'5000 Morris Dancers'

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:33 AM

Ralphie

"Why not post in Middle English...."

Because if you did you'd be using a lot of French derivitives:-)

Baz...who's obviously missing the classroom rather more than he thought he might:-))

Interesting interval discussion next time we work together...unless there's some morris dancers to watch of course...(not sure how many)

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 08:38 AM

Hi Baz

Bloody French! Source of all our problems, if you ask me!
More than happy to have a "Heated Debate" next time we meet.
Anythings better than watching Morris Dancing!

Yo!! Ralphie

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 08:58 AM

Oh Ms Archer

That an infiltrater like you, from a foreign land, should take over one of the most hallowed of English Festivals, spanning 50 odd (?) years.....(Sidmouth) is a vile calumny (Spellcheck please) to our Holy Sceptered Isle.
Get back to that unholy country that is called the US of A....
Don't forget your lipstick!!
Very tongue in cheek!

Ralphie xxx

No chance for Housewives Choice next year then?!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:12 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'.
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." (Eric)...If someone is born in a country and they return to live there, then that person is a repat. - NOT an immigrant.
And if nationals are going to compete for other nations, why bother holding internationals?; and, if the manager is not important, why have a foreign manager?

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

But culturally, you are not English. A friend of mine was born in Oman. He has returned there once for a short holiday. He considers himself British (half Welsh half English). Being born in Oman is a coincidence, not a factor in his cultural being.

What are your qualifying factors for someone to be English?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:38 AM

Joe - I've read widely from the canon of English verse; I keep fit with lawn tennis; my staple meal is pottages; my repertoire of Chants, hymns, and songs is English; I participate in the NE England folk and poetry scenes; I've worked on my pronunciation and done a couple of technical courses here; I grow English ivy; I learnt to walk and talk here, etc....apart from the remnants of my Australian accent, I'm very (old-fashioned) English, thanks.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:41 AM

Quote from WAV; '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.' So accent is important when delineating someones practice of their culture is it? Specifically, if a 'foreign' accent is used, then it isn't Our Own Good English Culture (to use your own argument) Ok then...
I put myself through purgatory and listened to some of your 'chants' again, just to check. Your normal accent WAV; it's not English, is it? It's Australian. How did you acquire such an obviously non-English speaking voice? Surely you must have grown up in and acquired a non-English culture? Speaking as you do, I don't think you can claim English culture as your own, can you? Why don't you concentrate on your Own Good Australian Culture, as your accent is obviously better suited to this?

I've used your arguments here, WAV; mine would be different, and much closer to Guest Joe, above. Culture and nationality are not wholly interdependent, as any rational person knows; if this was the case, what would people with dual nationality be, culturally? No-one is born as a cultural being (when did you last see a new-born baby who could Morris dance or play the Cittern?), therefore place of birth has no bearing on what culture you are eventually socialised into, other than as an accident of geography. An example would be Colin Cowdrey, the famous English cricketer (later Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge); a more 'English' man you would never meet; but he wasn't born in England, but in Ootacamund,India. He was educated in England, his parents were English and he lived all but a small period of his life in England. Would you argue that his own culture was Indian?

G'day, sport.
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:59 AM

I've read widely from the canon of English verse;

That's pretty unusual among English people.

I keep fit with lawn tennis;

That's very unusual.

my staple meal is pottages;

I don't even know what pottages are. (Some sort of stew? Are lentils involved?) Anyway, it doesn't sound at all English.

If you were really trying to sound English you would have said you read Heat, play squash and live on chicken tikka masala with half and half (half rice, half chips, half stottie). But I'm not really bothered about how you live - as far as I'm concerned you are English, because you've chosen to live here.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:16 AM

I've searched the internet in vein for any clips of The Kapoor family from 'Goodness Gracious Me', but they are described on Wikipedia as-

"The Coopers (Kapoors) and Robinsons (Rabindaraths) - Two snobbish nouveau riche couples who claim to be entirely English with no Indian blood whatsoever, but often give themselves away by using each other's real names, mispronouncing words or silly mistakes such as serving guests some lemonade with sliced courgettes in it."

The main thrust of the sketch was always the Kapoors insisting that they were more English than the Rabindaraths because they played cricket and took communion in church every Sunday, or because they were bad at complaining and had 'stiff upper lips' (literally in one sketch.

