Dudearchy in the UK

[Klaus Korters]

...
I used to live in the UK, I agree about how bad things are there but how great it is to complain and abide.
...

If it wasn't for the weather we British wouldn't have anything to talk to each other about.

Hey that might be for the general population but you remember the door step conversations we've had outside pubs? We used to time people seeing how long they'd last before they edged away, generally confused looking for safe conversation.  

[Rev. Ed C]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

When in Britian, queue.

Queuing is one of the great British past times.  It's slow-going, it's polite and unlike Nam, there are rules.  The true British Dude knows how to queue, and here's a few key points:

1)  We don't sweat it.  If you need a pair of binoculars to see the front of the line, we have the time. Just relax.

2)  We amuse ourselves.  Carry a book of some tunes and enjoy your position in the rank and file.  You'll never see a true Dude fretting and grumbling about the long wait, just with his nose in a book or his head in a musical cloud.

3)  We don't cut.  No line jumpers are we.  We know where the line starts and finishes and join the queue at the appropriate point.  "Excuse me, are you in the queue?"  "No, no, go on in."

Now, not every Brit can manage this.  Most won't be able to do 1 or 2, and some can't even manage 3 (what crawled up one side of their cleft arsehole?).  However, it is a true artform of order and civility which really makes us stand out as a nation.  Part of our great identity (and no, we didn't wait in line for it).

Rule Britannia, Britannia forms the orderly queues.

[Rev. Ed C]

...
I used to live in the UK, I agree about how bad things are there but how great it is to complain and abide.
...

If it wasn't for the weather we British wouldn't have anything to talk to each other about.

It is interesting, our weather.  Currently, the rain is hammering down so hard on the roof of my little office building that it's creating a rather enchanting background noise.

My father has always been soothed by the sound of rain, and I think I follow a similar suit.  As a country, England gets, well, let's just say, a lot of rain.  Ireland gets a little bit more.  Scotland gets bloody tons of the stuff.  And Wales, well... Wales gets... let me put it in the approximate words of comedian Rhod Gilbert: "I didn't know I could take my cagoule (rain mack) off until I was five!  I thought it was my skin."  He also went on to demonstrate his actually webbed fingers which he claimed was part of natural Welsh evolution.

I think Goscinny & Uderzo gave an excellent outsiders look on British weather in Asterix in Britain, when Asterix is crossing the English channel in a small boat with his cousin.  As they surge through the dense fog, Obelix at the oars, Asterix asks "Is it always this foggy in Britain?" to which is cousin replies "Oh no, old chap, it's only foggy like this when it isn't raining."  The fog then immediately lifts to replaced by torrential rain.

Other countires have adapted for hot and dry claimates, some hot and humid, some cold.  In Britain we've adapted to be a people of a changeable climate with a singular penchant for being overcast, murky, foggy and rainy.  Sometimes our weather can change in a heatbeat, you never can really tell.  And throughout this undudely climate we have endured, where Dudes of a warmer, less violent climate might have crumpled.  It is, once again, part of our "fuck it" attitude, that really defines us.  We're happy with our weather bring crap, because 1) it's interesting, and 2) it's better than earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes (well, we do get these, but such small ones no one even notices).  The occasional flood is by-the-by, these things happen, man.

[Rev. Ed C]

Ho-hum, another day, another issue about the British national identity.

I was reminded this morning of a song I've always kind of detested, but it is a massively popular little number that some call the unofficial National Anthem, somewhere between God Save the [Insert monarch gender-specific title here] and Rule Britannia.

This song is Jerusalem, and I decided to look it up, because my beef with the song was actually down to my own interpretation, and I wanted to sort it out properly.

I had assumed, from the lyrics, that it was a song glorifying the crusades and being generally not-cool about global politics and general niceness to our international brothers.  I am actually glad to say I turned out to be completely wrong.

Here are the words for you to dissect, before we start looking at the supposed meaning:

And did those feet in ancient time
        Walk upon England's mountains green?
    And was the holy Lamb of God
        On England's pleasant pastures seen?
    And did the Countenance Divine
        Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
    And was Jerusalem builded here
        Among those dark Satanic mills?

    Bring me my bow of burning gold:
        Bring me my arrows of desire:
    Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold!
        Bring me my chariot of fire!
    I will not cease from mental fight,
        Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
    Till we have built Jerusalem
        In England's green and pleasant land.

