Morris dance?

[pop_54]

Re: Re: Re: TMI on Morris Dancing

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

That reminds me of a local woman with limited brain power who went to her doctor to complain:

"Ere doctor that contradiction you give me didn't work"

"Oh God woman you are ignorant" He replied.

"I know I am, three bloody months gone"



pops........ Oh and they do it everywhere by the way these Morris dancers, in closets, on top of wardrobes, village green, you name it, dedicated to their art they are.

 

[MathGirl]

Monty P.

My father has a videotape collection of everything Monty Python ever did. I was raised on that stuff, and I think it probably warped me for life.

I believe Monty Python did a few things on Morris dancing. It sure sounds like something they would want to parody.
MG

 

[TaffyJ]

Why so down on it?

I've never seen it done, but if Morris dancing is something from your culture, and so historic, why be so ashamed of it? Every culture has rituals that seem silly to others. For example, I'm Catholic. Enough said.

The world is becoming so melted together, take pride in anything that's unique, even if it is embarassing.

(Or, maybe I'm just trying to get Ogg to admit it?)

 

[oggbashan]

It has to be seen

Watching Morris Dancing is essential if you want to know just how stupid it is.

The original Morris Dancing as performed by the local yokels in the nineteenth century or earlier was a quaint ritual.

Morris Dancing was "discovered" by researchers in the early twentieth century.

Morris Dancing became popular among intellectual trendies in the 1960s. Now it has as much in common with the real thing as a plastic flower has with a growing plant.

The archetype of a Morris Dancer is a 40 year old overweight bearded junior lecturer who thinks he is getting back to his roots. He wouldn't recognise a root if he saw one. They are all "townies".

Why the women do it eludes me. They dress and look as if they are "Professional Virgins" performing a fertility ritual which they know won't work. When they change into normal clothing they resume human form but as Morris Dancers they seem like alien lifeforms who haven't got the human impersonation quite right.

I can't admit being a Morris Dancer because I have never had the slightest inclination to take part. I'm too large, have no sense of rythym and two large left feet to go with the ambisinistrous hands. I'd wreck a dance pattern in the first few bars.

Og.

 

[TheEarl]

Hey Taffy. Where've you been?

Morris dancing is definitely not my culture. This isn't a ritual which seems silly to other people, it's something which looks silly to everyone.

The Earl

 

[pop_54]

Re: Why so down on it?

I've never seen it done, but if Morris dancing is something from your culture, and so historic, why be so ashamed of it? Every culture has rituals that seem silly to others. For example, I'm Catholic. Enough said.

The world is becoming so melted together, take pride in anything that's unique, even if it is embarassing.

(Or, maybe I'm just trying to get Ogg to admit it?)

Hey friend Taffy, we aren't all ashamed of such things as Morris dancing and Wellie chucking, or for that matter all of the other eccentric activities that make our culture unique.

Like you I find it a damn shame that so many folks and nationalities are becoming merged and snowed under by political correctness, the PC brigade hate all this unique character thing, in their book everyone must be equal and no one must enjoy life more than another.

As for the old Morris dancing thing and the folks who partake, our local troop is made up of just that, locals, all big broad muscle men with strong country accents and it must be said, very small brains it appears, but hey we can't all be perfect, I mean I play Aunt Sally for God's sake.

Now wait for it from someone, 'what the f... is Aunt Sally' I challenge our resident expert on English country life, hehe!!
Come on Og, what's Aunt Sally???????? and how do we play it.

pops..............

 

[TheEarl]

I thought an Aunt Sally was something which you could hurl large quantities of vitriol at with the knowledge that it wouldn't hit back. Often used by politicians to show that they're being 'tough' on a particular issue.

Go on, how badly wrong have I got that?

The Earl

 

[MathGirl]

Cripple Mr Onion

'what the f... is Aunt Sally' I challenge our resident expert on English country life, hehe!!

Okay, Pop. What the fuck is "Aunt Sally?" Is it a game like "Cripple Mr Onion?"
MG

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Aunt Sally

As for the old Morris dancing thing and the folks who partake, our local troop is made up of just that, locals, all big broad muscle men with strong country accents and it must be said, very small brains it appears, but hey we can't all be perfect, I mean I play Aunt Sally for God's sake.

Now wait for it from someone, 'what the f... is Aunt Sally' I challenge our resident expert on English country life, hehe!!
Come on Og, what's Aunt Sally???????? and how do we play it.

pops..............