Sound familiar?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:30 AM

G'day again, cobber; cripes WAV, you say youse have worked on yer pommie pronunciation eh? Pretending to be a pom, are yer? Isn't that a bit like the Beatles pretending to be American? Or me pretending to be Australian?
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:33 AM

Just fancy that!

WAV : I've read widely from the canon of English verse; I keep fit with lawn tennis; my staple meal is pottages; my repertoire of Chants, hymns, and songs is English; I participate in the NE England folk and poetry scenes; I've worked on my pronunciation and done a couple of technical courses here; I grow English ivy; I learnt to walk and talk here, etc....apart from the remnants of my Australian accent, I'm very (old-fashioned) English, thanks.

WAV : Singing a folk-song in a phoney foreign accent, or in classical- or pop-style, is surely "not cricket." Exceptions, however, are genre-overlapping traditional carols - which may be sung with either an earthy folkie timbre or a classical "Sunday-best" timbre, as in A Christmas Carol, by C. Dickens. And why bother affecting our voice for the genre - as well as, occasionally, for different lyrics within the genre - instead of just putting our natural speaking-timbre into song? In a word - culture.

A slight contradiction there, me thinks BUT whatever the case, we are what we are, rather than how we might attempt to define ourselves according to whatever nonsensical notions we might have about cultural identity. How would an anthropologist see you, WAV - as a naturalised Australian or a repatriated Englishman? You've been here for all of - what? Eleven years? Your Australian accent is in no way a remnant, it gets stronger every time I see you, which is fair enough. Be proud of it, WAV - be proud of what you are and be proud of your Authentic Human Uniqueness; don't lose that because you're hung up on some bogus take on Englishness.

Interestingly, the missus scolded me the other night for a very bad Australian accent when I was practising Peter Bellamy's setting of Henry Lawson's Glass On the Bar; a song, I feel you could sing to perfection. There's so much English-Australian culture; E. trads and all - and you there, perfectly placed to represent it.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:44 AM

I hate to tell you this, WAV, but having listened to you on Myspace, your accent is just as much a mess as mine. Appropriately, given that I've lived almost half my life in one place and half in another, my accent is a complete mishmash. Yours is, too. But it's still a lot more Australian than Geordie.

The difference is that mine has got this way organically, because I don't care how I sound. And even if I spoke with a typical accent for the place where I now live, it would not make me any more English than I am. I've got a bit of English ancestry somewhere - again, that doesn't make me English any more than my Italian or Irish heritages make me Italian or Irish. I grew up in America and within that culture - whether you like it or not, you are culturally Australian, just as I am culturally American. The past 18 years have added another dimension to my cultural identity, but they do NOT eradicate the first half of my life. Even if my parents had been English, I would still have had all of my formative cultural experiences in America - just as yours were in Australia.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 12:39 PM

Firstly to Ruth Archer -- sorry Ruth I didn't make myself clear. I personally believe that there are two types of English -- those who grew up here and those who have settled and chosen to make their lives here as adults. To me both are equally 'English' and I strongly believe that England finds its unique identity and strength in the melding of the two. The only reason I point out any differentiation is because you pick up a lot of your adult identity from the culture in which you grow up.

The 'English' who I described as being "neither one thing nor the other" are those ex-pat children who grow up in other countries absorbing that country's culture but never considering themselves a part of it. They come to England thinking they are the definition of 'Englishness' only to find out that their imagined version of England and what it is to be English is not true either.


Secondly to WAV, where you said 'If someone is born in a country and they return to live there, then that person is a repat. - NOT an immigrant.'

Sounds like I struck a nerve!??

You said 'I've read widely from the canon of English verse; I keep fit with lawn tennis; my staple meal is pottages; my repertoire of Chants, hymns, and songs is English; I participate in the NE England folk and poetry scenes; I've worked on my pronunciation and done a couple of technical courses here; I grow English ivy;' That certainl makes you something, but it's not 'English'.

