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NEW WEB SITE!!!! After hanging round these pages for the last twelve months or so it was time for a change - a bit more room to spread out and add some new stuff. I also wanted to shorten the address and lose the wz. In Czech this stands for web zdarmo which means web for free. So all I had to do was pay! The quicker upload time though, and what it saves in nerves makes it worth every crown. Anyway, enough of me gassin' away here on the doorstep. Come on in.
14th May BELTAIN GALLERY! Pete Orton used to have a great comic song which he claimed was a traditional Albanian cabbage harvest song. I was often reminded of it when I first moved here and saw people busy shredding, treading and pickling cabbage. Such traditions are rapidly becoming just a memory in today's Czech consumer society. As far as I know they never did have a cabbage harvest song here but next week we will be playing for a traditional asparagus festival in Ivančice near Brno. We will also be accompanying the dancers - Irish dancers that is. Not asparagus dancers! Though you never know! 2nd May The Beltain fires were blazing on Wednesday night to welcome in the summer months of milk and honey. I didn't see much milk consumed but a lot of honey disappeared in the form of mead. Celts, ancient and modern, danced under the stars, swords flashed in the firelight and the music played until dawn. The Bands The whole show kicked off with a rousing Scottish pipe and drum parade - David Neckar's group from Brno and the Rebel Pipers from Brno. Then followed Fiannan with some nice Czech versions of Irish favourites. I also found Jirka and co. leading a wonderful cosy singalong around the pub fire the next morning. Gwalarn put on a fine display of Breton songs with soaring fiddle solos and dynamic guitar accompaniment. Shannon put on a blistering performance, as well as carrying the session on until dawn. Dullahan showed their masterful rendition of Irish tunes and some wonderful sets on galician bagpipes. Ostra trava were undoubtably as solid as ever bringing the whole concert to a close sometime around 4.30 a.m. True heroes! Another hero is fiddler, Ondra Volčík, who was brave enough to climb onto a stage with me for an impromptu performance and carried it off superbly. The Performing Groups Jagu and Kelti kicked and beat the hell out of each other armed with huge swords all for our amusement and Bastyri put on a truly impressive fire show; probably the best I've seen. Last but certainly not least were our long-cherished and long-suffering dancers Demairt and Fiach ban who danced their hearts out in spite of the difficult conditions. The Team Recognition must also go to Ales, Simona and the gang who worked their socks off all night keeping everyone fed and watered, a herculean task which they managed with indefatigable good humour, and finally Zdenka whose support, through all the preparation and the event itself, make me realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful wife. 14th April Meself and the mot went to see The Mystery of the Dance. As expected, a Slovakian rip-off of Riverdance. Big turnout. Mostly older people and a few children. It was Irish dancing meets Saturday Night Fever, though difficult to hide the occasional unexpected Eastern European touch too. Lots of synthesizer music and a young lad who might have been a piss-take of Michael Flatley if the audience had even known who MF was. The overall effect was reminiscent of the time I ate 3 hamburgers at Burger King. Instead of feeling satiated I just felt slightly queasy. A pity really, because those kids were obviously very capable and had worked bloody hard. I'd love to see what they'll be doing in 5 or 10 years time. First run of the season. Every year that hill seems to be a couple of degrees steeper. As well as that, the urgency has gone. What does it matter in the general scheme of things if I arrive at the top a couple of minutes earlier or later? My heart beats like a steam hammer and life looks more finite, I'm dying slowly........but then................I cross the meadow glistening with dew, the sun on my back, the mists swirling around the village below, the snow-capped mountains in the background. Planxty, De Dannan and Moving Hearts are playing in unison with full orchestral backing! The music swells to a crescendo of breakneck reels. A small army of Irish dancers are tapping away like crashing ocean waves. The elation is like a cocaine/ LSD shot. I'm me, I'm here, I'm healthy and alive in this beautiful place! I arrive home soaked in sweat and gibbering like an idiot. Proof absolute to my family that anybody who leaves a warm bed to run up a hill is well and truly mad. After the slow monotony of winter Spring passes with alarming speed here. Every day brings some new bloom, a slight change in the colour of the landscape, the buds fat and pregnant waiting to burst open the minute your back's turned. And before us is the prospect of warm days and long, fragrant evenings. Vivre l'été! Long live Summer! And what a way to celebrate! Beltain Isarno is looking to be a cracker. If you like Irish/Celtic music this is the place to be! ( Hayfever sufferers come too. It might be the last chance to enjoy yourselves for the next few months!) 18th March Another St. Pat's behind us. Dance seem to have dominated this year. We started off in Karvina where the girls from Galtish and Polish group Salake were tapping away as soon as we pulled out the instruments. It turned out to be a great evening. You can see a video clip on the Bottlewash homepage and photos at www.swarp.rajce.net The fun continued with the dance exhibition and ceili in Olomouc where Galtish were again guests of local dancers Fiach bán. Rather than the Broadway glitzy style of Riverdance this was more reminiscent of a 1950's Irish dance hall with a sizeable contingent of proud parents looking on. Anna and the gang did a great job with putting the whole show together, publicizing it and decorating the place up. Looks like the Olomouc ceili is here to stay! Looking forward to the next one. 8th February This was the day but it still hasn't been decided who will be the Czech president. MPs are still debating whether the ballot should be secret or public. Both sides claim their reason as to stop the other side cheating. While a secret ballot may seem more adult, knowing the schoolboy behaviour (name calling and rude gestures) of some senior MPs, the hands-above-the-table preference is not as surprising as it otherwise would be. While the naughty boys fight over which economics professor they should have their big sisters will be pinning up posters of an entirely different presidential candidate. Borrowing a catch phrase "Yes, we can!" from Bob the Builder, Barack Obama's speech has been made into a super slick pop video. We could be on to something here! How about Vaclav Klaus singing "The Heat is On" (he is a well-known gobal warming denier) or "Smoke gets in Your Eyes" (he recently claimed risks from passive smoking were exaggerated). Jan Švejnar could counter with "Living in America" or, having heard his response to the question about important Czech figures, the Stranglers' "No More Heroes" might be appropriate. 