Sophie Countess of Wessex Opened for us...

... though we didn't actually meet her.

Last night we were at the Summer Fete at Dolphin Square in Pimlico, the biggest mansion block development I've ever seen.







A thousand flats, and the home of celebrities including Harold Wilson and Mandy Rice Davies, it has a very nice garden which yesterday, had a marquee, refreshments and a bunch of residents enjoying themselves.







Sophie opened it at 3pm, so she was gone by our first spot at 7.30. We didn't meet her, but we did catch up with our old friend and international Morris celebrity (he's toured abroad), Bruce Clitherow.








He's in fine form!

Islington: Surestart, the adventure playground... and the robot horse

Two places to dance in Islington, on a sunny Saturday (10 June).

We started at Mildmay Surestart's Summer Fair, on Newington Green. The show coincided with England's opening match against Paraguay, but despite this we had an audience.

Given the football, and the fact that Surestart is the Government's programme to support young families, the crowd was about 95 percent female.

A very hot day, so we had two short performances, and lots of tea in between. There was fine curried goat, available from a woman who remembered us from a previous Canal Festival - her son was the four-year-old who was determined to join in outside the pub in 2004, remember him?

At the opportune moment, Jeremy announced "I've got another place to dance at, it's just round the corner," and managed to whip up a small amount of enthusiasm. Well quite small in fact. He cycled off with one other man - me.

I was glad I went. It was a fundraiser for the Hayward Adventure Playground, which caters for children with disabilities. When we arrived, they were being entertained by a man juggling with a chainsaw ("don't try this one at home"), and a band was warming up in the background. There was more tea, and very nice banana cake.

Pretty soon there was a suitable spot for a solo jig, and then some hanky-waving action with all the children chasing round.

And then the mechanical horse arrived. The children shrieked, but Jeremy seemed to get on quite well with it. My day was complete.

Derwentwater Primary School's 100th Anniversary

Quite a multicultural event. While we were waiting for our spot there was a band playing something that reminded us of west african music.
A bit of bopping to the music went on:

It made me wonder if Will Kemp had been dancing to Soca?













I'm afraid I haven't photos of us in action as there was only 6 of us including Nick, who was playing Melodeon and dancing in the set at the same time!

The light was fading afterwards, blurring my photos:

There was also some sumo morris:

Audience participation at Notting Hill

A warm evening, and a nice audience in two public spaces in Notting Hill - followed by a meal at Peter K's work.

This clip gets the feel of it - Peter's residents sitting on the wall, one gent joining in with gay abandon, and three girls skipping round us, and the piercing tones of Jeremy's sax. Public Morris as it should be!

At Thaxted

We had a lovely weekend at the Thaxted Ring meeting.
London Pride did a show dance in the square, at which the squire of the Morris Ring introduced Noah and Ezra, our two newest recruits. It probably would have gone better if I'd remembered to call the dancing, but the audience kindly didn't seem to notice.
We were actually a full side of London Pride dancing, though half of the men were in Cambridge MM kit.

Kensington Tour

Hot foot from teaching Ben Taylor of LBC to dance we were on tour in Kensington.
The power of the morris drove the inclement weather away, and even though it was chucking down when we arrived, it wasnt bad by the time we danced.

We were a rather diminished side this evening, and danced dances such as a Rosebud instead of Rose, and a Valenteeny Valentine.
And some jigs. It all went down well still.

We had audience who'd come up specially to see us before going off to Spain, where she'd seen similar stuff in her native Basque region (hi Rosario!) and Tom the photographer taking photos of us looking up at the laden clouds and phoning round to see if any more men were likely to turn up.

At the Uxbridge Arms it turns out that rumours of Linda, the welcoming landlady's departure were unfounded, though unfortunately she had another engagement that night.
Sorry to miss you Linda.


At the Uxbridge Arms

Teaching an LBC reporter to dance

LBC reporter Ben Taylor, whose past work has included interviews with Jimmy Osmond and Sir Ian McKellen, took the obvious next step of learning some Morris.

This being radio, we made sure we were in kit, and fitted him with a baldrick. As you can see, he made a good fist of the opening steps of the Nutting Girl.

