An English Country Garden

I please total innocence when I posted those links! I have checked back through it and I realise that it may be a wee bit suspect as you have pointed out.....but the BNP? Are you sure? Do you base that assertion simply because the site features waving Union flags? Does it mean then that the flag of the UK is a symbol of extreme right wing nationalism if it is shown in that way in any internet site? It never occurred to me when I saw them so maybe I am more naive than I thought. AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

In my naivete I posted the first link I could find with the words to the song "English Country Garden" purely to put some music to the words posted by the originator (Anonymous!) of this thread.

I did think afterwards that it was strange that some of the birds listed were species that would never be found in any English garden! I now see that this song is quite an old English song although I had never heard of it before, but I really don't think those "foreign" birds were included in the original lyric. I thought the last verse was funny though. I knew for sure that they were added just for fun.

I thought the other songs I linked to were nice but nothing was further from my mind than the furtherance of the lovely Adam's extreme nationalistic rantings.....and English ones at that!

I'm sorry if I gave offence or appeared to promote something unsavoury.

LOL Damian just scoll down abit after the lyrics and you will see a Link bar promoting the BNP. Don't worry Damian it was an honest mistake LOL...

Actually, the song in question appears on the following album which was originally released on LP in 1976 but remastered on CD in 1991:

NANA MOUSKOURI
Songs Of The British Isles
Philips 838 737-2 Made in Canada 1991

1 He Moved Through The Fair
2 An Eriskay Love Lilt
3 Danny Boy
4 An English Country Garden
5 O Waly Waly
6 Ar Hyd Nos (All Through The Night)
7 Spinning Wheel
8 Lullaby (Suo Gan)
9 Skye Boat Song
10 The Ash Grove (Llwyn On)
11 Early One Morning
12 I Gave My Love A Cherry (Goraguer)

I simply cut and pasted the lyrics (as they are sung on track 4 of this album) from another website. I cannot vouch for the geographic accuracy of the various specious of plants and animals named therein.

I actually thought that this song was rather "quirky" and lighthearted and would be a pleasant change from some of the nastiness I've read on this board.

To be perfectly honest, I never thought my original message would even get a single response. To be brutally honest, I was even kind of expecting the webmaster (or webmistress) of this site to delete it since it is merely cultural in nature and does not directly pertain to grammar or pronunciation (although it does bring up some rather interesting vocabulary).

In any case, I'm pleasantly surprised that some people actually took the time to read it and I thank you all for your responses.

"Yeah...right......you never would hear that song anywhere on the British club scene. In fact, I've never heard of it but I like the lyric...sort of. I looked it up on the web and it's there. "

You wouldn't have said that if he sang "Flower of Scotland."

"LOL OMFG WTF jeez Damian you realise that the links are from a BNP site? How ironic after you used to complain about Adam's posts.. and here you giving the link to the BNP. "

Where's the evidence that this - http://12121.hostinguk.com/englishgarden.htm - is a BNP site?

Also, there is less chance of a Far Right party being elected in Britain that there is on the Continent, in places such as France, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Le Pen was almost voted in by the notoriously foreigner-hating French, and also Jorg Haider was, I think, elected in Austria, and both of those two are Far Right.

However, in Britain, a lot less people vote for Far Right parties than Continental Europeans do, and BNP has never come close to being elected.

Upon Westminister Bridge
William Wordsworth, 1770-1850

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Soldier
Rupert Brooke, 1887-1915

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blessed by the suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts a peace, under an English heaven.

<Where's the evidence that this - http://12121.hostinguk.com/englishgarden.htm - is a BNP site? >

Well let me correct my statement. Where you see the quote:

"May we offer our sincere condolences to the relatives of
the victims of terrorism throughout this troubled world."

There is a hyperlink box below promoting the BNP

Click on the Box and find out where it goes =) you will be suprised

ADAM: Hello, my wee Sassenach pal!

Firstly, I'm as familiar with "Flower of Scotland" as I am with the back of my hand when I examine my neatly trimmed nails. Go to any footie game in Scotland and F of S will shatter your eardrums. So of course I wouldn't have made the same comment as I did about the title song. I had never heard of it before...well, it IS about an English country garden, is it not?

Secondly, Adam.......it should be "fewer" people and not "less" but that is a moot point really as the use of either word is more or less acceptable, in the UK anyway.

As for dodgepot extremist political parties...extreme right or extreme left...you are probably right (as in correct!) about the number of people in Britain who would vote for these oddballs. They are less likely to to gain power in the traditionally conservative (small c) UK than they would be in most Continental countries. Extremism in any form in Britain died with Oliver Comwell in 1659.

The BNP barely manages to scrape more than a handful of votes together in any of the few Parliamentary seats where they put up a candidate and usually do worse than the other fringe "jokey anything for a laugh" cranks with loony outfits who stand along with the rest on the podium when the election results are announced. But as this is a democracy they are perfectly entitled to stand for election.

If I had realised the BNP were involved in that link I wouldn't have bothered with this thread.

Well, the verse you're talking about, "There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover," has nothing to do with birds at all. You see, during world war two, many Canadian women went overseas to be medics and such. They were affectionately nicknamed, "Bluebirds." I feel that the bluebird, being a bird indigenous to America, must in that song be referring to said Canadian women.

Thank you for your time,

Patrick O'Neil