I smell a rat

The Quiet Man this week spotted yet another manifestation of aggressive puritanism masquerading as public concern:

A Lancashire school has been slammed for commissioning and selling a beer for two extra-curricular events as part of its centenary celebrations.

The plan - to market a local beer labelled with the school crest - was squarely aimed at selling to former pupils a perfect marriage of personal and regional nostalgia. Brewing is, after all, a fine old British tradition that has long combined aesthetic pleasure with hydration and B-vitamin intake (with the added bonus of helping to avoid some of the nastier water-borne diseases of bygone days) and Lancashire is home to some excellent practitioners of the art.

This, however, was of no concern to the lone dissenter trying single-handedly to bring this worthy enterprise to a halt:

A concerned resident lodged a complaint to the Portman Group, Britain's independent body in charge of promoting responsible drinking regulations.

One single unsupported objection to a beer intended for consumers over the age of 18? Surely the recipient would be wise to consider the possibility that it could be the work of a disgruntled employee or the result of personal animosity towards the school or the brewery.

To the disbelief of the school, the Portman Group then upheld the resident's complaint.

The objection centred on the use of the school crest on the label and the implied association of alcohol with school-age children, though I think it's fair to say that the majority of today's teenagers aspire to more heady concoctions than a bottle or two of real ale.

In any case, this matter seems, if you'll forgive the term, rather small beer compared to the myriad injustices with which our society and the world in general abounds. Where is this Utopia in which a 'concerned resident' can find no more pressing cause for protest?

The BRGS centenary ale was brewed by the Irwell Works Brewery, in Ramsbottom, Lancashire.

Wait a minute - that rings a bell...

A bar in the House of Commons refused to serve beer featuring the black faces of the Britannia Coconut Dancers.

Following hot on the heels of the twitter storm caused by Will Straw's photo opportunity with the same black-faced dancers, this recently publicised tale of a label which 'may have caused offence' opened the door for knee-jerk vilification and possible harassment of those responsible.

And who were those potentially racist brewers?

Irwell Works Brewery in Ramsbottom dropped the image of the Coconutters from the beer pump and replaced it with the Bacup crest, which will accompany the ale in the Strangers Bar.

An interesting coincidence, I'm sure you will agree.

Bias in the eye of the beholder

While some fret over the missing Nigerian schoolgirls or the plight of the North Koreans, elsewhere the fuss over black-faced morris dancers continues unabated, with problems this week over the labelling of a guest beer nominated for the House of Commons' Strangers bar.

Parliamentary chiefs threw out the pale ale which had been specially crafted by a multi award-winning Rossendale brewery, saying the imagery ‘may have caused offence'.

Actually, they were happy with the beer but not with the name chosen by the local MP, Jake Berry:

"We thought of several names, but as the boundary dance was saved earlier this year, I thought it would be a fitting tribute to name the beer after the Britannia Coconutters, to celebrate their huge contribution to traditional dancing and their charity work across Rossendale."

The proposed pump badge featured the same Britannia Coco-nut Dancers whose appearance in Will Straw's twitter image recently drew comparison to American 'minstrel' make-up, despite the clear absence of the caricaturing white highlights that typified the genre.

Those around in the 1970s may remember Pam Ayres' poem 'I Fell For a Black and White Minstrel' (conspicuous, perhaps significantly, by its absence from the internet), in which the deserted protagonist forlornly hugs her pillow:

'You can still see the place where he laid his black face
And the gap where he laid his white eye.'

The Bacup dancers, on the other hand, look as if they have just come up from a day at the coalface, which is not surprising, given the area's long history of mining. There's a certain irony in the fact that, since images of 'minstrel' blackface have been largely expunged from popular culture, there are few examples around on which the would-be offended can base any objective judgement.

Instead, just as the word 'black' has become a potential minefield (remember the 'chalk-boards' fuss?), blackening a white face, whatever the context, is now automatically assumed to be racist - although, oddly enough, no-one seems to be applying the same principle to, for example, Xhosa tribesmen daubing themselves with white clay.

Even Molly-dancers have been, so to speak, tarred with the same brush (tough luck, offence seekers; the phrase, too, originates far from the American South*). According to widespread tradition, in the winter slack season for farm labourers, funds would often run short so, to raise beer money, groups of ploughmen would go from house to house on the first Sunday after Epiphany and dance to solicit cash (and alcoholic) donations.

As the donors would be the same farmers the dancers would be approaching for work later in the year, they disguised themselves; one of the group would dress as a woman - the Molly - and they would blacken their faces with soot. As well as evoking ancient masked fertility rituals, the disguises allowed everyone to pretend they were strangers, circumventing the potentially awkward situation of begging from future employers.

It is also quite likely that, given the availability of ale at a numerous succession of venues, a bar to recognition also helped to ensure that the antics of the participants later on in the evening were less likely to be attributed to the perpetrator. The long association between morris-dancing and beer suggests a similar principle at work in the black-faced border morris of the Welsh marches, where the widespread use of disguise among mummers and dancers in the area was clearly documented in 1584.

While it may well have some root in the emulation of other cultures (if 'morris' is indeed a corruption of 'moorish'), Occam's razor surely indicates that the ready availability and effectiveness of soot or coal dust, along with the practical difficulties of managing a mask whilst energetically hopping about with one's hands full, played a major role in the popularity of this method of concealing identity. In any case, the association of ritual dance and disguise goes far further back into our pagan past.

