Who was that Baroness?

We met a Baroness on our Fitzrovia tour, on 17 July. She came up to us at the Duke of York, very pleased to see Morris on the streets.

It turns out she was one of the peers who moved for Morris to be exempt from the Licensing Act 2003. The Act required all premises that have entertainment to have a licence. Morris was exempted, following an amendment in the House of Lords.

But who was she? We didn't catch her name except that it began with a B. Happily, the Morris Discussion List helped out. She is Baroness Buscombe, and she did indeed work on amendments to the Licensing Bill, to make it less hostile to live entertainment.

We thought she said Baroness Buskin (or possibly Busking?), and wondered if she had a professional interest in the Act. At the time of the debate, she was in fact Opposition spokesman for Culture Media and Sport in the House of Lords. Here's TheyWorkForYou's profile of the Noble Lady.

An exemption for Morris dance is a very good thing. Without it, we'd have to argue that Morris was automatically exempt because it isn't very entertaining, and who knows where that might lead?

We were so overwhelmed to have a peer in the audience, we made a bit of a fluff of Dearest Dickie.

Following that, at the Fitzroy Tavern - a pub we've been dancing at for probably 40 years or more - Richard Wyber turned up in his dog collar, added a fine touch to some Bampton, and talked to the audience.





Ezra was there











So was Antony











As well as Peter and Nick and Allan (and me).

More Lensbury photos

These aren't so good as the official chap's pictures of our dancing at The Lensbury Club Ball , but I think they give a flavour of what it was like.

Firstly, here's the Kanssen double jig outside the front entrance





Notice the lack of audience. Cars pulled up and people went inside.








We consider whether to change our hats from the traditional bowlers, or at least to allow Exra to wear a bearskin, to adjust the height differential....









... which looks particularly striking here. We danced in amongst the diners later, to some approval.







As the light fades and my phone struggles, Michael B looks almost incorporeal.

Sheltered Housing in Notting Hill

It wasn't a very promising evening, with rainclouds threatening.

And when we got to the first stand they turned out to have got their wires crossed and had all waited for us the week before. (I've been on Jury Service so communication has been difficult.)

So we decided to repair to the pub before the next engagement, which turned out to be a good idea as the rain poured down just as we got there, and in the time that we would otherwise be walking between the two places.
"It never rains on the Morris" - "because they're in the pub"

We danced inside, even though it had by then stopped raining. As you can see, there was just about enough room for us and our audience.

Afterwards we joined the residents for Sundanese food laid on by one of them, Eh'san Khogali.

Lensbury Club Summer Ball

We danced for the Lensbury Club's Summer Ball, a very prestigious do; with guests in DJs etc. (photos from the photographer for the evening, Chris Bissell)








They'd decided on a "Home Nations" theme this year, so guests were greeted by Pipe Major Roger Huth, us dancing on the lawn, the London Male Voice Choir and then irish band Waggle Taggle playing.

It was a lovely evening. Roger turned out to be a good sport and we persuaded him to play a couple of morris tunes on his pipes. When I looked him up later I found he's actually the "Pipe Major" of the Piping Society of London. I wish I had the time to take him up on bagpipe lessons.

When we got in I was surprised to see that the Irish band included my old friends Mick O'Connor and Mick Bailey. The pair of them for many years have done a spot at my work for our Sheltered Scheme's Christmas Party.

Mick O'Connor turns out to have a presence on You Tube

The evening all rounded off with fireworks over the lawn leading down to the Thames.

There are more photos (but not such good ones) later in this blog.

It's the sound of bells that I remember from Thaxted

There was a jingling of bells all day. Continually. It only stopped at night, to be replaced - in the school room where I slept - by the sound of exhausted, replete men snoring.




I enjoyed it mightily.

Thaxted Ring Meeting 2007

It's 80 years since Conrad Noel, the vicar of Thaxted, encouraged the formation of the Thaxted Morris Men. He turns out to have been quite a colourful character

We had more than a complete side, and enjoyed touring the countryside, the feast, dancing at the Guildhall and (as above, over the door of the pub we were visiting) disobeying "keep out" notices!
The sermon on Sunday was about David dancing naked in front of the ark of the covenant, followed by a warning that whilst Morris dancing was welcome in the town, we should keep our clothes on...

It's also 60 years that they've been doing the mystical Abbots Bromley Horn Dance:


(rather shakily filmed in 2006)

Kensington Tour

The power of the morris kept storm clouds at bay, and it was another lovely evening.
Ezra and I cycled up on our tandem.

