Bourgeois lifestyle journalist accuses Morris dancers of being Nazis
by Jura Watchmaker, 11 December 2007
Blackheath Morris’ bagman Richard Sanderson, aka Baggage Reclaim, points today to a restaurant review (“Meal for two, including wine and service, £80”) by Jay Rayner in last Sunday’s Observer.
Here are a few choice extracts:
“The last time I reviewed in the Cotswolds, my bitchy comments about Stow-on-the-Wold lead [sic] to a condemnatory statement about me being read out at a meeting of the Stow Business Association. I regard this as a public service on my part.”
Sure, it does look like the kind of place which could happily accommodate a troop of Morris dancers, and that can never be positive. It’s an ancient Jewish paranoia of mine. For some reason, whenever I see Morris dancers I assume a pogrom can’t be far behind.”
Ho ho, illiterate lifestyle journalist, son of agony aunt Clare Rayner, he very funny.
For those of you with no time for such fripperies as the Observer lifestyle section:
“Jay Rayner is an award-winning journalist, writer and broadcaster. He joined the Observer newspaper straight out of Leeds University in 1988 as a columnist, after a year editing the student newspaper. He has since gone on to write for almost all the broadsheet nationals as well as a wide variety of magazines from GQ and Esquire, through Cosmopolitan (for whom he was a contributing editor) to the New Statesman and Granta;… He is a very mediocre jazz pianist.”
This is from Rayner’s PFD biography.
So Jay Rayner has never had a proper job, and writes about so many subjects that that he can safely be said to know next to nothing about any of them. GQ, Esquire and Cosmopolitan? Oh dear, another fucking lifestyle journalist with no real life of his own. He needs to get out more, but should probably avoid Stow.
Rayner is a bore who should be ignored and left to his iced Bailey’s parfait (“the Essex girl of desserts”). Anyone offended by such tosh as Rayner writes about England outside the M25 is of the mistaken belief that the Weltanschauung of the Guardian and Observer has an influence that extends beyond the coffee houses of Hampstead and Islington. This may be another stereotype, but it is fully justified in this case.
Social observation is not something that comes naturally to Guardian and Observer columnists, save for a few exceptions.
I’m currently in email discussion with Chris Wood about what he perceives to be an establishment suppression of working peoples’ culture. In the lastest exchange Chris refers to the hoary old chestnut beloved of the metropolitan chattering classes that is “You should try everything once apart from incest and Morris dancing.”
This is little different from “The Welsh shag sheep”, “Northerners bugger whippets”, and suchlike. And now we have “Morris dancers are Nazis.” But I wouldn’t call it cultural suppression, as that implies an active, conscious effort. The spineless tossers who come out with such witicisms have trouble depressing the plunger on their cafetieres, and have their Polish au pairs do it instead. “Magda, darling, do be a dear and procure some organic ciabatta from the bakery.”
One can only speculate about what the esteemed members of the Stow Business Association had to say about their bitchy visitor from London. And it’s a very rich dialect they have there in the Gloucestershire hills.
Here’s my culinary recommendation for Stow-on-the-Wold:
Greedy’s Fish & Chips
11 Park Street
GL54 1AQ
This is brought to you as a public service announcement.
The pictures above were taken by me in Greenwich, London, during the Blackheath Morris End of Season Tour in October of this year. Click here for more.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 12:20
It always seemed that you couldn’t have a real ale festival without morris dancing. Just as I have come to appreciate real ale so now I’m starting to appreciate morris dancing. I’m also developing a taste for good food but try and avoid places that get a mention in newspaper reviews as you might bump into a sleb reviewer and that would put you off your food.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 12:25
Look at the photo here and tell us that morris dancers aren’t preparing the way for jackbooted ethnic cleansers.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 12:42
Watch it, Counsell, we’ve got your number.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 13:28
I agree with this, except that Morris dancing is still a bit crap.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 14:09
“The Welsh shag sheep”, “Northerners bugger whippets”, and suchlike
Reminds me of the obnoxious Londinium dahling on a Sunday afternoon repeat of ‘Come Dine With Me’ (I know, I know) who sneered at West Indian food as ‘the sort of thing people buy in a box at a motorway service station on their way back up North’.
