The re-Imagined Village

Subject: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:45 AM

A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub - overlooking a gently flowing river, licked by weeping willows, and glided upon by mute swans...a pot of Hedera helix on the windowsill, a glass of mead and a plate of chips on the table, a Northumberland/Durham/Lancashire clog dancer by my side ;-)> and the homely timbre of an English flute or concertina in my ear...

And as for my abode (although I'm mostly vegan, these days)...

Poem cum Song/Chant 101 of 230: JUST SUBSIST

(TUNE:

D F# G G A A G G
D A B B A A G G
D B B B A A G G
D A A A B A G G
D A A A B A G G)

At times when I've had time to take,
    I've thought of a plot by a lake:
The plot would be of fertile ground;
    The lake would have some trout around.

The plot's house would be made of brick -
    Well insulated, in good nick.
And, round this abode, there'd be built -
    Solar panels, kept at best tilt.

Inside large coops would run the legs
    Of chooks and quails - for fresh eggs.
A vine for grapes plus summer shade;
    And, in thin beds, vegetables laid.

Up at dawn, to use all sunlight -
    Fish and farm by day, read at night.
A spouse with me I'd not resist -
    In retirement, we'd just subsist.

From http://walkaboutsverse.sitegoz.com (e-scroll)
Or http://blogs.myspace.com/walkaboutsverse (e-book)

How about you?...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Smedley
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:56 AM

You wouldn't get 'chooks' in an English village - that's an Australian term for chickens.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Darowyn
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:15 AM

Chips! = French fried potatoes?
Shouldn't it be a proper English food- roast beef for the rich, boiled turnips (pronounced 'turmut', of course) for the poor?
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:21 AM

Mead with my chips? What an awful sounding lunch!

Mead with pottage maybe, but definitely beer with my chips! A bottle of Newkie Brown...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:47 AM

My maternal Grandfather was a champion Durham clog-dancer, as were his brothers, raised as they were in a colliery village where you'd only ever find Hedera helix growing up outside walls and the only thing you drank with chips was tea or, for an extra special treat, Dandelion & Burdock. In Traditional Northumbrian Folk-life, mead is something only ever drank in minuscule free samples during days out on Holy Island; it might even be brought back in a souvenir gift set but seldom, if ever, is it actually consumed. Cygnus olor aren't uniquely English; and Salix sepulcralis is a non-native hybrid. Add into the mix the wholly non-traditional E. Flute & E. Concertina and the whole thing smacks of fantasy rather than imagination & is thus entirely at odds with the actual & historical realities of English life, rural or otherwise, which are, I think you'll find, very wonderful things indeed.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:01 AM

A bottle of Newkie Brown...

Known to us Geordies as Dog and as fine a complement to chips as any, especially if one ups the anti with the salt and vinegar; lashings I believe is the word we are looking for here, in which case a bottle of Dog is your only man - even up in Auld Reekie where brown sauce is the condiment of choice. These days I only drink Newcastle Brown Ale in rare moments of wistfulness for my native Tyneside; and only ever in a half-pint glass, as is traditional.

Chips; a non-native cuisine developed from a non-native root vegetable introduced from the New World, which just about sums up the wonders of English Culture & Cuisine.

with pottage maybe

Not the best word to use on a WAV thread, CS; no doubt he'll follow it up with food combinations so bizarre as to make chips & mead sound acceptable. Time will tell...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:16 AM

I think if you want to get a handle on the realities of English rural life, it's worth reading Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe - written in 1974 but with memories going back to the First World War. Life was tough for rural communities and agricultural workers in Suffolk and Norfolk, for example, were treated virtually as slaves.

I have family letters, written from Norfolk to Canada - starting in 1837 and continuing to 1890 - which paint a very interesting picture of the precariousness of rural life indeed. Why 1837? Because around 40,000 people left East Anglia around then - paid for - to find a better life in Canada and Australia.

The re-imagined village is a nice idea - but "in retirement" you might be near starvation in those days! To retire meant to stop work - and to stop work might mean being out of your tied cottage - and into the workhouse... :-)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:17 AM

"a bottle of Dog is your only man"

I love a man who paraphrases Flann O'Brien...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:17 AM

Isn't easy to tell WAV is not English, every time he writes of something ' essentially English '

Dave H

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:30 AM

As for beer, I've got this fantastic book of ancient herbal ritual beers: Secrets of ancient fermentation Never got around to brewing any as yet. But very tempted to go hunting nettles or coltsfoot one suitably totemic day/full Moon/whatnot and give it a shot.

There is something of an essential primordial magic in fermentation that captures the sacred imagination. One of the reasons I love to bake a ceremonial loaf on 'pagan' feast days - just a token gesture, but there's something of prayer and communion in bread baking - which certainly predates the 'breaking of bread' by a long way, and is far more profound by way of partaking in 'the mystery' than any crumby bit of lembas proffered by the hands on an intercessor.. IMO! Plus hunting nettles or other foraged foods for adding to the dough, make it fun. The inclusion of bloody offerings from bramble scored fingers also seem somewhat essential..

Haven't had any Newkie for a while, but I too was taught the method of topping up a half pint glass to keep the bubbles lively.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:36 AM

I love a man who paraphrases Flann O'Brien...

When your village exists only inside of your head,
and your clog dancer turns out to be a man;
When even the swans are apt to migrate -
A bottle of Dog is your only man.

When your English Concertina is full of Chinese reads,
And your English Flute is made in Japan,
When nothing you believe in is quite what it seems -
A bottle of Dog is your only man.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 07:43 AM

Don't worry too much about the reeds being Chinese, even if the concertina were English made then the chances are that the reeds are Italian and made from Swedish steel.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 07:55 AM

Glorious, SOP.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Gervase Webb
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 08:09 AM

Bless 'im. Wor Davey, the Aussie wannabe Brit, does provide some welcome light relief at times. It's astonishing how someone can try so very hard and simply, essentially - even utterly - just not get it. I picture him as a bumbling spy in one of those wartime Ealing escapades; the hapless Herman given away time and again by some shibboleth.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: doc.tom
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 08:30 AM

"You wouldn't get 'chooks' in an English village - that's an Australian term for chickens."

Actually, it's Scottish.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: burl
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 10:41 AM

DANDELION and BURDOCK......... My favourite. My Grandma always kept in a supply of this when I was a boy. She called it HOREHOUND. Anybody else heard of that name?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:04 AM

Oh bless 'im, 'es been watching way too many Ealing films *LOL*

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:40 AM

Besides, a true Englishman would write better poetry.


A

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

burl - you used to be able to get sticks of horehound candy at an old fashioned candy store near where I grew up in New Jersey. I've never seen that name in the UK, so never even twigged that it was the same thing as Dandelion and Burdock!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:59 AM

"(that would have Dickens purring in his grave)"

you need to read your Dickens, sunshine, before you make outlandish and wildly inaccurate statements like this....purple prose or what!!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:07 PM

Horehound - Marrumbium vulgare - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrubium_vulgare.

I don't think the Traditional English Dandelion & Burdock that quenched many a childhood thirst had much to do with either of its eponymous components. I might still buy a can today actually, chilled, from the corner shop with a quarter of peanut brittle (or whatever metric measure come close). I've a yen for such things; McDonald's was never the same when they stopped serving Root Beer - nothing quite like a Big Mac & Fries washed down with a large slop of what tasted for all the world like liquid Germolene.

I was once told that Dandelion & Burdock was just thing for marinading freshly killed hare. One thing I did used to do was to douse a red hot poker in it, after watching my grandmother doing likewise with her Mackeson's. Nice on a winter's afternoon...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:09 PM

that would have Dickens purring in his grave

I'd actually read that as gravey and didn't bat an eyelid that WAV would have written such a thing!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:15 PM

I think there is a fine but important line between fostering idiosyncracy (or even eccentricity), and promoting mediocrity.


A

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:20 PM

"I think there is a fine but important line between fostering idiosyncracy (or even eccentricity), and promoting mediocrity..."

and encouraging idiocy? *LOL*

"I'd actually read that as gravey and didn't bat an eyelid that WAV would have written such a thing!"

Geez..!! you been readin' too much of WAV's 'poetry' 'ave you?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:35 PM

How much is too much in this instance, I wonder? He does have his admirers though; that said he was roundly sent packing a few days ago for daring to post on the BS: Gardening, 2009 thread - an over-reaction which even I found a tad churlish I must say, and I said as much at the time.

Whatever the case, in matters of idiosyncrasy, eccentricity and idiocy it seems WAV requires little by way of fostering, promotion or indeed encouragement.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 01:40 PM

Prior to 1900 the English concertina was largely a middle class classical instrument. The ordinary folk were playing the Anglo German system.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 01:58 PM

I used to drink Dandelion & Burdock - it's a very "northern" drink. Does anyone else remember Sarsaperilla - known colloquially as "Sasparella"?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:00 PM

I bought som Sarsaparilla cordial (and some dandelion and burdock flavour as well) at Fitzpatrick's Temerance Bar in Rawtenstall when I went to see the Bacup Coco-nutters this year.

Very nice it is, too.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:04 PM

Dandelion and Burdock tastes like medicine IMO - a generic kind of cure-all 'medicine', out of a little brown bottle. Love elderflower cordial or HOT ginger beer though.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:11 PM

Saraparilla, D&B and root beer are all from the same, slightly medicinal family.

I miss root beer.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:20 PM

I've had a PM from a Mudcat member regarding my mention of family letters from Norfolk to Ontario in the 19th century.

If anyone would like to see a snapshot of rural life and rural family life in Norfolk over a period of around 50 years, you'll find some fascinating source material in these letters at:

The Broughton Letters

It doesn't take a lot of imagining or re-imagining - to get the flavour of the times.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:28 PM

I remember one brilliantly sunny Summer Solstice, walking down one of the lanes near Glastonbury Tor and hearing loud music blasting out from around a green corner...

A jolly Nun was perched atop a step ladder gathering heads of Eldeflowers, while trilling brightly away to herself as her car stereo pumped out some rousing mass for many voices.
She explained she was listening to holy music while gathering elderflowers off the holy hill on a holy day, to make elderflower cordial with - she'd already bottled the holy water she needed from the famous springs.
I bet that elderflower cordial had 'medicinal' value, or at least some kind of holy juju.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:28 PM

Sarsaperilla - aka Sasperella, as you say Will - with a big dollop of Wall's vanilla ice cream in there. Sainsbury's used to do a passable Root Beer, maybe they still do... Next time I'm out shopping I'll be on the hunt for such wonders. Watch this space for my consumer report!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Gervase Webb
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:30 PM

I'm about to bottle mine tonight. Lovely stuff - especially with a shot of vodka and some soda water (which isn't very holy).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:37 PM

Suibhne O'Piobaireachd - yes - with Walls ice cream! Do you know, I'd forgotten that combination! Lord, how I hated Walls ice cream blocks - used to make me feel sick.

Now the memories are flooding back... licquorice - as "straps", as "pipes", as tubes. we used to call it "Spanish" (why?). Then there was sherbert in bags, pear drops, "Imps" (very hot and tiny)... aniseed balls (hated them).

It's becoming a Proustian evening...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Banjiman
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:41 PM

I'm just eating Blackjacks and Fruit Salads.... bought while visiting my Mother at the w/e in Lincoln.

The shop had pear drops (bought those as well), liquorice straps (and them), aniseed balls, giant gob stoppers, sherbert bon bons, pineapple cubes.......etc fab it was!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: BB
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:34 PM

Flying saucers to you lot! Oh, and lemon sherberts (a version of sherbert bonbons?).

And as a child in Wiltshire, hens were chook-chooks, or chookies.

Barbara

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:36 PM

There is no spiritual communion greater than revisiting the sweets we used to eat in our childhood; collectively known as Ket, at least they were in our neck of the woods.

Spanish I remember as the red stuff, though where this name came from I've no idea. Was it branded Spanish? Or was the name folkloric?   

As a fan of vintage Oor Wullie I note that back in the 40s / 50s sugarelly was the sweet of choice; in 60s / 70s reprints this becomes licourice. One story from the 40s features the home manufacture of Sugarelly Water - simply licorice dissolved into water. I've tried this and can't in all honesty recommend it, though a Google search revals an entry in Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarelly

I hope you're taking notes here, WAV - if you fancy meeting up during a lull in the DFP singarounds I'll give a tour of the best sweetshops of the outlying villages. Newhouse General Stores in Esh Winning is especially fine in this respect.