Now, it's actually a rather rousing tune, and I know full well why it's become so anthemic.  The thing is, it's actually officially not the hymn people believe it to be, because of two points:  1)  It's not a prayer to God.  2) It's a musical version of a poem.

Back in 1916, after a bout of low morale, what with WWI and all, Sir Hubert Parry put music to a short poem by William Blake, who used it as a preface to a much grander poem called Milton, back in 1804.  So really, we have to look at what Blake was talking about in his poem, four little verses that were never meant to be sung in church, in school or at every meeting of the Women's Institute.

Wikipedia tells me:

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, travelled to the area that is now England and visited Glastonbury. The legend is linked to an idea in the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a new Jerusalem. The Christian church in general, and the English Church in particular, used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.

Now that's something I'd missed!  Not Jerusalem the holy city, but Jerusalem the state of mind!  Utopia, in a Christian sense.  New shit has come to light, and my mind is turned around on this song.

Wiki goes on to dissect, thusly:

In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake implies that a visit of Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the "dark Satanic Mills" of the industrial-revolution. Analysts note that Blake asks four questions rather than stating a visit to be true. According to this view, the poem says that there may, or may not, have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England. But that was then; now, we are faced with the challenge of creating such a country once again.

You know what, Blake had some alright ideas.  He's really talking about peace in his poem, not war, as I'd assumed.  Of course, I don't really know about the use of weapons here, but I guess from a Georgian Christian point of view it was common to want to stamp out the heretics to make the world a better place for honest christian folk.  Similarly, during the war, we wanted to beat the Kaiser back and do something similar.

So, I guess, I can chalk this up to Leveller's syndrome, as I discussed in my Dudespaper article http://dudespaper.com/levelling-in-pursuit-of-the-spiritual-bungalow.html/, which saw a bunch of undudely folks fighting for dudely principals and ideals.

So, it's anthemic, it's patriotic, and I'm sure most people don't get the meaning, as I didn't until today.  But, there is something in this song that's of Dudeist merit here in the UK, I think.  However, I don't think it's ever an ideal that will find its way out of the actual words and the themes that are so often tangled in super-patriotism, a state I consider a very undudely disease.  Open your eyes, Britons, and especially you, at the WI.  No more Jam & Jerusalem, let's make it the DI, Dude's Institute.  Dare I suggest, Dope & Dudetopia?

[Rev. Ed C]

Apologies for my absence these past few weeks, but the UK General Election had kind of consumed my time, trying to get back out of the slump of heavy political whatnot.

I see no one's really had any brainstorms recently either.

Maybe when the mist lifts from around my brain I might have some more valid points that aren't politcally slanted

[Rev. Ed C]

I guess the combination of this heatwave and World Cup fever have put the UK to sleep, eh?

On the subject of football, I've been pleasantly surprised at the conduct of the England fans this year.  Usually there's no end of trouble wherever these guys go, but for some reason a sense of unifying mellowness has overcome them and no one's been stabbed in a local bar this year (well, no more than usual in South Africa).

Football hooliganism is perhaps one of the greatest blemishes on the UK's dudeliness in regards to modern culture and history.  It's almost inexplicable that so much passion could be generated from what fooball is nowadays, but, if you trace it back it's all probably an evolution/leftover of when it was one of the few pleasures of the working man before/around the dawning of TV and kind of stuck.  The fact that now adays the working man has more means and a culture of being loud and constantly on a binge (if you'll allow me to generalise the average man without insult) really doesn't bode well for passionate footy fans.

Still, if what's going on in South Africa is anything to go by, perhaps our jingoistic, xenophobic attitudes and internationally grudge-holding/rivalry are on the out?  I think we'll see this weekend when England play up against Germany in one of the oldest, bitterest football rivalries in history.  From what I've seen so far, it looks like people are looking forward to it as a fun tradition as opposed to some continuation of the world wars.  Maybe even leaving behind such sentiments as "Two world wars and one world cup, doo-dah, doo-dah" and "Germany may have beaten us in 1990 at our national sport, but we beat them twice at theirs".  Amusing, perhaps, but hardly conducive with a modern dudely attitude.  It's ok if it's all in good fun, and I hope this time around, for once, it is.

[Rev. Ed C]

Still on the football issue...