If you're brought up in a different country you're culturally an immigrant regardless of what it says on your birth certificate. That doesn't stop you being English in my book, but it sounds like it does in yours.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 01:17 PM

Mandotim and IB - as I said, as a repat., rather than a visitor to England, I have practised an English accent, but, as I also suggested, people still can still tell my time in Australia; but that's a far cry from the Beatles practising an American accent in order to be more pop...with some of you, it really is a case of damned if I do, and damned if I don't. "Australian accent is in no way a remnant, it gets stronger every time I see yo" (IB)...others have said otherwise but, if it's true, it's not for want of trying...I've listened carefully to Geordie athletics commentary, e.g.
WR - I said "old-fashioned English"; and here's an e.g. of "pottages" for you (and, before you say it, I'm aware some of these foods are imported...fair-trade is part of my argument, remember)...

Poem 93 of 230: ONE-POT COOKING

While living as a bachelor
    I've cooked in just one pot -
Cast iron with a wooden handle,
    It can hold quite a lot:

Slices of potato and carrot
    Are boiled a while,
Before a thinly-chopped onion
    Is mixed with the pile.

Then I drain off most of the water,
    Add canned lentils and beans,
Stir with spice and tomato sauce -
    To an end, it's a means.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Ruth - "you are culturally Australian"...I had Australianised, of course, during my 26 years there, but I just gave you an example (posted again by Eric) of how I really DO live my life now, which IS far more English than Australian, because I'm a determined repat. NOT a visitor, this time. Ironically, 20 years ago, I saw myself as an Aussie traveller visiting the likes of India, where I found myself arguing with locals that I was NOT English but Australian!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:00 PM

Right now, as I write & listen to the Amazing Blondel (A Corner of a Foreign Field... live 1972) whilst in the OVEN is a single pot... In this pot is the remaining half of last night's mixed hedge (essentially a stir-fry but without the oriental focus: ingans, sweet potatoes, whole chardonnay carrots, Herbes de Provence, spring greens, finely chopped turkey breast, cherry tomatoes, chestnut mushrooms; no added liquid). Over this I've laid something halfway between a pie crust & dumpling (basically strong white flour, olive oil, herbes de provence & water); it goes on slightly soggy so as best to fit the contours of the hedge remnants.

Turned out a treat the other night, but how will it be tonight?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:02 PM

how I really DO live my life now, which IS far more English than Australian, because I'm a determined repat

And yet, if you were really determined to fit in to England as it is now, you wouldn't be reading poetry, you probably wouldn't be playing tennis and you definitely wouldn't be questioning immigration. Half of what you say & do is from an England that died 25 years ago, the other half is all your own work.

Which doesn't matter - you are who you are and you do what you do. I don't even object to you trying to mould your life to some imagined idea of Englishness, although I do think it's a bit sad. What I do object to is your setting yourself up as some kind of arbiter of Englishness and the idea of England - a topic about which you clearly know far less than the mongrels and migrants who are debating with you here.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:04 PM

...I wonder if IB, secretly, is the third Hairy Biker/Baker?!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:08 PM

Which reminds me, here's my personal credo (courtesy of Neil Innes):

What do you do?
I don't know, but I know I do it every day

Why do you do it?
I don't know, but I know I do it anyway

I do what I do, indeed I do
I do what I do every day
I do what I do
I am what I am
We are what we are
We do what we can

What do you do?
I don't know, but I know I do it everyday

Why do you do it?
I don't know, but I know I do it anyway

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:47 PM

"Which doesn't matter - you are who you are and you do what you do. I don't even object to you trying to mould your life to some imagined idea of Englishness,"

Nor do I, and nor would anyone else..it's when WAV insists that the rest of us should be living by his rather shambolic and arbitrary rules that people lose patience.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:01 PM

but how will it be tonight?

Perfect! Hairy Bikers, eh? Saw it for the first time the other night on my brother's recommendation - the wedding cake episode. My favourite food programme of late is The Super-sizers Go... - now that's a real taste of England!

Now it's out with my air-rifle to bag a few crepuscular rabbits in the dunes before a night at the local folk club. Cook 'em just right & they're delicious; the secret's in the marinade.

Jawbone and the air rifle
Who would think they would bring harm?
Jawbone and the air rifle
One is cursed and one is borne

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:09 PM

Careful what you wish for (or aim at), IB. From memory, The rabbit-killer could not eat for a week, and no way can he look at meat. No bottle has he any more... (and then it gets strange).