One of the (only) things I like about the Harry Potter books is their enduring fondness for sweets. There is a very passable Honeydukes in The Shambles in York...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:53 PM

They was chookie-eggs when I was a sprog *LOL*

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:54 PM

No notes, SO, but I've read everything and intend to try some of the above concoctions, including Dandelion & Burdock; not a big fan of sweets, but I recall going into a corner-shop with school mates (yes, in Australia), and struggling to keep our faces straight as we asked for a Golden Gay-time - ice-cream, on a stick, coated with some kind of crumbs.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:37 PM

Thanks for the poem WAV.

In my daydreams I design the perfect house. I doubt that I will ever build it, because my present house is quite nice and it would be so much work to build the dream house and move into it.

At the moment, the cat is in the dining room, enjoying a patch of sunshine. Birds are singing outside. The air conditioning is humming quietly. Daylilies are in gorgeous bloom on the west side of the house. Tomatoes will soon be ripe. All this in the heart of a liveable city. What more could one ask?

Do you know the poem that starts 'Oh, to have a little house'? It expresses such longing in so few words.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:45 PM

"A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub ..."

Yes, a very odd choice of phrase, that! Dickens was, of course, a Londoner - a city dweller - who probably thought that the countryside was unsophisticated (that's a guess - I haven't really read enough Dickens to know for sure).

I've always been fascinated by fictional models of Britain constructed by people who've never actually been here. You know, Cockneys who get lost on the 'moors' at night before being devoured by werewolves or 'Lords and Ladies' who are obviously modelled on well off Californians, of a few decades ago, and who live in Beverley Hills type mock Tudor mansions with butlers.

These examples are, obviously, American. How novel, for an afficionado like me, to encounter an Australian example! Thanks, Walkabouts Verse!

... Have I ever told you the one about the Ozzy, with the corks on his hat, who subdued the salt water crocodile ('crockys, I think they're called ... or something like that?), that was attacking the guests at his 'barby', by jamming his 'stubby' over its nose?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:47 PM

If Ruth can advertise Sidmouth on another thread can I give a plug for our Dandelion and Burdock(which we had to market as Sasperella in the South)which I am pleased to say appears to be making a comeback and which is especially popular with the younger (under thirties)members of our family.
Among others we make it for Asda, Morrison's and under the Ben Shaw's label; one of our other factories makes Root Beer but just in cans. D&B is far nicer than Root Beer and it used to be a special treat for us kids back in the North East.
BTW well done SOP for explaining the correct way to drink Newcastle Brown Ale (not from the bottle as some Southerners would have you believe) and for giving it its correct name. Newkie is in Cornwall!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:53 PM

I'm afraid I've never really liked the root beer you get at supermarkets in the UK. But there's a shop in Nottingham where you can get A&W, or so my daughter tells me.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:58 PM

I think that probably the smaller village with access to larger cities is the way most of us would prefer to live...I live in a village however that is one block wide and 20 miles long and it doesn't work too well for various aspects of life. mg

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:58 PM

Thanks Leeneia - your "moment" sounds good; I don't know of that poem, though..?
Shimrod - I've actually spent 16 years now living in the country of my birth, England. Dickens cared about people and the conditions they were in, so would he not have been for better conditions in both town and country..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:02 PM

What a thoroughly refreshing thread this is turning out to be; I will be sure to check out the Ben Shaw range on my next visit to ASDA - which could well be tomorrow morning...

A&W? Order it online!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:15 PM

"A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub - overlooking a gently flowing river, licked by weeping willows, and glided upon by mute swans..."

Lovely, Wav.

The willows are kissing the gently flowing river, here in Sidmouth...and the larks are ascending

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 01:52 AM

Ben Shaw's do the best canned pop. The Cream Soda is topper.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 03:19 AM

Isn't mostly vegan a bit like slightly pregnant?

Or is it mostly Vogon?

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 03:58 AM

Sweet tobacco.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 04:53 AM

Stu - At home, I rarely have anything other than vegetable matter (including soya, instead of milk, in my coffee, etc.) but, if out and about, I may have whatever is going; and, speaking of "out and about," Sidmouth seems great, in more ways than one, Lizzie, and I do hope to get there one day..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 05:10 AM

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 http://walkaboutsverse.sitegoz.com (e-scroll)
Or http://blogs.myspace.com/walkaboutsverse (e-book)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 05:28 AM

Almost made it to Sidmouth on our Devon jaunt last month; got as far as Exmouth when the heavens opened driving us into the local Subway (as if we needed an excuse; thank God for Subway I say - where one can be assured of a decent sarnie at a reasonable price without speculating on what local establishments have to offer; long & bitter experience teaches us to stick to the chains!) where we re-drew our battle plan somewhat. So, no Sidmouth - but at least I got to see the celebrated Multiple-orifice Disgorgers in the church at Woodbury en route! And what a place Exeter is, where you can see stuff like THIS at head height! What a happy bunny I was that day...

And I still read that as Dickens purring in in his gravey. I was never a great one for Dickens, whilst I enjoyed elements of The Pickwick Papers in my misspent youth, and The Signalman remains one of my #1 English Ghost Stories of All Time, I find the trashy inhuman sentiments of his novels quite nauseating. I was forced to watch a recent TV adaptation of Oliver Twist the tenor of which struck as the most cynical celebration of social-class apartheid I'd ever seen. In my heart, I was following The Dodger into whatever sort of misadventures awaited him whilst horrid little Oliver gloated in his oasis of privilege. Maybe that's how we're meant to respond, but I doubt it somehow...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 05:38 AM

The Signalman remains one of my #1 English Ghost Stories of All Time

Indeed! My personal favourite chiller stories are still the ghost stories of MR James, but The Signalman comes close.

Mmm... might have to re-read The Tractate Middoth and Casting The Runes this evening...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 06:01 AM

Maybe I should have qualified that as #1 Favourite TV Adaptations of English Ghost Stories, for whilst Monty knocks Charlie off his perch rather (as far as he was ever one one o course, & I don't think the sentimental Victoriana of a Christmas Carol quite qualifies somehow; give me Le Fanu anyday!) I feel that it's his strengths as a writer have made the various TV adaptations problematic to say the least, much as I love them - not least the recent adaptation of View from a Hill which I found very effective! The exception, of course, is Jonathan Miller's superb adaptation that is Whistle and I'll Come to You which rides as much on Michael Hordern's superlative portrayal of Prof Parkin as it does on the stunning cinematography. Either way, it's a world away from Monty's original somehow...

I've got tapes of Michael Hordern reading the M R James stories which are an absolute delight - the very essence, indeed, of an Englishness which it would seem remains ever elusive to our hapless repatriate!

Now, it's off out in search of Ben Shaw's Dandelion & Burdock - and maybe a can of CS on CS's recommendation...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:36 AM

The Prof. Parkin character's fussiness and (perhaps) repressions were hinted at in a shaded way in James's original text - and used by Miller to give a much more sophisticated and complex reading for the TV adaptation.

I hadn't realised Michael Hordern had done the stories on tape - something else to look out for.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: folk1e
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:38 AM

Eeee, I'h remember t'first day at t'Pit ......


Me an' me father worked a 72 hour shift!
An' we walked home 42 miles in us bare feet!......

Oh yes and waggon wheels were MASSIVE!



Them was the days, eh?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:39 AM

And for those of you who love their sweeties

www.aquarterof.co.uk does nearly all the old favourites (except maltona drops :( )

If you really want a Dickens view of rurality try Pickwick Papers, particularly the cricket match with Dingley Dell

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:46 AM

Thanks for the Hordern/James tapes mention, SO'P - just got them from eBay at a very good price.

As for cricket matches in fiction, it would take a lot to beat the match in England Their England by A.G. MacDonell.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:51 AM

I see to my horror the Michael Hordern readings are no longer available. There's one copy going on Amazon for the princely sum of Ł29! Worth a look for the review...

Mine haven't turned up yet - a year in Fleetwood & we're still unpacking boxes. When they do, I have a mind to digitise them; I'll keep you posted...

*

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

Basically, Kellog's Fruit & Fibre then, WAV?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:56 AM

I see to my horror the Michael Hordern readings are no longer available. There's one copy going on Amazon for the princely sum of Ł29! Worth a look for the review...

Found 'em on eBay for $20 AUS incl. postage - can't be bad!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:57 AM

Excellent, Will! When I was living in Brancepeth Castle a decade ago we used to have MH reading the quote from the beginning of Rats as our answer-phone message!

Thing is, when I read Monty James I'm in a different mental place to when I listen to MH reading them. How does that work I wonder?

My MH favourite, as I recall, is The Uncommon Prayer Book - a stunning & often hilarious performance...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 08:06 AM

I love An Episode Of Cathedral History because it's told by an old man about the days when he was a boy - so it gives us both the boy's perspective, but with the subsequent knowledge of the older man.

The description of the freed demon with red eyes roaming the close at night while the local men panick - all watched from the viewpoint of the boy from his bedroom window (clutching his dog) - is one those brrr moments when you want to be tucked up safe and cosy by the fire with the lights down low!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 09:42 AM

So then... once we've determined the gender of the clog-dancers and made significant improvements to the Pub Menu (a Wetherspoons franchise would be more than acceptable) and replaced those Salix sepulcralis with some proper English riverside trees (Salix fragilis I remember well from my BTCV days) The re-Imagine Village would have to have a haunted church, quite possibly an old abby, like Dore Abby, which we visited a few times whilst staying near Vowchurch in Herefordshire a couple of years ago. Whether Dore Abby has a resident demon I couldn't possibly say, but we visited the nearby Templar church at Garway which recently featured in an episode of the woeful (but mildly entertaining inspite of itself) Bonekickers (2008) as well as Phil Rickman's thoroughly splendid novel The Fabric of Sin (2007) which touches upon a real life incident in the life of M R James of which he wrote in a letter to a friend We must have offended somebody or something at Garway... Next time we shall know better. Oo-er... In any case, if you don't know Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins Novels yet, and you've a yen for cracking English detective fiction that reads like an episode of the Vicar of Dibley has somehow morphed into Cracker (as someone said) shot through with a supporting cast folk singers, pagan teenage daughters, charming rustics, assorted ghosts and other bucolic delights - not to mention the heroine herself, a young single-mum woman priest who finds herself the Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford Cathedral - then check 'em out!

'An absolute treat... essential reading for anyone with a special interest in MR James's place in the supernatural pantheon.'   Ghosts & Scholars M R James Newsletter.

'It's Midsomer Murders on hallucinogens and it can only be a matter of time before it hits the small screen, so get in there first, folks.'    Irish Times

'Nail-biting, yet thoughtful and complex. What T.S. Eliot did for Canterbury Cathedral, Rickman does for Hereford.'   Jane Jakeman, Shotsmag.

'God alone knows, no English Village, imagined, re-imagined or otherwise, would be complete with some resident horrors residing in the wainscoting...' Suibhne O'Piobaireachd, Mudcat.

*

Further to Monty & Ebay - I bought an original 1908 edition of his paper on The Sculptured Bosses of the Bauchin Chapel of Our Lady in Norwich Cathedral off ebay for Ł5 a few months back.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 09:50 AM

Some of that sounds good, SO, and some, frankly, I wouldn't have a clue! about; as for "fibre," I shall detail my "pottages" shortly...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 11:09 AM

And having discarded as entirely bogus our E. Flutes and E. Concertinas, what then for music would we listen to in our re-Imagined Village? Well, mostly today I've been listening to some vintage vinyl featuring the music composed by Peter Maxwell Davis for his ensemble The Fires of London. Does it get any more English than that? Fair enough, he drew much of his inspiration, then as now, from his Orkney Island home, but in such works as Eight Songs for a Mad King where the tortured ravings of George III are set in a cycle of deeply affecting songs I detect a quintessential Englishness. Some of this stuff, I believe, has even made it to CD - so - do check it out, WAV; you might well find it in your local library...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ed Pellow
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 05:09 PM

For quintessential Englishness, try:

this

this

or

this

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 05:58 PM

1 - Maybe; born in '61 this stuff is the Cultural Ambience of my childhood.

2 - Essential! Weirdly I was thinking about this very scene earlier this evening.

3 - Oh yes. And moreover:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbCaa2Dm420

Again, are you taking notes, WAV?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:58 AM

And this... Incident On Snake Pass

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 04:40 AM

What is it with Snake Pass? We had some fun there on a tour a few years back getting from Sheffield to Liverpool... There must be an easier way!

Anyway, I think that serves as a more than adequate introduction to the work of our man Shuttleworth. I could well imagine him as the entertainer in the imaginary pub in our re-Imagined Village, though already I'm thinking canals rather than gently flowing rivers. This doesn't preclude the sort of bucolic picturesque idealism WAV yearns for however - for example, not far from Fleetwood, we have the re-Imagined Village that is Guy's Thatched Hamlet which I'm sure would tick all the right boxes (gliding mute swans and all) and still be the ideal venue for Mr Shuttleworth! Take the Virual Tour...