7th January 2008 is still young but we already have a strong contender for the "Miserable Gits of the Year" award. Bruntal county council are making it a fineable offence to collect things from dustbins. But as somebody obviously pointed out to them, you can't fine people who have no money"! So their second line of attack is to take away the prams or barrows that they use for moving stuff. Maybe there's a market for "Make Poverty Illegal" wristbands - a souvenir from Bruntal. 6th January 12th Night and the decorations come down, the last few Christmas CDs go back in the box and Monday morning we make our way to work past the discarded trees and soggy firework cases. The bike's redundant in the snow so I'll be loading up my MP3 player with new tunes and songs to learn as I trudge through the snow on dark evenings. It's the best medicine yet for combating the midwinter blues. Then it'll soon be back to the ceilidhs and concerts, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and then we've a special Beltain programme this year. As I rise on these cold dark January mornings the prospect of bidding farewell to winter and welcoming in the warm summer days, long evenings and blossoming trees and meadows seems like something well worth celebrating. I hope you'll be able to join us. 7th December
Wednesday was Mikuláš, St Nicholas' Day,the real St. Nick as you see him here in his bishop's robes and mitre, and not as the fat red-coated buffoon that the Coca-Cola Company has turned him into. Along with him come an angel and devil. Being an angel is pretty naff as you just get to carry the basket of sweets and maybe ring a bell. As the devil though you get to scare the living daylights out of small kids, threatening to take them to hell in a sack, so they confess to everything from pulling their sister's hair to being the junior wing of Al Quiada. Once they have repented and made numerous promises they are unlikely to keep, they are rewarded with sweets and fruit. Satisfied parents will often give the devil a shot of rum or slivovice, so not only does he look scary but also smells like someone you'd best avoid too. I have noticed this year though, that less adults are dressing up for this tradition and more children are dressing up as this heaven-and-hell trio. In fact, except maybe in the villages, drunkenly terrorizing children seems to in decline generally.
12th November They say here that Martin comes on a horse, meaning he brings the snow. Well he certainly came on time this year, which is more than can be said of the trains. Czech railways have had to pay back some of the money they received from this region because less than a quarter of the trains arrived on time and the fares keep going up. Czech Railways say its because of modernization. This kind of modernization is instantly recognizable to anyone who's traveled on British railways lately. Anyway St. Martin seems to have overcompensated this year. Nobody I know has seen so much snow early in the season. The question now is whether we're in for a 4-5 month winter, like they used to be, or just that winter has started early just as Spring and Summer did. We'll have to wait and see. At least we've a fair chance of a white Christmas. 31st October I got an e-mail this week from some French anarchists who want to play our music on their radio station. Unlike British and German anarchists who might put a brick through your window or give you a punch in the mouth their French counterparts give speeches about liberté, egalité et equalité and play folk music on the radio. They're quite likeable really. I remember one such character protesting on the street because his employers had sacked him when he refused to shave off his enormous multi-coloured moustache. Another thing about them is that they still have a passion for politics unlike the Czechs who are generally cynical and indifferent. It probably won't change anything though and it's all the same to me anyway. Have I been here too long? Had some great sessions this weekend. First in České Budějovice with Oro, three lads form Dublin: Martin Nolan (pipes), John Ryan(bouzouki) and Kevin "he does the white notes, he does the black notes and I do the cracks" O'Connor (fiddle). All superb musicians and a great bunch of lads. Next stop was Prague where Jamie Marshall managed to turn a dreary Monday evening into cracking good fun. I've known Jamie so many years now and finally we managed to play together. Another ambition fulfilled. Many thanks Jamie. 9th October Probably the one and only good thing about this wet, windy autumn weather is that everybody else's hair looks as terrible as mine usually does. It has been getting seriously out of hand lately though and I usually arrive in school looking as if I've got a stork's nest on my head. Lest any enterprising stork home-seeker might think he'd suddenly got lucky I decided it was time for a trim. The girl at the "Hedge Backwards Hair Salon" was very friendly and zealously set about my locks like in those Australian sheep shearing competitions. As she waded through the debris and got further in she started to look increasingly worried, reaching for evermore implements. It reminded me of the time Dr. Suchy tried to get my broken wisdom tooth out. I think the best that can be said about the end result is that she managed to reduced the amount of material considerably while still retaining an 'autumnal' feel to her creation. She assured me the Natural look is in at the moment as she let me out the back door under the gaze of a flock of covetous sparrows. | ||