Only five dancers plus John on his concertina, but still a decent, and apparantly well-appreciated show.
We entertained the folks outside the Elephant and Castle then clanked through Kensington to theUxbridge Arms , as welcoming as ever, with an interesting audience including a witch straight from the Festival of Mind and Body.

One of the things I like about tours is the walking through the streets in kit with bells ringing etc. Putting kit on transforms you from a mere mortal into a morris dancer and it's the most natural thing in the world to be there. (I'm not sure how much that makes sense)

Cecil Sharp House May Fete

Peter J had a call along the lines of:
"Hello we're having a May Fete the weekend after next, and the Morris Men we had have let us down can you step in...?"

Which turned out to be the English Folk Dance and Song Society's at Cecil Sharp House

We were honoured to be able to go and help out, and it was charming. Nice to join in some of the other dancing that was going on too.

More about the show, including photos in this blog now.

Islington Tour

This didn't seem like it was going to happen, as quite a few men had last minute problems that stopped us getting there, but too late to actually cancel.

Reassuringly, the men that did turn up still had a good time ("A rather boozy night" was one report). I had the sticks and couldn't go, but John turned out to have something like pick-axe handles in his car...

The dancers from Clockwork Morris that Jeremy have been teaching turned up and made a complete side for a Balancy Straw and a Bampton Side-step.

Hey Nonny Nonny! Only Six Weeks Till the Nights Start Drawing In...*

It didn't rain all the time at Kew Gardens' Woodland Wonders on Monday, but it rained a lot and it rained quite hard.

The audiences still showed up and applauded from under their umbrellas, so we danced on. Two men slipped over in puddles. Roland danced his first public dance with us, and went off to another show he's doing - London with a swing about London history.





Eventually the sun came out and we were rewarded with a splendid audience who stayed on after the minstrels to see us, and all joined in a chaotic performance of something that seems to be emerging: "The Bonny Green Hokey Cokey".






There were other creatures here - and you can see Queen Charlotte in the background of the minstrels. We wished her husband a swift recovery from his melancholia, and applauded her and Joseph Banks for the fine surroundings.






And we met a tarantula.








* Quote from a famous Giles cartoon...

London Pride on YouTube

Here's our YouTube video, courtesy of Roland John-Leopoldie of Farlando.

It's part of a longer project that Roland is working on, and was filmed at a practice before Easter.

During the practice Roland and his friend Christian proved to be good dancers - and Roland will be dancing with us at Kew Gardens' Woodland Wonders festival on Monday

Out with the Deptford Green Man

Peter Judge and I accompanied Fowlers Troop and the Deptford Green Man, and the City of London Green Man on the traditional May Day activities.
My camera had died, I'm afraid, but there are other's photos here (Sarah Croft's), here (Richard Sanderson's, where I've linked his photo of me from) and here, with a video (the London SE1 website)

I was lucky to be released for most of the day on Tuesday, but I think next year it would be something I'd take leave to do. It's always on the 1st May.

I hadn't noticed before that Peter J had already blogged this...

Bloomsbury

A fairly quiet evening getting back into the swing of dancing out.

The Norfolk Arms never looks too promising at first, but when we get going an audience emerges almost from nowhere.
It's a restaurant pub now, I think last year it was closed for refurbishment.

At the Rugby Tavern we were joined by a visitor from Poland/Saudi who seemed to know all the steps - John Bienias over here for a week's leave.

Fowlers Troop and the Deptford Jack

Peter and I had an enjoyable day out with the Deptford Jack, this year joined by the City of London Jack, for a tour that took in Leadenhall Market, the Gherkin and St Paul's.




There were plenty of green people, and a certain amouint of drinking.





Bemused City workers greeted us, and Spring was welcomed in.

St George's Day at No.77

We had a very pleasant St George's Day evening at the No 77 Wine Bar & Restaurant
(in Mill Lane, West Hampstead)

courtesy of Jensen, dressed up as St George, and an appreciative audience

Excellent food too!

Desperately Seeking Morris

Our last practices of the spring were enlivened by Roland John-Leopoldie and Christian (sorry I don't know your surname Chrisitan) joining us.
He's doing a 10 minute film entiltled "Desperately Seeking Morris" starring Christian, as an African professor coming to England to research Morris Dancing.

We're the dream sequence where he finds us... We spent an evening dancing the Bampton Sidestep with Christian while Roland filmed us. Now we're looking forward to seeing the film!

