John Carter

Aardvark

...but the item does mention the fact that he used to be seen in different colours. The 'red' figure appears to have started to dominate before the Coke ads, but it seems that the ads promoted the image and made it universal. I suspect that without Coke we would not know Santa in the way we do today. It looks to me, on reading the article, that the whole Santa thing appears to have been an American invention based on Dutch tradition.

Sadly, reading the item and seeing how the image was created and expanded for purely commercial reasons makes me more antipathetic towards the modern, secular Christmas.

__________________
When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

Besoeker

A southern boy with English culture?
Had he been a Yank, you might have had a point.
And I can tell you from personal experience that it is more like 4,000 miles.

John Carter

Yep. Don't tell me you've not noticed the similarity between northern English culture and the good ol' boys? Same thing, but with less sun, larger cars and more space.

Well bully for you and your pedantry.

Westcountryman

It's 3147 miles from Land's End to New York City.

__________________
Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

Besoeker

Coca Cola is from Atlanta.

crac

Culture has to be defined in general terms because it's about people and their life together and the place where they live and people are far too varied to be too specific.
But you have a major problem when our rugby players are too embarrassed to be world champions. They cannot find there pride because they cant define what it means to be English/British anymore.
You have a major problem with this lack of cultural definition. You have to define it and you have to defend it for the good of the country otherwise you have a country open to anything which has no pride in itself and no means to resist because it does not know itself where it stands.

I wonder if that sounds familiar???
And i blame the intelectuals who want us to be all things to all people and they especially like to confuse everyone with their brilliance.

So yes you can define it and you must. And in a sense it's not so difficult, our great accomplishments of the past define what we are as a people if only we were allowed to remember them and see the English/British qualities in the light of the past in the many many areas they exist, i'm sure there is enough in all that to define our culture, in a number of ways in which most if not all who live and belong here should feel included, encouraged strengthened and bound together in that purpose of being English/British.

crac

I've seen some in the streets of Oxford, just for the tourists i expect but that was interesting. Of course one tends to ask the question, what does it all mean, what is it all for?
There doesn't seem to be much English culture left like dances and folk costumes and that sort of thing. When i was in the north of Greece i witnessed an amazing cultural festival where all the island civilisations of Greece came together with there own music and complex dances and traditional costumes and they really are far more varied then anything you find in the UK.
There was a tremendous feeling of pride and identification both regionally and nationally, and it was really something.
The idea that you would have to legislate to describe all those particular costumes and movements and then protect them like a brand or something is not something i would suggest.
It's an insult to boil down those things to that level, they should simply be protected like a space is protected, here is the space to do these things and no one may say you cannot.
The idea of cultural equality for other cultures in England is a nonsense, they are not equal, ceremonies that developed in other countries based on the conditions in other countries cannot be said to have equality with the traditional celebration of the feelings and experiences of being English or British. Because they are not celebrating and showing respect for the country we live in or the experience of living here.
There is a felt and experienced relationship between the land the history and the people. Our culture is the way we express that relationship, a way to communicate our feelings to the land/place/History/values of here.
Other cultures are not able to do that for us.

Aardvark

I've morris danced in the streets of Oxford as part of the folk festival. We tend not to dance for tourists, but for our own pleasure. I was asked by an Englishman, in Oxford, if we were Irish dancers!!!! The longest continuous folk performance in Europe, and possibly the world, is the unbroken 500+ years of dancing on Whit Monday in Bampton, Oxon - the pubs open for breakfast and close at breakfast time the following day. Many sides dance in villages and pubs where only the locals really get to see them perform so a lot of urban people never really experience our own rural culture.

There is a lot more traditional English dancing than people realise, much of it very localised - Westmoreland step dancing for instance. There are a lot of step, clog, rapper, sword and longsword dancers around as well as north-west morris, border morris, Cotswold morris and molly dancing. Abbotts Bromley still has its horn dancers, Bacup still has coconut dancers and Helston still has the furry dance. You can also find barn dances/ceilidhs etc where English country dancing takes place and beginners are welcome (indeed all dance clubs welcome beginners otherwise we would die out).

Many sides also indulge in mumming towards Xmas, but again if you're not in the right town/pub you might never encounter it.

There is talk of the Olympics being opened by displays of the various national dances of our migrant communities, but morris dancing, which tends to include a lot of beards and beer bellies, is not seen as 'cool' even though the reality is that there are plenty of young dancers out there.

__________________
When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

Little Englander (sour)

Have a gander at "STEADFAST", attended a speech by that lady lawyer who is sueing Channel 4 for trying to deny her Englishness by dint of dna testing.

They do pro bono work for anyone who thinks they are being "ethnically" discriminated against.

They took on the case of the "Too White English Girl" who applied for a training place run by some environmental agency. guess what - the scheme has now been dropped for everyone - they have no case to answer, crafty buggers.