BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe

Subject: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 03:21 PM

I've just seen a trailer on UK television for a programme called "How not to decorate" which at one one point had the phrase "tight as a folk singer's fringe" in lettering on the screen. As I had the sound turned off, I have no idea what they said.

Any suggestions, sensible or otherwise, for what this phrase might mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 04:00 PM

Are you sure it wasn't "Tight as a folksinger's fridge"?

Or maybe "White as a folksinger's fridge." (We're not into creative color schemes.)

Or maybe "Light as a folksinger's fringe" (a lot of us are goin' a little bald, you know)

"Empty as a folksinger's fridge" is more like it.

Say what's going on with British TV? It seems like every show is called "How to/How Not to Dress/Decorate/Redesign/Reorganize/Refinish Your Body/House/Garden/Car/Shed/Armchair" etc. Even BBC America is getting disgustingly boring.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: JennieG
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 08:25 AM

It's the same in Oz too, don't worry - it seems none of us are to be trusted to make up our own minds anymore, someone has to tell us how and how not to dress/redecorate/garden/cook/design etc.

Bugger the lot of them I say! Start a revolution! Wear whatever you like! Grow your hair! Let the weeds grow in the garden and leave the cat puke stains on the carpet!

It's either those lifestyle programs (it's not my life I can tell you) or the Olympic Games for a few weeks. Or be really radical and turn off the TV - my preferred option.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 10:00 AM

I'm waiting for the one where archaeologists have to excavate, or decorators decorate while surrounded by giant crocs or poisonous snakes- kill 2 programmes in one go!

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 10:04 AM

Apparently, the producers have decided that the dialogue on the decorating program, like the plots on the adventure programs, do not need to make sense. Think of the savings in time and wages that this represents for the television industry.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 10:34 AM

Is ANYTHING on television SUPPOSED to make sense ?

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 11:52 AM

Makeover programmes are all sponsored by the manufacturers of MDF, paint manufacturers who have vast stocks left over of 60's/70's puke
coloured (and inducing)dayglo emulsion and purveyors of cheap and
tawdry "style" accessories who sell bits of scrap plastic at highly
extortionate prices.

Rant, rant rage - in the manner of Victor Meldrew.

Pissed off old gits of the world unite!

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Michael
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 05:58 AM

Pissed-off old gits of the world untie! If we unravelled the bits of string in our pockets who knows what power would be unleashed.

PS I've always thought that 'Life Style' in that context was an oxymoron (or some sort of moron) as they have nothing to do with either life or style.
Mke

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: MBSLynne
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 09:06 AM

What's a television?

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 09:13 AM

In a couple of weeks I intend to be taking part in Fringe events of Whitby Folk Fesival. I intend to get tight during the festivities.
Perhaps the Telly got things correct for once...
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: DMcG
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 09:13 AM

Come now, we've drifted a long way off-thread. The important questions are these:

1. Is is true that you no longer recognise a folk-singer by their Arran sweater and finger in the ear, but by the tightness of their fringe?

2. A folk-singers' fringes tighter, statistically speaking, than the general population?

3. Can you convert a pop singer into a folk singer merely by tightening their fringe?

4. What on earth is a tight fringe anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 11:12 AM

I wish I had the wherewithal to have a fringe, tight or not. So when do we get together to pool our bits of string and does it have to be proper hairy string or can we use modern orange plastic stuff.

Anyone got a use for old sweet wrappers, they were tangled in the string, and how do they stay sticky for years on end, and how do they get there anyway when you're not allowed sweets?

Perhaps we should start the Moaning Old Gits Society (MOGS) for those of us baffled and bewildered by advancing years and pockets full of useless things.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Michael
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 12:30 PM

I know a few dance sides who could probably find a use for old, sweet, rappers, how do they stay sticky? I'd rather not know.

I have a fringe, it's just moved round to the sides of my head.

Aniseed balls; don't taste the same as they used to either

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 12:31 PM

My fridge wouldn't open. One day, on it's own, it decided to stay shut up. I had to go out to eat. Then I called in a repair expert on strange Fridge behavior.

After a month on the couch for the stupid thing, I was told it was a case of my appliance having some sort of fridge retentive complex . And that was why it was tight.

Art Thieme (folksinger--and proud of it!)

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 12:38 PM

Do Indian folk singers wear Saris with the fringe on top?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 02:44 PM

Perhaps it was "strings", not fringe. The subtitles do come up with the weirdest mistakes. For example in Eastenders one time they had "pauper's grave" come up as "porpoise grave". Or in Snooker programmes "queue" turns up where it should be "cue".

As tbe old joke about the sailors wedding has it "I think those oars in a line outside the church looked really lovely" - "They weren't whores, they were the captain's daughters."

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 12:11 AM

"Makeover programmes are all sponsored by the manufacturers of MDF"

What is MDF?

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 12:22 AM

Medium Density Fiberboard. Don't eat it, it won't help keep you moving.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 03:28 AM

can we use modern orange plastic stuff.


Ah bless.... "modern" orange plastic farm string has been around for at least 50 years, my granfer used it when he could no longer get proper gaiters to stop his ferrets escaping his trousers.

MDF is the universal wood replacement now. It's made of wood pulp/fibres mashed up and pressed together, in the manner of papier mache, but stronger. It's smooth, easy to cut, comes in many thicknesses from 1/2" to 2", takes paint, screws, nails and glues well and is as dull as tapwater. (Pedants - I know it should be ditch water but have you looked at what lives in the average ditch? Fascinating!)

It's a bugger to cut as it produces a very fine dust - there was talk of banning it a few years ago because of the health & safety implications but I haven't heard much about that recently.

I wonder how some of these make-over programmes would survive without it......?

As for the fringe - you've lost me. Maybe it was finger - as in tight in the ear?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 06:24 AM

Breathe in the dust from sawing MDF and you are asking for trouble.

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: ThreeSheds
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 09:03 AM

What are you all doing spending so much time watching TV when the sun is shining, dont get me wrong I'm not anti Tv its just that to mind TV is like a kebab it only seems a good idea when your too pissed for anything else
Ps I dont keep kebabs in my new fridge not that I did in my old fridge
That could be a good idea for a new thread what do you keep in your fridge

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 04:49 PM

Yes, it is "folk singer's fringe". I had the sound off - it was one of those pseudo-reality makeover things.

Not a clue what it means. They must be thinking of some variety of folk singer I haven't run into. And how can a fringe be tight anyway?

Now if it was "tighter than a fringe folk-singer" it might make some sense, since some people have been known to knock back a few at sessions on the festival fringe...

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 03:05 AM

I saw the programme - the house was truly hideous before the designers got to it, but it was completely featureless and impersonal once they had finished.

My idea of hell would be to go away and come back to find someone who doesn't know me had redecorated the house or ripped up my garden. Absolute hell would be if I was sent away on a cruise.

Oh, and they spent 10 minutes arguing about the colour of the kitchen units. They'd ordered cream but got banana milk yellow. Instead of getting onto the suppliers, they bitched and whined at the poor design assistant who had the job of doing the actual work whilst they sat around in a show home style pad, doing the sum total of f*&k all. In the end, they got a cream, yellow and chocolate brown kitchen with tiles that looked like a Victorian privvy and had as much charm and warmth as one.

One suspects that these designers have never been to a folk event and would be horrified if they did - those tents just have NO style, and WHO thought mud would be a good colour for the floor, with all those rainbow skirts and arran sweaters?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Tight as a Folk Singer's Fringe
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 05:16 AM

"modern" plastic string has been around for 50 years...

I know it has, but I have been around for longer which is why my fringe is now so tight it's practically non-existent. When I was a
lad - pre string of any kind - we had to twist anything we could find together to make string. Makeover presenter's necks would make interesting string!