Some of Roland's stuff is here

Finsbury Town Hall ceilidh

It was the official opening of Finsbury Town Hall as a dance venue.
Jeremy's been involved with it, and asked us to come and help with the inauguration.

We also danced around Jane Pfaff's maypole, and joined in with the general dancing.

There were a lot more people there than in the photo, which is Noah and Ezra sorting out the Maypole before everyone arrived.

Dancing for the BBC in Portland Place

We were asked to come and teach people some morris dancing for the BBC.
The programme was about the madness of the licensing law, which means that pubs need a special license when there's music being performed there.
Or if pubgoers have a sing-song.
Though not for them to be shouting all evening watching football.
It's part of a series about nutty laws under Labour.

Anyhow, it turns out the premise of the programme was that a pub in London used to have a sing song and what loophole could they use to get round the law.
They could get away with it if the pub was on wheels, or if they were all carrying placards.

Or, if they were Morris dancing. Morris dancers are exempt.

So, we all came in and danced a dance (wonderful place to dance, I wish I'd had my camera), and tried to teach them to do some.
Which would have been alright, but they wanted us to dance to sing-a-long songs. Knees up mother Brown, A long road to Tipperary etc.

We tried, but I think the exercise showed that it didn't work.

33 Portland Place is a great place. it felt somewhat surreal. It's like a stately home that's been used for raves and such like.

You can sign an online pertition about the licensing law here

Humbug! Scrooge in South London

For the next week and a bit, Peter J can be seen dancing on stage, nightly, in the South London Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol.

We're talking chocolate box production, a cast of thousands, and fabulous costumes - including the jingling jacket knocked up by wardrobe. The director thought plain whites would be too pristine and we needed some green to go with the production.

I asked for a tattered jacket, and got what you see - a shirt with bells on. It's murder trying to put it on and take it off quietly, backstage. I'll bring it on tour next year perhaps!

Many thanks to the excellent James Denny of Thames Valley Morris Men, who plays a variety of squeezeboxes throughout the production, and persuaded the director to put the dance into the show.

There are more photos here.

This was a dress rehearsal. Before anyone asks, for the actual shows, I have been wearing white socks!

AGM and Feast at the Prince Albert in Battersea

A lovely afternoon and evening in the upstairs room at the Prince Albert, just opposite the park gates.

We had our AGM, checking what sort of things to do next year, reviewing this ones, resolving to do the things we'd forgotten since last year's AGM, worked out the holes in the bagman's (my) reckoning etc...

...and then danced for the afternoon. I love the surrealness of dressing in kit for our AGM and dancing for ourselves.

We formally gave Ezra his baldrick, then feasted for the evening, with toasts to absent friends, the Queen, and the immortal memory of Cecil Sharpe; and singing till late.

Many thanks to Michael Runge for finding and arranging the pub.

Teaching the TES

"It is as if someone has snipped off the coner of a peaceful Cotsworld village green and dropped it down in this heart of city darkness," says Times Educations Supplement Journalist Stephen Jones.

We taught him some Morris one evening, and he wrote up his experience of in today's paper. Part of the story is here.

Here's a scan of the whole article - with Antony's "gimlet eye", and Ezra's skills coming in for special mention.

Ordinary Boys miss their chance

Poised for massive success, pop group The Ordinary Boys could have had it all.

We've never heard their music, and haven't seen Big Brother where lead singer Preston made an appearance.

But now, with their latest video in production, they were ready to take the next step: Morris dancing.

London Pride was booked for a part in the video, as one element of a multi-faceted performance. With our addition, their success was assured.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. One day before filming, we were told the video was "massively overbudget" and we weren't needed. We should unstrap our bells and go back to normal.

We are very sorry. Without our help, the Ordinary Boys may struggle on to some sort of fame. But just think lads. Without Morris dancing, will it really be worth it?

Meet Myrtle, Our Mascot!

The Kanssens' dog Myrtle is now the official London Pride animal.

She's turned up to one practice, and appears to tolerate Morris - and there are some would say that's as much as we can expect from anyone. And it's about time we had a beast.

Is it a a dangerous warping of Morris tradition, to have a female animal? I don't know, but a more serious objection would be that she's better looking than any of us.

(I should say, those bells aren't attached. Yet)

Morris Dancers for Blue Peter

- as part of a 200 child conga.
It was to launch the Blue Peter Shoe Biz appeal, they had all sorts of children doing it from stilt walkers to scuba divers to ballet dancers and Morris dancers.
Noah and Ezra joined in with Ilmington Traditional Morris's junior side.
They all got Blue Peter badges, some of us adults being envious. Noah's Headteacher said in his permission email how proud he was of the gold Blue Peter Badge he'd got...

