture. Folk Music is a myth, a blip on the screen, a mirage, a spectre, albeit a very potent one, at least for that tiny minority who are of that particular persuasion - such as myself. However, in the thirty+ years that I have been a folky I have, like most other folkies, been other things too. That's the way it is with Folk Music - it's understood to be an optional extra; we recognise it, and we celebrate it, for what it is, rather what it clearly is not - i.e. Our Own Good Culture. For that we must recognise that Culture is as People Do, and that the practise & experience of culture will be different for each of the 50 million souls currently residing in our once green and pleasant land. This is Folk Culture by Anthropological &, indeed, Ethnomethodological Definition, WAV; which is to say by context & actuality, not the cranky volkish yearnings of misanthropic racists* such as yourself. Remember - without people, there can be no culture.

The Americans tried to get their OWN back by forming The Monkeys to beat The Beatles

A somewhat simplistic overview of the situation, but whatever the truth of the matter, The Monkeys were 25% English and had an appreciation of the ancientness of their craft. If you doubt that, then watch This.

* By persisting in this misplaced volkish vision of cultural purity you are tying your racist colours to the mast. The day your catalogues of English Dances & Instruments (for example) include all the cultural manifestations of our multi-cultural England is the day that you might stop being a racist; the day you retract such contentious rhetoric as English culture is taking a hammering and, when people lose their own culture,society suffers is the day you might stop being a racist. Until such a day, you remain, in truth, a racist by admission & definition.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 08:38 AM

...asked about the exotic instruments you accompany E. trads with, IB, you know which country each comes from, and the way it is traditionally played there - but you can't stand the idea of England having suchlike, due mainly to your extreme pro-immigrationism. Whether or not you agree with the post-war mass-immigration, it's silly to deny that England was 50 years ago a much more English place, with less than 1/2 a percent of the population being immigrants. And when I hear and read that for centuries English did sing these E. trads unaccompanied, or that the English cittern was once very common in taverns and barber shops, I believe it to be, at least mostly, true; rather than believe someone who also comes up with conclusions like this...

"Hurrah for New Labour, bunch of mushy-mouthed motherfuckers the lot of them. Who gives a fuck what they think? It's all just spin & hype anyway."..."the lot of them"? (IB).

Also, racism is where someone says they are all like this or that; or I don't mind immigrants from that part of the world, but I hate ones from there, e.g. - which is NOT my argument; I've only questioned the act of immigration itself. Please don't confuse these, and stop making false defamatory remarks.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 08:45 AM

"or that the English cittern was once very common in taverns and barber shops"

How common was it in the 1950's? Have you any figures because it was totally extinct in barbershops in the 1960's and I've yet to see one in any tavern, inn or ale-house.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 08:48 AM

racism is where someone says they are all like this or that

You can say this as often as you like, it doesn't make it true. Racism is believing that people from different cultural/ethnic groups are fundamentally different & should be treated differently. Racism is saying "they're perfectly nice people, I just wouldn't want one of them living next door". Racism is saying "we belong here, they belong over there". These are definitions which match your beliefs to a T.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 10:00 AM

England was 50 years ago a much more English place, with less than 1/2 a percent of the population being immigrants

150 years ago there was mass immigration of Irish people to England. The influx caused great anxiety about cultural (and literal) pollution - they were thought to be degenerate, disorderly, diseased and generally a Very Bad Thing. 150 years on, most of their descendants don't even have an Irish accent.

100 years ago there was mass immigration of East European Jews. Again, the newcomers were thought to be a Very Bad Thing. Again, they responded by getting jobs, getting married and generally settling in. Again, 100 years later their descendants are as English as you or I.

Why should you be worried that this process isn't going to happen again?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 10:13 AM

WAV : ...asked about the exotic instruments you accompany E. trads with, IB, you know which country each comes from, and the way it is traditionally played there - but you can't stand the idea of England having suchlike,

IB : WAV, if we had suchlike in this country no one would be happier than I, but the fact is, we don't; only in the context of the folk & early music revival which is an entirely bourgeois invention, but none the less valid because of that, or indeed appealing. But you must understand that this music operates on a very different level of cultural / national significance here as it does in, say, Turkey. See Here for an example. Note the Kemence, aka Black Sea Fiddle, which I use to accompany various E. trads with.

