Look at me I'm, look at me I'm, look at me I'm dancing!

[venta]

Do you live in Oxford? Do you have a passing familiarity with city centre pubs? Are you free on March 5th? Would you like to give up your entire Saturday for no money?

Some of you may already know this: my sword-dancing team is organising the national, annual rapper competition this year. In Oxford.

Details here.

Extensive experimentation in previous years' competitions has shown that the only way to get a gaggle of sword-dancers from one pub to the next is to put them in the care of a reasonably responsible, reasonably sober human. Said human will then shepherd them lovingly from one pub to the next, making sure everyone gets to the correct place at the correct time.

In fact, it's best to have two of these humans. (You know, one to stay with the body and one to go for help).

My team is quite small, and various of us are doing other things - organising judges, calculating scores, clearing up after breakfast, extracting badgers from dishwashers (don't ask). Accordingly, we find ourselves a little short of humans.

To be a suitable human, you must be:

• able to pass as human


• willing to make a firm commitment to show up in the city centre on March 5th at 10:30 for a briefing, and stick with your gaggle of sword-dancers until about 4ish


• willing to sit through a certain amount of sword-dancing, some of which might be bad


• reasonably responsible


• reasonably sober (even after a day spent in pubs)


• in possession of own sense of direction, and familiar with Oxford


• have own teeth


• lots of teeth

If that sounds unappealing, it is of course possible just to show up in one of the pubs for half an hour and watch the dancing, whilst being as drunken and irresponsible as you please. You're actively encouraged to do that, in fact.

If it does sound appealing to anyone, let me know. There is no remuneration available. There may be the prospect of a hot evening meal and free entrance to the evening showcase performance, I'm not 100% sure on the details as yet. The showcase does, of course, contain more sword dancing so you might be totally sick of the stuff by then anyway.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

They're signing Adrian? Does he mind?

Anyway yes, please do - I'll post more details nearer the time. We need audiences just as much as we need guides :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

The more the messier merrier!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Sadly that's the day of smallclanger's next karate grading, so I will not be available for a large part of that time period. But I'd like to catch some of the actual dancing, so will make an effort to catch up somewhere along the way!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Excellent - like I said above, audiences to cheer/heckle are very much needed too. Dancing to an empty pub is no fun, and (actually) surprisingly difficult.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Lionshaman and I are already on the list right? I WILL be mobile by then( or with pet Shetland to ferry me) and between us we have great experience at herding drunken crowds. Might be willing to split up if u need more teams. Can cross post this if u want joanne etc to help. And yes, we will prob stay. V excited. Ex

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you think you know Oxford well enough? (Always a bit confused by your levels of Oxford knowledge...)

More bodies may be needed later, so will get back to you on people like Joanne... familiarity with Oxford more important than numbers, at present :)

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Yup. He used to live there, I have excellent sense of direction (and iPhone) and actually do know my way round pretty well - spent nearly a whole uni summer hol living nr summertown. But I'm currently extra good at sitting at tables fielding 'where is my entry/I'm lost/where am I sleeping/can I buy a tshirt in purple/is that badger really dead' type problems from too much con & guiding work if that'd be useful for the Friday eve when Mabel Have vital Cake Inspection work to attend to!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have excellent sense of direction (and iPhone)

OK. The problem really arises when you get people saying "we're in Pub A and we need to be at Pub B in half an hour, which means we can stop off at hypothetical Pub C and squeeze in an extra-curricular dance on the way"... then you have to find a suitable C! Googling for "high-ceilinged wooden-floored pub with friendly landlord" doesn't always work out so well :)

Sitting at tables answering exactly those sort of questions is very useful, though, so we may co-opt you for that too :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

But in answer to the question, yes, you're already on the list (thankyou!). Just you were listed as a general person rather than necessarily as a guide - which means you might end up selling t-shirts, or keeping judges in order, or (as a last resort) aiding with the badger-extraction.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

HAppy to do whatever helps most. Multi event skilled ;-) I handle radios, clipboards and drunk crowd herding with a grin. And happy to talk down scheodingers semi-dead-traumatised badgers down from leaping off climbing frames, if unable to get up them! Both of us are also first aid qualified and got kit we will be carrying if u need nominated bods.

Weeeeee! Something to look forward to!!!

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

My Life Story - Megaphone Theology:

Don't know that track. I saw them last year at Koko, and it was one of my gigs of the year. A complete luck in, from friends who could not use a ticket.

The Greatest hits CD is on my regular play list.

[metame.livejournal.com]

My Life Story are still going? coo...

oh damn, a quick trip to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_Story indicates not.