The best fish supper I have had was in Stromness, at a healthy remove from the M25 and all who sail in her.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 14:24
I graized the fat one’s article in a post- Hatton haze but didn’t he also make some strange comments about the staff’s disabilities?
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 16:10
The reference to the restaurant worker with Down’s Syndrome? Yes, that was strange. Or rather I interpreted it as a feel-good, PC, thing. Yes, Mr Rayner; you are right to get tied up in knots over it, as your making a meal out of the issue (pun entirely intended) is patronising.
I’m wondering whether I should make a formal complaint to the Readers’ Editor about this and Rayner’s likening of Morris dancers to Nazis.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 17:03
I do have to say that Stow is full of Art Galleries, pottery studios and Restaurants dependent on visitors,who despise visitors.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 6:37
I’ve never understood the attraction of dancing.
But I think some of you are being disingenuous here. It’s an eyecatching headline, but what Rayner did not do, at least not in the quotations shown here, is say that Morris dancers were Nazis. I don’t why Rayner has this “Jewish paranoia”, but pogrom \= Nazi. You’ve broken Godwin’s Law before you even get past the headline.
I think you’d have to admit that pogroms are part of the British christian tradition that the wazzock Pritchard has been talking about recently. I know nothing of Morris dancing; is it part of the christian or pagan tradition?
What Rayner *is* careless of, either through ignorance or stupidity (emphatically *not* the same thing), is that once you begin categorising people into more or less worthy, better or worse, then you have indeed started off down the road which ultimately leads to Belzec, Treblinka and Birkenau.
He should think again, but not for the reasons you’ve given.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 7:30
Edward I expelled Jews from England in 1290–very few if any remained–and Jews were not ‘readmitted’ until the Commonwealth (hurrah!) period in the 1650s, and there have been no recorded pogroms since that time. Morris dancing supposedly dates from the late 15th century–difficult to have a pogrom when there are no Jews. That particular canard is not going to fly.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 10:12
You’ve broken Godwin’s Law before you even get past the headline.
Shamelessly so, and for this I make no apology. Rayner is such a ridiculous creature, and doesn’t deserve a serious reaction.
With hindsight, I could have titled the piece “…likens Morris dancers to Nazis”.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 10:21
The roots of Morris dancing go back a lot further than the late 15th century. And it is part of the culture in which it exists at any one time. It carries a lot of pagan baggage. In the culture of the common people of these islands, christianity has never been more than a thin veneer covering a complex mix of folk religious beliefs.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 10:43
And there I was thinking ‘Morris’ was derived from ‘Moorish’ and those clay pipes represented swords as seen in a Morisco or other sword dances such as the Mattachin (vis Capriol Suite).
[The cheetie stretched, had a desultory wash, curled back into a ball and went back to sleep]
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 10:46
In the culture of the common people of these islands, christianity has never been more than a thin veneer covering a complex mix of folk religious beliefs.
And a good thing too.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 11:05
In the culture of the common people of these islands, christianity has never been more than a thin veneer covering a complex mix of folk religious beliefs.
And they were also being constantly re-invented to serve other purposes like the enforcement of working class rights as part of a “moral economy”. The important thing being that these heavily pagan rites and customs were always owned by the common people and reflected their interests. They were in opposition to the establishment, which is why they tried to suppress or tame them.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 11:28
And a good thing too.
In the beginning was chaos, and it endured.
Gadgie’s point about reinvention is vitally important, and it goes way beyond economic relations. Traditional culture is continually reinvented, and folk dance is one example of this.
There are some Morris sides who keep to, say, the Cotswold tradition, and are rather conservative in their outlook. But they are none of them “pure” or “authentic”. These terms are meaningless outside the narrow confines of totalising ideologies.
