The re-Imagined Village

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: glueman
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 01:59 PM

Lidl - yer go in for some baked beans and come out with a fission reactor.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 01:58 PM

Lidl is definitely very posh! Have you seen the shiny big cars and heard the plummy accents wot shop there? And the biggest give away is when the owners of same posh cars and accents, don't notice you or say things like "please" and "thank you" or "Oops, excuse me?", y'know the sort of polite niceties & stuff that only us smelly common types say.

Can we have a village guillotine maybe, and y'know a village 'revolution' sorta thing - mainly for the noovo rich (yes I hate them burning up the lanes in their big black 4x4's, with red dyed skin, presumably pricey market clothes and just general fucking horribleness), but also for posh people what shop at Lidl and are secretly embarrassed by it.. They really aughta know to stay 'in their place' and go to Waitrose.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 01:45 PM

Lidl? A bit upmarket for our tastes though it used to do amazing chocolate & maybe still des - and Stollen at Christmas. Anyway - I bought three bottles of Greene King St. Edmunds for £2.50 at B&M Bargains on Sunday. It's a lager-like beer best drank cold and entirely unsuitable for real-ale bores & pewter tankard twerps (The Snail once threatened me with a violent treatment if I asked for it in his local) and the fact they're flogging it off at £2.50 for three down at B&M in Cleveleys speaks heaps for its popularity.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Stu
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:49 PM

Whelks.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: glueman
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:45 PM

My re-imagined village had Brakespeare's Double Drop at a single one of your earth pounds per bottle. The village was called Lidl and I bought a pallet of these delights this very afternoon.

Don't all rush at once.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:35 PM

PS - One of the above bar snacks isn't real, at least not in these parts. Can you guess which it is?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:33 PM

Roll-mops, pickled eggs, jellied eels, cockles and mussels (very dead-o), crab sticks, ocean tails, trotters, tripe, spleen hurrah, tongue, oysters, and endless Yorkshire puddings on the bar of a Sunday. I have a recent fondness for Nobby's Nuts and our local even sells bars of chocolate; last week I sat dunking a Picnic bar into my pint of London Pride.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Stu
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 10:07 AM

Shine on - that stuff in The Riflemans is legendary. I had a pint once and have had a peculiar craving for it ever since.

I hope they sell scratchings in the pub in the re-imagined village; the best ones all come from the Midlands. Bostin!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 09:55 AM

Real cider is fermented with dead rats in haunted barns adjoining run-down orchards in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor; it's sold for 20p a pint in pubs like The Riflemans and is so potent you can't even remember drinking it when you finally emerge into nominal consciousness at some point the following day whilst trying to hitch north on the M5 on a slipway somewhere near Bridgwater.

In the words of Mark E. Smith:

I was so sick I couldn't walk or sit;
Since then I've not touched it.

Actually that's one of my all-time favourite Fall songs; essential listening on the Juke Box in the re-Imagined Village pub. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CJsD_LzXt0

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 09:01 AM

If, as usual, there's no mead at the bar, I have cider - Chlorodyneless, I hope!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 07:04 AM

I did have a friend in a village I once lived in who was addicted to Chlorodyne and rough cider.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 06:14 AM

Of course I am told that a few years ago the "in" drink in trendie London night clubs was ground up Fishermans Friends in vodka!
We don't want anything like that in our village pub do we ?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 05:22 AM

Fisherman's Friends, & Uncle Joe's mint balls.

