Last week we were pleased to see semi-regulars, Steve C and Jane and it was great to welcome again Malcolm and his lady, whose name I'm afraid to say I still haven't captured, on one of their occasional visits to Bristol from their home in Yorkshire.
Colin was, as usual, MC and he started the evening off with Richard Thompson's The New Saint George. This wasn't the only Thompson song of the evening for John P gave us Albion Sunrise.
Geoff claimed not to have any songs for the theme but he seemed to do fairly well starting off with two American songs about stereotypically English subjects: Everybody's Rich But Us (Rod McKuen) and Garden Party (Ricky Nelson).
Mike sang the Hard Times Of Old England (Roud 1206) which initially disappointed Colin who had planned to sing an updated version but in the second half with Mike gone and four people who had not been there at the beginning of the evening, he felt able to sing an updated version, Hard Times of Old England Retold, originally performed by Billy Bragg and the The Imagined Village.
Again, it wasn't the only outing for a Billy Bragg song since John P sang New England.
According to Mike, Simon's selection of The Lambton Worm (Roud 2337) was the most appropriate sing of the evening, not because it's English, nor because it mentions knights and Palestine, both things of which Saint George is patron, but because "worm" or "wyrm" is the correct English term for what we know as a dragon.
Derek decided to major on England defeating the French, first with a version of General Wolfe (Roud 624) from the singing of Bob Scarce (this links to Bob Scarce's version whereas the usual "a selection" link below uses a different performance with similar words). Derek's second defeat of the French came with Admiral Benbow (Roud 3141), a song quickly matched by Mike with Admiral Benbow (Roud 227).
Jane was too tired from a hard day's toil to display her usual story-telling talent too much, so she began with a joke about a man in a pet shop. She managed one story about a leather thimble and a poem, So We'll Go No More A-Roving (Lord Byron). When John P made his last contribution of the evening a joke about a foul-mouthed parrot, Jane was raring to go again and gave us a joke about a parrot previously owned by a brothel keeper. At that she didn't stop, being found at the end of the evening dancing to Ska in the bar and apparently offering to tell jokes to the pub's regulars.
Steve C on the other hand stuck to his usual repertoire of songs including Old Shep (Roud 1499 - Red Foley, Arthur Williams) and Dido Bendigo (Roud 584).
Malcolm came prepared with just two poems but amusing they were, being I Have A Little SatNav (Pam Ayres) and Disaster At Sea (Les Barker).
Steve C finished off the Evening with The Rare Ould Times (Pete St John).
Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.
(Number of people present - 10, of whom 9 performed)
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