A RIGHT OLD KNEES-UP

A simple, traditional Brit like me enjoys songs about knees, which are faintly comical parts of our anatomy, the most famous being:

Knees up Mother Brown

Knees up Mother Brown

Under the table you must go

Ee-aye, Ee-aye, Ee-aye-oh

If I catch you bending

I'll saw your legs right off

Knees up, knees up

don't get the breeze up

Knees up Mother Brown.

The song dates from about 1918 and is ranked as a Cockney London song, much performed at dances and parties along with The Hokey-Cokey or The Lambeth Walk. It is slightly ribald as the song may be implying that raised knees are a crucial sexual position. Popular at fun gatherings in holiday camps of old were Knobbly Knees contests and even today celebs of the eminence of Angelina Jolie and Kate Moss attract rude comment for their boney knees. My own knees, I can assure readers, are things of beauty, fleshy, sturdy, with ne’er a knobble!

    

                             Knobbly-knees contestants

Suddenly, innocent knees have entered the political arena, a bubbling maelstrom of madness at this particular moment. The pictures below tell the story;

                                        Nancy Pelosi leads US Democrats in obeisance

                                           Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner feebly kneel

 Colston statue dumped by Bristol mob

  Des Moines police kneel pathetically before a mob

Seldom have I seen such an abject sight, American and then British political leaders grandstanding in self-righteous indignation at the behest of black extremists and activists. Criminality ignored or excused to appease a community which has genuine historic grievances, but which is never above the law. Not a word from an ethnic ‘leader” condemning violence by their supporters, or suggesting rational ways of eliminating the scourge of racism.

Oh, I forgot Sadiq Khan, whom Londoners freely elected as their Mayor, has set up a commission to report on statue removals and name changes in the capital. Already Robert Milligan, a slaver, has been removed from West India Docks as will blameless Robert Baden-Powell from Poole. Thomas Guy, patron of Guy’s Hospital is in Sadiq’s sights, and his associated rabble also propose to remove Nelson from his Column, Francis Drake from Plymouth, Cecil Rhodes from Oxford, Gladstone from Liverpool, Henry Dundas from Edinburgh and Captain Cook from Whitby.

All this has more to do with anti-colonialism, than racism but it is slanted to create a new narrative for British history, one I would guess 99% of us would utterly reject. Anyway, the mob is on its way, breathing fire and fury, and armed with 10 tons of humbug. Our police protectors have their guard down and our politicians are terrified of taking any sort of stand. As Baden-Powell always advised us:  BE PREPARED!

                  Baden-Powell benignly sits in Poole

SMD

11.06.20

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2020