She Moved Through The Fair...

Blogger ate my original posting... *** Where I talked about the history of this traditional folk song, about love and loss (Fhina's favourite themes, non?!) and all those who had recorded this lovely, sad and beautiful tunette...

(***Blogger est le vrai cannibal de nos jours, non?!)

This was posted by a dahlink on Youtube about the traditional folk song, She moved through the fair...

"I happened upon Anne Briggs via this song and 'Black Waterside', as guitarist Jimmy Page had adapted these songs and done guitar versions (White Summer and Black Mountain Side respectively), and was influenced by her and others such as Bert Jansch and Davey Graham. This song is like many of her songs, it is sung unaccompanied. Anne Briggs was 19 when she sang this at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963, where it was recorded and subsequently released on various albums.

The following is adapted from John Dougan of All Music Guide: Anne Briggs was a singer of traditional English folk music, possessing as beautiful a voice as one could hope to have. She was the single most important influence on a group of female British folk singers including Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, and Linda Thompson. Even Norma Waterson, herself a hugely important figure in the British folk revival of the mid-'60s, admits to being influenced by Briggs' singing and notes that Anne Briggs singlehandedly changed the way that English women folk singers sang. What makes this story so odd is that Anne Briggs' entire recorded output consists of about 30 songs. She stopped singing at the age of 27, supposedly because she hated the sound of her recorded voice. As folk music became electrified and increasingly popular and bands such as Fairport Convention and Pentangle were reinventing the British folk tradition, and more and more women (Sandy Denny et al) were singing in a style started by Anne Briggs, her legend flourished, yet she still refused (and continues to refuse) to sing'.

And I make no excuse for 'pimping' my beloved nu-folkie, John William Smith here... Watch out for him, he's currently being looked after by David Gray's and Damien Rice's managers... Fingers crossed!



And I loved this song by Simple Minds, but never realised it was the same traditional tune, with different lyrics...

May you find such joy, love and peace in your lives, mes dahlinks... For I am off to bury the dead... Wish me love, wish me luck, wish me well...

"It's my way, or the highway! It's that simple...

I've seen the future...

I've seen the future...

...and I like it! In fact, I'll take two!

Short and sweet today, just like Fhina, except I'm not that short - Not as petite as Bloggus Nuttus!

And if you want another taste of la Crazy Fhina, then CLICKIE on Mad Manic Mamas for yesterday, when I was definitely being manic, mad and probably a little bit of a mama!

Ciao bella!

Making the difference...

Don't ask me why, mes dahlinks, but I managed to post twice yesterday - I didn't mean to, but Blogger got the better of me...

Anyhoo, if you weren't uplifted yesterday by some darling joyous and daft wedding dances, to raise your very soul, CLICKIE HERE

It's better than the more conventional, or illegal, pick-me-ups, je vous jure... I swear!

And as for pick-me-ups, here is the wonderful Mae West herself, making a difference, it seems...

"It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference".

Tom Brokaw



“I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference!”

Albert Einstein

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”

Mark Twain

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not".

Dr. Seuss



"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do".

Edward Everett Hale



"Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley".

Ralph Waldo Emerson



"This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy".

George Bernard Shaw

Beautiful Blacks, Beautiful Whites...

Words on a printed page, it's all black and white, isn't it?



In the old days, you knew exactly where you stood, didn't you?



Medicine is all black and white; There are no grey areas are there?



Where there is darkness, there is also light...



Say what you need to say in life, spell it out - In Black & White.

Here Comes The Bride...

What's Fhina up to today? She's been on that darned Youtube again... And she knows we hate it... And it takes ages to look at the pictures; And we scarcely have the time these days...

Anyhoo, tant pis, I am inviting you to share with me these celebrations, exclusively chez moi, and with about a million others...

I just find these clips of the bride and groom and their wedding guests carrying out a FlashMob kind of happy spectacle for the delight and delectation of their guests to be inexorably beautiful and joyful...

Here are ordinary folk, not dancers or entertainers, taking part in something that is funny, happy, wonderful and amazing...

Is it because it's Fhina's 23rd Wedding Anniversary weekend that you find her sobbing tears of joy into her half-crumbling wedding bouquet...?

Non!

It is because, in a world full of post-operative relapses and misery, pain and suffering, whines and whinges, unending doom and impending death, (sadly, my much loved uncle... He of Crawford fame), I needed something joyous to bolster me from sticking my head in the gas oven... ***

And these darlings offered it...

Please tell me what you think, and I hope I bring a smile to your beautiful faces today...

Remember, I love you...



(***And we haven't even got a gas oven, so let no Plath-like worries overtake you there...)

By the way, I'm not recommending the music here, although I do have a soft spot for Gorillaz - It's simply the unadulterated joy of the dancers that has moved me...