Morrising at Wndmills?

I read Don Quixote over the summer (it's the classic text on the Mid Life Crisis, chaps), and was interested to see the poor old Knight victimised by a Morris man.

"During this conversation, it unluckily fell out, that one of the company anticly dressed, being the fool of the play, came up striking with his morrice bells and three full-blown cows' bladders fastened to the end of a stick. In this odd appearance he began to flourish his stick in the air, and bounce his bladders against the ground just at Rozinante's nose."

"The jingling of the bells, and the rattling noise of the bladders so startled and affrighted the quiet creature, that Don Quixote could not hold him in; and having got the curb betwixt his teeth, away the horse hurried his unwilling rider up and down the plain, with more swiftness than his feeble bones seemed to promise."

(Part 2, Chapter XI, "Of the Stupendous Adventure that befell the valorous Don Quizote, with the Chariot or Cart of the Court or Parliament of Death.")

Sounds a pretty clear morris dancer, in a translation of a Spanish book written in 1615. Unfortunately, the copy I was reading - Wordsworth Classics - doesn't say who translated it or when.

There's a copy of the book online (the Ormsby translation), which describes the attacker as in a mummers' dress with a great number of bells."

There's plenty of Spanish versions, picking an early edition we get:

Estando en estas pláticas, quiso la suerte que llegase uno de la compañía, que venía vestido de bojiganga, con muchos cascabeles, y en la punta de un palo traía tres vejigas de vaca hinchadas; el cual moharracho, llegándose a don Quijote, comenzó a esgrimir el palo y a sacudir el suelo con las vejigas, y a dar grandes saltos, sonando los cascabeles, cuya mala visión así alborotó a Rocinante, que, sin ser poderoso a detenerle don Quijote, tomando el freno entre los dientes, dio a correr por el campo con más ligereza que jamás prometieron los huesos de su notomía. Sancho, que consideró el peligro en [que] iba su amo de ser derribado, saltó del rucio, y a toda priesa fue a valerle; pero, cuando a él llegó, ya estaba en tierra, y junto a él, Rocinante, que, con su amo, vino al suelo: ordinario fin y paradero de las lozanías de Rocinante y de sus atrevimientos.

Which Babel fish translates as :

"Being in these talks, it wanted the luck that arrived one from the company, that came dress from bojiganga, with many bells, and in the end of swollen a three wood vejigas of cow brought; which moharracho, arriving itself at Don Quixote, began to use the wood and to shake the ground with vejigas, and to give great jumps, sounding the bells, whose bad vision thus it excited to Rocinante...

What's a "bojiganga"? It seems to be an old word without a modern English translation. But the Spanish definition is "Compañía teatral ambulante del Siglo de Oro, de pocos integrantes, que representaba comedias y autos", which seems to translate as a "small travelling theatre company which puts on comedies ("and cars").

So I guess that's more of a mummer than a morris dancer...

Strike the sticks quietly at McGlynn's

No pictures of the men this time. With only seven men, no one had a spare hand to take them.

The Queen's Larder was, as usual, busy but indifferent, with more enthusiasm from the diners outside the restaurant next door. We persuaded a French lady to join in Bonny Green Garters. She looked surprised.

Two dances into a show at McGlynn's, we were asked to stop by a man whose children were trying to sleep.

What made this more ironic, is we'd only just said goodbye to some very high-spirited and intrusive children who should have been in bed long before. Since those kids were the only audience we'd got, we tried to involve them - but their parents called them away for some reason.

Anyway. after we got the request to stop, we finished the dance we were about to do - a graceful and subdued Balance the Straw to Jeremy's muted but soulful sax.

Second Bloomsbury tour

Hot on the heels of the Ecology centre, another visit to Bloomsbury.
We went back to the Queens Larder and danced for the tourists and people eating out, and for possible new member Chris.

Then off to McGlynns, a quiet pub in a side street.
Perhaps just a bit too quiet...
We were joined for the second dance by loads of kids who just appeared from nowhere and joined in, then ran off almost as quickly.
And then, ironically we were asked by a local to be quiet as he had just put the baby to sleep. Just as we were about to do what would have been quite a noisy stick dance.
So we did dance it, but ...v.e.r.y...q.u.i.e.t.l.y.... very gentle taps of sticks...

And then we called it a day and enjoyed the pleasant evening air.
Another neighbour, coming by told us that there were more morris dancers due on Wednesday, so maybe baby will need ear plugs