WAV : due mainly to your extreme pro-immigrationism.

IB : Again, I have not stated my views on immigration one way or the other; rather I have called into question your motives behind your continuing anti-immigration stance.

WAV : Whether or not you agree with the post-war mass-immigration, it's silly to deny that England was 50 years ago a much more English place, with less than 1/2 a percent of the population being immigrants.

IB : At last! So good to read what amounts to a confession of the racist sentiments that underlie your feelings on both immigration and Our Own Good English Culture. But I wasn't even born 50 years ago, I was born in 1961 and I grew up in a multi-cultural & multi-ethnic Northumbria, with Chinese, Yeminites, Indian Hindus and Indian Moslems etc. etc. and being of Irish-Scottish-Jewish extraction myself hardly endears me to a notion of Englishness founded on such divisively racist sentiments as you evidently believe in.

Again, English Culture is but the consequence of 10,000 years of immigration, invasion, assimilation & diversification. This is the way we are, the way we have always been. There is no, nor has there ever been, one objective English Culture; to say so is to perpetuate a convenient racist myth. Anthropologically speaking, your beloved E. Trads are, with but few exceptions, no longer sung as an integral aspect the culture of the rural peasantry to which they once rightfully belonged. These days their songs are sung by way of a recreational pastime by middle-class urban professionals, a situation which is in no way, shape, or form traditional, nor yet does it constitute Our Own Good Culture. As I say, there are exceptions, but these only go so far as to prove the rule.   

WAV : And when I hear and read that for centuries English did sing these E. trads unaccompanied, or that the English cittern was once very common in taverns and barber shops, I believe it to be, at least mostly, true

IB : True up to a point, WAV - but certainly not in the 1950s! What proportion of the English People ever sang these E. trads unaccompanied anyway? Or even sang them exclusively? What we have now is a revival, a complete re-invention of the entire notion of English Traditional Music & Song a million miles away from the condition in which it originally existed. Any revival singer will tell you this, and they will also point you to the source singers, that grubby bunch of individuals whom you could actually call traditional singers. Now, whatever conclusions might be drawn from this with regard to a definition, or indeed a conception, of a Folk Music (albeit after the fact), the source singers had no more idea of such notions than does the Jackdaw of his place in the ornithological taxonomy.

WAV : rather than believe someone who also comes up with conclusions like this... "Hurrah for New Labour, bunch of mushy-mouthed motherfuckers the lot of them. Who gives a fuck what they think? It's all just spin & hype anyway."..."the lot of them"? (IB).

IB : If you're going to quote me, WAV, at least get the quote right. It is Hurrah for New Labour, bunch of mushy-mouthed motherfuckers the lot of them. Who gives a fuck what they think? It's all just spin & hype anyway. And that is my expressed personal opinion (nothing more, nothing less) on the condition of politicians in general & New Labour in particular, for reasons I've already given above. It is not a conclusion, nor is it a published manifesto; nor do I promote it as being the best way forward for humanity. Shame you seem to have taken such a particular fondness to it; another smokescreen to hide behind. As I said above - can you defend your ideas in ways that don't amount to a personal questioning of my deluded attempts at analysis? Obviously you can't.

WAV : Also, racism is where someone says they are all like this or that; or I don't mind immigrants from that part of the world, but I hate ones from there, e.g. - which is NOT my argument; I've only questioned the act of immigration itself. Please don't confuse these, and stop making false defamatory remarks.

