Are traditions important?

[Dave2002]

If your life is so grey that it needs to be livened up by watching men in funny hats marching up and down, maybe you should get out a bit more! (Or get your own funny hat)

Or watch Eastenders or Corrie ....

[french frank]

Or watch Eastenders or Corrie ....

A tradition becomes a ritual. Some people listen to The Archers every day too.
But it can be no different from attending Party Conference every year. Or watching firework displays on Bonfire Night. Or going to the Proms. Or watching Morris Dancers on 1 May (is the garb any less funny?) Or any number of entertainments that happen every year. People watch/listen to them.

[P. G. Tipps]

p. g. tipps

If your life is so grey that it needs to be livened up by watching men in funny hats marching up and down, maybe you should get out a bit more! (Or get your own funny hat)

Not entirely out of character you make a quite illogical and unconnected assumption.

Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, the Edinburgh Tattoo etc are well worth a visit ... have you never been?

I suspect I may 'need to get out' rather less than the "average" musician/composer and I'm already blessed with quite a few 'funny hats', thank you ... in fact I have one just like Jeremy Corbyn's!

[Dave2002]

A tradition becomes a ritual. Some people listen to The Archers every day too.

I banned The Archers in our house earlier this year, so it only gets listened to on headphones, or when I'm out. This saves me at least 90 minutes each week.

[Zucchini]

I banned The Archers in our house earlier this year ...

And me. They do terrible damage to the curtains

[Richard Barrett]

Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, the Edinburgh Tattoo etc are well worth a visit ... have you never been?

Surely you jest.

[ahinton]

Not entirely out of character you make a quite illogical and unconnected assumption.

Sorry, but I don't buy that. You wrote that the things concerned "add a huge dollop of colour to the greyness of much of mundane, everyday life", so where is the absence of logic or connection in Richard's assumption?

Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, the Edinburgh Tattoo etc are well worth a visit ... have you never been?

Whilst there's nothing inherently wrong with visiting these, the "military flummery" to which you drew favourable attention does not have to be respected, still less admired and enjoyed, by those who do so; moreover, public military or militaristic displays are surely things to incite shame and prick consciences rather than command respect, admiration or enjoyment, although one would arguably have to see some in order fully to appreciate that.

[ahinton]

A tradition becomes a ritual. Some people listen to The Archers every day too.

But it can be no different from attending Party Conference every year. Or watching firework displays on Bonfire Night. Or going to the Proms. Or watching Morris Dancers on 1 May (is the garb any less funny?) Or any number of entertainments that happen every year. People watch/listen to them.

A tradition - or a "tradition" - might or might not become a ritual, but a ritual (such as listening to each episode of the once incorrectly described "everyday story of country folk"* that is BBC Radio's longest running soap The Archers) surely doesn't always stem from a tradition, or "tradition"?

Likewise, attending a political party conference or watching Bonfire Night firework displays annually might be an acquired habit but the tradition - or "tradition" - is surely the party conferences of the Bonfire Night displays themselves? "Going to the Proms" is no different to attending any other concert (apart from the fact that promenading there is unusual) but it might be argued that the Proms themselves have now become a kind of tradition - or "tradition" - purely because they've been held annually since 1895. Discretion precludes me from commenting on Morris Dancers or anyone who watches them. The mare fact that some people watch/listen annual entertainments annually again does not, it seems to me, constitute a tradition - or "tradition" - in and of itself, even if the events themselves might have come to be perceived by some, rightly or wrongly, as representing such.

[cloughie]

I banned The Archers in our house earlier this year.

How very democratic. This is the 21st century - just because you don't like it - surely an element of choice should be available!

[MrGongGong]

How very democratic. This is the 21st century - just because you don't like it - surely an element of choice should be available!

I think Dave is channeling his inner Titchener

[Serial_Apologist]

Not entirely out of character you make a quite illogical and unconnected assumption.

Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, the Edinburgh Tattoo etc are well worth a visit ... have you never been?

I suspect I may 'need to get out' rather less than the "average" musician/composer and I'm already blessed with quite a few 'funny hats', thank you ... in fact I have one just like Jeremy Corbyn's!

With your love of military parades you'd doubtless be very happy living in N Korea, I would imagine.

[ahinton]

With your love of military parades you'd doubtless be very happy living in N Korea, I would imagine.

That notion had occurred to me as well although I thought better of expressing it; however, I suspect that, were he indeed to relocate there, he would most sorely miss the cut-and-thrust of discussion on this forum (and I also doubt that he'd be able to avail himself of a supply of P. G. Tips in Pyongyang)...

[P. G. Tipps]

p. g. tipps

I banned The Archers in our house earlier this year, so it only gets listened to on headphones, or when I'm out. This saves me at least 90 minutes each week.

Surely that is a somewhat dictatorial and quite shockingly exclusive attitude, Dave ... ?

I am, like all true liberals, very much for INCLUSIVENESS ... we now must willingly embrace the whims and desires of all minorities, however thoroughly bizarrre these may seem to us ... yes, even being forced to listen to The Archers.

Easy, huh ... ?

[Dave2002]

Surely that is a somewhat dictatorial and quite shockingly exclusive attitude, Dave ... ?

I don't ban people listening - only in areas where I might hear the wretched programme. They can listen on headphones, or when I'm out etc. I just don't want to hear it any more.