A toast to Merry England

As per usual I made the trip to Clun for the Green Man festival on May Day for a bit of merry England style folk festivaling. The festival seems to have quite a wide appeal to varying different people from all walks of life, most of them looked like your average Joe Normal's but it it was peppered with the beardy weirdies you would also expect to see at such events. So what is the appeal? Is it just an excuse for a party? Or is it that people want to get a slice of the rural life that they don't have in urban/suburban life? Or is it that people want ot connect with the past? Which ever way it always feels like a bit of a pilgramage to me as my dad is a Salopian & the Beltane May Day connections are also prominant. The festival involves a fight between Green Man & the Ice Queen & the Green Man usualy wins (last year been canceled due to flooding & look what a horrible summer we had last year, I blame that for the weather we got, that & the gulf stream being in the Med rather than on Northern Europe). I'm hoping to explore a little more of Merry England hopefully this year or at least its modern enterpretations. But I'm not the only one, it appears many people are, so is it more a quest for cultural identity where some people feel we are losing it or just an affirmation we have one? Well in which ever case any a excuse for a party is a good one. So hats off to the people who make it happen.

British Sporting Acheivements

Wow I managed to to watch some sport this year, OK it was tennis & being as though I was ill did sleep through a fair amount of it but it was good to see a British player at a final of well anything, well done Andy, you may not have won but you did lose to the best tennis player in world history & you did win a set against him & lets face it we haven't had a British player in the men's final at Wimbledon since Fred Perry. England still hold The Ashes (surprisingly), England was ranked number 1 in Rugby in 2004, but we do tend to fair badly in football & the Winter Olympics, so what does this tell us about about our sporting achievements, that we have it in us as a nation? Must try harder as a nation? That in some sports we hit above target? If you talk to anyone about Britain/England & they will give you different answers, some say we are nation who prides our self at being crap at any sport, I think that is a little unfair, if we good at every sport & we won everything it would make watching it boring, the fact that everyone with exceptions has a relatively equal chance of success at sport makes it interesting. Sport doesn't particularly interest me too much, I like it when Britain/England do well but don't get to over excited by the prospect of us in sporting or to be honest most other competitions, I think we should pride ourselves & doing OK & wish all of our Olympic hopefuls well but not to put too much pressure on them. Though we could of let them train on our own facilities like all the host nations do.