The item is pretty brisk - we were keeping Ronan Keating waiting - but it should be broadcast sometime this summer.

We are moving to practice rooms just round the corner from LBC's Chrysalis building in September, so Ben is welcome to join us there...

At the Compton Arms in Highbury

A lovely evening despite us having to compete with football (apparantly they hadn't checked our programme before arranging the UEFA cup)


A bit of Jigging also went on:






And Ezra did one:


- a challenge for Noah now!

here's some photos of the Bloomsbury tour

This is Tom who came to photograph us:


The light was fading a bit for the second stand.

We're in line, Antony!



















Noah and Ezra were brushing up on their sticking:



Thanks to Lynnete, and to New Esperance for finding replacement pubs... We'll be back to these!

Morris - no longer an icon?

The media reported last week that Morris dancing ("along with the mini skirt and the double decker bus") is a cultural icon of England. But is it?

On the Icons site, the morris page, "has been withdrawn from the site".

That's typical really. Once we've done our thing, and had our bit of exposure, we get shuffled off. Time for a campaign?

2 May, dancing in Bloomsbury

No pictures for this one as yet, though we had a photographer in tow, doing a project on Morris dancing because we are a cultural icon.

Both pubs had to change, because the Norfolk Arms suddenly closed, and the Rugby Tavern has become a "No Morris" pub.

We went to two friendly back-street pubs: The Dolphin, and McGlynn's.

With eight men dancing, we performed two Brimfield sets side-by-side (and in step, at least at the start - though the ending was a bit ropey), and Vandals Lichfield. As well as that, we did other favourites including Shepherds Hey Wheatley, and the Upton stick dance.

Roy's Hat was there in Deptford...

Here being modelled by Peter dancing "Hunting" from Adderbury

May Day with the Deptford Jack

It was May Day. Something had to happen. In Deptford, the Jack in the Green was abroad, with milkmaids dancing in garlands of silver, and Morris men from Blackheath. The Fowlers Troop have revived the Deptford Jack, recreating it from photos taken in 1906, by local historian and press photographer, Thankfull Sturdee.

Video of Ezra dancing the Rose

Here's a video of Ezra's first dance out - The Rose

(sorry, it needs Quicktime 7 and I haven't sussed how to embed the video in this page yet)

Jousting at Acton

Well, who would have thought, our newest member would be the "dashing" Count Adhemar of Acquitaine, seen here wearing the distinctive London Pride bowler?

On Saturday we started the dancing season, performing at a St George's Fayre, at The Park Club - a health club in Acton.

Further up the bill were the New Scorpion Band. They're not, as one might suppose, a tribute band for the well-known German heavy metal band, but a lovely acoustic folk band.

Also on the scene were the Knights of the Damned, a jousting stunt team. Count Adhemar, the Black Knight won my favour, and honoured me by wearing the black bowler, before competing in the lists. I thought that "favours" were really a sort of courtly love thing, but obviously, the Kinghts are more broadminded than you might have expected. Anyway, I'm a sucker for the glamour of evil.

We danced two sets, with three Kanssens in the team. Noah and Ezra got plenty of dancing in, in fact we relied on them, since the day coincided with a London Pride club weekend elsewhere...

Farewell to Wakefield Street; Thank You Lynette

Last night was Lynette's fairwell do at the URC hall in Wakefield Street. We celebrated with a number of the other groups that have been using the space. Lynette's been managing the place for 18 years, and we've been practicing there for about that length of time.

The hall's been sold - to a Buddhist group - and we're looking for somewhere else to practice in September.



It's been a fabulous place, and we got a picture of how fabulous at Lynette's leaving party, as we met some of the other groups that use it. The Hungarian dancers were especially exciting, and I also liked the Philhellene Greek dance group, with their solemn style and wonderful costumes.




I didn't manage to get any photos of us dancing - yet. Anyone else got some to post?

Sian Lloyd and the Blue Sky

So last night, as promised, we used Morris to explain why the sky is blue.

I got to hug Sian Lloyd who - only for the purposes of the show, Mr Opik - is an old and very close friend of mine.

