The Headington Shark and Morris Dancing

I can't remember how we ended up finding out about the Headington Shark; more than likely it was just through a google search on Oxford. When I first saw the picture, I thought it was a joke, but then I did a few more searches and came to the conclusion that it must be real. Of course, I wasn't really convinced, so when Rich and I went to pick up our pizza this evening (how can you not eat while watching the Sopranos- they're always eating!!), we decided to go and find it. Lo and behold, we drove down London Road as we often do, and as soon as we turned off on New High Street, there it was, clear as day. How we had never noticed the 25-foot long shark in the roof before is beyond me.

The story behind it, or so I'm led to believe, is that an American who was studying at Balliol College and owned two cinemas in Oxford, placed the shark in his roof on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki in 1986. According to one website (http://www.headington.org.uk/history/misc/shark.htm), his rationale for placing it there is as follows: 'The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation.... It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.'



So that was interesting... but not quite as interesting as stumbling upon the folk festival that was going on in Oxford yesterday. Rich and I got up early on Saturday and decided to walk into the city centre (just noticed I used the British spelling again on centre- just did it again... to end a word with 'er' or 're'... that is the question) to buy some quality coffee beans for our morning coffee. On our way there, we found the same French market that was in Henley on Thames (the same guy who sold us real tomatoes there was there again). We went to the bakery stand to get a pastry for breakfast and after waiting for what seemed like 10 minutes but was probably only 2, the woman asked me what I wanted and then told me that I had to form a line, so Rich, myself and the two or three other people standing next to us who hadn't realized there was a line (I don't think there actually was until they told us), had to wait behind the group of people who had just arrived and formed a line. As the British guy commented, these French people are taking the British concept of queuing up a bit too far! I told Rich that the French woman working there was what I was expecting all French people to be like in France (but they were actually a lot friendlier than I had anticipated- unlike her).

That was a bit of a tangent. Anyhow, after the agonizing purchase of my pastry (ok, so it wasn't that bad... and it was rather tasty), we walked over to St. Aldates Street where all the shops are and found a bunch of Morris Dancers. (See pics below, which I've borrowed from the world wide web.)



Rich told me about Morris Dancing when we first arrived, so I was really looking forward to seeing it. It was kind of 'tribal' (if that's not pc, I apologize) and reminded me of Native Americans and their sun dancing with the feathers in their hair, bells on their legs and feet, chanting, and dancing to a drum beat.

It's no wonder, really, because it (apparently) dates back to pre-Christianity times. Some say it was done in the Springtime for fertility and luck. In the 1500s, the church adapted the dances for Easter, May Day and other events to raise money for the church. Apparently, the most common form of morris dancing is known as the Cotswald dancing. Of that, the oldest continuous form is supposedly that of the Headington tradition, which is from the Headington region of Oxford, which is where we (and the Headington Shark) are currently located.