CEILIDHS FOR WORLD WELLBEING!
The party on Saturday went off fantastically. Loads of people turned up, and we all danced our socks off. The band were great, despite giving me kittens by turning up 45 minutes late. The weather was beautiful too. All in all, a great night (although I could have done without Wifey drunkenly demanding a bottle of champagne at midnight - that left me 45 poorer).
But I think that the world would benefit from a lot more ceilidhs. I'm going to haphazardly develop a hypothesis here, in a World According To.... kind of way. But....
When you go to clubs, or discos, or weddings, or whatever, and the DJ plays the music, there are several things that happen. First of all, unless you are drunk, stoned or confident enough, you are very self-conscious and, second, everyone on a dancefloor automatically gives licence for others to criticise them for the way they dance or can't dance; I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like he's being watched. I remember reading an interview with Ralph Fiennes, where he said it took him years to get up the nerve to dance, and when he did someone made fun of him, which made him incredibly angry because dancing should be something we all do, uncritically, because we enjoy it, no matter what our standard.
In case you're wondering, Wifey rates me a 'fair' dancer which, considering she can really move (you should see her dancing to Northern Soul), I can more than live with!
Back to hypothesis.
So. The wonderful thing about ceilidhs, or other kinds of folk dance, is that once you are past the stage of thinking "I am going to look an idiot here", you realise everyone else is in the same boat, and you relax and get on with it. And before long you are having a fine time, spinning, galloping, and casting away. And it is just the most fun going! A live band, racking up the tempo, and you twirling your partner away, getting incredibly out of breath. Just wonderful.
Okay so far. But it gets better. You get to dance with so many delightful partners - far more than you could dream of in a club! One minute you and a beautiful school mum are spinning round the floor, and the next you find a nineteen year old in your arms, or you are stooping to scoop up an eight year old child. People you know well; people you have never met! In fact, I asked more than one man if I could borrow his wife that night. It is so charmingly old school, and I love it.
Even those family members who were too old, or too frail to dance, had a spectacle to watch; so much better than watching people shuffle or flail around to a DJ.
The band were superb. And, for a change, they played almost exclusively English folk, which usually tends to be Celtic folk's poorer cousin. But we danced to music from Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cornwall and Northumberland, amongst others. And you realise what a deep vein of wonderful music our country has.
A select group of us finished off a late evening, propped against the hotel doors, me sharing a welcome joint with someone. Everyone had enjoyed themselves. We entertained my wife's family back at the house the next morning, and then collapsed alone in the sun. I steamed some salmon with lime and coriander on the barbeque, threw in some spicy vegetable kebabs in flatbreads, then blackened some bananas over the coals to melt honey and ice cream into.
Cue cold beer and a nap....
To finish with, here's a link to Richard Thompson singing "Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands", about the dangers of overweight people and stacks of 78s at parties. Plus a bonus track! As the guy stood next to me in that tent said "Fuck me, how many fingers has he got?"
POLKA!!!!!!
Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM.....
I mentioned the guy stood next to me at Cambridge above. This is the number we were watching Richard Thompson play in 2006. Quite apart from being the best motorbike song EVER (British bike of course
), if you are a guitarist, or learning like me, you will find this unbelievable; I think I was weeping with ecstasy by the time he finished. I would have sworn there were two guitars on the CD..........
The party on Saturday went off fantastically. Loads of people turned up, and we all danced our socks off. The band were great, despite giving me kittens by turning up 45 minutes late. The weather was beautiful too. All in all, a great night (although I could have done without Wifey drunkenly demanding a bottle of champagne at midnight - that left me 45 poorer).
But I think that the world would benefit from a lot more ceilidhs. I'm going to haphazardly develop a hypothesis here, in a World According To.... kind of way. But....
When you go to clubs, or discos, or weddings, or whatever, and the DJ plays the music, there are several things that happen. First of all, unless you are drunk, stoned or confident enough, you are very self-conscious and, second, everyone on a dancefloor automatically gives licence for others to criticise them for the way they dance or can't dance; I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like he's being watched. I remember reading an interview with Ralph Fiennes, where he said it took him years to get up the nerve to dance, and when he did someone made fun of him, which made him incredibly angry because dancing should be something we all do, uncritically, because we enjoy it, no matter what our standard.
In case you're wondering, Wifey rates me a 'fair' dancer which, considering she can really move (you should see her dancing to Northern Soul), I can more than live with!
Back to hypothesis.
So. The wonderful thing about ceilidhs, or other kinds of folk dance, is that once you are past the stage of thinking "I am going to look an idiot here", you realise everyone else is in the same boat, and you relax and get on with it. And before long you are having a fine time, spinning, galloping, and casting away. And it is just the most fun going! A live band, racking up the tempo, and you twirling your partner away, getting incredibly out of breath. Just wonderful.
Okay so far. But it gets better. You get to dance with so many delightful partners - far more than you could dream of in a club! One minute you and a beautiful school mum are spinning round the floor, and the next you find a nineteen year old in your arms, or you are stooping to scoop up an eight year old child. People you know well; people you have never met! In fact, I asked more than one man if I could borrow his wife that night. It is so charmingly old school, and I love it.
Even those family members who were too old, or too frail to dance, had a spectacle to watch; so much better than watching people shuffle or flail around to a DJ.
The band were superb. And, for a change, they played almost exclusively English folk, which usually tends to be Celtic folk's poorer cousin. But we danced to music from Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cornwall and Northumberland, amongst others. And you realise what a deep vein of wonderful music our country has.
A select group of us finished off a late evening, propped against the hotel doors, me sharing a welcome joint with someone. Everyone had enjoyed themselves. We entertained my wife's family back at the house the next morning, and then collapsed alone in the sun. I steamed some salmon with lime and coriander on the barbeque, threw in some spicy vegetable kebabs in flatbreads, then blackened some bananas over the coals to melt honey and ice cream into.
Cue cold beer and a nap....
To finish with, here's a link to Richard Thompson singing "Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands", about the dangers of overweight people and stacks of 78s at parties. Plus a bonus track! As the guy stood next to me in that tent said "Fuck me, how many fingers has he got?"
POLKA!!!!!!
Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM.....
I mentioned the guy stood next to me at Cambridge above. This is the number we were watching Richard Thompson play in 2006. Quite apart from being the best motorbike song EVER (British bike of course
), if you are a guitarist, or learning like me, you will find this unbelievable; I think I was weeping with ecstasy by the time he finished. I would have sworn there were two guitars on the CD..........