Something new and different - a poem which combines (all too literally) a Fool and an Animal. Adrian Waters of Kits Coty Morris pens odes for the delectation of his club at their Feasts. He sent me a copy of his latest opus, and you can read it at A Fool Confession. Naturally, the Cafe would welcome other offerings in this genre (see, I know all the posh words, so if you've got them, let's have them. If necessary, anonymity will be preserved.
Ron Shuttleworth, who many of you will know as the man who keeps the Ring's archive on Folk Plays, etc.,is a man who has seen and done a lot of Morris, so his views at Gooseberry Fool are well worth reading.
Even better, Ron has very kindly allowed the Cafe to publish, for the first time on the Web, his well-known paper on "Constructing a Hobby Animal". As Ron explains, this was originally written for a FU Fools & Animals workshop, where it proved immensely popular, and it has been growing ever since. It is (probably) the best and most complete guide to Beast construction in print. I'm grateful to Ron for writing it, and letting the Cafe publish it.
A few items that have accumulated:-
For animal lovers everywhere, I recommend a visit to Banbury Hobby Horse Festival 2000, the record of July's inaugural event. If you ARE an Animal, and would like to come to Banbury in 2001, click here
I wrote last year: The Illustrious Order of United Fools website is small, but someday someone will provide lots of interesting input, perhaps after the F&A weekend in October (hint, hint)? Well, that one fell on deaf ears, didn't it?
Phill Lister has written about the Green Man in history and about Phill's own activities in the role of the Green Man with The Breinton Morris. Both pieces are well worth a read.
Thelwall Morris Men is another club with a history of Fooling which is long in duration but short in numbers. For the long and short of it, a picture of their fools past and present is at the fools, and this links to an article about the Thelwall Fools at Fools' Story
The Crying Game is a piece I wrote about my job as announcer with St Albans Morris Men.