Meanwhile, if I was in charge of booking the entertainment maybe I'd go for something a little more uniquely home-grown with respect of Quintessential Englishness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-td43zcQg

*

Otherwise, something English, Quintessential, and Very Special Indeed. We will, I fear, never see his like again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACm2wGbpu4A

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 04:44 AM

As I've said, Ed, The Beatles were very good at copying an aspect of American culture, rather than getting stuck into their own good English folk music - as, of course, quite a few other English did during the folk-revival of the 60s.

This may not be Shuttleworth's culinary fancy, but to shed some light on the fibre/pottages issue above...

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 http://walkaboutsverse.sitegoz.com (e-scroll)
Or http://blogs.myspace.com/walkaboutsverse (e-book)

PS: of late it's even simpler - cup of soup, beans, lettuce/cucumber, diced onion, plus toast.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:00 AM

And talking of Viv and Sir Henry, who might the Morris Men be at 1:09 in Viv Stanshall's week: 3?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:13 AM

Re: "the re-Imagined Village that is Guy's Thatched Hamlet" (SO)...canny website, and, yes, I'd be quite happy at that outdoor table with a glass of mead, or, indeed, in that houseboat with a pair of clogs!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:33 AM

In part three of Vivian Stanshall's week (at around 1.02) one can see an unnamed Morris Side, complete with Hobby Horse, dancing in Paddington Station before heading off down The Underground. Viv looks on delighted, of course, blowing them kisses as they depart!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0U1AeS5Cow

In part two (at 6.00) we see Viv visiting instrument maker Michael Lynch who made Jake Walton's wee hudry-gurdy as featured on Times and Traditions for Dulcimer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3RVr1f9abM

*

Interestingly, or not, whilst submitting a friend request to Wigan Folk Club earlier this very morning I see our Hapless Repatriate left them the same calling card in their comments box on the 27th June 2009 as he did on the 6th of Feb 2008. Methinks perhaps some new material is in order, WAV - not least your above line about The Beatles copying an aspect of American culture which is about as accurate as your notions of their own good English folk music.

We don't have any good (i.e. real) English folk music, rather we have the results of two highly specialised and agenda driven revivals of something that might not have existed in the first place. In this respect what The Beatles did is of greater Cultural Authenticity in terms of Cultural Migration & Transfiguration than anything produced by either of the 20th century Folk Revivals, especially with respect to the socio-economic context of Folk Music as perceived to have existed in the first instance. Its collection was selective, biased, and subject to endless improvement on the part of the collectors. Thus Revival Folk Music is The Imagined Village; it only exists by dint of its gauche & pedantic self-consciousness wherein the change & mutability enshrined by Maud Karpeles in her 1954 Definition becomes, as a consequence, fossilised by those seeking to somehow preserve it terms of material evidence for a process they freely admit is no longer taking place. In this respect I'd say what The Beatles were part of is of greater folkloric significance than anything we might encounter in either of the 20th Century so-called Folk Revivals and is, therefore, more deserving of being Their Own Good Folk Music.

Now, back to Part Three of Vivian Stanshall's Week....

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:34 AM

Cross post on that one, Will! Hopefully someone will provide the answer!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:47 AM

Beaux of London City Morris Men.

And Mongezi Feza...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 07:09 AM

This my idea of England - in particular

http://www.england-in-particular.info/

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 08:06 AM

Yup, their Green Man Page just about sums it up -

The Green Man is alive and well and can be found all over the country... You may know him as the Green Knight or Robin Hood, you will still see him around May Day as Jack in the Green, in Mumming plays and Morris dancing and maybe as the Green George, a relative of St George...

In parish churches and cathedrals look for him as a leafy head in roof bosses... misericords and bench ends...

However you see him, as a benign spirit, guardian of the female forests, symbol of new life and hope in spring, a signifier of regeneration, you will feel his presence in our ancient woods and forests... He has been our cultural companion for millennia, reminding us of our close relationship with nature...

Happily, such bullshit is by way of post-modern fakelore. Unhappily, it has become the all-prevailing orthodoxy as the true wonders of The Green Man are overlooked. Whatever the case - and whatever you might wish to call them - the Green Man carvings are in no way, shape or form unique to England, and predate by some centuries any folkloric associations (pub names, Jacks-in-the-Green etc.) only very recently imagined: in academia 1939; in popular culture around 1970.

This is the Fakelore of The re-Imagined Village; in the church adjoining our waterside village pub (perhaps our fake pub is called The Green Man, after that in The Wicker Man?) we might gaze in wonder at the tortured disgorging features of the foliate heads carved on the bench-ends (such as we see HERE: Benchend, 1534, The Church of the Holy Ghost, Crowcombe, Somerset, 13th June 2009) only to be told by the helpful imaginary guide sheet that we are, in fact, seeing a benign spirit, guardian of the female forests, symbol of new life and hope in spring, a signifier of regeneration etc. etc..

In The re-Imagined Village, Frazerian perspectives of Folklore are of greater importance to the Anglican Church than the theology of the faith they superseded, in which case it no surprise to find that the master-carver of the above linked image has been so keen to leave us the date of its execution! In The re-Imagined Village, the wayward & often hilarious perceptions of our Hapless Repatriate are often no more wayward & hilarious than those of the natives with whom he seeks to assimilate. Like Folk Music however, Folklore is just as illusory...

Now for an imaginary glass of Dandelion & Burdock. Phew! What a scorcher!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 08:54 AM

"Yup, their Green Man Page just about sums it up"


No, it doesn't, actually. If you could get over yourself and curb your unmitigated arrogance for long enough to see the whole picture, rather than your short-sighted view, you would realise that it is about celebrating the diversity of England in its entirety – the commonplace, the local, the vernacular and the distinctive. The book, England-In-Particular, has been compiled by contributors who know far, far more about England than you ever will, despite your pseudo-intellectual and self-congratulatory ranting and pontificating. But, hey, why let the facts get in the way of your prejudices?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 09:22 AM

But, hey, why let the facts get in the way of your prejudices?

Wind in your neck, TL - and for your information those are facts, unlike the unsubstantiated bollocks promoted over at England in Particular. In any case, as I say, there is nothing particularly English (or even British) about so-called Green Men - ecclesiastical, folkloric or otherwise. Fact. Even the carvings that inspired Lady Raglan's wayward Green Man thesis are in Wales.

As for celebrating the diversity of England in its entirety, as an English person born and bred, when I find myself looking upon such a sight with a crippling sense of utter & absolute alienation I might question the nature of the diversity thus espoused. Have a look at the alphabet - the pics in which are either Shaftesbury or Covent Garden! Hardly a celebration of diversity - cultural, ethnic, regional, historical or otherwise.

Not my England at all I'm afraid...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 09:37 AM

I think the idea of the ABC is capture a hint of the typographical diversity of a given area in the hope it might provide a hint of the character of the area, or give some oblique insight into the way a specific area of human habitation has evolved. I've seen similar things done with phone boxes, manhole covers and pairs of trainers dangling from phone lines and each one is a celebration of a very particular cultural location; the deposition of one minute part of the cultural strata.

Does it capture that particular area? In a way it does but then I'm a graphic designer and these things interest me; the subtle cultural undercurrents and eddy's ever-present and ever-changing that seem lost in the stream of information we absorb (or otherwise) as it enters our visual cortex and thence our subconscious.

If any of us have ever walked down Shaftesbury Avenue or pottered around Covent Garden chances are we've seen one of these letters and that makes them very much a part of our England.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 10:06 AM

"and for your information those are facts"

Well, I couldn't comment on that as, unlike you, I don't pretend to be an expert on that particular subject. I assume that you have read the England-In-Particular book - or are you, like the literary critic who writes a review of a novel after reading only the first page, basing your opinion purely on your own prejudices and assumptions? If ignorance is bliss, you must be a very happy person. Or perhaps you are also an 'expert' on apples, crinkle crankle walls, power stations, diwali or all the other many subjects covered by the book.

Whether this is your cup of tea or not is, quite frankly, immaterial to me. My purpose was to tell people who may be interested in such things that there is an interesting and ejoyable book that celebrates a real England that is far more interesting and diverse than the stereotypical view put forward by the OP.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 10:53 AM

that is far more interesting and diverse than the stereotypical view put forward by the OP.

I've never read - or even heard of - the book, but from the website I'd say they have as stereotypically erroneous a vision of Englishness as WAV. In my own area of specialism - i.e. The Green Man - I can say they are way off the mark, however so well-in with the erroneous orthodoxy which, at a very generous stretch, only goes back as far as 1939 with most of the thinking on the subject coming in after 1970. Again, what I say here isn't by way of prejudice or assumption, rather the hard & unrelenting facts of the matter which do not support the folkloric / pagan hypothesis no matter deeply entrenched in the popular imagination this might have become in the last twenty-five years or so. Just as Ring-a-Rosies isn't a reportage on the symptoms of the Black Death and The Allendale Tar Barrels aren't a survival of a pagan fire festival, so the Green Man is none of the things England in Particular say it is.

Otherwise - I like power stations too, be they coal-fired, nuclear, wind powered or whatever. Blyth A & B was a particular favourite - for my personal paean on her sorry demise see HERE. I didn't see any indication of power stations on the England in Particular website though, much less any reflection of England as a multi-ethnic country, such as your mention of diwali would indicate. Perhaps you might be so good as to provide links if I've overlooked them? Otherwise, I will look out for the book - God knows I could do with some light relief after slowly picking my way through Bob Trubshaw's Explore Folklore this past month or so.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:08 AM

"yes, I'd be quite happy at that outdoor table with a glass of mead, or, indeed, in that houseboat with a pair of clogs"

I really feel that this walking stereotype is yanking our chains. This England has never existed and never will exist, except in the minds of dreamers and xenophobes.

As one of my children is wont to say, England has so many colours it makes Crayola jealous.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:22 AM

My very real village, is full of vast black 4x4's, forty/fifty-sumthing wannabe 'posh spice' styled women (dyed dark-brown and wearing big black sunglasses), estates of faux-classical executive houses (one where the old sports field & kiddies swings used to be...), and a few actually rather lovely but private woodlands (a massive faux-Tudor mansion was built in one some years back - with Dobermans and security gates and all).

Needless to say, I'm increasingly itchy to move to my own idyllic imaginary village in Suffolk with woods & fields you can ramble through, a fantasy English pub that serves chips with everything and has make-believe Aspall cider on tap - even a folk club with imaginary fusty smelly old people would be quite nice...

In certain circumstances, escapism into romantic nonny-nonny land, is perhaps forgivable SO'P?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:34 AM

"Perhaps you might be so good as to provide links if I've overlooked them?"

Sorry, you'll have to buy the book. This volume was partly the idea of my old friend, Roger Deakin, who was also the co-founder of Common Ground, who published it, and was also a contributor to the book. Roger, who sadly died in 2006, was one of the best modern writers on the countryside and has been compared to Richard Jefferies and Willam Cobbett. Deatils of his work, legtacy and an insight into his thinking and personality can be found here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/roger-deakin-412989.html

and here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/29/guardianobituaries.environment

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:35 AM

legtacy = legacy

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:50 AM

"an English person born and bred"

Oh really? with a name like Suibhne O'Piobaireachd you must REALLY be proud to be English, so keep YOUR bollocks to yourself!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:51 AM

Oh yeah, we now have a beauty parlor, where the dear dusty old shambolic grocers used to be. Fences going up enclosing all the footpaths. The farm shop up the road has been shut down, because the crooked Tory council deemed it an 'eyesore', but at least we have a spanking new health club with sauna & wine bar!!

Though rather mysteriously, we still don't have any of those funny looking Johnny Foreigner types spoiling everything 'English'.

I think I'm deffo off for a jaunt in escapist imaginary village land... Where's my trusty Enid Blyton?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 12:01 PM

This thread has by now surely earned a trip downstairs.

BS it is

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 12:07 PM

"BS it is"

Then don't take part:-)

Charlie (a short form of my first name)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 12:27 PM

We're lucky that in our village we still have a varied cross-section of people, from young families to old folks in sheltered accommodation and everything in between. Most of the villagers live in modest dwellings and there is a big vicarage opposite the church (the jazz festival is held on the vicarage lawn each year). we do have some posh people but most of the parish is arable land that goes as far as the moors of the peak district.

No village green as such, and the rivers (complete with Dippers and brown trout) don't go close to the pubs. So not quite WAV's vision of an English village but at least it's real.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 12:27 PM

Guy's is a good example of a purpose built imitation pub/pizza parlour. Can't remember just when building commenced - I think around 1980.

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 12:49 PM

In certain circumstances, escapism into romantic nonny-nonny land, is perhaps forgivable SO'P?

Forgiveable? I think it should be mandatory, CS - hence my contribution to & encouragement of this thread. Vivian Stanshall was the Greatest English Dreamer of them all!

Oh really? with a name like Suibhne O'Piobaireachd you must REALLY be proud to be English

Thing is, Rifleman - although sadly Suibhne O'Piobaireachd is only a pseudonym, like a lot of other English people my real name isn't particularly English-sounding either, though I am English, as I say, born and bred, and quite proud of the fact too. Obviously this creates a problem regarding the limits of Englishness, because although I say it's not an English-sounding name, being Irish Gaelic, it is my name nevertheless, so an English name by default I'd say.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 01:24 PM

SO'P: I must admit to finding your current ID just way beyond my polite inclinations to even attempt to spell correctly. So in my head, I tend to think of you in terms of your previous explanation of SO'P as "Mad Bird King" (something I can spell without trouble.)

The shortened SO'P, also means something akin to 'wet and floppy', thus not generally a 'good' thing? Not too sold on the current ID.. Hmmmm.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 02:10 PM

Not too sold on the current ID.. Hmmmm.

Thing is, CS - I can't change my Mudcat ID again because I've been threatened with violent expulsion if I do. So this is it - for keeps - so - suggest you resort to cut & paste. It doesn't even make good anagrams, apart from the vaguely topical (by otherwise nonsensical) A Cabbie Horehound I Sip. So Horehound I'll accept, but only from you!

Suibhne was the Mad Bird King; Piobaireachd is the classical music of the highland bagpipes that used to blow my mind in childhood & still does to this day. Hugely inspirational on my musical concept in terms of duration, improvisation, droning modality and disconcerting eventlessness. So I see the name in Shamanic / Gnostic terms: Human Bird Trips out to the Great Music.

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG42CtJmOjE

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Pip Radish
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 02:25 PM

The "Green Man" entry in the book England in Particular (which I've got on my knee as I type) treats the Green Man, Jack in the Green and the Green Knight as different things, doesn't refer to Lady Raglan and does point out that "green men" can be found in a lot of different countries. It's got definite "pagan survival" leanings, but it's actually pretty cautious. Closing quote:

"THe tree in its deciduous forms symbolises the cycle of death and rebirth, re-enacted each year as leaves fall and grow again. The Green Man has emerged in our time as a symbol of reconnection with nature, of regeneration and hope."

(Note the words "in our time".)

Great book. It's not academically rigorous, but it's not fakelore either.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray) (S O'P)
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:04 PM

So we've reached the point of near total post-modern abstraction where even the very trees have become symbolic of wishy-washy notions of death and rebirth!

Thanks, Pip, but I think I'll pass on that one. Forgive me, I suddenly feel the need to get very drunk indeed!

I'm going to form a band called The re-Imagined Village People; membership open to all but I'm gonna be The Cowboy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49jHz1M9nM

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 04:22 PM

Ahhh...death and rebirth, eh?(reaches for well-thumbed copy of The White Goddess and another glass of wine.)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Pip Radish
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:16 PM

I think the idea of leaf-fall as emblematic of death, & leaf growth of rebirth, is rather older than post-modernism - and I don't see much that's wishy-washy about it. But everyone's got gout.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 05:52 PM

Well folks - what exactly is a village, and what exactly is rural?

I returned from a music weekend on Sunday and dropped my fellow musician off at his house in Surrey: down a quiet country lane, into an even smaller country lane, then down a rutted track to his house in the middle of nowhere, which was surrounded by lawns and woods. Deer, badgers, streams, kingfishers, grass snakes... Right underneath a Gatwick flight path and not 10 minutes from the airport.

I then travelled on down for 30 minutes to my village: long High Street, couple of housing estates, 3 churches, 2 banks, 6 pubs, two small supermarkets, hardware shop, library, dry-cleaners/launderette, 2 bakers, greengrocers, post office, newsagent, fire station (no police station) village hall, 2 charity shops, 2 opticians, off-licence, barbers, 3 hairdressers, forge, 3 commons, 3 football pitches & one club, cricket pitch & club, used car dealers, petrol station...

Out of my house, turn right and I'm in the High Street in one minute flat. Turn left and I'm in fields for as far as the eye can see in 15 seconds flat. We call this a village - but is it your idea of a village, I wonder?

What got my goat about the Countryside Alliance's pronouncements at the time of the foxhunting debate was the simplistic and fatuous differentiation between "their" countryside" and the "townees" in the city. Black and white was all they could see - and there are immense areas of grey.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 06:09 PM

"What got my goat about the Countryside Alliance's pronouncements at the time of the foxhunting debate was the simplistic and fatuous differentiation between "their" countryside" and the "townees" in the city. Black and white was all they could see - and there are immense areas of grey."

There certainly are! I live in one of the UK's major cities and for my retirement project I'm trying to catalogue all of our local plantlife. I've found around 500 species, so far, within a half day's walk of my house. I am only 4 miles from the city centre but there is rather a lot of open space around here and mid-week I can easily reach areas of fields and hedgerows and walk for miles and hardly see a soul. Yesterday I found a species that I had been looking for growing by the side of a motorway slip-road. I suspect that many cities are, in fact, more biodiverse than some areas of 'real' countryside - particularly those that are intensively farmed.
Socially, too, the suburb that I live in has always had a village feel (we've even got a village green!) and everyone knows everyone else (with all of the advantages and disadvantages that that implies).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 06:54 PM

I'll second that. I'm off on my bike to work and there's Shimmy botanising away... all good stuff and all part of making city life more palatable.

Suibhne, can I be the construction worker?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 07:04 PM

I dare Horehound (nee SO'P) to go down my local Green Man with it's new-age/pagan bullshit about same all over the menu without nevertheless being quite bought and corrupted by their obviously English Haggis on French..

I mean: Haggis on French bread with baked beans in a pub called the Green Man - just how more English do you want ffs!?

Whatever the provenance, it feels pretty English when I do it anyway. Though I do tend to drink cheap New World Wine.

But then they do have an excellent pub garden where everything 'feels' English, whatever....

Anyway, what about all those bloody aweful foriegnrs crapping eveything up? Can't evern get a proper British Tikka nowadays!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 02:14 AM

"Haggis on French" - yum! My local does excellent pub grub of the usual variety - steak & kid, fish & chips, etc. It also does a wonderful vegetarian balti - and a full tapas menu. And it does it very well. I drop in two or three times week, around 5pm, for an hour and half of ribaldry and chat in the Old Gits corner.

I run a session there once a month. We have an excellent jazz, rag and blues guitarist, a friend who plays all sorts on mandolin and guitar, a woman who plays and sings John Prine and country classics, a young couple where he plays fiddle tunes from all over Europe and backs his very talented young wife on guitar when she sings her 1930s torch songs, a chap who plays traditional English tunes on flute and whistles... and we all muck in and sing and play what we can. We're now starting to get locals coming in just to listen to us.

Yes - we'll have a clog dancer or two, and anyone else, if they want to join in - but this is our village here and now, and I wouldn't want it to be re-imagined any differently.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Pip Radish
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:15 AM

excellent pub grub of the usual variety - steak & kid, fish & chips, etc

After all the Wicker Man refs, I had to read that twice...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:25 AM

Ah well, we have some rough practices out here in the heart of Olde England...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:41 AM

Apples! There has to be apples - proper English apples with wonderful names like Cat's Head, D'Arcy Spice, Martin's Custard (now sadly lost) Ribston Pippin (a reet Yorkshire apple and the parent of the Cox), Peasgood's Nonsuch and Tydeman's Late Orange.

You can stuff your Pink Ladies (if you'll pardon the expression) and your other tasteless imports.

(What a wonderfully diverse thread this is turning into.)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: mandotim
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:47 AM

Sounds like a great session Will; Where is it? (pm would be fine). I could fancy a visit sometime. Are players of middle eastern instruments (via Italy and the USA) welcome? (Mandolins, of course!)
Tim

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 04:01 AM

I have large apple tree in my front garden - Crawley Beauty - an old Sussex apple. Heavenly flavour.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 04:21 AM

A great dual pupose apple, Will, which makes it good an excellent cottage garden variety. I have a James Grieve for the same reason - sharp and good for cooking early September (before the Bramley) and sweeter and perfect for eating with cheese (Wensleydale for preference) later on.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 04:23 AM

I have a bird sown crab apple in the back garden and a wee apple in the front, gifted from one of the local orchards. Not sure of the type, but my fella says they're the best apples he's eaten.

We're well past it now, but one of my fave things to do is wander through the blossoming apple orchards under a full Moon. Those aenemic blossoms are very enchanting.
And since we're Wicker Manning it - still have fond memories of a friend of mine singing this Wiccan song one May Day in the middle of one of our blossoming apple orchards, just before dawn:

THE WITCH'S BALLAD

Oh, I have been beyond the town,
Where nightshade black and mandrake grow,
And I have heard and I have seen
What righteous folk would fear to know!

For I have heard, at still midnight,
Upon the hilltop far, forlorn,
With note that echoed through the dark,
The winding of the heathen horn.

And I have seen the fire aglow,
And glinting from the magic sword,
And with the inner eye beheld
The Horned One, the Sabbat's lord.

We drank the wine, and broke the bread,
And ate it in the Old One's name.
We linked our hands to make the ring,
And laughed and leaped the Sabbat game.

Oh, little do the townsfolk reck,
When dull they lie within their bed!
Beyond the streets, beneath the stars,
A merry round the witches tread!

And round and round the circle spun,
Until the gates swung wide ajar,
That bar the boundries of earth
From faery realms that shine afar.

Oh, I have been and I have seen
In magic worlds of Otherwhere.
For all this world may praise or blame,
For ban or blessing nought I care.

For I have been beyond the town,
Where meadowsweet and roses grow,
And there such music did I hear
As worldly-rightous never know.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 04:34 AM

Many years ago, the local orchard/farm shop owner held an annual "apple howling" night in the orchard. Various chants and songs were song, with processions, to promote the future harvest, appease the gods, and cider of the best sort was drunk, all by torchlight.

Sadly, all no more - orchard sold, and farm shop and barn is now a gated private house.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:07 AM

Crow Sister, that is a wonderful song - I wonder what the tune was.

Will, the answer to the grubbing up of orchards is for people to plant their own apple trees - even if it's just a couple of compatible ones on dwarfing rootstock. There are suppliers around who still have many of the old varieties that just aren't commercially viable but taste amazing.

I planted a small orchard of half a dozen apples, a greengage and a damson, a quince and a couple of hazels and it is (after 7 tears) incredibly productive. Plus, of course, the blossom is as enjoyable as the fruit and it's also just a delightful place to go and sit, night and day.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:12 AM

it is (after 7 tears) incredibly productive

Your tears must have blessed it! :-)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:20 AM

Rightly it's actually a poem by Doreen Valiente poem, and I can't recall the tune the singer sang it to! It was quite slow and sombre. I must endevour to get the tune off her, but haven't seen her in yonks..

"Seven tears"? Sound like an orchard of fairytale apple trees...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:34 AM

still have fond memories of a friend of mine singing this Wiccan song one May Day in the middle of one of our blossoming apple orchards, just before dawn:

This is weirdly reminiscent of a scene in one of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkin's novels where Merrily's pagan daughter has a run in with something weird lurking midst the apple blossoms. Not sure which one it was though...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:35 AM

Seven tears! Shed by eyes for the days when they could see properly.(Actually, they never could!)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:45 AM

Seven Tears

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:51 AM

Ed, that is truly awful LOL!!!!!

BTW, when the middle backing singer did the splits it brought a tear to my eye (and probably to his).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:56 AM

And where there are apples, might there also be cheese? I enjoy an Orange Pippin with Cotherstone, or even Stilton, depending on my mood, though since emigrating to Lancashire I'm discovering the delights of Lancashire Cheese in all its various strengths & potencies. Bowland is a special treat I can recommend to anyone, anywhere, without reservation...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Pip Radish
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:00 AM

It's a very unemphatic splits - he takes his time over it and nobody else pays much attention. You could almost believe it was accidental - "hang on, lads, my legs are going! I'm going down, I'm going down! ow! give us a hand up someone!"

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:01 AM

Bowland is wonderful, and even the very name is evocative, reminding me of cycling trips and picnics by the weather. A pity that so much of the Forest of Bowland is fenced off by landowners.

Anyway, SO'P - thanks for the tip - the postman has just delivered the cassette set of Michael Hordern reading Monty. And I'm in the ancient Volvo today - with its equally ancient radio/cassette player, so I'll be able to enjoy the delights along the A27...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:04 AM

"weather" should be "water" - doh!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:05 AM

"Apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without a squueze."