Ezra and Noah were centre of the set, and we danced Banks of the Dee - or parts of it - more times than we ever have in our lives (and we've danced Banks of the Dee pretty often, I can tell you). This was pretty tough for us, but Peter K, John M and William had to play that tune - and sometimes just the A tune - over and over for an hour and half.

The crew filmed us from overhead, dancing with different colour hankies, to illustrate the way blue light is scattered out of sunlight. I'm imagining it will have a sort of Busby Berkeley effect.

Of course, even with all that practice, the hays still weren't as slick as they should be - or even in some cases, actually correct. When it all gets edited down to one minute, I'm sure they'll edit out the collisions. Either that or they'll edit the rest out, and use Morris dancers colliding as a metaphor for sunlight hitting the moleculse in the air.

London Pride Morris - supporting science?

We have another media opportunity. It would involve giving up our practice on 20 Feb to be feted and filmed in a Busby Berkley manner. However, it is all in the cause of science.

A TV production company want to use us to illustrate a scientific principle, for a proposed TV show. The show isn't yet commissioned, but they're making a sample episode, in which they want us to help explain why the sky is blue.

As you all know the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering. The other colours pass right through the atmosphere, but short wavelength light, at the blue end of the spectrum, is absorbed and re-radiated. So the sky - which only has a colour because it scatters sunlight - is blue.

That's simple enough - but to make it fun, they want to have a team of morris dancers with multi-coloured handkerchiefs. For the scattered light we'd just have blue hankies.

They want to film us from overhead in a sort of Busby Berkeley manner, and edit it into a routine in which the hankies change colour at the clash of a pair of sticks...

They don't have any budget, but their studios are just round the corner in Newman Street (near Goodge Street). They could either come to our place (is the gallery in the back room suitable for overhead filming?) or we could come and do it in their courtyard.

If the series is commissioned, they would do a more polished version of the item, and there could be money. Maybe they could have Morris every week, illustrating a different principle. Maybe they could ditch the presenter and just use us!

I think it sounds fun, and I'm happy to give it a whirl.

I also want to use corner dances to illustrate quantum mechanical interactions between leptons, and maybe cyclotron effects in some rounds figures....

The question is, would it interfere with Ezra's steady progress in learning the morris, and seduce him into the bright lights of showbiz at too early a stage?

Next season's dances?

I just got the Morris Ring newsletter - it turnes out they have put Lionel's "Black Book" of Morris dances online here

and, wonderfully, it seems that the (in)famous village of Trunch (of Kipper Family fame) in Norfolk has a little-known tradition, that I'm dying to try out on the men.

Unfortunately "The girl I left unconcious" is unpublished, and "the Norfolk Constabulary wish it to remain so." :)

An Eventful Feast

We formally danced in our two new men and officially gave them their baldricks and hats, and spent the afternoon dancing.
Allan had emailed me a suggested list of dances, with a jig in the middle, which it turned out was for him to do. (I am very grateful for him thinking of the running order as I hadn't.)

We had an RHP - (Rapid Half Pint) at the pub before going back for the feast itself.
Peter J phoned me while we were there to say he couldn't get to the feast. - So I was acting up as Squire. Noah dutifully volunteered to be Vice-Bagman, and sat beside me for the feast.
William phoned me just as I got back to the hall to say that Allan had collapsed in the pub.
Allan was taken to UCL hospital (unwillingly I think!) and it seems to have been just a combination of low blood pressure and low blood sugar, after doing 4 dances on the trot and then a jig.
While all that was going on Simon was missing. He seems to have got lost on the way back form the pub.
Eventually Simon turned up just as William and Bob came in from being with Allan, and then Richard after about an hour (he'd stayed with Allan)

All was OK in the end, and it doesn't seem to have been anything more serious. Allan still managed to catch the last tube home.
We still managed to have a few songs and a lovely meal (the venison was delicious!)

Noah learnt the value of doing Greek Gods for his project at school, having had the conversation at table dominated by debates about which God did what and what was the Roman version, and how did the Can Can fit in with it all?

Antony took some photos - Hopefully he'll post a couple on the blog.