IB : Racism is exactly the sort discriminatory crap that you publish and believe in; cower behind semantics all you will, but the fact remains, as you have shown with your it's silly to deny that England was 50 years ago a much more English place comment above, you are given to sentiments which are not only racist but also 100% bullshit. England is English by default, WAV - every aspect of life as practised & experience by any one of 50 million citizens of England amounts English Culture in terms of pure anthropology, no matter what part of the world these people are from. This is no different to how it's been at any point in the last 10,000 years; no different to how it was 50 years ago; only in the fact that the individuals are different, just doing exactly what they want to do which is their right and privilege to do so. Would you deny them that right? From what I have read, I think perhaps you would.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 12:17 PM

WAV wrote 'England was 50 years ago a much more English place'

50 years ago it was acceptable to put up signs reading "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish", homosexuals were sent to prison, everybody "knew their place" & most people listened to American or pseudo-American music. Ah the golden years?????????

WAV your images of England are so far from what I've ever experienced growing up here I wonder if you've ever been to the country?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 12:21 PM

With regard to everything here, check this outK-Space.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 12:53 PM

I've already answered the above comments/criticisms - except to let Eric know that I am an English repat., actually born in Manchester the day Alf Ramsey's English team won the World Cup of football. I've now lived here a total of 15 years and have, believe it or not, put a lot into my repatriation, etc. And, in anticipation, no I don't like an Italian telling us how to play our favourite sport.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 12:54 PM

...nor a Swede or any other nationality I should quickly add.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 01:10 PM

wav,have you thought of taking a holiday?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 01:27 PM

As well as Australia, CB, I wouldn't mind another VISIT to Ireland, poem 12; or or Italy, poem 16.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 02:24 PM

I've already answered the above comments/criticisms

Where's your answer to this, then?

Racism is believing that people from different cultural/ethnic groups are fundamentally different & should be treated differently. Racism is saying "they're perfectly nice people, I just wouldn't want one of them living next door". Racism is saying "we belong here, they belong over there". These are definitions which match your beliefs to a T.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:11 PM

Some people have tried to confuse questioning immigration with racism and, in some cases, they have succeeded. They are NOT the same thing. E.g., one who loves travelling and being among "different cultural/ethnic groups" (Pip) for a while, may NOT be in favour of mass economic/capitalist immigration for various non-racist reasons.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Don Firth (computer still in the shop)
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:38 PM

Gad, sir! He is Colonel Blimp!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 05:57 PM

may NOT be in favour of mass economic/capitalist immigration for various non-racist reasons

There are non-racist reasons for being concerned about immigration. There are also racist reasons, and those are almost exclusively the ones that you've cited. Racism is saying "we belong here, they belong over there".

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 06:34 PM

WAV -- now it all makes sense -- you're essentially an immigrant yourself. I've met lots of 'English' like yourself -- never quite one thing or another. It explains alot about your 'disney' image of 'Englishness'.


p.s. as an Englishman I'm happy for an Italian to get our team organized to beat Croatia in Zagreb 4-1, just as I was happy for a Swede to choose the team that beat Germany 5-1 at their place. The English are nothing if not pragmatic and through history we've been happy to have an anglo-american, a welshman, a dutchman, or a frenchman lead us -- as long as they're a winner. Even our patron saint is an imigrant.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 04:35 AM

WAV : Some people have tried to confuse questioning immigration with racism and, in some cases, they have succeeded. They are NOT the same thing. E.g., one who loves travelling and being among "different cultural/ethnic groups" (Pip) for a while, may NOT be in favour of mass economic/capitalist immigration for various non-racist reasons.

And those non-racist reasons?

WAV (for full post, see above 02 Sep 08 - 08:42 AM): ...trying to have a multiple number of cultures living under the one state law will always be problematic... ; ethnic conflict; it's much more difficult for tourists to terrorise; when people lose their own culture, society suffers; 50 million is too many people for the area of land called England; etc.

Choice stuff, WAV.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:18 AM

50 million is too many people for the area of land called England

To be fair to WAV, this is a non-racist reason for opposing immigration. But anyone who was really worried about numbers would oppose immigration by anyone, including people who were originally born in England. Not only that, they would encourage permanent emigration by anyone, including people born in England; and, perhaps most importantly, they would discourage everyone from having more than one child, including people born in England. I don't think this is WAV's position.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:19 AM

"WAV -- now it all makes sense -- you're essentially an immigrant yourself. I've met lots of 'English' like yourself -- never quite one thing or another. It explains alot about your 'disney' image of 'Englishness'."