Lancashire is fine but (of course) the perfect cheese is a good Wensleydale, paired with a Ribston Pippin. http://www.wensleydale.co.uk/realwensleydale.html

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:08 AM

Or a Sussex Duddleswell ewe's milk cheese paired with a Crawley Beauty apple (and a pint of Harveys).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:10 AM

"It's a very unemphatic splits - he takes his time over it and nobody else pays much attention. You could almost believe it was accidental"

Not so much 'tears' - more 'tears', as in 'hernia'!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 07:20 AM

since emigrating to Lancashire I'm discovering the delights of Lancashire Cheese in all its various strengths & potencies

For a long time I was looking for a British equivalent of the Turkish "tulum peyniri" ("bagpipe cheese"), transported and sold in a sheep or goat skin with the hair still on - it's the cheese you want for doing pide (a split roll cooked like pizza with a cheese filling). Different packaging, but Lancashire is basically the same thing.

The best cheese market I've seen anywhere was in Trabzon, hundreds of local variants, a lot of them this Lancashire type.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 07:52 AM

sold in a sheep or goat skin with the hair still on

Sounds cool but you'd never get away with it over here with our nannying H&S considerations where even farm produced cheese comes out of sterile stainless-steel antiseptically clean laboratories. So much for our re-Imagined Village!

Ever tried any Human Cheese?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 08:37 AM

There may be a historical connection. The place with the highest reputation for bagpipe cheese today is Erzincan, in north-east Anatolia a bit southwest of Trabzon, but the stuff travels very well and could have originated or been taken up a few hundred miles away a few millenia ago.

In Neal Ascherson's book "Black Sea" he describes how the Romans garrisoned the Ribble Valley with troops from the northern Caucasus who spoke an Iranian language most closely related to present-day Ossetian - and as far as anybody knows, they stayed there. So the cheese recipe and the culture organisms that make it happen could have travelled with them to Lancashire, and to northern Anatolia with the Armenians. Cheese is one of the handiest provisions for an army on the move, particularly when it comes in such effective packaging.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 08:52 AM

"Ever tried any Human Cheese?"

I'm not even looking at that link. There used to be a shop called The Bell End Cheese Shop in Macclesfield.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 09:04 AM

Well thanks for that, chaps. From now on I will never eat cheese again. Tongue sandwich anyone?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 09:10 AM

Black Sea" he describes how the Romans garrisoned the Ribble Valley with troops from the northern Caucasus who spoke an Iranian language most closely related to present-day Ossetian - and as far as anybody knows, they stayed there.

I hope WAV is reading this! So - here I am, regularly accompanying my singing of Lancastrian folk songs (if The Molecatcher qualifies as a uniquely Lancastrian Folk Song!) with my Black Sea Fiddle whilst sustaining my energies with an ancient cheese recipe deriving from those of the ancient Black Sea soldiers who were so taken by the beauteous splendours of The Ribble they hung around. You see - now it all makes perfect sense!   

There used to be a shop called The Bell End Cheese Shop in Macclesfield.

A little investigation takes us to The Macc Lads Macculture A to Z where we find the following: Bell End Cheddar - When Hectic House* closed down, and before it was knocked down, the Lads redecorated it, putting this sign on the front. Old ladies were heard moaning: "Tut! That bloody cheese shop is never bloody open!"

*A record shop, record label, management company and where the Lads lived. The building stood on Sunderland St from 1790 until its remains were demolished after a party in 1993.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 09:31 AM

"I hope WAV is reading this!" (SO) - yes: never eat cheese (although I've read it's "the perfect food" in more than one book); occasionally have an apple; advocate growing native (apart from vegetables, fruits and other consumables - to limit food miles, etc.) plants to help native fauna...

SUMMARY OF NATIVE-GARDENING TALK – 2009 THEORY-SLAM GIG

Green/eco-friendly gardening is native gardening, and vegetables, plus other consumables, should be the only exotic-flora we plant - as doing so can help limit food-miles, etc. By filling our other garden spaces with natives, we use less water and other resources, whilst aiding the native-fauna that, over the centuries, evolved with them. (Even high-nectar exotics, such as Buddleia, that are very attractive to SOME native-fauna, should be avoided, because they upset nature's/God's balance – God created evolution, too, that is.)

Our green gardens, with their vegies and natives, can be made still greener by the addition of compost heaps/bins; a wildlife pond – for native frogs, newts, and so on, rather than exotic goldfish; bee- and bird-boxes, plus carefully- selected feeders; rain- and grey-water vats; by growing everything organically - including thrifty home-propagation plus species-swapping; and by leaving some lush untidy patches, decaying branches, etc. (from here ).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: mandotim
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 09:51 AM

Cheese and apples....mmmmm...try Leigh Toaster, a mature Lancashire, with a Russet apple straight off the tree. Mature Lancashire is a very different cheese to the unripe, crumbly stuff you get in supermarkets.
Tim

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:01 AM

Well found SO'P - I never knew they still merited enough interest to warrant a web site. The thing about Bell End Cheddar (funny how I got the name wrong - I must have gone past the shop hundreds of times on the bus; they always put rude signs in the upper windows of the building) was how long it was there before most people noticed what it really meant.

I used to work in the printers where the cassette covers were printed for the Macc Lads albums and Mutley McLad (he actually went to the posh boys school in the town) was a pretty astute businessman as far as I was always concerned. It was all a bit funny until some racist stuff crept in (in an effort to shock as the joke was wearing thin by this point) and I lost what little interest I had in them.

The shop is still there: I think it's a lingerie shop now.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:19 AM

because they upset nature's/God's balance – God created evolution, too, that is.)

Whilst I'm prepared to find a lovely old Medieval Parish Church in our re-Imagined Village with many of its original features remaining intact over the centuries (roof-bosses, bench-ends, misericords, rood screen, column capitals etc. etc.), and whilst I'd be more than happy with a Merrily Watkins type vicar (single mum with a folk-singer lover and troublesome pagan daughter) I would hope the spiritual life of our imaginary community would be founded on principles of Humanism and tolerance. Which is to say, any talk of God or any other Religious Construct would be restricted to within the church, and even then at specific times for service, communion etc. so as not to offend any non-religious who are visiting said church for more practical reasons. Anyone coming out with unmutual clap-trap along the lines of God created evolution too, that is would be forced to spend the day in the extant 16th century village stocks (by the Victorian lych-gate) and be liberally pelted with the overripe produce of the local market gardeners until he, or indeed she, saw the error of their ways.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:31 AM

I think our re-imagined village should definitely have a village lock-up a la the one below. My mates Dad was the last person to be banged up in it one New Years Eve. As you'll see it's in handy distance of the Church...

Village Lock-Up 1700

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:45 AM

Can we have a dotty elderly lady herbalist who lives in a muddle of a cottage with a huge overgrown garden filled with herbs - that we can re-imagine is a 'witch?'?

Down the road from me there was a very ancient lady like this, that an Aunt visited for herbs to help heal her up after her appendix opp. Not a pentagram in sight of course so no scent of "Paganism", but after meeting her, my Aunt reckoned the lady was a 'witch' (in the most pragmatic and ancient of village traditions.)

If we're having teenage Pagans, I want a proper village herbalist/witch in my re-imagined village too...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:52 AM

Would you settle for a mad cat woman?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:58 AM

Already got my name down for that position Manitas, though I might need just a couple more decades of practice before I can rightfully claim it.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:04 AM

We still burn the odd witch in our village occasionally (just for fun these days, nothing to do with religion) but we don't duck them first - it makes them too hard to light, what with the price of petrol.

"Can we have a dotty elderly lady herbalist who lives in a muddle of a cottage with a huge overgrown garden filled with herbs "

"Would you settle for a mad cat woman?"

Apart from the 'elderly' (she's 15 years younger than me), these sound very much like mresleveller who, of course, I would want living in my village.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:08 AM

Oh, and I'd want all the common land that was nicked during the enclosures to become common again for the use of us commoners - for free fuel, foraging and somewhere to graze my pig.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:12 AM

If we're having teenage Pagans, I want a proper village herbalist/witch in my re-imagined village too...

Such a character exists in the Merrily Watkins novels, CS - a crucial influence on young Jane and Lol (Merrily's daughter & folk-singing lover respectively), she is tragically killed early on, but her spirit lingers on by way of benign inspiration & occasional ghostly presence...

Would our herbalist / witch be enterprising enough to have a shop I wonder? Perhaps in this day and age she would, maybe it's called Caridwen's Cauldron and has a small museum attached - a Museum of Folklore indeed, a random curation of witches in bottles, witch bottles, mummified cats, corn dollies, wooden effigies, and all suchlike goodly things. I suspect this witch might be a folk singer and clog dancer too, although far too canny to end up being lured into WAV's canal boat. Besides, WAV's still in the stocks being roundly pelted with rotten Mangelwurzels for his word-crimes against the general enlightenment. Actually, looking over his published utterances, methinks he'd spend a good deal of his time there...

Whatever the case, I think our local dairy shop should be called Butter and Cheese and All and reflect the diverse wonders of all such produce the country over, and beyond, especially with respect of that Turkish Bagpipe cheese Jack was on about earlier. I imagine it being run next-door-but-one to Ye re-Imagined Village Music Shoppe in which one might find (for sale) examples of every musical instrument ever played on British Soil in the last 10,000 years.

And yes, Spleen, you can be The Construction Worker, but only if Pip is the Red Indian, and CS in The Biker.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:14 AM

Found the most peculiar video to a folk song on YouTube yesterday.
Not exactly worthy of a thread, so I'll throw it up here, enjoy...!

False Knight on the Road

Alright then Mrs Leveller, can have the position (I'll have to stick with being the village hippy - sigh...) just so long as she comes round my shambolic house for afternoon wine, and gives me herbal gardening tips...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:20 AM

Village Shops??? Well now we know we're imagining stuff.

Biker/Hippy I'll take!

Ahh, there must be an old burned out church somewhere off the beaten track, which has by way of local folklore, a coven of witches who used to use it for their slightly dodgy coven meeting! You don't go there alone at night, unless under dread obligations of a DARE!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:25 AM

I'll be honest, Being an urbanite, myself, and having been born in a fairly large city, I can't really identify with the whole rural dream thing.

By the way, just WHERE is this shop in Nottingham that sells A&W Root Beer

Root Beer

Root Bear

"dum da da dum dum da da dum da da dum dum"

Charlie

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 11:36 AM

"so long as she comes round my shambolic house for afternoon wine, and gives me herbal gardening tips... "

Just try to keep her away!

Actually, this is all beginning to sound like the village I actually live in. All it needs is the picturesque ruin. No, not me!. Wressle castle

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 12:14 PM

There has to be a retired Master Mariner who sits outside the pub drinking beer and bores everyone to death with his" I remember rounding Cape Horn in.....", and then plays chanties on a D/G anglo concertina, whilst he sigs them in C#!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Big Norman Voice
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 12:27 PM

Does the piece of doggerel in the first post qualify this as a music thread?
Move it to BS, it fits that description.
It is interesting though how WAV seems to walk around the, one thread only, restriction imposed some time back.
Still, the last thing I look for on here is consistency.
Feel a bit sorry for him on this thread though, as he's being picked on and mocked, in a very Mudcat cliquey sort of way.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 12:32 PM

I agree Norman, BS is the right description

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 12:35 PM

Do I detect a salty breeze a-blowin' in from the nearby sea there, Ron? In which case, I might venture a harbour for creels & cobles, with concrete piers gifted by the local land-owner, long gone now; death duties saw to that and the re-Imagined Country Estate is now in the hands of the re-Imagined National Trust...

Actually, talking about imaginary country estates check this out:

Coldharbour - A Brief History as of 1911

This was an attempt (by me) at writing a multi-layered English ghost story using the Imaginary Guide Book genre to interleave the various historical episodes and continuities. A sort of M R James at Rawlinson End as read out on an imaginary Radio 4 broadcast by an imaginary Michael Hordern circa 1974.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 12:41 PM

Common land - yes; and perhaps The Witches of Elswick could reform and rename as The Witches of the re-Imagined Village..? (Bit of a fruity mouthful, though.)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 01:03 PM

(Joking apart, it's the first I've heard of this "one thread only, restriction imposed some time back." (Norman)...I've started this one, one for Wimbledon, kept WalkaboutsVerse Anew going, and posted on a few others, lately.)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 01:07 PM

Feel a bit sorry for him on this thread though, as he's being picked on and mocked, in a very Mudcat cliquey sort of way.

It's his published ideology that's being picked on, as ever, not the man himself, stuck as he is in his old little well-worn rut no matter what friendly offers he's had over the years to help him out of it by way of aids to to a happier repatriation. I still look upon WAV's posts as cries for help. Still, I'd say apart from the occasional spat the general tenor of this thread is as Sportingly English as it gets on Mudcat, which is why is obviously rankles with nay-sayers who refuse to join in the fun.

