'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?

Subject: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Oct 11 - 02:39 PM

Ramble Away (@displaysong.cfm?SongID=4868 ) and "Derry Down Fair" (from the Young Tradition) both have a line

"So I gave her three doubles and a fair length and share"

This sounds faintly bawdy, but does anyone know what it actually means?

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:23 AM

They had a jolly evening in the pub. "I gave her three doubles" means he conceded her an advantage in a darts game. She started with the conventional double; he had to throw three to start. "Fair length and share": he threw from the oche, she from closer to the board.

The alternative is of course three double whiskies. Question: can you have a double of single malt? (Answer I suppose: yes, thanks).

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:33 AM

It is actually "Three doubles and fair length and share" - not "a fair length..."

Don't suppose this will affect the meaning, but it just might.

~M~

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:56 AM

Stanza three of Rambleaway pretty much explains the meaning, the context of which can be located in the rest of the song.

It may be found in the digitrad.

I have never understood why British people think of sex in terms of metaphors, no offense.

I'm leaving before the bullets.

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 10:18 AM

A chap's reach should be fairly longer than his grasp, 999, or what's a meta for.

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 11:13 AM

Sex was usually referred to by metaphoric allusion in the old days because of hypocritical condemnation of it.

There are also of course honourable exceptions as Donne's
"License my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below."

but then he drifts off into less direct metaphore.

And it's somewhat more likely to be productive, I feel, than asking "Can I stick my finger up your ..."

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 12:55 PM

"What's a meta for?"

Beat's me. I don't even know what a meta is!

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: ripov
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 06:19 PM

I don't know either, but Donne sounds more physical than meta.

Subject: "Smile in my Face" (was) Fair Length & Share
From: GUEST,schlimmerkerl
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 05:46 PM

So why does he object to her "Smiling in his face"? Seems a friendly gesture.

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 12 - 11:49 PM

He doesn't so much 'object' to her smiling in his face, as use the fact of her smiling as an occasion to warn her that he does not intend to be in any way faithful to her; remember the whole couplet: "Do not smile in my face, For I do not intend to stay long in this place". The 'don't' is more a way of saying, "You wouldn't smile like that if you knew me better, & what my plans for you are!"

~M~

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 01:54 AM

Look, even a materialist engineer like me can see what's staring you in the face.

Rambleaway is a sex- compulsive. He is afraid of making attachments. His partner at Serrydown/ Brummagem/ wherever Fair takes this as a challenge, like women seem to do. He is afraid that he might care about her, risking attachment and (in his mind certain) subsequent rejection.

I'll leave the psychologists among you to work out the details.

Subject: RE: 'Fair Length & Share' - meaning?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 12 - 03:48 AM

Can anyone translate psychobabble into English?