The fact that the origins of most of the dances in question are lost in the mists of time has enabled some academics, reasoning backwards from the premise that all blacking-up must be motivated by racial prejudice and mockery, to claim that the various historical explanations can only be spurious retrospective attempts to justify a clear manifestation of racism; folk dancers are, it seems, guilty until proven innocent.

According to one Canadian scholar:

"[...] it seems unlikely that North American audiences, who encounter Morris at dance-outs at local shopping centres, pubs, and so on, far from geographical associations with coal miners, would see in blackface dances anything other than a white peoples' representation of black culture."

An obvious answer would be to instruct onlookers - American or otherwise - in the traditions associated with the performance, but that is presumably far too old-fashioned for today's image-led media culture. What matters these days is not the actual intention but whether someone, somewhere is likely to take offence - and, if it is deemed that they might, up goes the inevitable cry of 'Ban it!'

Despite the fact that the patronising caricatures of minstrel comedy and blackface vaudeville routines originated on the other side of the Atlantic, it seems our English ancestors are not to be forgiven so easily for the atrocities perpetrated by the George Mitchell Minstrels four hundred years after their time**.

As for the beer; since those opposing it were not themselves offended but merely taking hypothetical offence by proxy, why not put it in the bar as intended - introduced by the local MP, who can explain the whole thing - where those customers who dislike the label can exercise their right not to buy it?


*The idiom appears in print in Sir Walter Scott’s 'Rob Roy' (1818), describing - wait for it! - the Scots;
“They are a’ tarr’d wi’ the same stick — rank Jacobites and Papists”,
Nothing whatsoever to do with skin colour; it's a less than flattering analogy with the common practice of marking sheep.

**George Mitchell, oddly enough, was a Scot.

Mine's a pint!

In case anyone was wondering, the recent silence here has been due to the extensive refurbishments the tavern is undergoing; as a bar to creativity, the pram in the hall is as nothing compared to the decorator's ladder on the landing.


As the sidebar implies, I am very attached to my pint mug, albeit a heavy-bottomed one made of glass rather than the handsome antique specimen depicted.

These days it serves mostly as a water-glass, though back in my distant penurious past it doubled as a cereal-bowl on the mornings I couldn't be bothered to wash up, not to mention occasional money-box, flower-vase or wasp-catcher.

When the Urchin came of age, he too wanted a pint mug of his own; however, it proved surprisingly difficult to find one. Pubs had, almost universally, replaced their handled glass tankards with straight glasses and shops had followed suit.

I'm hoping Bucko - having relevant experience - can enlighten me as to the reason for this*; I always thought that it was because the weight and the handle made a pint mug a potentially lethal weapon, but, according to the Telegraph, the reason is far more prosaic:

In the late 1970s and early 1980s drinkers rebelled against tankards. ‘In a straight glass, not a jug’ was a common request. The move saw most pubs ditch them and stock 'straight' glasses only.

Real ale - the sort for which you are supposed to wear a woolly sweater and, preferably, a beard - still came in handled mugs, but for everything else you got a straight glass (unless you were female and in the North, when you would automatically be issued with a half in a 'ladies' glass' complete with stem).

It is thus highly amusing that, as reported in the Telegraph, style-conscious city-dwellers are now insisting on traditional-style glass pint mugs for their beer. In the words of a Wimbledon pub manager:

“More and more people are specifically requesting their beer in a pint jug with a handle, particularly when they see other drinkers with one. There is definitely an element of nostalgia about a proper pint jug.

They are seen as retro-cool yet comforting and traditional, reflecting the return to more traditional pub values.”

'Retro-cool', eh? Just goes to show; hang around long enough and, like it or not, you'll be at the cutting edge of fashion.

*Update: According to Bucko (via comments):
"the glass was phased out because of its adaptability as a nasty weapon. If you hold the handle with your fingers all the way through the hole, so your knuckle is touching the glass, turn it 45 degrees onto it's side, then bang it hard on the edge of a table, the glass shatters leaving you with what is called a 'glass fist'. A bit like a knuckleduster with jagged glass edges. You can imagine the damage such a weapon would do."

It's rather sad when your low opinion of your fellow-man turns out to be entirely justified - though my respect for those who successfully ply the publican's trade has increased in proportion.

Beer, glorious beer

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Spare a thought for the striking Carlsberg workers deprived by a heartless management of a constant supply of free beer.

For over 160 years, workers at Carlsberg's Danish breweries have enjoyed the right to drink beer throughout the day. When the company began in 1847, the local water was not fit to drink, so it made sense to allow the workforce to refresh themselves with the nearest liquid to hand.

(Understandable, really - this was 7 years before John Snow finally convinced the world that polluted drinking water was behind outbreaks of cholera in London and that wells and cess-pits do not good neighbours make.)

What is interesting in the case is that, despite all the Europe-wide public initiatives against the evils of alcohol and its detrimental effects on health, these merry Danes have continued chugging extra strength lager on a daily basis at the company's expense. Even the delivery drivers get three bottles a day (unaffected by the change) - although their ignition keys are linked to a breathalyser.

And the ubiquity of the product suggests that production hasn't suffered. After all, they are merely continuing a time-honoured tradition of refreshment; from the cider-fuelled Somerset farm labourers to the French workman's morning coffee and calvados, alcohol in moderation has featured in the working man's diet for centuries.

In fact, the workers will still be given free beer on tap, but only in the canteen at lunchtime - at other times they must restrict themselves to the soft drinks and water still available on the factory floor. Even the unions have the wit to see that they are on shaky ground here, arguing that it's really a matter of principle: "There was no dialogue over the issue at all, and that is just not good enough."

I believe the phrase is 'Nice work if you can get it'.