Living folk traditions translate well between cultures, which is why we have synergies emerging between the black and white cultures of Britain at this level. And I’m not talking about neatly packaged “world music”. It develops at its own pace, and is not the product of some PC artistic engineering.
What distinguishes “traditional” culture is that it always has an eye on the past as well as the present. The future is an unknown land.
If I may prod the somnolent cat, I should point out that “Morris” is indeed a label with its origins in the late 15th century. But much of what today passes for “Morris dance” cannot be traced to that particular historical juncture. It’s just a convenient nomenclature.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 12:30
New post with some pics, a YouTube and a glib one-liner.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 12:35
Gothic Morris Dancing is the best expression of a living folk tradition I can think of.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 12:39
I’m perfectly happy to accept that christianity is or has always been a thin veneer. Which makes Richard Dawkins’ recent comment that he’s “a cultural christian” and that he enjoys “singing christmas carols like everybody else” even more incomprehensible.
I refuse to be a cultural christian or an uncultural christian or, indeed, muslim, jew, buddhist, druid, celt, norse or bear worshipper.
I wasn’t, by the way, trying to link morris dancing and pogroms in any direct way. It remains an undeniable fact, though, that both are part of the history of the British Isles, and in that sense and that sense only they have a relationship. Obvious really, I’dve thought.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 12:52
Wolf’s Head & Vixen (the goths linked above) are a great Border Morris side.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 17:08
Rayner’s responded:
“Thank you for yours and I appreciate the history. The line in my piece was
an accurate decsription of how Morris Dancing makes me feel. And while some
Morris Dancers continue to defend the right to black up, I can’t say I feel
terribly distraught for having made the comment. Even you acknowledge - as
none of my many other correspondents this morning have - that there are issues around folk rituals and nationalism, that can prove alienating for certain sections of the community.
To be fair to me - and I can well understand that nobody in the Morris
Dancing fraternity wishes to be - I described it as an ancient Jewish
paranoia of mine. I am happy to have it characterised as that. But I also don’t believe it is without foundation. All that said, thank you for your message
As I can’t post on the message board perhaps you could carry it back.
Andrew Jackson has nailed it exactly. I see Morris Dancers re-enacting
ancient rights, drawing on nationalist traditions, and I am reminded of
racism. And to answer the question, yes, I feel exactly the same way about
all other forms of rituals - French, Scottish, Greek you name it - that draw on the well of nationalism.
I am not an observant Jew in any way; you only need read my reviews to see
that. But at least 18 members of my family died in the Holocaust, and the
ascent of Nazism was aided by drawing on nationalist and folk myths. I’m
afraid I can’t help finding echoes of those today unsettling, and I find
those echoes in MOrris Dancing.”
Although I appreciate that this comment is correct most of the time:
“Anyone offended by such tosh as Rayner writes about England outside the M25 is of the mistaken belief that the Weltanschauung of the Guardian and Observer has an influence that extends beyond the coffee houses of Hampstead and Islington.”
It has to be said that the people that Rayner writes for in those coffee houses are well embedded in the media and in politics - both areas which do have influence outside the M25.
Morris will feature as part of BBC4’s Dance Britannia over Christmas and it’s clear from comments made by people that were involved in the production that apart from factual inaccuracy, there’s the possibility that the programme might adopt a similar (although not so idiotically extreme) approach as Rayner’s.
I’ve never understood why it stirs such bizarre hatred in people. It’s mostly men jumping up and down with sticks, hankies, and bells for half an hour outside a pub once a week.
Must go - practice tonight.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 17:19
Nationalist, he says. What is “nationalist” about folk traditions that have little respect for borders, and bleed into each other as easily as folk music and dance forms do? Folk traditions arise from, and belong to their communities, but that is not the same as nationalism.
Perhaps Rayner feels uncomfortable with the idea of community. I believe this is part of la malaise bourgeois.
Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 17:47
I addressed the above to Rayner, in an email, and added…