Anyway, I'm off down to the imaginary pub for an imaginary pint before the imaginary singaround - if anyone fancies hooking up with me I'll be in beer garden from about 6.30 onwards, otherwise it looks like I'll be stuck with our imaginary Master Mariner (Retired), which is no bad thing really, especially if his imaginary daughter is behind the bar tonight...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 01:56 PM

David (WAV) is not being picked on and mocked. I've lashed out in anger at him in the past over ideological matters with which I'm in total disagreement, but the concept of the Re-imagined Village - with all that's implied - and folkloric viewpoints of rural life, of Englishness, of literary and philosophical convention, etc. - has proved to open up a rich mine of topics. For which I thank David for posting it. Whether I like the actual poetry or not is, in this instance, not the point for me.

And thanks to this thread and its multifarious posts, I was able to listen to Michael Hordern reading Monty James's "The Ash Tree" on the way home from the afternoon's expedition through the Sussex countryside to the music shop.

That's the beauty of Mudcat.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 02:08 PM

I've also enjoyed reading the posts here, Will, and one of the things I do have in common with SO is that I'm also off to my local singaround, having just watched the Wimbledon semis.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:11 PM

"There has to be a retired Master Mariner who sits outside the pub drinking beer and bores everyone to death with his" I remember rounding Cape Horn in....."

= WAV

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: doc.tom
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:16 PM

George Withers, that great old Somerset singer died last week. George was also, like his father before him, a poet. This seems an appropriate thread to post one of George's poems (which was also the title track of his CD) as a memorial.


THE LAND REMAINS (George Withers)

I remember - I remember the place where I was born;
'Twas full of cows and heifers then, and sheep and pigs and corn.
But the country scene is changing; the folks are changing too,
And farming's very different from the farming that I knew.

No geese are on the village green, no ponies are on the moors,
No cock crows on the dunghill now, the hens are all indoors,
The school's become a second home, the pub is closing down,
And the village shop just can't compete with Tesco's in the town.

The dairy herd is long dispersed, the quota's out on lease,
And the farmhouse sold to clear the debts and please the mortgagees;
And Father drives a lorry now, and Mum does B&Bs
In a semi on the new estate beyond the churchyard trees.

And there's new folk in the old place now; I don't know what they do,
But he's something in computers and a real nice fellow too.
They come to village functions; she's joined the W.I.;
They've not much clue as to what to do, but it must be said,they try!

Now the garden's graveled over - it's a TV gardener's dream
With flowers in terra cotta pots and a switch-on wildlife stream;
The rockery's a mockery of what was there before,
And the polystyrene staddle stones - well, they're the final straw!

No rows of spuds and carrots now, no runner beans and peas,
No cabbages, no rhubarb, no children climbing trees.
There's a four bi' four for Daddy and an Audi for his wife;
There's lots of Country Living - but no real country life!

But dawn still rises in the East, the sun still sinks in the West;
We come, we try, we live, we die, we work, we eat, we rest,
But love or hate the system, whoever holds the reins,
Let others learn - we've had our turn - and still the land remains.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 03:21 PM

Ahh Wimbledon...with Venus and Serena Williams in the women's final...Americans it should be noted.

The 'English' fantasy dies hard in some peoples lives.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:49 PM

"The 'English' fantasy dies hard in some peoples lives."

Why fantasy? In fact, it has come closer, in many respects, to the reality of the village I live in than is quite comfortable - and this is not your archetypal English village...or maybe it is!WOW!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 02:26 AM

Wressle castle will do the job nicely, though by way of explanation - the burned out church and local folklore of dark doings actually exists not far from me. Though the place has since been done up and is now occupied by an enterprising artisan. *Our ruin*, will of course ever remain darkly mysterious to residents.

As for the wee seaside town, well I think that's 'just next door' to me already. It's the place my grandparents would take us on a Sunday drive for a paddle. Full of tea shops and suchlike. In fact it's the perfect place to house SO'Ps 'Butter and Cheese and All', because the place is chock full of deli's.

And there simply *must* be a local scandal. Anything involving a vicar, or headmistress, or local councillor caught in kinky leather underwear and/or filching public funds. Preferably the latter to fund the former.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 02:38 AM

Oh, as well as being the villages hippy-biker, I'm happy to moonlight as the villages resident 'Miss Whippy' btw. Then I can be involved in the local scandal with the local councillor!

As I was explaining to some friends the other evening, a carpenter friend and I created an alternate lifestyle for me, whereby he would build me a dungeon in my loft (I know, wrong level, but it'll have to do) for a share in the takings. After all racks and such specialist gear must cost a bomb to buy!

Anyway, we decided that all the bankers and city traders round my way, were probably in need of a local 'therapist' to relieve the strain caused by their high pressure city jobs. So now those bikers leathers will be usefully applied by day and by night!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:03 AM

Crow Sister - you should have lived in my village nearly twenty years ago. The vicar (married) was found guilty by a Consistory Court of adultery with a married parishioner in the village - and was unfrocked. Consistory Court hearings about "conduct unbecoming a clerk in Holy Orders" are rare.

How's that for your scandal? I think it should qualify.

It was an odd period in the village - and split opinion. Those of the vicar's circle of friends just couldn't believe it was all true and rallied round them. Those who knew it was true - and there were very many of them - were totally contemptuous of his behaviour and were glad to see him go.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:17 AM

Only recently we had 'The Bonking Bishop of Brentwood' (not in my village, but a suitably 'local' scandal nonetheless) who as well as carrying on with a local Mum, was embezzeling church funds - it was one of those evangelical churches where they expect blind people to see, and people in wheelchairs to get up and dance in praise of Lord Jesus though - they sent him home in disgrace.

Now see, if I can be Miss Whippy in the local village scandal, I can also blackmail the local crooked Councillors and Bishops! That was another part of the thickening 'plot' with my carpenter friend, for my secret subversive role in quintessential English village life...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:25 AM

The Bonking Bishop of Brentwood! That has a very definite waltz flavour to it - a local scandal in 3/4 time. Add a touch of the Miss Whippies to the mix and there's a good broadside ballad in their somewhere...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:56 AM

a carpenter friend and I created an alternate lifestyle for me, whereby he would build me a dungeon in my loft (I know, wrong level, but it'll have to do

Converted lofts are for the village cannabis farm.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Pip Radish
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 05:00 AM

Our local adultery scandal didn't have any teachers or clerics, just two people both of whom were married to someone else. What was unusual was the way it came to light - she tied him to a chair & (presumably some time later) discovered she couldn't get the knots undone, and called the Fire Brigade.

Not terribly good at keeping confidences, small town fire brigades.

(I don't believe she broke his throne or cut his hair, however.)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Snuffy
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 07:08 AM

Crow Sister, there's just the song for you in this thread.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 07:14 AM

Thanks for posting that good thoughtful poem, Doc.Tom (just above all the scandals here, if you haven't read it).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 07:30 AM

Dear Sir / Madam

I must protest at the tenor of recent posts on this thread in the light of which I might predict that it won't be just WAV spending time in the old re-Imagined Village stocks. So, let us decide forthwith what fine, decent, upstanding pillars of our re-Imagined Village Community will be in The Rough Band so as we might suitably serenade the moral transgressors who have lately strayed into our midsts.

In this light, ahem, I suppose CS's charming video for The False Knight on the Road becomes most apt, feathers and all by jove!

Yours disgustedly,

Mr Suibhne O'Piobaireachd, gent.
Elected Secretary of The re-Imagine Village Parish Council.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 08:44 AM

PS - Where might one purchase feathers such as those depicted in the above mentioned cinematographic entertainment? I fancy they would make a fetching addition to my Folk Hat, which is similar to the one depicted Here. Now there's a feather for your caps, gentlemen! Otherwise, it's really too hot for thoughts of feathers, much less the uses those youngsters might put them too. Of course there was none of that sort of thing in my younger days, dear me no...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 09:37 AM

I'm with you there David, that poem by George Withers, above, is just WONDERFUL!   Thanks for posting it, Tom...

Lovely thread, David.. :0)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 09:45 AM

Thanks for Joan the Leather Queen, Snuffy. I've a feeling some of the ladies at our folk meets might appreciate that one.

Actually I think it was The False Knight that rather reminded me of my wannabe duel identity. Otherwise..

Dear "Disgusted", I'd advise a Google search for erotic feathers, as currently my dungeon is in the process of being insulated, and the folk-erotica sideline is still boxed up in the out-house beneath the gimp chest (you know, the one I did the decoupage on - those Art & Craft classes at the village hall are a goldmine for the creative village dominatrix). I aught also to explain to any concerned upstanding members of our community, that the blackmail side of my enterprise is purely for the purpose of ensuring the greater good! A classic tart with a heart type of calling. Thus I'll only be blackmailing well-heeled crooks and scoundrels! So less talk of this banging of kettles and frying pans if you please.

Must dash, Mrs Leveller is over shortly to help me tend the Weed patch...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 10:26 AM

PS, I've been thinking it's time I sorted out a 'folk hat' too.

Though, I've still got to get me a 'folk poncho' for folk-fest camping in. I did think that would make an excellent 'canvas' for stitching ribbons, feathers, silk flowers and other suitable miscellaneous findings and/or stealings to.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 11:08 AM

Let's let Ray Davies (who's far more English than you could ever hope to be, WAV) have a word here...The last word, I believe, on the English village fantasy.

The Village Green Preservation Society

We are the Village Green Preservation Society
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you

What more can we do
We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society
God save Mrs. Mopp and good Old Mother Riley
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular
Hell take Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula.

We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the Skyscraper condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you.

What more can we do
God save the Village Green

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 11:12 AM

Oh and this...

"Ahh Wimbledon...with Venus and Serena Williams in the women's final...Americans it should be noted."

A Swiss (Roger Federer) and an American (Andy Roddick) in the men's final...ooops!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 11:44 AM

Not sure what you were drinking during your outing last night, SO, Sir, but thanks for enlightening me on "rough music".

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 11:45 AM

England's first real sporting hero was Daniel Mendoza (born in England but Sephardic Jewish) so it's not like foreign-seeming people on the sports pitch are anything new.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 11:52 AM

"Let's let Ray Davies (who's far more English than you could ever hope to be, WAV) have a word here...The last word, I believe, on the English village fantasy."

I don't know, I think WAV's a special and rarified kind of "English" that I for one could never aspire (or indeed desire) to attain. Even with full genetic compliment of fair skin, green eyes and (what a friend once 'complimented' me with having) a 'serious case of English rose complexion... Plus a fat English arse of course! But then, I do love to bake - which is also probably more than a bit belonging to our re-imagined English village. Which leads me neatly onto an anecdote - relating to the very same Weed patch Mrs Leveller has been kindly advising me on, of late - about one of my early baking experiences, from a teenage birthday: My friend had aquired a lump of resin, and we made such colourfully iced cakes! She had to burn patchouli incense before Mum & Dad returned because the baking had scented the whole house so delightfully. We went picknicking with them, during the poll tax riots. It was a topper day, the sun was out, and some chap stole a policemans helmet and placed it upon a statue...

And to tie back in with the village BDSM theme, this was probably the soundtrack. One of my favourite songs of the time (purely coincidentally): The Mercy Seat

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 12:06 PM

If you like the idea of a stereotype, that's all well and good, and it's something Ray Davies has been taking the piss out of for years, and may he do it for years to come

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 12:22 PM

Ah... Ultra Vivid Scene. Now we're talking!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 12:31 PM

Pablo Fanque, born William Darby in Norwich in 1796 was black

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 12:40 PM

Sorry Charlie, I am as ever being throwaway. I'm sure Ray would in fit very well here.

Indeed, as you might have noticed this "quintessential English village fantasy" is currently infested with bonking bishops, helpful 'alternative' herbalists, and motorcycle riding dominatrices..

What a local news shocker!!
Want to come and play?
But only if you bring that tomahawk I've heard you tell of, we need new ways to abuse the councilor...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 12:41 PM

"relating to the very same Weed patch Mrs Leveller has been kindly advising me on, of late "

Shhhhhh. My eldest son's a copper! (In very loud voice) YES, aren't they lovely tomato plants. No, funnily enough, we haven't had any toms off them yet!!!!!!!!! More cake? It's your favourite.

Oh my god, a rather large lady and her two children have just driven past in a buggy pulled by a very spotty Shetland pony whose name, I believe is (cringe) Spoticus.