Ah! The Lancastrian delicacies! I got addicted to UJMBs when we first moved over here, but as they don't do a sugar-free then I've had to go cold-turkey. Fisherman's Friends are another matter of course, and no Folk Night would be complete without a packet of sugar-frees which will, I promise, enhance the taste of any good English Ale.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 05:17 AM

And gobstoppers that change colour and cinder toffee - and ice cream wafer sandwiches.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 05:02 AM

You've got to have Fisherman's Friends, & Uncle Joe's mint balls.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 05:53 PM

I remember sherbert

It's still there, WAV - see HERE for the E. Trad Bassett's version which should be available from most corner sweetshops in Tyneside.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 05:17 PM

I remember sherbert, and the Australian rock-band of the same name.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 04:16 PM

Got to have that really hard, black licorice that we use to call Spanish. We used to boil it with water to make a licorice water drink. Oooh, and sherbert flying saucers....and plain chocolate walnut whips.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 04:08 PM

So what else would we have in the Village sweetie shop?

I for one prefer a Marathon to a Snickers. WTF is snickers anyway? Some form of constipation?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 11:50 AM

'Do you remember Spangles?'

The secret was to suck them until the dimple in the middle turned into a hole then you had something that resembled a square fruit Polo (can you still get fruit Polos?).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Les from Hull
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 11:43 AM

As far as I know Dandelion and Burdock is/was based on Dandelion root. The leaves of the Dandelion are used as a mild diuretic.

I usually steer clear of non-sugar soft drinks, though. Saccharin was used in this type of drink for year before many countries banned it as a suspected carcinogen. Aspartame, a modern chemical replacement, has been blamed for many illnesses.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sue Allan
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 05:43 PM

Oooh, thanks Suibhne O'Piobaireachd for the link!
Was quite dismayed to read though that 'Spangles have become shorthand for lazy nostalgia for the time, as in the phrase "Do you remember Spangles?" I don't recall our nostalgia being lazy, but we probably were, not to mention tired and emotional. That's nostalgia for you: it's never what it was.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 05:05 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spangles

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sue Allan
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 04:36 PM

Nobody mentioned Spangles. Many a late night reminiscence session has started 'Do you remember Spangles?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 03:41 PM

I doubt there's anything medicinal about D&B, WAV - better still, on Saturday it was Lifeboat Day in Fleetwood, glorious sunshine & sea-air, clear skies & good friends. Thus revived we went to a late night showing of the new Harry Potter film (see elsewhere for my evaluation; namely the OP of the Folklore: What is Folklore? thread, which I wrote on Sunday morning, but owing to technical difficulties it didn't get posted until today) & stuffed ourselves silly with popcorn & M&Ms.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 01:40 PM

Did the D&B help clear your cold/flu, S?
P.S: I could have done with a second home in Durham the other night - on the train there, I was told the last one back to Newcastle was 11.45 pm, so I had a jog from the good Rowing Club singaround at about 11.15 and got there, so I thought, just in time, to be told the last was 11.25 pm; so it was the late night bus at 12.30 am, and bed just before 2 am.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 12:21 PM

PS -

Sainbury's do a very nice sugar-free Dandelion & Burdock in cans. No adverse diuretic qualities as yet, despite claims of genuine plant extracts & one of the dandelion's more quaint folkloric handles reflecting this particular quality.

Where the hell is everyone? All on holiday likely. Bloody second-homers, escaping the muddy hardships of village life in an inclement summer for the bright lights of the city...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 09:36 AM

Myself, I'd like to see our Morris Dancers masked as beasties.

Okay - I'm starting this trend, as from last week when we renewed our membership of Blackpool Zoo (largely down to the new Spheniscus magellanicus exhibit which is simply spiffing) so, yes, here I am:

Sedayne (Mixed-Race Morris Fan) Blackpool Zoo, July 12th 2009

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 12:30 PM

We touched upon the Ottery St. Mary tar-barrels on the various Museum of Folklore threads - look out for the You Tube footage! It's a different caper to what happens at Allendale that's for sure, but both have a very clear historic point of origin, rather than the usual Viking / Pagan nonsense we see trotted out year in year out. I'd have to agree as Folk Customs go, from what I've seen, Ottery and Cooper's Hill are the most extreme, though the Haxey Hood (etc.) seem to run pretty close, as Phil might testify!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 12:17 PM

Just in case you're not aware, S., there is Tar-barrel racing in Ottery St. Mary, Devon, also - it's in the Pitkin mentioned above, and I think it was BBC4 where I saw a documentary on it. I'm not sure what's more extreme - that or cheese-rolling at Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 11:21 AM

"WAV - what exactly is this trad. English culture of which you speak? Do give some few examples and explain what qualifies them as being objectively and absolutely trad." (SO)

"...E.g., I just posted a recording of "Young Emma" (complete with an English-flute intro! and a pic. of a "lowlands low" that I'm sure you'll recognise)."