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:23 PM

WAV -- as Pip said, it seems that you're a bit of a sad case. You're making so much effort trying to sound and act like an English person yet you're completely missing the point about what it is to be English. You make yourself a laughing stock and then try and tell us who and what we should be. You're an English equivalent of a 'plastic paddy' -- (could it be called a 'rubber Johnny'?????)

Maybe if you spent less time pretending to be English you'd have the time (and humility) to find out what it is to be English in the 21st Century.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 08:24 PM

Wav.
Sorry to break the bad news to you.
But...............
You are an Aussie.
Deal with it, or get some therapy.
But, please drop this garbage.
Nobody agrees with you.
If you want to pretend that you are English (when you're not) FINE.
Just keep it to yourself. WE DON'T CARE.
And please
NO MORE POEMS.
They don't even rhyme

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 04:21 AM

(and then it gets strange)

As the summer draws to and end and such braw pots as detailed above are the order of the day; as the nights draw in and the year's Dandy-Beano and The Broons & Oor Wullie retrospectives hit the shelves (bought mine in Waterstones in Preston on Saturday for a fiver a throw; better still, turned up originals of the 1955 & 1961 Dandy Book and a 1962 Beano Book for £3.99 a pop at Oxfam); when one delights in a 1954 edition of the King Penguin book of Misericords - Medieval Life in English Woodcarving (which is worth seeking on-line otherwise you could pay up to £25 from an antiquarian bookseller); when one digs into the darker corners of one's ballad repertoire at singarounds; when, for daily listening, one roots out one's original vinyl copy of The Clemencic Consort's landmark recording of Le Roman de Fauvel featuring what might regarded as the definitive performance by Rene Zosso (the perfect musical accompaniment, incidentally, for the perusing of the aforementioned Misericords - Medieval Life in English Woodcarving); when one waits with baited breath for the publication of the full facsimile of the recently unearthed masterpiece of medieval English art that is The Macclesfield Psalter... then one might also, in those all-too quiet moments when inner-reflection threatens to consume one in a maelstrom of self-doubt and melancholy at a life thus wasted in dedication to folk song and other such anachronisms, find comfort (as one has been doing now since it's release in 1982) in Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall - who, in taking their name from Camus, will forever synonymous with Autumn. I have in my keeping a bootleg recorded in Newcastle in October 1981; a fine night in The Bierkeller (I was there) where they featured a lot of what would later turn up on Hex, including, of course, Jawbone and the Air Rifle, introduced by Mark E. Smith in a cod Scots accent as a wee tale from the Anthrax Island.

I've often tried to figure out a way of singing it in folk clubs; one day I might even nail it. Meanwhile, in the spirit of true Engishness, 5000 Morris Dancers, 700 Elves, the oncoming autumn and pure poetic excellence, here it is in full...   

JAWBONE AND THE AIR-RIFLE

The rabbit killer left his home for the clough
And said goodbye to his infertile spouse
Carried air rifle and firm stock of wood
Carried night-site telescope light

A cemetery overlooked clough valley of mud
And the grave-keeper was out on his rounds
Yellow-white shirt buried in duffle coat hood
Keeping edges out with mosaic color stones

Jawbone and the air rifle
Who would think they would bring harm?
Jawbone and the air rifle
One is cursed and one is borne

The air rifle lets out a mis-placed shot
It smashed a chip off a valued tomb
Grave-keeper tending wreath-roots said
"Explain, move into the light of the moon"

"I thought you were rabbit prey, or a loose sex criminal"

Rifleman he say "Y'see I get no kicks anymore
From wife or children four
There's been no war for forty years
And getting drunk fills me with guilt
So after eight, I prowl the hills
Eleven o'clock, I'm tired to fuck
Y'see I've been laid off work"

The grave-keeper said
"You're out of luck
And here is a jawbone caked in muck
Carries the germ of a curse
Of the Broken Brothers Pentacle Church
Formed on a Scotch island
To make you a bit of a man"

Jawbone and the air rifle
Who would think they would bring harm?
Jawbone and the air rifle
One is cursed and one is warm

The rabbit killer did not eat for a week
And no way he can look at meat
No bottle has he anymore
It could be his mangled teeth
He sees jawbones on the street
Advertisements become carnivores
And roadworkers turn into jawbones
And he has visions of islands, heavily covered in slime
The villagers dance round pre-fabs
And laugh through twisted mouths
Don't eat
It's disallowed
Suck on marrowbones and energy from the mainland

Jawbone and the air rifle
Who would think they would bring harm?
Jawbone and the air rifle
One is cursed and one is gone

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:03 AM

To Ralphie and Eric - suggesting that a repat. to England can never again be English is not racist but it is at least bordering on bigotry.