BTW, squire's pheasants are looking good this year - just hope our lurcher, Susie, is still fast enough to.......(taps side of nose with finger in knowing, old countryman sort of way).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 01:10 PM

Ahh, Leveller, my friend the carpenters Dad (same as was locked up in village lock up) used to be famous as the 'village poacher'. My mate when a kid had to fend off the local copper on his Dad's behalf: He told me about the time he was tasked with secretly supplying Mrs X from the village, a great bloody frozen leg of lamb what was sticking right out the freezer one day!
He said to me: "Yeah, my dad was a *proper* poacher!"

I bet if we all pooled our wee stories of "village life" on this thread we could come up with something to rival the bum off any Soap!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 01:19 PM

Oh yeah Spleen, can't recall his name but I fancied the pants off the lead singer. Big noses, bony bodies, bad teeth and lank hair was my idea of male beauty... Just as well really.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 01:30 PM

Stories...

Many years ago, one of our local pubs was owned and run by two gay guys - who loved the odd lock-in and were great fun.

At one of the lock-ins, the company felt the need for a sing-song round a piano in the old traditional way. But the pub had no piano, so... we went down the High Street to the house of one of the locals, woke him up and demanded the use of his piano. We got it out of the house, pushed it down the road on its casters and got it into the pub. After pouring several pints of beer into it, it seemed to be tuned up - and served us very well into the small hours of the morning.

At around the same time, the church bell tower was being renovated and, one hot Saturday afternoon, the ladders had been left propped against the tower wall. One of the local lads and his girlfriend were returning from a session in the pub and were passing the church. Seeing the ladders there, and feeling a little randy - what with the sun and the beer - they climbed up the ladder, shed their clothes with a light heart, and set about making the beast with two backs. Halfway through the fun and games, the vicar decided to check on building process, climbed the ladder and caught them in flagrante delicto - which resulted, rather unfortunately, in coitus interruptus. They were duly summoned before the church elders and asked to apologise for their behaviour. which they duly did - and got their revenge by testifying against the said vicar some months later at the Consistory Court. They were caught with trousers down - but he was unfrocked...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 01:44 PM

...maybe he should have just married them..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 01:46 PM

LOL! - They both married someone else, years later...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Howard Jones
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 03:09 PM

"They both married someone else, years later... "

Isn't that bigamy? Or possibly trigamy?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 03:17 PM

At the last forum I frequented, a small group of us created an 'alternative' group where we had 'alternative meets' and all sorts of fun & larks ensued...

It totally fecked off the main group though, which of course is probably what made it so brilliant (and why everyone wanted to be in it).

Well, I know you're all much older and more sensible here, so I hope that kind of dreadful factionalism doesn't occur here! (as if!!)

PM me, if interested.
There will be horrible initiation tests natch...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 03:20 PM

I like the sound of trigamy - a bit like marrying two geometry teachers.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Gervase Webb
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 03:25 PM

Will, that can only be Henfield! I know the place well, as a very good friend was the postman there for a while.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:18 PM

Well there I was the other week, cycling around the lanes, when I ventured past the airfield with the private aero museum. Suddenly there was a terrible noise behind me and turning round there's this bright red Fokker (is that the right spelling?) tri-plane up my arse with a grinning replica of the bleeding Red Baron bearing down on me. As I ended up in the ditch, I reckon he chalked me up as his first kill of the day. There's never a Sopwith Camel around when you need one!

While I'm on the subject of the airfield, a couple of years ago a cannabis farm was discovered in some adjoining buildings. When they burnt the crop the wind was in JUST the right direction - Wow! Far out, man!We were stoned for days.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 04:21 PM

"When they burnt the crop the wind was in JUST the right direction - Wow! Far out, man!We were stoned for days"

another variation on the old urban/rural myth, that probably got its start with an old hemp plantation that was discovered near Washington DC, some years ago. Same action same result.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 05:28 PM

PS. I'm not an actual real life dominatrix...
Though I'm alway's open to blackmail, given the right fee!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 06:10 AM

Here's a vexed question carried over from elsewhere. In The re-Imagined Village do we allow our local Morris Side to follow what appears to be a prevailing trend amongst the Morris Fraternity and black up? Myself, with respect of all such re-Imagined Fakelore & Hey-Nonny-No-No which seem to be well off-kilter with respect to the cultural and social realities of 21st Century Great Britain, and at the risk of cries of Political Correctness Gone Mad, might I politely suggest that there's a lot of other colours to choose from - such as white, as we find in the old Pierrot Tradition (latterly carried on by the Very Wonderful Pierotters) and I believe the colour Green is very in these days with fantasy fakelorists, including Morrismen, everywhere.

Myself, I'd like to see our Morris Dancers masked as beasties. Here's a fine set of Traditional Animal Masks which I think would look a treat on any Morris Side. Or, for something a little more appropriate to our imaginary rustic setting they might like to try THESE. Or how about A Nice Woodland Set? Personally I think animal-masked Morris dancing is a genuine ancient-pagan-fertility-rite-derived-revived-tradition-type-thing just waiting to happen. For all I know maybe it already is happening, and no bad thing either.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 06:45 AM

No, the local Morris side should be in whites most of the year but in the weeks before Christmas will perambulate the neighbouring villages in rag-coats performing border morris dances before entering the pub for a mummer's play or, even better, performing long-sword dances with integral mummer's plays. On Boxing Day they will appear in the home village to perform at lunchtime in the square before retiring into the pub for a few songs and tunes.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 07:12 AM

the neighbouring villages

Neighbouring re-Imagine Villages no doubt; our fantasy topography grows ever more complex! Okay, so we've got Ambridge in The Archers, and Ledwardine in Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels and countless other non-existent English villages that are somehow quintessential to the cause in spite of - or maybe because of - the fact that they don't actually exist. So, is the non-existent English Village the only true English Village I wonder? The one we hold in our dreaming hearts as being somehow archetypical of an inner-idyll informed, no doubt, by the subliminal depiction of such things in the ether of our Common Cultural Ambience which is largely defined by Television?

Real villages, in my experience, are hell on earth. I've tried village life on various occasions and whilst I love the countryside, the darkness, the wildlife, the stars, the seasons, the Agas, the real coal fires and the whole rural stench, I'm far happier in towns simply because village people get on my tits; the same faces, day in, day out; the faux sense of community, that deadening sense of entrenched permanence and forever being a newcomer even to the bloke across the road who moved in the year before you did.

No indeed, villages are too much like housing estates; deadening to the human spirit by an altogether unnatural juxtapositioning of territorial home-owners which might only lead to conformity on the one hand or strife on the other. Give me a town by the sea with people I couldn't give a shit about, not yet they me, but in a genuine crisis we will be there for one another.

In towns I find real friendships thrive...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 07:49 AM

No I don't think there are any "neighboring villages" this one is IT, the only! There might be a signpost just over the one way bridge that can't be deciphered, indicating 'Little Somewhere' or 'Great Ishyplace" but the road is always blocked by the farmers slow moving tractor, or geese crossing or some other mysterious quintessentially English village phenomenon (no-body of course, ever notices this...). And there's always a mist over the fields where the village sort of 'runs out'. Our village is of course located on Solaris, or is a programme in the Matrix, or maybe it's a set in some futuristic reality show..? Of course we'll never know!

Yes, I think all Morris Men should read Nigel Pennicks "Crossing the Borderlines, ritual animal disguise in the European tradition" and get with the traditionally re-imagined pagan fertility masked dancing pronto.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 08:11 AM

Here's a nice old folk song about life in the country, circa 1982:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyf4yZc2EM0

Lyrics Here

The villagers
Are surrounding the house
The locals have come for their due
It's hard to live in the country

*

Actually folks, I think even The re-Imagined Village is getting too much for me; I hereby commission WAV to start another thread about The re-Imagined Small Seaside Town. But once in The Village, how does one get out?

Actually, there's another Quintessential Piece of Genuine Englishness Essentially to any Successful Repatriation. Let's add it to the list shall we?

Dandelion and Burdock
The Ghost Stories of M R James
The Fall
Power Stations
Windfarms
John Shuttleworth
Vic Reeves
Jim Eldon
English Apples & Cheeses
The Prisoner

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 08:38 AM

In line with the re-imagined village come gnostic prison camp theme, C4's "They Came From Somewhere Else", just about as English as you like!

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

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 08:44 AM

"village people get on my tits;"

I have to be honest, neighbours of any kind get on my tits. Which is why, in the Re-Imagined Village - as in reality - my house is on the outskirts and on 'the wrong side of the tracks'.

"Power Stations
Windfarms"

We live within sight of Drax, the largest coal-fired power station in Europe and yet, when someone wanted to put up a couple of wind turbines, there was a huge outcry. I asked one of the objectors if she thought there was the same protest when they wanted to put up the windmill in the village? Personally, I can't see too much difference - or does age bring acceptability, as with the pit winding gear that is now the stuff of nostalgia but which we though of as eyesores not too long ago?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 09:04 AM

village people get on my tits; the same faces, day in, day out;>/i>

There's a bit of urban sophistication I've missed out on. I've been wearing the same face for nearly 60 years. No wonder it's looking a bit worn out. And you townies, you get fed up with your face, you don't cut off your nose to spite it like us benighted country folk, you simply change it for a new one! The New Faces, I thought that was just the name of the band.

What do they do with all the old faces- is there a huge landfill site, somewhere on the outskirts of Walsall perhaps, where they dump them? Or are they recycled these days, or perhaps shipped to the Third World?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 09:15 AM

"I hereby commission WAV to start another thread about The re-Imagined Small Seaside Town. But once in The Village, how does one get out?"(SO)...I try to see the sea once a year but missed last summer - Whitley Bay is a favourite.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 11:03 AM

Sean - practise your irony...

Stu

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 11:48 AM

Quintessential to the Small English Seaside Town:

BNP Outreach
Needle Exchange Scheme
Morrisey
Absentee Landlords
Vodka (in Coca Cola bottles)
Cockles

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 12:25 PM

I try to see the sea once a year but missed last summer - Whitley Bay is a favourite.

Once a year???!!! Feck, WAV man - you have a 5-minute Metro service giving to access to all the stations between West Monkseaton and Tynemouth with some of the finest coastline in the country, and some cracking all-year weekend flee-markets too (Tynemouth Station, Sat & Sun) with walks beyond Saint Mary's Island up to the history-rich Seaton Sluice. You even have a Metro service to South Shields...

Sean - practise your irony...

No irony intended, Stu - apart from that last bit about South Shields, but even so Marsden Rock & Grotto has to worth a weakly hike at least!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 12:28 PM

my house is on the outskirts and on 'the wrong side of the tracks'.

Right next to mine then, eh? Still, as the poet said, good fences make good neighbors (sic)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 12:46 PM

Re: Saint Mary's - I'll check the tides and go out there sometime this summer...watching Wimbledon at the moment - 8-8 in the fifth..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 03:00 PM

"good fences make good neighbors (sic)"

Unless you get involved in a dispute about who's responsible for their upkeep!Now that can really make you sic (sic).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 05 Jul 09 - 05:04 PM

I'll check the tides and go out there sometime this summer

Go there tomorrow, WAV - you are Walkaboutsverse, so you must walk. If the tide's in, head North along the cliffs to Seaton Sluice where on a clear day you can see The Cheviot Hills from the top of Sandy Island. Chances are the King's Arms will serve you chips and mead before the next leg of the walk - inland, up-river, to the romantic ruins of Starlight Castle...

Unless you get involved in a dispute about who's responsible for their upkeep!Now that can really make you sic

Likewise when the Land Registry put their red pen marks in the wrong place on the property plans giving said village neighbour the idea that the fence is in the wrong place. Yup - it's your Great British Boundary Dispute, one of the real Traditional Pastimes of Village Life. The only time in my life when I've come close to actually hating someone. Not good.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:32 AM

C4's "They Came From Somewhere Else", just about as English as you like!

How on earth did I miss that one? Hilda Braid as well! Looks like a classic. Must check it out on DVD. Another great lost classic of the English sit-com is the darkly surreal Nightingales with a resident trio of night-watchmen played by Jimmy Ellis (Z-Cars etc.), Robert Lindsay (Citizen Smith, My Family etc. and David Threlfall (Shameless etc.). Happily, this came out on DVD a couple of years back allowing its inner mysteries to be explored at leisure. Easily one of the finest sit-coms of all time; in our re-Imagined Village it would required viewing on dark winter nights when our cherished streets are overrun by The re-Imagined Village Young Team...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:42 AM

|'ve just come across a song I wrote a while ago, re-imagining the South Yorkshire pit village I grew up in and then the move back to the East Coast where I lived until I left at the age of 18.

The England I Knew

The England I knew is now disappearing
The woods and the hedgerows are vanishing fast
The countryside that I loved and grew up with
Is quickly becoming a thing of the past

Where are the summers that were golden with sunshine,
The winters where snow lay thick on the ground?
The soft days of autumn with apples and conkers
The spark in the belly when spring came around?