Aunt Sally is a figure of a woman with a pipe in her mouth that is a target at a funfair. Hitting the pipe (originally breaking it because it was a clay pipe) wins a prize.

From that an "Aunt Sally" is someone who is a regular target of general abuse. A recent Aunt Sally on this board was Prince Jonny.

Information from The Oxford English Dictionary (the full thing in xx volumes that is.).

Og.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Re: Monty P.

My father has a videotape collection of everything Monty Python ever did. I was raised on that stuff, and I think it probably warped me for life.

I believe Monty Python did a few things on Morris dancing. It sure sounds like something they would want to parody.
MG

Well, it explains a few things... no, seriously, I think that Morris dancing IS a parody of another dance. Not necessarily Monty Python-related, but a parody nonetheless.

Just like Bush is a parody of humanity.

 

[TheEarl]

I thought an Aunt Sally was specifically something which you could make a big show of hurling abuse at cause you know it won't hit back.

The Earl

 

[pop_54]

OK guys and gals

Yep that was the origins of the game Og, take a bow, and yep you're right Earl, it's something that you hurl something at that won't hit back.

The modern day game is played in pub beer gardens almost exclusively in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, I think there are about 3 or 4 pubs in Wiltshire that partake, to my knowledge nowhere else in the world.

The game is composed of a white wooden mock head called a Dolly, just about 4" in diameter, with a flat base, the Dolly is positioned on top of a pole about 2' 6" high on a swinging pivot.
To play the game one stands about 8yds away from the Dolly with 6 Ash wood sticks about the half the size of a baseball bat each one.
The object of the game is to knock the Dolly off of the pole by lobbing the sticks at it, underarm only by the way, each time you knock it off you get a point score and it is replaced for you to try to get as many points per turn as you can, 6 of course being the maximum per turn, 2 to 3 being considered a good average score.
It isn't as easy as it sounds the Dolly must be dislodged without the stick hitting the pole or swinging pivot first, in other words knocked off cleanly with the stick hitting the Dolly only, not jolted off.

It is a team game mainly with each pub competing against others in the area, and as if that weren't weird enough, there's a league with league tables and end of year championships, Oh and the league results are published in the local newspapers.
We Brits are a strange bunch.

Anyone want to try the game just turn up at any Oxfordshire country pub and they'll probably have an Aunt Sally pitch in the yard or garden.
The landlord usually has sticks and a spare Dolly to lend to visitors for a try at the game.

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Monty P.

I think that Morris dancing IS a parody of another dance.

Dear Svenska,
From what I've read on here, it would seem that Morris dancing is probably a lot older than parody. It must have come from way back in pagan times. The Brits had a lot of that at one time.
MG

Ps. Hay, Insult your own president.

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Re: Monty P.

Dear Svenska,
From what I've read on here, it would seem that Morris dancing is probably a lot older than parody. It must have come from way back in pagan times. The Brits had a lot of that at one time.
MG

What do you mean "The Brits had"? We still have. We have Druids, witches, ghosts, poltergeists, pixies, fairies and all that - ask any publican or Tourist Information Office.

Real Morris Dancing is old. So old that it was banned in Cromwell's time. Most modern Morris is a transplant.

You can't parody Morris Dancing. How can you make something look silly when it is already silly?

Og

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Make the dancers wear business suits?

 

[oggbashan]

Make the dancers wear business suits?

Been done.

Some Morris Teams make a point of unsuitable clothing.

Og

 

[TaffyJ]

Hi, Earl!

I come and go from Lit like a butterfly riding the breeze of my hormonal fluctuations. It's a fun ride. By the way, love your AV, Pop!

 

[pop_54]

Re: Hi, Earl!

I come and go from Lit like a butterfly riding the breeze of my hormonal fluctuations. It's a fun ride. By the way, love your AV, Pop!

Cheers Taffy, I can be a bit of a horny Devil at times

 

[MathGirl]

Some Morris Teams make a point of unsuitable clothing.

The Morris dance probably has its origins when the dancers wore nothing but blue paint.
MG

 

[MathGirl]

Morris dancing by MG's favorite writer:

The Morris dance is common to all inhabited worlds in the multiverse.

It is danced under blue skies to celebrate the quickening of the soil and under bare stars because it's springtime and with any luck the carbon dioxide will unfreeze again soon. The imperative is felt by deep sea beings who have never seen the sun and urban humans whose only connection with the cycles of nature is that their Volvo once ran over a chicken.

