Death Of An English Folk Tradition

Without comment, I'll note this following article about the feared demise of Morris Dancing:

The numbers of people participating in the traditional British folk dance are dwindling whilst the age of the dancers is increasing, according to the Morris Ring, an association representing over 200 Morris troupes across Britain.
It is warning that "unless younger blood is recruited during the coming winter months, Morris dancing will soon become extinct".
Charlie Corcoran, Bagman of the Morris Ring, said: "There's a distinct possibility that in 20 years' time there will be nobody left.
"It worries me a great deal. Young people are just too embarrassed to take part.

Embarassing? I'll let the reader be the judge:

The Return Of Sky One

Recessions tend to do amazing things. Even two egos as huge as Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch can bury the hatchet when the economy turns south. This all is good news for the Werbenmanjensen household, which just finished 90 minutes of Simpsons watching thanks to the return of Sky One.

Now we've been getting by (*sigh*) with the reruns on Channel 4 (home of the Gay-O-Meter), but it just feels, I don't know, right, to see a Simpsons that's been aired in the United States in the last two weeks.

I feel whole again.

That's Pants

Yes, a British English expression for something that's really bad, or your underwear. Annie Mole, as usual, has spotlighted the Pants Day, a version of the No Pants days on mass transit in several American cities. As Annie notes, going without "pants" in Britain can get you arrested, hence the name variation.

From The Annals Of Silly Interviews

Comes the BBC interview of Rupert Murdoch. He can't vote, and I think it's clear what he thinks.


-- Post From My iPhone

Mervyn To Smitty: Thanks Kid. Here's A Bag Of Money.

The rapid devaluation of the pound to the dollar, and the fact that I'm paid largely in dollars, means that I've experienced a 25 percent raise in recent months. Thanks, Mervyn King!

Boris Speaks ....

.... to the people who voted for him.






ADDED: Most Bromleyans (or whatever you call them) would probably prefer to be governed by Kent. How far is it from City Hall again?

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I'm From The Government, And I'm Here To Help

Yesterday, as we were coming back through immigration, the gentleman reviewing our passports looked at the number of stamps we have and suggested, in a helpful way, that we register for the Home Office's IRIS Program--a biometric program to protect borders and keep us safe from terrorism, while of course guarding our confidentiality.

We know that the UK government has a sterling record on protecting personal data:

Personal data on every child in the country and national insurance numbers and bank account details of parents and carers claiming child benefit have gone missing after the government sent two password-protected CDs through the post.

And UK governments have never misused anti-terror powers before, have they?

Thousands of middle managers in local councils are being authorised to spy on people suspected of petty offences using powers designed to prevent crime and terrorism.
Even junior council officials are being allowed to initiate surveillance operations in what privacy campaigners likened to Eastern bloc police tactics.
The Home Office is expected to be urged by the Commons Home Affairs select committee to issue guidelines to councils on the type of operations in which surveillance can be used.
Amid increasing concern in Parliament that the UK is slowly becoming a surveillance society, the committee has looked at the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which some MPs say is being misused to focus on petty crime rather than serious offending.

And of course, the UK government itself has never used anti-terror powers to resolve a contract dispute, have they?

Iceland's authorities last night appeared close to agreeing a repayment package to help cover the losses of British savers with deposits in Icesave, the UK operation of one of the country's stricken banks.
Officials from the Treasury, Bank of England and FSA flew back from Reykjavik yesterday having made "significant progress" in talks with banks and government officials aimed at securing a rapid payout for British depositors.
However, the deal does not yet include the billions of pounds invested by councils, charities and other public bodies.
The Icelandic government took control of three of the country's largest banks last week and froze deposits, including an estimated £4.5bn from British savers.
The UK government has used anti-terror laws to seize an estimated £4bn in Icelandic resources, and ministers said yesterday these will not be released until a deal has been struck.

We of course politely told the immigration drone we'd think about it, but I think I'll view standing in queues as a minor inconvenience compared to the major inconvenience of losing my personal freedom.