1. The wedding of Jill Heinz and Kevin Peterson starts with a quality entrance dance to Chris Brown's Forever...yeah, forever. It took place at a Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

2. Mammothian Surprise Group Wedding Reception Dance: The wedding party "spontaneously" breaks out into a group dance at Thryn and Gabe's wedding. The dance was choreographed by members of the wedding party and kept a secret from the guests until the moment it began. (Music by Gorillaz)

An Anniversary and not a Bloggiversary...

Today is my 23rd Wedding Anniversary... I'm spending some of the day over HERE CLICKIE again!



Thank you for spending some time with me on this auspicious occasion!





Would you like some cake?



I've had a little spruce of my banner-header thingummiejig! I finally worked out how to do that again... I am sometimes a little slow on the uptake...

This is again a picture of Scarlett - I've got a bit of a theme going there, I guess... This is a fabulous picture of her, non?! On her holidays, in a trailer park, bored and on a bicycle...

The stuff that holidays are made of, right?! Thank you those of you who noticed and who have commented... I've already looked out further pics to have seasonal switches every quarter...

Life is sometimes like that, non? It's good to have a change...a bit of fresh air blowing through a room or your hair...

It's just getting there, sometimes, can involve some major upheaval!

Six Word Saturday...

An anniversary, beach kisses, fond wishes... Go see Cate, pretty-pretty please?

Introducing a rabbit-hearted girl...

I'd heard the name Florence + The Machine, but I'm not sure how or where... And one day I played this song in a big room, and I was enraptured by the folk, blues and Alice in Wonderland-chic of the lyrics...

I watched the video on Youtube, impressed by its folk-pagan leanings and colour-stripped feel.



And then I saw Florence perform on Jonathan Ross's Friday night talk-show, and I was mesmerized by this Amazonian girl with pins to die for, with her rose covered mic stand, so Stevie, and even grabbed the Seventies' and Eighties,' synth-driven vibe.

See the amazing keyboard player? Very Sparks! But the video est disparu!

Et voila, here it is again!



Apparently, Florence grew up listening in her bedroom to her mother's Kate Bush records... And from her performance, I feel she may be channelling both Kate, and Stevie Nicks.

Tell me I'm wrong. Hope you enjoy it, mes bloggy triplets...

Here are the lyrics, and the officially sanctioned video, also from the You of the Tube:

The looking glass so shiny and new
How quickly the glamour fades
I start spinning slipping out of time
Was that the wrong pill to take (Raise it up)
You made a deal and now it seems you have to offer up
But will it ever be enough
(Raise it up raise it up)
It´s not enough
(Raise it up raise it up)

Here I am a rabbit-hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I´ve made the final sacrifice

We raise it up this offering
We raise it up

This is a gift it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

I look around but I can´t find you
(raise it up)
If only I could see your face
(raise it up)
Instead of rushing towards the skyline
(raise it up)
I wish that I could just be brave

I must become a lion-hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice

We raise it up this offering
We raise it up

This is a gift it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

Raise it up raise it up
(repeat)

And in the spring I shed my skin
And it blows away with the changing wind
The waters turn from blue to red
As towards the sky I offer it

This is a gift it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
(repeat)

This is a gift...

Indeed!

And, I'm over again at Mad Manic Mamas today once again... Music keeps me this side of sane, so do you, mes bloggy Biscuit Barrels!

What works for you??!

This is an international blogging community, and I love it!

I received this wonderful piece of bling earlier last month from the ever-sweet, talented, lively and lovely, Finding My Wings In Life...

In spite of the fact that I kept on getting Findings muddled up with another blogger, for their writings were as wonderful, as magical, as heartfelt, she found it in her heart to offer me this wonderful recognition of being to blogging what Jerry Hall is to air-travel - An internationalista!

The International Blogging Community's Award - It's over there on the right... And it's gorgeous, right??! I love the international nature of our very great community here - I love checking out Statcounter's little map to see where you are all sitting, perched by an over-heating computer, or dozing in your armchair, trusty laptop at your side... Unless you're the one blogging from Starbucks on Rodeo Drive... but then I think that's Perez Hilton... He gets all his stylee tips from me, I'll have you know...

Seriously, I adore the fact that we can get to know one another, whereas in a life without our tippy-tappy we'd never have bumped luggage trolleys... Mine's the one piled high with Louis Vuitton luggage... Well, the Beckhams were having a garage sale when I last had my binox trailed on their Palace!

Painkillers make me woozy, so sorry for going off track...

The rules are this,

Link the person who tagged you.
Copy the image, the rules and the questionnaire in this post.
Post this in one or all of your blogs.
Answer the four questions following these rules.

