I'm a bit of an anglophile as well, but it's a bit more difficult nowadays since their politics are so repulsive and I am feeling more and more European as the days go by...
Ah yes well I love modern Britain, am as disappointed in its politics sometimes as with any place's (though also pretty ignorant of most of it) and have a bad habit of probably tending to prefer visions of the past Britain instead of the real living one before me. My beautiful friends in the UK excepted.
I am generally a liberal lefty but I suspect that my old-anglophilia reveals a deep conservative side to me that I'm not sure how to reconcile.
You're European, aren't you? I'm Australian. We have a complicated backstory with the UK. :)
I'm German, so the complicated history with the UK came to a head with Brexit. I feel like it was a lot of stomping now Britain has lost its Empire and now Germany, without empires and in a particularly efficient and slightly smug way, has taken over the European stage as head of household. I really feel that the Brexit vote was a loss of face.
It's awkward as a citizen of a former colony not to indulge a TINY bit of schadenfreude (ah you Germans have the best words) but mostly I feel distress about Brexit as it seems it will weaken the sense of a united Europe, which has proven a generally good thing, and definitely devastate much of Britain's cohesion and future. Britain long since, really, ceased to be of much relevance to Australia.
Which makes my enthralment with its CULTURE and history all the more eccentric, frankly, down here on the other side of the world. There's something faintly bad taste about yearning for the old master.
Ah! I loved them! I didn't read them all but just the other day in an access of nostalgia I downloaded an episode of the tv series (not watched yet). They were magical books. How I wished to live in an ancestral pile with overgrown grounds. To this day I live in hope of an unknown rich auntie, and a decayed mansion. I cannot tell you how much I yearned, as a child, for an ATTIC.
And as I'm raving on about timeslip, I did my MA a few years ago on Alan Garner's Red Shift. Did you ever read Garner? He is much in vogue again now I notice.
Folk revival music is my aesthetic. More Steeleye Span and Planxty, and John Renbourne used to live round here and give concerts in a tiny coffeehouse, I've sat five feet from him, next to adolescents worshiping his guitar work. Dead now, sadly.
Ah you are a woman of rare taste! I am so besotted with this stuff these days. It started when I was in labour and my husband put on some daggy old Donovan to soothe me; and I woke the morning after delivering my child with a fierce urge to retire to the cosy hairy corderoyed comfy safe 1970s of my childhood, along with my new baby. And I've been listening to lovely acoustic guitars ever since. :)
Anyone else you'd recommend? I just got a bit of Bert Jansch with Renbourn, amazing.
We saw Steeleye Span live in a small-ish venue a year ago, it was great, even if Maddy Prior's voice is no longer an amazing swooping soprano. They were so much a part of my 1970s adolescence. Fairport Convention too, not as much. I prefer my Renbourn with a more medieval-ish folky rather than so much jazz as with Bert.
Duck Baker ! I walked into a record store (remember those?), heard Kid on a Mountain (Irish tunes set to fingerpicking guitar), and was immediately in love. Reader, I bought it. And then in CD, MP3 and possibly cassette versions.
I think I had Relativity, Nightnoise and Malagasy guitar when I had babies. Maybe guitar music is just good for labor?
Ah wonderful, thanks for the tips! I agree about Renbourn but he was so prolific I never know what to start with. Just discovered Martin Carthy, but he seems to have a few styles as well. I take it Relativity, Nightnoise etc are bands? I'll look them all up!
I do think the warm sounds of guitar folk is nice as a new parent. Cosy and snugly and like going to bed early. Gentle and woody like retreating to a log cabin out of the howling wind (or howling baby). As soon as my son and I started listening to old Donovan I knew my mission was to protect him from the modern world by recreating the corduroy years of my own innocent childhood.
Oh blimey that's the place. I would just hide in a corner and after lights out and lockup, I'd run moaning through the Rural Edwardian flannel trousers section and out the other end with the 1930s bourgeois bohemian cardigans.
I now have Hendon on my list of London places to pilgrimage to. Thanks Duckie!
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I am generally a liberal lefty but I suspect that my old-anglophilia reveals a deep conservative side to me that I'm not sure how to reconcile.
You're European, aren't you? I'm Australian. We have a complicated backstory with the UK. :)
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Which makes my enthralment with its CULTURE and history all the more eccentric, frankly, down here on the other side of the world. There's something faintly bad taste about yearning for the old master.
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Roger Deakin the swimming man lived nearish here - I go past his old gaff every day on the train. (Also - fellow Sutcliff fan here!)
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Anyone else you'd recommend? I just got a bit of Bert Jansch with Renbourn, amazing.
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We saw Steeleye Span live in a small-ish venue a year ago, it was great, even if Maddy Prior's voice is no longer an amazing swooping soprano. They were so much a part of my 1970s adolescence. Fairport Convention too, not as much. I prefer my Renbourn with a more medieval-ish folky rather than so much jazz as with Bert.
Duck Baker ! I walked into a record store (remember those?), heard Kid on a Mountain (Irish tunes set to fingerpicking guitar), and was immediately in love. Reader, I bought it. And then in CD, MP3 and possibly cassette versions.
I think I had Relativity, Nightnoise and Malagasy guitar when I had babies. Maybe guitar music is just good for labor?
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I do think the warm sounds of guitar folk is nice as a new parent. Cosy and snugly and like going to bed early. Gentle and woody like retreating to a log cabin out of the howling wind (or howling baby). As soon as my son and I started listening to old Donovan I knew my mission was to protect him from the modern world by recreating the corduroy years of my own innocent childhood.
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You can probably find your Edwardian boy clothes here; they do tours, although I don't know how they'll feel about all the rubbing.
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I now have Hendon on my list of London places to pilgrimage to. Thanks Duckie!
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