Perhaps an Irish reader or two may post on how those returning from America or Aus., e.g., to the "Celtic Tiger" might be treated if they made similar efforts to these (from above)...

"I've read widely from the canon of English verse; I keep fit with lawn tennis; my staple meal is pottages; my repertoire of Chants, hymns, and songs is English; I participate in the NE England folk and poetry scenes; I've worked on my pronunciation and done a couple of technical courses here;" etc.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:14 AM

suggesting that a repat. to England can never again be English is not racist but it is at least bordering on bigotry.

Nonsense. Eric didn't say you could never again be English - he said that, as far as he's concerned, you are English, as well as being an immigrant ("If you're brought up in a different country you're culturally an immigrant regardless of what it says on your birth certificate. That doesn't stop you being English in my book, but it sounds like it does in yours.")

You are what you are - your life in Australia made you what you are, just as my life in the south-east of England formed me. You're English now, just as I'm Mancunian now. It's not a problem.

Perhaps an Irish reader or two may post on how those returning from America or Aus., e.g., to the "Celtic Tiger" might be treated if they made similar efforts to these

If they took up hurling, played the bodhran and lived on champ and tatties, all the while proclaiming the virtue of Irish traditional culture and questioning immigration? I think they'd be a laughing-stock, actually.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:21 AM

Most people who emigrated to America before the Irish economy strengthened were young adults. They grew up in Ireland, and their cultural identity remained strongly Irish, as most of them stayed within communities of ex-pat Irish. I experienced this extensively on both coasts of America in the late 80s.

Their experience would be very different to that of a very small child who was taken abroad with his parents,and whose formative cultural experiences were of the new culture, rather than the one he'd emigrated from.

In any case, many Irish people who returned to Ireland post-Celtic Tiger did have a substantial cutlure shock, as the country had changed a lot since they left - inward immigration, the cessation of violence in NI creating a new political landscape, a more technology and service-based economy, etc. It would take a lot of adjustment to come to terms with contemporary Ireland, rather than the one they'd left. I'd suggest that white pudding, sean nos and hurling would not necessarily be the tools of choice to help them to make that adjustment.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:22 AM

Pip: great minds...

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 07:23 AM

Just for the record, WAV, I don't have a problem with you calling yourself English, if that's what you choose. I was using your own argument in order to demonstrate the foolishness of your position on nationality and culture.

One thing I would be very interested in; the reason why your parents chose to emigrate to Australia in the first place. For a better life over there perhaps? Most people who emigrated to Australia and elsewhere about that time did so for better employment prospects and a more prosperous life. Sounds like economic migration to me. It certainly wasn't seeking asylum in the nearest safe country was it? It is fair to assume that you grew up enjoying the many benefits of Australia and its society. In other words, you are a beneficiary of the kind of economic migration you now propose to deny to others on a global basis.

Pulling up the ladder?
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 08:15 AM

"Pip: great minds..." (Ruth)?...
"he said that, as far as he's concerned, you are English (Pip)?...
"You are an Aussie" (Ralphie)...
"pretending to be English" (Eric)...
I'd have thought "great minds" would be able to read and analyse a web thread accurately.
Yes, Mandotim - my family were/are economic immigrants and I'm the only one who has repatriated - but I've never said that everyone should do the same. For what it's worth, we do agree on other things, but, through much study, travel, experience and thought, I gradually turned more-and-more against imperialism and economic/capitalist immigration/emigration, to the point where I now think the world would be a better, safer, and more interesting place if the UN made economic immigration illegal - FROM NOW ON.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 09:01 AM

Yes, Eric did say you were "pretending to be English". He also said that being an immigrant "doesn't stop you being English in my book".

