venta

So, this year Good Friday saw me getting up hideously early and fighting my way through the crowds at Heathrow. I've never flown at Easter before. I think my advice is "don't". Queues. More queues. Queues to join queues. Heathrow had clearly expected an influx, and arranged extra holding pens for grumpy tourists. What they hadn't done was point out to their staff that explanations really help. Just shouting at people "go over there" isn't useful. I want to check in for a Lufthansa flight. Accordingly, I head for the massive Lufthansa check-in sign. If you want me to go the opposite way and walk through a door labelled Cyprus Airlines you really need to tell me that that's actually where the back of the Lufthansa check-in queue is. Cue a lot of quite stressed staff and quite stressed passengers.

Having arrived the recommended two hours before flying, we queued for two and a quarter. Fortunately, it seems the plane was queueing somewhere as well.

( Then it was off to Lower Saxony )

I regularly blather on here about dancing with swords. What I mention a bit less frequently is that I also go to modern jive classes with some regularity.

On Sunday, at the 80s night in Whitby, mrph and I were briefly discussing general jive and swing dancing (which I thought he'd taken up a while ago, but it seems not - or he was keeping very quiet). And it made me think: hey, the world would be a much better place if more people could break out in jiving occasionally.

Assuming everyone conforms to traditional gender roles, this is why you should try it:

Girls - you can have a great time and look fabulous even if you know nowt just by dancing with a competent guy. Also, once you've learned to follow (and in jive, that's pretty easy) then you're streets ahead for picking up any other form of partner dancing.

Guys - you will always be in demand, because classes are always a bit short on guys. Also, once you're willing to actually take on the odd bit of dancing here and there, (at least a certain subset of) women will think you're brilliant at parties.

( A caveat and some waffling )

Are there any other practitioners of jive/Ceroc/swing/lindy/that sort of thing around these parts? If so, please confess in the comments... I wanna dance with you!

Earlier today, someone sent me a link to one of the government's petitions. In this case:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Include dance within the historical re-enactment or Sporting Activity exemption for the purchase of swords in reference to the Violent Crimes Reduction Bill."

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/dancers/

Which all sounds fine, and something I'm happy to sign. However, perusing the Violent Crimes Reduction Bill, there doesn't seem to be any mention of swords in it at all. I wish people would be more specific and citative[*] when writing these gov.uk petitions.

I've signed the petition, because I think the issue does arise, though in the Draft Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) Order 2008. That's about banning Samurai swords - which they define as curved swords more than 50cm in length. This definition would catch a few non-Samurai dancing swords (mostly from belly dancing, or European sword dancing traditions)[**]. It's clear that the intention of the Amendment would not be to ban swords used for dance purposes, but it'd be nice if it were specifically stated (as it is for martial arts, re-enactment, etc).

I've yet to establish whether the Violent Crimes Reduction Bill and the Criminal Justice Act Amendement interact with each other or are in any way related. Can anyone offer me any tips on how to comprehend the parliament publications ? I'm finding them a bit vast and intractable.

Right, I promise to stop banging on about sword dancing for a bit now.

[*] Yes, thank you, that is a word. Because I say so.
[**] Out of interest it also catches things like 18th century British cavalry sabres, something which is discussed in the report linked above.