AS usual, I note, WAV hasn't given a direct answer to the question at hand. just a link to more of his rather insipid web work ( personally I really don't care what the flute's nationality is) Why? We may ask. Simple, he has no answer, because his narrow view of what constitutes England and its traditions simply doesnt exist and never has. Now if this , in his words "knocking England" then so be it, but as I have already stated my view of England and the rest of the British Isles aka Great Britain aka the United Kingdom, is miles and them some away from WAV, thank god.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 11:17 AM

That last bit was meant to be a picture link. Here it is again...

My Bookshelves - including Lilla M. Fox's Costumes & Customs of the British Isles nestling into Bob Pegg's Rites & Riots in which it is categorically shown that the Allendale Tar Barrels have a considerably more recent origin that the Vikings! And all the more fascinating because of it...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 10:49 AM

So the version of Young Emma you sing is based on an American variant, WAV? I'm surprised. Mine is too actually, but I base mine on Peter Bellamy, naturally... Actually - I haven't sang that in over ten years. Must dig it out!

The Pitkin Guides are great fun - the one on The Green Man is a surprisingly balanced & well illustrated overview of the subject - and it always amazes me how many of these little books & pamphlets have existed over the years. These I collect as a matter of course - I picked up Lilla M. Fox's Costumes & Customes of the British Isles (Chatto & Windus 1974, hardback, first edition!) for £1.99 in Oxfam in Lancaster on Wednesday. It bears the stamp Lancashire Education Committee Quernmore C.E. Cont. Infant Junior School 30 Jan 1975. I might disagree with their every word (like the assertion that the Allendale Tar Barrels comes down to us from the Vikings!) but I cherish them all in the name of a subject I truly love. Thus do I give them pride of place, as much in my heart as on my bookshelves.

S O'P (PY TWAT)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Stu
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 10:49 AM

How about:

Early to Rise by Bob Copper (and A Song for Every Season)

Witchcraft in England by Christina Hole (for the pics, I haven't read the text yet).

This Little Puffin . . .

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 10:25 AM

So - I first heard Martin Carthy sing "Young Emma" (above), and the lyric I use is somewhere between the two on this site; I couldn't find the score anywhere, so worked out the notes by mimicking my voice with the tenor-recorder.

Customs & Traditions in Britain - the Pitkin Guide has quite a few from England.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 10:15 AM

Oh, that reminds me. Just finished re. re. re. re. re. re-reading Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. As stunning an illumination of the English, specifically Dorset countryside as you could wish for. All wrapped up in a thriller. A marvel. A bloody marvel.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 09:56 AM

No! Burn them all now. this won't do at all.

My re-Imagined compulsory reading list includes works by luminaries such as Geoffry Ashe, Enid Blyton and Culpeper for example (you don't have to *like* them, merely relax and absorb a hypnotic brew of suitably re-Imagined Englishness).

All books must be purchased from your local jumble sale - where in fact you may find many more equally suitable and faded volumes like 'Jamaica Inn', 'Mothers Day Gifts from Dried Flowers', 'Macrame Furnishings by Laura Ashley', 'Build you own Cess-Pit', 'You and your Fluffy Bunny Rabbit' and so on.

None of these books should have references, or other pointless stupid stuff!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 07:16 AM

Yup, I'll go along with all of those. Plus, can I add Rackham's Woodlands and Trees in the British Landscape. all of Roger Deakin's other books and several shelves of Batsford? Oh, and I must have John Cowper Powys's Glastonbury Romance. That'll keep us occupied on long winter evenings. Ah, and, of course, the entire Highways and Byways series... and anything by H.V. Morton......