I agree with him on both counts. On one hand, you are English (by virtue of choosing to live here). On the other hand, you think being English involves much more than that, & you're trying to live up to your own image of Englishness - you're trying to live the life of a person you don't believe you are ("pretending to be English"). I think it's futile and rather silly; the good news is that it's completely unnecessary, since you're English anyway.

I now think the world would be a better, safer, and more interesting place if the UN made economic immigration illegal - FROM NOW ON.

And you've been saying this since, when, 2004? What message do you think that would send to anyone reading this who had come to live in England in 2005 or 2006?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 09:06 AM

Like I said; pulling up the ladder so others can't have the freedom to live where they choose - the freedom you enjoyed. Says a lot about you, WAV.
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 09:43 AM

to the point where I now think the world would be a better, safer, and more interesting place if the UN made economic immigration illegal

WAV - what you've done is obviously good for yourself; but it DOES NOT put you in any position to tell others what they should do nor yet pontificate on the broader issues of human migration & culture which really are too complex and vast an issue to be boiled down to the sort of simplistic sloganeering you feel somehow represents the best way forward for humanity. It doesn't matter what you think, WAV - so why waste time & energy that could be better spent elsewhere - such as learning new songs, or exploring the wonders of your Australian-English heritage, or even just joining your local morris side?

FROM NOW ON

Now lasts for all eternity, WAV - what gives you the right to speak of such things? Show some humility for goodness sake.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: melodeonboy
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 09:59 AM

"It doesn't matter what you think, WAV - so why waste time & energy that could be better spent elsewhere"

followed by..

"Show some humility for goodness sake."

Mmmm.... pots and kettles?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 10:02 AM

Tell you what, WAV; you say you're not working at the moment; why not use the time fruitfully and stand for election in your local area? There will be an election in the next two years, so you'll need to start right away. If you think your idea of Englishness is so popular, and that people should support it, why not put it to the test; turn the idea and the associated policies (eg ban immigration, cultural segregation, morris dancing for all, pottage diets etc.) into a manifesto and let the voters decide? (And before you ask, yes, I have tried this myself; I was a councillor and a JP for many years.) If you believe in democracy, and you are fully convinced of the 'rightness' of your ideas, how can you lose?
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 10:37 AM

Still a lot of deliberate idiocy here and bigoted denigration of English traditions.

By the way Romany Man I think I am right that there is a collective noun amongst the Roma for the non-Roma. Might it be something like "gaujo" - I have not stopped to look up? My impression was that it was used to distinguish, and not fondly.

There definitely is a word used widely by Roma to distinguish and express disapproval of non-Romany travellers. Ironically it is one also and erroneusly used by gaujo (with disapproval) of gypsies: "Diddicoy".

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 11:06 AM

Mmmm.... pots and kettles?

Not at all, melodeonboy - just a piece of timely advice to a single fellow human, not a manifesto that would unsettle the lives of millions.

Still a lot of deliberate idiocy here and bigoted denigration of English traditions.

Idiocy I grant, Richard - but deliberate? And what are these English Traditions that have been so bigotously* denigrated?

* A Google search gave me 561 hits for bigotous, not sure if this counts or not, but I rather like the sound of it...

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 12:41 PM

"ban immigration" (Tim)...wrong words in my mouth, again - I've said increase regulations, including making economic/capitalist (not all) immigration/emigration illegal, from now on (READ above for more on this).
"Still a lot of deliberate idiocy here and bigoted denigration of English traditions." (Richard)...yes, and good Irish traditions also, sadly.
IB - are you sure I'm someone who's sat down to write before standing up to live? And, Tim, again, surely one of the things that we can agree on is that I'm hardly the only political one in folk and poetry circles, and I think I'll stick with them, rather than the formal politics you just suggested, for now - but thanks.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 12:50 PM

Thanks Pip for explaining what I mean far better than I could manage myself.

WAV you said 'Perhaps an Irish reader or two may post on how those returning from America or Aus., e.g., to the "Celtic Tiger" might be treated if they made similar efforts to these (from above)...'

If you went around putting on a fake 'oirish' accent I know exactly what they would think of you. Pretty much what most of us think of you now.

As Pip clarified I say you are pretending to be English because you're not interested in discovering what England or being English is really about, just in living out your deluded fantasy and using it as the basis for the prejudicial treatment of others.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 01:00 PM

WAV, what are these types of immigration you claim to sanction?

