Some more nonsense

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last Friday's session was a time for announcements of forthcoming themes, so here are some dates for your diary:

• 14 Feb - St Valentine - principally love and lust but taking note of his patronages: Affianced couples, against fainting, beekeepers, happy marriages, love, plague, epilepsy, Lesbos
• 28 Feb - St David - Wales; Pembrokeshire; Naas; vegetarians; poets
• 20 Mar - St Patrick - Ireland, Nigeria, Montserrat, Archdiocese of New York, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, Boston, Rolla, Missouri, Loíza, Puerto Rico, Murcia (Spain), Clann Giolla Phádraig, engineers, paralegals, Archdiocese of Melbourne; against snakes and sins
• 24 April - St George - England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Catalonia, etc.; agricultural workers, farmers, field workers; soldiers; archers; armourers; equestrians, cavalry, saddle makers; chivalry; skin diseases, lepers and leprosy, syphilis; sheep, shepherds;

The working man

It was great last week to see a totally new face at Friday's session. Sam was apparently at a loose end and found us on Facebook, which is what we like to hear. He didn't have anything prepared to sing but it sounds as though there's potential for the future if we haven't scared him off.

Colin as MC started the session off with The Agitator, believed to have been written in 1873 by Henry Taylor. The subject of the song is Joseph Arch, known as the agitator, who founded the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union in 1872. Taylor was a carpenter, who was admitted to the Union because of his previous trade union experience. The song was included in Roy Palmer’s A Ballad History of England.

Election Fever

Photo by Rama

It may appear since we had six at the previous week's session and the same number at this one that we have a very limited pool of talent to draw on (I use "talent" loosely, but what the heck?). "Not at all", I say, because we had replaced a whole 50% of those present last week this time with regular Mike (and his possibly faithful hound, Indy), semi-regular Steve G, and very welcome occasional visitor from as far afield as Swindon, Rose.

There was no official theme but there were some interesting threads that emerged through the evening.

Miners' Gala, Bastille Day, and much more

Glamorgan: Derek's cricket team

A better turn-out this week, thanks in large part to the entourages brought by new regular, Joe and old friend, Jan. An encounter with a globe artichoke caused me to be slightly later than I like to be, but not so late as to miss Mike's opening song, Derby Ram.

Derek was the first to find a date-appropriate song, pointing out that if she were present, Pat would no doubt be the first to shout out that 12 July is the day of the Durham Miners' Gala (correctly pronounced "gay-lah"). In recognition of the date he, Derek, sang Jock Purdon's The Cotia banner.

We were pleased to see Paul and Carl for the third time in four weeks - keep it up lads. Paul entertained us with his own guitar compositions, as usual most without title, although "OFG - Old, fat and grey - self portrait" made a reappearance.