I Predict A Riot

I've written before of our ubiquitous bookies in the UK. You may know that they'll offer a wager on almost anything: Sporting events, elections, natural disasters. Perhaps it's an outgrowth of the kind of behavior that goes on at the Lloyd's of London insurance market, with less sophisticated financial instruments (e.g. you're the guy holding the bag if you lose your gamble, instead of your reinsurer). Mrs. Werbenmanjensen has emailed this morning to tell me that one of our fine bookies, Paddy Power, is offering odds on riots in several international cities related to economic turmoil.

New York, at 9-4, and Washington, at 10-3, are suckers' bets, in my opinion. The terms of the wager are that "riots must be confirmed by that countries ruling government as being due to motivated by economic circumstances." The Bush administration would just call them looters. It's happened before, after all. My money would be on Paris, at 3-1. But I'd also like to know where the Kaiser Chiefs are putting their money:

D'oh!

Squatters overpower Army base? Well, not really:

AN army of squatters encamped on a military housing estate has escaped eviction after an embarrassing legal blunder by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The mistake means residents in nearby upmarket homes could be subjected to weeks of noise, late-night parties, and disruption to their daily lives.

The squatters moved in last week to the barracks in William Gardens, Putney, after some 300 of them were kicked out of a previous squat in Balham, south London.

Officials attempted to evict them out by obtaining a court order yesterday but a blunder meant they went to the wrong court, letting the squatters off the hook.

MoD lawyers brought the case before a judge at West London County Court in Hammersmith. But the judge immediately threw it out, saying they should have gone to Wandsworth County Court in Putney, less than a mile from the occupied flats.

It could take now take weeks for the case against the 50 or so remaining squatters to be heard again.

That Worked Out Well, Didn't It?

Boris' Tube drinking ban ended up making things worse:

Thousands of people have marked the banning of alcohol on London transport with a party that ended with arrests, assaults and cancelled trains.
Drinkers, many in fancy dress, gathered on Tube trains and station concourses in a last celebration before the ban came into force at midnight.
But police said what should have been a fun event came to an "unfortunate" end.
Six Tube stations were closed, while police made 17 arrests. Six assaults were reported on Tube staff and police.
There were also numerous reports of damage to Tube trains, which led to suspended services.

Think George W. Bush and the Middle East, only with beer.


UPDATED: London/Diamond Geezer is right.

Boris Lies

Well, we learn from Annie Mole that Boris' promise to bring back the Routemaster may not happen, which means we really will be stuck with those stupid, not-designed-for-narrow-London-streets bendy buses, which can't fit down the street, annoy taxi drivers because they can't fit in the designated bus stop areas, and by the way endanger pedestrians.

Of course, being a good right-winger, Boris would go back on a promise to do a good idea but would never back down on an authoritarian promise, which is the Tube drinking ban. Annie Mole reminds us of the final night parties on the Circle Line. Drink up: Happy hour is now enforced by law.

UPDATED: For more good anti-Boris vitriol, go visit London Geezer, who unfortunately doesn't make his permalinks obvious.

Hello, Boris, part deux.

Annie Mole was right. As she notes on her wonderful blog, Boris' first move as mayor will be to ban drinking on the Tube as a crime prevention tool. For those who haven't ridden on the Tube, it's not uncommon, particularly on the weekend and particularly on lines going to and from football matches, to see riders knocking back a lager on board the Tube. I've never done it, but it's nice to know you can.

I can think of a really good reason to ban drinking on the Tube, but crime isn't it. (Cleanliness is--but then we'd have to ban dogs too, and you'd better believe that would be a non-starter.) I've never witnessed a crime on the Tube, nor does it seem to be a frequently reported problem. So, what Boris has done is a conservative political stunt that would make Karl Rove sit up and notice--frighten voters about a non-existent problem and then identify a way to eliminate the non-existent problem by taking away a civil liberty. Bravo, Boris. It's gonna be a long four years.

Updated: Look! It's here already!

Dublin Scene

I guess the war isn't over for everybody.

(Photo by Mrs. W.)

'We're Not America'

The lead story on BBC News 24 is this one about the creation of a pledge of allegiance to Queen and Country in the schools. A teacher's union representative suggested this was was a bad idea: "This isn't America. This is Britain, and we have a healthy skepticism."

Primaries

Because we've been asked numerous times:

Yes, we had an opportunity to vote in a primary, but for personal reasons we chose not to.

Shaking The Night Away

We had an earthquake last night.

People in London are pretending they felt it.

I asked a friend who claimed to feel it if people in Britain know what to do in the event of an earthquake. His response: "From the sound of it, no. A few people went outdoors apparently, so they could be hit by falling objects."

UPDATED: BBC News describes it as a "very British earthquake: Everybody talking about it, but nobody's hurt."

Eigg Joins The 20th Century (With A 21st Century Twist)

Since we're big fans of the Highlands and Islands, such as that very special place, Skye, I thought it worth noting this story:

AS SWITCH-ONS go it will be rather unglamorous. But when the villagers of Eigg gather in the island's tea room at noon today it will herald an energy revolution for the Hebridean isle.

With no electricity connection to the mainland, the 83 islanders on Eigg have been reliant on noisy, costly and environmentally unfriendly diesel generators for their power.

But from today they will switch on to a new era, with supplies to all households coming from renewable sources.

People may ask: "How did they live?" Well, they probably didn't know any different, so living without a constant electricity supply wasn't a big deal.

For more on Eigg, click here. I remember seeing it in the distance on a rather interesting, er, ferry ride on our honeymoon, and again during our 2006 trip to Skye.

Happy Thanksgiving

It is, of course, not a holiday here, although it has many roots here, as we all learned in elementary school and as Mrs. W, our friends and I were reminded when we visited Plymouth in Devon back in August. It's not a holiday here, so Mrs. W doesn't get the day off, but I'm not working, for money, anyway, because I work almost exclusively for Americans. (We get the Commie holiday, May Day, however). I am working, uncompensated, because I'm thinking about our menu for a Thanksgiving feast we're putting on for a mixture of English and American guests on Sunday. Thanks to the avian influenza outbreak in Suffolk, our butcher's turkey supplier cannot deliver, but we're promised ducks. So be it. We don't know what the Pilgrims ate, anyway.

I get the sense that there's some fascination with this holiday here, the idea that you take a day to give thanks to the deity of your choice (or fate) for what you have. I don't have a sense that there's any desire to add it to the rather meager holiday schedule here (OK, OK, there's the minimum four weeks of vacation), but I think people like the quaintness of the idea.

As Long As We're Talking About Disloyalty And Parliament

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, is an elected member of the British House of Commons. He cannot take his seat, however, because he refuses to take the parliamentary oath of loyalty to the Queen.

Knock Knock

Today was the State opening of Parliament, an annual event wrapped in nearly as much tradition and ceremony as the selection of a Pope or a Freemason beer bash. The headline of this post refers to the day's duty of the Black Rod, a House of Lords officer equivalent to the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House or Senate, who must summon the Commoners by knocking at the door of their chamber and, ceremonially, have it slammed in his face to ceremonially signal the Commoners' actual independence of the hoi-polloi in Lords. That's only a bit of the ceremony. Wikipedia:

First, the cellars of the Palace of Westminster are searched in order to prevent a modern-day Gunpowder Plot. The Plot of 1605 involved a failed attempt by English Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the Protestant King James I and aristocracy. Since that year, the cellars have been searched, but for the sake of form only.

Before the monarch departs her residence, the Crown takes a member of the House of Commons to Buckingham Palace as a ceremonial hostage. This is to guarantee the safety of the Sovereign as she enters a possibly hostile Parliament. Today, with the convention that the majority of the government is drawn from the Commons, the symbolism becomes rather confused - the chosen hostage is usually the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household who, being a member of Her Majesty's Government, it can be assumed would not be hostile. The hostage is released upon the safe return of the Queen.

[snip]

The Sergeant-at-Arms picks up the ceremonial mace and, with the Speaker, leads the Members of the House of Commons as they walk, in pairs, towards the House of Lords. By custom, the members saunter, with much discussion and joking, rather than formally process. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition usually walk side by side, leading the two lines of MPs. The Commons then arrive at the Bar of the House of Lords (no person who is not a member of the Upper House may pass the Bar unbidden when it is in session; a similar rule applies to the Commons), where they bow to The Queen. They remain at the Bar for the speech.

At that point, the holder of the world's second-oldest monarchy, in a monotone, reads a pre-written speech outlining the goals of the elected government. But without the ceremony, it wouldn't be Britain.