PS - Asylum is not immigration - it doesn't count.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 01:10 PM

Ok WAV; you want to 'make illegal' all 'economic' immigration. That's precisely the point; you benefited from such immigration into Australia, and now you want to prevent others from benefiting from the same process, albeit reversed. Dog in the manger probaly sums it up.
As for your second point about politics; your arguments really are laughable, and your ability to miss the point borders on the heroic at times. The fact that there are political people involved in folk music does not equate the folk world with true electoral politics. Folk music is not a democracy, we don't have to hold our opinions up to scrutiny by the public in elections, just play or sing to audiences, who may or may not listen. Having said that, most people in folk don't seek to prescribe a way of living for others or propound a particularly noxious set of prejudices (masquerading as social and economic policies)as a kind of political manifesto. You do, and to me it seems that this kind of behaviour is better suited to electoral politics. I say again; have the courage of your convictions, and stand for election. I did, why can't you? Afraid of how real English people might view your ideas?
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 01:22 PM

IB - are you sure I'm someone who's sat down to write before standing up to live?

For harbouring such ideas as you do - I'd have to say yes to that one, WAV. I'm not just wary of righteousness and absolutism, I see them as the worst kind of evil; when one person assumes that what is right for them is also right for anyone else but themselves, then something has gone seriously wrong somewhere. You say your way is the best way forward for humanity & will make the world a more interesting place; I say humanity is doing just fine & I couldn't conceive of a world more interesting than it is already.

They say travel broadens the mind - I ask again, where did we go wrong with you?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 01:22 PM

Second line; should read 'probably'.
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 01:58 PM

Oh, and another thing; pottage isn't English, it's French; as in 'potage', meaning 'the contents of a pot'. Thought to have come over here with those well known economic immigrantsIn Normandy they do a very good potage with pork, cream, cider, calvados, sage and apples. Does this mean a wholesale change of diet as well as a shift in WAV election policy?
Yours gastropolitically
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:01 PM

Itchy posting finger again; I'm really bored tonight! I meant to say those well known economic immigrants the Huguenots. Or were they political asylum seekers?
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:11 PM

In case you missed it, Tim, as you tend to do, please keep in mind that fair-trade is part of my argument...

Poem 206 of 230: MY DIET

Chasing breads, nuts, bananas,
    Red sauce, apples, sultanas,
Crackers, conserves, cucumbers,
    Pickles, porridge, pottages -

Lemon barley,
    Cocoa, coffee,
Or cups of tea.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Yours gastropoetically,
WAV

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:00 PM

WAV; I don't think I missed anything. Did I mention trade? No. Fair or otherwise? No. You made the point earlier about your acquired Englishness, letting us know that one of your efforts to be more English included a staple food of Pottage. There was a clear implication that you considered pottage to be a quintessentially English dish; I pointed out that pottage isn't really of English origin at all, it's French. Try eating Chicken Tikka Masala, that really was invented in England.
Gastropoetically? No arguments with the gastro bit, but poetic? Please stop replying to arguments with your 'poems'. They are without exception, drivel. The one you quoted is a shopping list, not a poem.
Tim
Vote WAV in 2010! (If he has the guts to stand)

P.S. Incidentally, were you aware that there is another David Franks who writes poetry? He's American, doesn't claim to be anything else, and he's a real poet. He's quite good. You're not him are you? No, course you're not, silly of me.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 05:12 PM

No, I'm not that David Franks, Tim - nor the one that started the "Walkabout" chain of pubs!...there's too many :-(> ...but, these days, at least one of my sites is usually on the first page or two of google and yahoo.
And 2010...a shoe-in?!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: mandotim
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 03:53 AM

From your likely manifesto, I think most of your supporters will be of the 'boot-in' variety.
Tim

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: romany man
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 05:36 AM

Richard, yes gorga is used to express the difference between roma and non roma, its not derogatory but could be if you choose to, didicoi is a word in roma to show a person is of mixed roma race,gogas use it as a general derogatory term, as many mixed roma relationships are now the "norm" many could be classed by roma's as didicoi.
I have spoken to quite a few of the "elders" most just say ifn you wanna slag a gorga jus tell theys gorga, and thats it .
As for this thread folks wanna get out more.