Hey - HEY! Watch it there, Mr Orange! As someone who emigrated to England 18 years ago (meaning I've spent nearly half my life here), I am also one of the staunchest critics of Wavey Davey's "world view".

I love England's traditions, but would be the first to gainsay the chocolate box version of England that's occasionally perpetuated by posters to this messageboard. England's diversity will yet be its salvation, IMHO.

Rather than being "neither one thing nor the other", I like to think that we immigrants embody the best of both (or all) of our cultures! :)

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Joe P at work somewhere else
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:22 AM

I think WAV congratulated China on it's one child policy.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:28 AM

Indeed, he went even further, Joe: he congratulated them on having "stuck to their green, humane, birth-control policies..." (c) Wavey Davey

He still hasn't really managed to successfully explain how he was defining "green" or, more importantly, "humane"...

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:35 AM

To get to the nub of WAVs various posts.
I'd like him to name one pure bred English person.
For myself, I've got bits of Celts, Danes, French, Jews, Germans, and Gawd knows what else in my ancestral past.
And proud of every man jack of them!

If I ever met someone who could prove.....and I mean PROVE! that he/she where truly from undiluted English stock, (whatever that is!) I would shake their hand, but, (and heres the rub)
I wouldn't recognise the person in front of me. Because that person cannot possibly exist.
Have to go now.
Have got to brush up on the Chaucerian version of the English language.
(Which obviously, no doubt, you are well acquainted.
Why not send your next text in "Middle English" to prove your ancestry?)

Oh, and by the way the Cittern isn't English. So there.

Oh (again). WAV...You were born here, but lived most of your life elsewhere? Presumably at your parents choosing. Yes?
Therefore they (and you) were economic migrants too?

Pots/Kettles Discuss!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,True British Radish
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:58 AM

I'd like him to name one pure bred English person.

Pure-bred Angles*? Bunch of $**!!* Danes and Germans, come over here, take over our country... Those Saxons** are no better, and don't get me started on the Jutes***.

The Scots and the Welsh****, they're your true Brits. Mind you, even the Celts were originally immigrants - they came over the land bridge and got stuck here. I don't know what they were speaking here before - Basque, probably.

*    From Angeln (in between Flensburg and Schleswig).
**   From Saxony.
*** From Jutland.
**** Which is Anglo-Saxon for 'foreign'. Cheeky blighters.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:02 AM

But there were always Morris Dancers!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:04 AM

And....
To get back to the original subject.
We all know, that the Olympics will be based around our Military domination of various parts of the world in the "Glorious Empire" days.
You all remember, when we taught the rest of the world how to play Cricket, and drink Tea? Respected their indigenous cultures, and put them in a museum for the "English" to marvel at..(Anyone been to the Horniman museum?)
Well, thats what we are going to get in 2012.
With a passing tokenistic mention of all the other races that live on this tiny island.

I'm not dissing our armed forces. But I would happily diss the bastards in governments (Through the ages) that have waged war, and tried to subjugate other nations.

So, The Olympics of 2012, will be just as jingoistic and manipulated, as all other Olympics have been before.

And, all that we might say here, will come to naught.


As I said many posts ago...
I'm going on my holidays that week, to avoid the embarrasment that such a spectacle would be.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:16 AM

50 million is too many people for the area of land called England

In & of itself perhaps this is a non-racist reason, but in the context of his other non-racist reasons it assumes a sickening racist aura, very much of the there's enough here as it is - send the buggers back variety, especially given that it's complete bollocks, even with the present land/wealth distribution.

I'd like him to name one pure bred English person.

Every person alive in England today is pure bred English; we are the consequence of human process, diverse in culture, region, religion, ethnicity, origin & destination; we are English in our utter individual uniqueness & diversity; each & every one of us. This is the right & purpose of our Englishness; the only Englishness that matters; by choice, by love, by dint of simply being here in the first place.