Whilst watching James Corden's World Cup Live after-show, post USA-Ghana match, there came a Dudely mentioning.  After playing the VT of Corden talking with England goalkeeper David James at a lifedrawing class, he asked guest Chris Evans (the UK presenter/DJ) who his favourite England player was, to which Evans responded "Actually it is David James.  He's a bit zen, isn't he."  James Corden then, remarkably states "Yeah, he reminds me of The Dude from The Big Lebowski."

Amazing!  A mention of The Dude and TBL on primetime, and the revelation that we have a Dude on the team.  I might even think about supporting England, as long as James is in goal.  What can we say about a man who plays fooball but finds a sense of calm in the middle of the storm by taking art supplies on tour with him to get in a bit of sketching and painting between games and training sessions?  I never knew one of our footballers had it in him, I thought they were all about the glitz and the glamour and the celebrity, leaving the football as an incidental add-on to their career.

So, new-found respect to James Corden for being a TBL fan, and respect to David James (a man I knew nothing about before), the Dude of the England team!

[meekon5]

so this thread is Rev Ed basically talking to himself then?

sit back, tell me about your mother.

[Rev. Ed C]

so this thread is Rev Ed basically talking to himself then?

sit back, tell me about your mother.

Tell you?  Who are you?  I only talk to myself, sir (irony overload!!!).  If I'm going to tell anyone anything I'll tell me!

[Rev. Ed C]

And, whilst I'm talking to myself, let me remiss...

I managed to catch a late-night program on TV recently that documented the life and career of Benny Hill.  Now, I didn't know a lot about Benny, being a bit before my time and not being shown on TV nowdays (as he's often considered old-fashioned here in the UK, I guess), I was intrigued.

What I found out actually impressed me, as it turns out this man, like so many of the great comedians, was a true Dude.  He was a man who apparently never lost his temper and saw the humour in everything.  To boot he wasn't materialistic at all.  In fact, despite his fortunes he confessed to not really knowing the true value of the little pay cheques he received.  "Show me a million pounds in a room and I'll know how much that is."  He said.  But you know what, he didn't care.  He kept a very streamlined wardrobe, to the point that when in China he was told by his agent to go to a tailor and get an exact copy made of his suit for a pittance.  When he returned the agent asked if he'd done it.  He said "yes".  The agent asked "so you have two suits now then?"  "No," replied Hill "I gave the other one to a beggar outside."  What a Dude.  Flying in the face of materialism and the sort of corruption that fame and fortune applies to so many, making them such paraquats.

Perhaps the greatest testament to his Dudeliness is when he received a prestigious Chaplain award for his lifetime contribution to comedy.  After accepting the award from Chaplain's granddaughter, Hill was offered a visit to Chaplain's office and asked to take a seat behind his desk.  Well, Charlie Chaplain was one of Benny's heroes and so overwhelmed was he at being able to sit here, and so undeserving did he feel that he began to weep.  And that was before someone pointed out the Benny Hill VHS collection on one of the shelves, denoting Chaplain as a big fan of his.

So, what can we say about such a humble man, a kind man who liked to bring joy to others, who loved life and never gave in to it's pressures?  What else but "Duuuuuude!"

[meekon5]

Still on the football issue...

Football! (with fingers in his ears) La, la, la, la, la....


Sorry did you say something?

[Rev. Ed C]

Still on the football issue...

Football! (with fingers in his ears) La, la, la, la, la....


Sorry did you say something?

Man, you were being a grumpy ol' bastard that day   Which is a shame, as it was much more enjoyable to experience it in person!  It loses its finesse in text only

[meekon5]

...Which is a shame, as it was much more enjoyable to experience it in person!  It loses its finesse in text only

Yes I'm thinking of video. Put a couple up on utube then just reference them.

[Rev. Ed C]

Still looking for contributions (however small) from those dudes of the British isles.  No hurry on the project, I've got about 50 years or so left in me, but... I might lose interest in putting it together before then

If you're new around here, please read the first post of this thread for an idea of what the project entails.  If you're interested or have any ideas on opinions about the Dudely state of the UK, jump on in, either with a reply or a personal message to me via the forum messager.  Would love to have you onboard!

[meekon5]

Still looking for contributions (however small) from those dudes of the British isles.  No hurry on the project, I've got about 50 years or so left in me, but... I might lose interest in putting it together before then ...

Oh so now you've finally finished talking to yourself you want us to actually provide some script?