Hurrah, we have the internet back! Someone had sliced through a critical cable, and Virgin Media Man has now, I dunno, knotted it back together or something. Expect a volley of blog posts, as various rough drafts from the last fortnight come out ( Read more... )

So, at the end of August I ran away to Whitby for the folk festival (again). I've written about it here before, and... well... much the same sort of stuff happened. I did some dancing, some playing music, some listening to music, some drinking, some eating and lots of catching up with friends.

( Flash clog dancing, the generalised idiocy of rapper teams, and a surprise from Coventry )

Last weekend saw me, with Mabel Gubbins, at the annual Lamb Ale held by Kirtlington Morris. As events go, it's rubbish for a rapper team. There are two pubs in the village, neither of which will let us inside to dance, so we do a lot of scuffing about on concrete. However! It's a grand social occasion, we get to see lots of other teams and ( Read more... )

The short version: if you have any interest in folk music, folk dance or contemporary dance I strongly advise you to consult the touring schedule of The Lock In to see if it's coming near you. It's well worth checking out.

( The Long Version )

On Saturday the mother (who was visiting) and I were up bright and early, on an overground train to Camden Road. We were heading to Cecil Sharp House (headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society) for a day's clog-dancing.

( George, the elephant, went on his holidays... )

Audience participation rapper 101:

( Read more... )

The illustrated guide to a weekend away with a rapper team:

( A party! A birthday party! )

This weekend, it was time for the annual slog up to Leyland for the Lancashire Wallopers' weekend of clog-dancing classes. The Wallopers are a long-established clog display team - not that that stopped me from feeling slightly risqué when I googled from work for "wallopers weekend" a week or so ago. (If you care, I didn't find anything particularly ( Read more... )

As mentioned in my last post, this weekend was a weekend of rapper and very little else.

( The Mabel Gubbins Catering Arm )

When I said I was going away this weekend, I got accused of having a social life. Well, kind of - it depends if you count clog dancing conventions in Lancashire as "social life".

( A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam )