St George's Day

Happy St George's Day! I hope many of you are going out to celebrate with just as much gusto as we all celebrate St Patrick's night. So That'll be a quiet night in the snug and a dragon artistically arranged in relief on the head of your pint of bitter.
Bizarrely, we will be going to the usual Irish Session tonight although in the past an English Tune or two has been played in honour of England's Patron Saint.
If anyone knows how England came to get a Turkish Soldier in the Roman Army as our Patron Saint I'd like to hear the story. He is Patron Saint of a lot of other places as well so he was obviously a popular chap. I expect Mummers and Morris, singarounds and sessions throughout England at the very least to celebrate and it should be declared a Bank Holiday! Let's campaign for it. Real Ale for all and Jerusalem as an anthem.

Now, you know the trouble we've had identifying what sort of event Thursday night at the Bear is don't you? Well as luck would have it (reminds me of an Adrian O' story), last Friday I was attending an Investors in People workshop at Eastwell Manor. I must explain that this was an enforced attendance of my alter ego and not something I chose to do although the compensation is that the lunches are fabulous. Anyway, having finished early I decided to drop into fellow sessioneer and banjo miner, Andy Perkins at the Banjo Works in Faversham to say hello. Unbeknown to me, while I was playing a fabulous John Abbott Monarch Tenor banjo which had been recently restored, there was some discussion in the other room of this very Diary....

When I joined them, I explained the quandary over classifying the event on Thursday as it seemed to be an Open Mic (err, without a Mic) crossed with Mike Wheeler and Friends Entertain whereupon a suggestion was made that it should be called an 'Open Mike' session. Brilliant!