Ho hum, I shall have a look for the post-Golden Mile stuff. And re-play Sparkle in my head.

[metame.livejournal.com]

PS also prob around that weekend and up for this if you're short of ppl - let me know nearer the time?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Cheers, will get back to you.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're still going, but they do keep reformingish for one-off gigs.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

This was a special, one-off, anniversary concert. 14 of them on stage, at KoKo, their spiritual home.

There was some indication they would do another for another anniversary.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Megaphone Theology is a 2-disc compilation of b-sides and oddities (though I think there is actually also a track on it of the same name).

At the time of posting, I was actually listening to Emerald Green. Although due to the peculiar nature of that particular song-writing experiment[*], that's true for a large percentage of the CD.


[*] In the days when bands were expected to provide different b-sides for each format, Jake Shillingford complained that it meant you had to write about an albumsworth of material just to put out a single. One attempt to get round this was constantly re-using a set of lyrics, but changing the melody/style/arrangement. The result is Emerald Green, The Return of Emerald Green, Emerald Green Strikes Back, Paint it Emerald Green, Emerald Green Blah Blah Blah...

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

I qualify in all respects except for not knowing anything about Oxford pubs. So unless you want to lose a team completely, never to be heard from again except in legends of the Wandering Rappers who on foggy nights can be glimpsed dancing in back alleys to the sound of sepulchral accordion music, I'd best not volunteer.

OTOH I can certainly come and applaud.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Please come and applaud! Or hiss, or heckle... or just yell impenetrable and incomprehensible drunken sentences of unclear import... we're not fussy.

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

Incidentally:

Cakes can be any type, any shape, any size. Please note, however, that cake competition entries should be made of actual cake. We're not falling for that one again.

Elaboration is urgently required...

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Have you ever watched Ace of Cakes? It's a TV show about a bakery in Baltimore that makes, indeed, ridiculously spectacular cakes. The show contains footage of them making and delivering some of their most spectacular cakes, which habitually unresemble the traditional image of a cake, incidentally advertising whichever company or event has paid them a vast sum for the cake-and-publicity combo, and some other cakes with lovely stories behind them. However, they cheerfully and openly admit that about 10% of the "cakes" they show on screen are designed not to be made of edible cake but of other materials, and are normally delivered alongside an edible sheet cake. I'm guessing that that has muddied the waters.

Mmm, cake.

[venta.livejournal.com]

about 10% of the "cakes" they show on screen are designed not to be made of edible cake

Bah! A snare and a delusion.

I remember, when I was quite small, the mother explaining to me that most of the photos of food in magazines are not made of actual food. Whipped cream melts fast under studio lights, she said, so the gorgeous cream cake I was looking at was probably filled with shaving foam or somesuch.

This is a disappointment from which I've never really recovered.

[venta.livejournal.com]

In 2009, the competition was in Newcastle. As a random tie-in, they held a leek competition alongside.

On account of not very many people really growing leeks these days, there were a number of supermarket entries, not to mention a large and vaguely terrifying leek made of cardboard. We don't want none of that sort of stuff.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I am nowhere near Oxford, know very little about Oxford, and have never made it to DERT because it's always right after IVFDF, and that would be a bit too much of a good thing (or too much running up and down the country, anyway. Not sure why I didn't make it to the Glasgow one.)

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

I would if I could but I am not able...

(and if you recognise the origin of that line, you'll know that the preceding line is particularly apt!)

Besides, I do a poor imitation of a crocodile

[venta.livejournal.com]

Frederick, spare us!
Beautiful Mabel!

I think you've slightly lost me with the crocodile, though.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

You did specify "lots of teeth"...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Teeth, of course. I was thinking of Peter Pan!

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

I'll be in Oxford on the 5th, but unfortunately I'll be busy being part of a gaggle of sword dancers.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Don't worry... I wouldn't be entrusting care of you lot (plus Gaorsach, who asked to be on tour with you) to anyone other than a hardened dancer...

Assuming we can find any who'll take the job!

Sadly can't volunteer

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

but if an opportunity for some time with you is likely to crop up at all, please let me know. Would be lovely to see you.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I dunno: is it obvious :)

There's lots of details here: http://www.dert2011.co.uk/itinerary.html

The short version is: choose one of the KA, the Blenheim, the 'Madding Crowd, the Duke's Cut or Freud's, insert self at some point betwee 11:30 and 4:30. The 1-2pm region will be a lunchbreak, but other than that there should be groups of teams wandering in and out all day.