The school that I went to now wouldn't pass muster
With its toilets outside and the coal-fired stove,
Where those at the front were roasted and blistered
While those at the back just shivered and froze.

Holidays once meant the great British seaside
And the sandwiches really were crunchy with sand.
Though the castles we made there were soon washed away
Those we built in our minds still steadfastly stand.

By the Co-Op in the village, in pit boots and flat caps,
Old men in white mufflers on the street corner stood,
Spitting out on the pavement a lifetime of coal dust
From pits that have long since been closed down for good.

In the sixties we moved back east to the coast again,
Away from the collieries and the landscape of coal.
But for friends that I left there, the future was certain:
The dark, dirty coalface, then life on the dole.

Then on Saturday nights, in pubs by the dockside
We'd fight fingerless fishermen, drunk on beer and tots.
Now instead of the trawlers tied up at the quayside,
They've built a marina for luxury yachts.

We've lost all the elms that once graced our landscape
And it looks like the beeches will go the same way
But still chainsaw and bulldozer rip through the forests
Because trees must make room for a new motorway

And wherever you look, the Yankees are coming,
They've invaded our high streets, taken over our minds.
Now burger and pizza joints pepper the landscape
And on telly their accents are all you can find.

Quick, send for the police, someone's stolen my England.
"Now then, when was the last time you had it, d'you say?
Hmmm, I can't recall seeing anything like that around here
Are you sure you didn't just throw it away?"

So don't turn your back on the England you love
Hold onto its hand like your daughter or son.
'Cos if you look away for a couple of minutes
When you glance back again…sorry, it's gone.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:56 AM

Like your lyric, thanks, The Leveller.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:59 AM

(For any RI Villagers who like/love their cricket, there's a BS debate brewing - along with the tea, on the village green, below the line - over "The Ashes.")

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:02 AM

You little devil, David - there's just a tickle of the troll about that cricket post... :-)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:11 AM

"I hereby commission WAV to start another thread about The re-Imagined Small Seaside Town. But once in The Village, how does one get out?"(SO)...I try to see the sea once a year but missed last summer - Whitley Bay is a favourite"

He doesn't need any encouragement, unfortunately

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:42 AM

"But once in The Village, how does one get out?"

You can't get out, that's the point of the Village! Ask Patrick McGoohan.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 12:25 PM

To WF and RM - are you trying to say "it's not cricket"?!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 12:32 PM

Alas, rather like Blakes 7 the mingeing sods won't let us at the archives! I don't think you can get TCfSW on DVD. Though I've no idea how well the series has weathered since the eighties.
It was rather stand alone of it's obscure kind, though of course stuff like The Comic Strip Presents was probably around the same time... (not that I was in theory old enough to stop up till 9pm in order to watch that kind of grown-up comedy!)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 12:46 PM

I saw a copy of Children of the Stones on VHS on a stall in the Winter Garden collectors market in Blackpool on Saturday. The ultimate in re-Imagined Villagery I would have thought; featuring Blake himself of course...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 03:46 PM

In answer to the question.

Has Children of the Stones aged well?

The answer is no, it's the big hair, the de rigueur sideburns, the kipper ties, and jacket lapels wide enough to land an aircraft on, that make CotS a dead 80s give away.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:04 PM

Eh! I missed CotS before, and am definitely inclined to give it a view on what I've now seen, kippers and all...!

What's so nice about 'growing up' is that you no longer have to pretend that your enjoyment of things is somehow 'subversive', 'kitch', or 'ironic'.

What a relief...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:25 PM

a dead 80s give away.

Context is all, Rifleman! Besides - it was first screened in 1977! I used to watch it with my punk mates from school & we loved it. A product of it's time & no less worthwhile because of that. We rented it on DVD last year (through Sofa Cinema) & thoroughly enjoyed it, but then again I reckon the first series of Catweazle to be amongst the finest British TV ever made - I even have a signed picture of Geoffrey Bayldon (albeit on the trike at Duck Halt from series 2) hanging pride of place. I'm also a big fan of Pertwee's re-invention of Worzel Gummidge (in which Bayldon likewise excels). Children of the Stones is part of that genre of - er - Folkloric TV; of it's time, but reflecting a wider vibe of a particular Zeitgeist one also finds in such films as Blood on Satan's Claw and The Wicker Man.

Check those links, WAV - all part our rich folkloric heritage!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:39 PM

Not forgetting The Changes...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:19 PM

Children of the Stones? Now you're talking! Got it on DVD last year and watched the whole series end to end. It really is the Wicker Man for kids. Now contemplating the Tomorrow People boxed set but anticipating disappointment. And why isn't The Changes on DVD? Eh? Thanks for reminding me about it, S o'P.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:50 AM

And what about Sky?

There were definitely some echoes of such programmes in the opening episode of the new Torchwood last night - even the title: Children of Earth. Watch it again HERE - brilliantly compelling sci-fi in the fine British tradition of such things (Nigel Kneale et al) I'd say. Episode two tonight!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: mandotim
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:55 AM

Have a listen to 'Shabby Seaside Towns' here . I wrote it on the way back from Whitley Bay some years back. The Spanish City was closed at the time.
Tim

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 06:22 AM

I've heard about, and seen snippets of (on the BBC's Country File, I think..?), The Wicker Man, and it's one of the few films/television plays that I'd like to catch sometime.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 06:22 AM

Cheers, Tim - definite echoes of Morecambe there! The Spanish City had a last ditch attempt at reinventing itself as The Whitley Bay Dome some years ago playing host to bands such as Gong and Faust, though Magma pulled out owing to poor ticket sales. I wonder, have I ever truly forgiven them for that?

Yesterday Ross & I went with a friend to a poetry event at Blackpool Library where we each sang songs & told stories but mostly we went to hear Ron Baxter reciting as poems some of the songs we'd performed in the Fylde Coasts Sands show on Saturday night. Arriving an hour early, we decamped to the North Pier for a reviving Costa and basked a while midst sea-side shabbiness certainly, but there's something about Blackpool that is most tangibly alive and kicking, however so haunted by the ghosts of its not inconsiderable past, even to the point of having an ultra-bland sentimental MOR version Fields of Athenry forming part of the Irish Medley blaring out of the gift shop as we passed by, enchanted...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:45 AM

I do like Torchwood, but I do find something a bit creaky and wooden in British sci-fi..

I thoroughly dug the fabulous Babylon 5 though.
And for sci-fi, the most brilliantly weird shit I ever saw was the surreal Lexx. Everything looked like willies or something. I recall one particular shower scene... !

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:06 AM

but I do find something a bit creaky and wooden in British sci-fi..

The finest sci-fi was British; the finest TV - The Prisoner - and the finest film - Quatermass and the Pit, which is given homage by Babylon 5 in the feature length episode Thirdspace. I gave Lexx my best shot, but it was always on too late for me too fully take in. And as for that shower scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSw-9aqgoBQ

In our re-Imagined Village we will always be watching the skies, especially after the rumours of strange lights seen hovering over Poacher's Knoll on the night those Crop Circles appeared...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:06 AM

Now here's classic (LOL!) British horror film, directed by my friend, Gary Sherman. I have to confess (under torture) that I did have a hand in writing the script.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathline-DVD-Christopher-Lee/dp/B000EWOO2Y

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:17 AM

"the rumours of strange lights seen hovering over Poacher's Knoll "

That was probably me out 'lamping' with my dog, Susie. Why do you think they call it Poacher's Knoll? Now don't 'ee be tellin' t'squire!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:32 AM

You man the Death Line / aka Raw Meat, with Donald Pleasance!!??? Bloody hell - the exalted company we keep on Mudcat!

One of the finest films ever, and an opening theme to die for. Watch it in its glorious entirety here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Look5R8kQs

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:09 AM

I'd heard much aboutt «Children of the Stones, I finally viewed it, the term 'the legend is greater than the reality! came to mind, much like The Wicker Man..the cat washing herself holds more excitement.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:15 AM

"One of the finest films ever"

Hmmmm! I thought it had died without trace.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 12:11 PM

As far as British horror films go, nothing comes close to "Night of the Demon" (1957) IMO. Scared the living crap out me back then - still does today.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 12:27 PM

Well, for my money, "The Innocents", based on Henry James's "The Turn Of The Screw" is pretty fearsome. And don't forget "Dead Of Night", the compilation of horror stories by Cavalcanti and other directors - the haunted mirror story is still a shocker.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:57 PM

As far as British horror films go, nothing comes close to "Night of the Demon" (1957)

Based on the M R James story Casting the Runes which is rumoured to have inspired the Ring cycle...

And don't forget "Dead Of Night", the compilation of horror stories by Cavalcanti and other directors - the haunted mirror story is still a shocker.

I was fortunate enough to catch this on the big screen a few years ago (if the club screen of the Tyneside Cinema counts as big) and whilst all the favourite scenes were magnified into the sort of glory you'd expect, the biggest surprise was the golfers story which hitherto was the weak link in the chain. Not so on the big screen - the bleak winter landscapes took on an epic quality that gets quite lost on the small screen. A true classic. I'm a big fan of portmanteau horror films, and whilst nothing beats Dead of Night, having Alan 'Fluff' Freeman and Roy Castle in the cast Dr Terror's House of Horrors has a special place in my heart...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: RossCampbell
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:28 PM

Anybody see BBC's Countryfile on Sunday? It's still available on BBC iPlayer and will be re-broadcast Friday, 10th July at 1:25am, BBC One.

They had an item on climate-change and its effect on what kind of fruit and veg might be growable in the UK sometime soon. Already, from only a handful a few years back, there are now scores of vineyards and winemakers across the country.

In passing, they mentioned that several things we regard as essentially native are in fact relatively recent introductions. Apples and pears, far from originating in the East End of London, came from Persia. The familiar orange carrot is a later variant - the original purple variety came from Turkey. Swedes - what can I tell you? And as for the potato - well, you've had your chips!

Ross

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:34 AM

"They had an item on climate-change and its effect on what kind of fruit and veg might be growable in the UK sometime soon"

I can now grow decent tomatoes outside in Yorkshire whereas, a few years ago, they had to be in a polytunnel. I also grow chillis and peppers but they do need some protection.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:41 AM

That's all true and, as I've said above, all good, Ross: fruit, veg., etc. should be exempt from the "grow native plants for native fauna" rule (applicable to our RI Village and all parts of our world), because growing such consumables in our gardens cuts down on food-miles, etc.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sugarfoot Jack
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:52 AM

" because growing such consumables in our gardens cuts down on food-miles"

Sounds like a good case for growing bananas and kiwi fruit in your back garden then.

Of course that Norman-German-land owning, sponging, architecturally deluded intellectual midget Prince Charles has already had a go at creating the 'ideal' English village with the creation of Poundbury. Of course this has village has no more relevance to the reality of English village life than WAV's equally fanciful construct but then at least WAV's family haven't spent the last thousand years squeezing ordinary island villagers dry.

What about The Weirdstone of Brisingamen? Set in the decidedly ancient and eerie landscape of Alderley Edge and also Macclesfield this excellent book is as good a read for adults as it is for kids, and a whole heap better than Harry Potter, as many of the locations in the book exist and are visitable.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:04 AM

I grow a type of climbing 'French' bean called Cherokee Trail of Tears. Which comes originally from...er, let me see....

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:12 AM

"Of course that Norman-German- land owning....Prince Charles" He speaks highly of you as well! If you must go into his ancestry, he is related to every royal house in Europe , with the exception of Ottoman, and ex-king Zog of Albania, including, very distantly to Vlad [of Transyvania, so your discription as Norman-German is somewhat narrow.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:13 AM

Global warming or no, SJ, trying to grow bananas in England, or anywhere else in these isles, remains you know what; and this is where fair-trade kicks in.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:23 AM

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen...as many of the locations in the book exist and are visitable.

Surely that should be all locations?

Lindow Common and Black Lake, Shutlingsloe, Shining Tor, Windgather Rocks etc. All visitable

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:58 AM

excellent book is as good a read for adults as it is for kids, and a whole heap better than Harry Potter

Maybe this topic is deserving of another thread? Oddly enough, and quite in spite of myself, I fell for the Harry Potter books after going to see the first film which overcame my usual cynicism on such things, nicely tying in with the season too. I despair when the films come out in summer as it misses the whole new term-time autumn-into-winter thing that is such a feature of the English year, academic or otherwise. That said, I'm only too aware there are far better books / films / TV adaptations / series than Harry Potter, which failed to deliver anything worthy by way of a conclusion - not for me anyway. If only real-life could be so black & white!

My wife is a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones, whose Fire and Hemlock (based around Tam Lin and True Thomas) is one of the most effective b