Recruit at least seven (7) friends on your blog roll by sharing this with them.
Come back to BLoGGiSTa iNFo CoRNeR (please do not change this link) at http://bloggistame.blogspot.com and leave the URL of your post in order for your blog to be added to the master list.

Have fun!

Remember, Questions & Your Answers:

1. The person who tagged you:
2. His/her site's title and url:
3. Date when you were tagged:
4. Persons you tagged:



If I think of my most International of Friends here in Blogland, I think of all of you, and this time particularly I would like to offer this spectacular award to my friends:



David McMahon at Authorblog If you've never been to see David, you're in for a rare treat - Writer, journalist, photographer, artist and poet - Go see him in Australia - It'll be fair dinkum, Mate!

Erin of A Woman In A Window and In Through The Back Door Wonderful, writerly, waving not drowning and winsome... Go visit, tell 'em Fhina sent yer, and don't look back...

Mad Aunt Bernard's Tortoise Poetry A very new bloggerista to me... And I want to award her international travels with a challenging bunch of tortoises, her mad, bad and dangerous to know, poetry, and her beautifully wrought writing and winning 'folie charmante'...



Dirty Socks and Pizza for her wonderful sense of humour and her tenacity and passion for bringing up her Teen Terrorists...

Z at Life, Work and Pleasure for she is ever-beautiful and an international
jet-setter and scientist... Plus, I love her art-ridden writings and her fabled Batcat!

Expat Mum for her famed transatlantic blogging, and for her wit and wisdom, and the fact that she has been brave enough to write a book, and clever enough to have it published, and because she is wonderful for finding us, and joining us HERE!

The amazing Sink, at A Bigger Cup, who is an incredibly patient and kind mother, and a gift to the world, although she's known to all and sundry as 'Sink!, and her cup invariably runneth over!'

I would be most grateful, mai dahlinks, if you would be so good as to kindly drop by their way and leave a comment or two for them...

Voila, a bientot, mes amis! Merci beaucoup! Je suis desolee, I am sorry if you do not see your colourful flag here... But it is fluttering away behind my eyelids, je vous assure...

Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!

Glory Box and a Glory Hole... I've been a temptress too long...

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Around The World In A Day...

I found this the other day, rooting through Photobucket, like a little Truffle-Hog, as is my wont...

I do like Prince...

"In 1985 I was contacted by Prince's management to do a painting in which little information was given, and I was not to talk about the little that I did know. I was given a one page sheet with thirteen instructions on it such as, "...a fat man hugging a tiger," and "...two men with hair shorter on one side, playing the tambourine."

After reading this I had more than a few questions but was simply told, "...use your imagination."

So, I did. I enjoyed the freedom I was given with this painting and felt that it made for a great collaboration between artist and musician...



Halfway through the painting, I was told that Prince wanted to see it, "First thing when he woke up" which was in Cincinnati, Ohio where he was in concert, even though the painting was not finished, and still wet.

So, being the dedicated artist that I am, I boxed it up, put it in the airplane in the seat next to mine, and we (the painting and I) went to Cincinnati. Two bodyguards came to my room and picked it up. The next day, it returned with simple instructions: "Finish it."

I did and was told he loved it".

Jim Warren

Hell is other people - J-P Sartre...

"L'enfer, c'est les autres"



... And, sometimes I do feel like that...



...I can identify with Jean-Paul Sartre's words...



I visited his grave one day, where he lies side-by-side with his great love, the philosophe, writer and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, in the crowded cemetary of relics, art and architecture that is the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris...



Although gregarious in life, sometimes I like my own company...

Sometimes I just vant to be alone...

Like this Great Lady...

How's about you, mes bloggy buds?!

Knickers to the lot of you!

I've done it again, me bloggy waterhogs... I've been to that dark place... That Statcounter thingummiejig...

I was curious to be looking at where you all come from, where you live, and what brings you here, into Fhina's World, and into her waiting, warm and always loving, embrace...

One of the latest word-searches that has brought some, (probably very disappointed!), traffic to me site, is apparently this one:

"I love going knickerless"



Putting my moue and my upset aside for a moment, I pondered the word, "Knickers..."

knickers

"short, loose-fitting undergarment," now usually for women, 1881, shortening of knickerbockers (1859), said to be so called for their resemblance to those of Dutchmen in Cruikshank's illustrations from Washington Irving's "History of New York" (see knickerbocker).

So knickers stems from knickerbockers...

Doesn't it sound old fashioned and a bit naughty? Is it mainly used by the English, or does the term travel the Pond?

It used to be more frequently used as a good substitute for a swear word, when you're not too serious about what's got your knickers in a twist in the first place...

My Other Half occasionally reverts to his youth, brought up in a bizarrely politically extrovert, and yet hypocritically repressive, family... And he emits the word, "Knickers!"

It always makes me laugh out loud...

Knickers to the lot of you! ;)