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 06:16 AM

Same shelf as This Enchanted Isle (just to the left of my head for the imagination impaired) is:
Caught by the River - A collection of words on water
Notes from Walnut Tree Farm - Roger Deakin
The Countryside Companion
England in Particular
The English Year
Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain
Follies and Grottoes - Barbara Jones
Heritage Trees
The Lore of the Land
The History of the British Countryside

All essential to the re-imagined village library

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 06:01 AM

Nice to see Norwich Foliate Head Boss East Cloister M5, aka Golden Boy, in his pre-nose job days when he more than the look of Michael Jackson about him. I think this picture comes from E. C. Le Grice's Norwich Cathedral - Its Interest and Beauty (1945) published before the term Green Man had caught on, instead we find the rather wonderful heads-with-leaves. It also features on the cover of H.D. Molesworth's Sculpture in England - Medieval (British Council, 1959) in which it is simply called a foliate head.

Here's a video still I took a few years back showing his nose job: Golden Boy, May 2006.

For the complete video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKDKbtYeVBM

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 05:21 AM

You'd get a good domino school in the tap room with these guys

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 05:14 AM

Misery Farm:

Bidgood's Broadcasters

and - er - Current 93!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 05:08 AM

Bloody hell, Crow Sister, I practically wet myself!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:54 AM

I just posted a recording of "Young Emma" (complete with an English-flute intro! and a pic. of a "lowlands low" that I'm sure you'll recognise).

South Shields, eh? Interesting choice, and a more than reasonable performance, IMO (as one who only listens to Folk Singing in singarounds & on field recordings), my only complaint is your effected vowel sounds. Far more authentic (and honest) would be to sing in your natural Aussie brogue; it's a very widespread ballad throughout the English speaking world (see HERE) so it may well have reached Australia in the pre-revival days. Rachel sings an interesting variant (with banjo) that she got from the Max Hunter archive - see Young Emily. What's your source?

However, this doesn't answer my original question as the singing of dusty old Traditional Folk Songs in the context of a Folk Song Revival (as we do) in no way constitutes an all consuming objective & absolute Traditional Culture, rather a somewhat specialist hobby persisted in by an elite minority of enthusiasts, casual, dedicated or otherwise...

*

Seeing as we have Miss Marple & Beatrix Potter inspired bands playing at the Village Hall, then I'd like our village to have a real Old MacDonald's Farm too.

I have the very book for you, CS: George Ewart Evans - The Farm and the Village - a long time favourite of mine, though I'm sure you could pick up the 1974 paper back edition (75p back in the day) for less than they're asking for this. The 1974 edition looks nicer too - I love all those old Fabers with their colourful rustic imagery. Which puts me in mind of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJt9-l27fY8

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:58 AM

Seeing as we have Miss Marple & Beatrix Potter inspired bands playing at the Village Hall, then I'd like our village to have a real Old MacDonald's Farm too.
And of course a traditional English Village Shop.
I'd also like one of several pubs (The Slaughtered Lamb up the road), but I think The Crow and Crown might be the one I'd want as my local - especially for Jake the poacher.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:35 PM

Listen to this Young Emma

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:27 PM

Oh WAV.

Words fail me.

Not very good.

in sorrow

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:47 PM

"WAV - what exactly is this trad. English culture of which you speak? Do give some few examples and explain what qualifies them as being objectively and absolutely trad." (SO)...E.g., I just posted a recording of "Young Emma" (complete with an English-flute intro! and a pic. of a "lowlands low" that I'm sure you'll recognise).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:51 PM

"this lot"

The Scottsville Squirrel Barkers *LOL*

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:46 PM

Can we book this lot to play the village hall?

And can I have these two as my next door neighbours?