It is danced innocently by raggedy-bearded young mathematicians to an inexpert accordian rendering of "Mrs Widgerty's Lodger" and ruthlessly by such as the Ninja Morris Men of New Ankh, who can do strange and terrible things with a simple handkerchief and a bell.

"Reaper Man" by Terry Pratchett, Scribners, 1992

 

[oggbashan]

Blue Paint

The Morris dance probably has its origins when the dancers wore nothing but blue paint.
MG

If you dressed as you are in the current AV (with your slightly taller friend) on a UK beach you would not need the paint to have a blue skin.

Woad was war-paint. Anyone dressed only in woad needed to fight just to keep warm.

Og.

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Blue Paint

If you dressed as you are in the current AV (with your slightly taller friend) on a UK beach you would not need the paint to have a blue skin.
Woad was war-paint. Anyone dressed only in woad needed to fight just to keep warm.

Dear Og,
"Woad." I knew there was a name for that blue paint, but I couldn't think of it. And I thought I had a mind full of unnecessary information. I love minds like yours: Encyclopedic (oh, okay, Encyclopaedic).

No danger of turning blue when that picture was taken. That was at Aruba, and it was about 85 degrees. I was considered a virtual Puritan because the bikini bottom wasn't a thong, I kept it on, and I only took the top off for about a minute. That big redhead is my aunt Louise. She's a towering 5'1".

MG

 

[oggbashan]

For that I might do a Morris Dance.

MG loves my mind?

Well, not exactly - she said she loves minds like mine - but that is enough to make me want to cut a caper.

Disseration on Aunts:

I wish I'd had aunts like your tall one. Not that I didn't appreciate my aunts for their varied talents but as a younger son of a younger son my aunts were much older. My oldest aunt was MG's height and formidable. She was a Freeman of the City of London in her own right and a Company Secretary when women in offices were a novelty. For those who don't know, a Company Secretary is part of the Board of Directors, typing and shorthand are not essential. Although she could do both. She thought that Suffragettes (her contemporaries) were silly females who would have been more effective if they had proved that women had brains.

The only great-aunts I knew were even smaller than MG but "fiesty" is that is the right US term. I was told that they had stayed in their top floor flat during the Blitz in WW2. I (aged about 8) asked why they hadn't gone to the air-raid shelter. The response was "We had to move for the Kaiser, we wouldn't move for that upstart corporal Hitler." They and my whole family had been bombed out of their home by a Zeppelin in WW1. The real reason they stayed in their flat was they were fire-watchers looking out for (and dealing with) incendiary bombs. They were on duty so they stayed.

I had one "silly" aunt who was supposed to be the dunce of the family. When I knew her she spent most of her time cooking or watching TV. I never saw her with a book or newspaper. She was a great cook though and always found ways to amuse children. Only recently I found out that she spent the 1930s in Switzerland working for the League of Nations as a tri-lingual office worker. Her job was to help refugees from Germany and in 1940 had to get out through France and Spain as she was on the Nazis' wanted list.

And for most of my life I thought she'd been a just a dedicated homebody. I should have guessed from her husband. He travelled extensively in Germany in the 1930s apparently as an itinerant worker like students taking a year out to see the world. He got into trouble for composing rude lyrics (in German) to the "Horst Wessel Song" and singing them to an SS platoon. He was lucky to survive the beating. Those words were the first foreign language song I knew. I regret that I've long forgotten them. She (then engaged to him) helped him with the words. I KNEW that but I didn't connect that information. She knew German well enough to construct rude song lyrics. I took her at face value so underestimated her.

My daughters have only two aunts. One is a PhD in computing, an MA in Music, etc. etc. and works for a University's IT unit. The other now retired used to work in Geneva for the UN, then West Africa, is a chef trained to Cordon Bleu standard and has been running her local community for years.

Aunts are great.

Og.

 

[MathGirl]

Auntie

Dear Og,
Good grief! My aunt is just a lawyer with big boobs.
MG

 

[Svenskaflicka]

My aunt (well, techinically, my dad's aunt, but what the...) once received the most beautiful compliment I have ever heard.

She was walking out of a room when she bumped into a cute guy who was about 30 years younger than her. He stopped and stared at her, and then sighed:
"Oh, if I had only been 30 years older...!"