Part 1 - Blue Nights

I'm a blues dancer.

Okay, I've been to one lesson.
Get lost.
Who made you Bruno Toniolo?

It was a small firm crowd on top of a pub I used to frequent as a student in a regular Friday evening which followed a weekly faculty meeting, the sort sponsored by somebody puts on a barrel of Fed special, King of Beers (ahem).
And there was an American instructor, guesting from the West Coast.
As she had a strange accent that I hadn't heard on the Anglesey Ferry, and she didn't look as though she'd just stolen my hubcaps (credit to Ken Dodd), or taking a photograph of some fucking rainbow on the Isle of Skye, I assumed it wasn't the British West Coast she was originating from. But, to be honest with you I didn't give a monkeys. I wasn't there to make friends. I'm not social.  I can prove it. Even my friends don't like me.
I was there to learn how to learn a task.
And acquit in a semi-adequate manner.
Are you happy now, Craig Revel fucking Horwood?

(Note to self: no Rioja after midnight)

So I went to the class,

Blues .... not the modern stuff in this clip which I rather like..

Apparently this too counts as modern blues dancing.
(I'm just learning that modern blues dancing doesn't need the blues.. and that ain't no bad thing, mama! The dog will certainly be relieved and it really makes me feel as though don't absolutely have to paint that porch swing this year.)

I did find one thing that was very odd..(apart from an instructor who covered her feet with trousers that look like two floaty fabric bags, so it was hard to see her feet).

This is what happened.... and I can't explain it unless it was some American Politically Correct thing.

"Who wants to lead?" she said.
At this point there's just a few more women than there was men.
And a few of the women put their hand up.
So the women started dancing with the women.
Leaving some of the men to dance with the men.

I have to say I wondered if I walked into some sort of lesbian birthing-pool surrogate-mother men-hating annual night out or menstrual get-together , and three or four pussy-whipped geriatric men had been sent out of the house, because the girls were coming round to watch Dirty Dancing.
Actually...swap out Dirty Dancing for... I don't know... what movies did chicks like.... something with cancer in.... Beaches? I haven't seen it but it's almost certainly features something as entertaining as terminal disease.

But it turns out that it wasn't some sort of "Why men are bastards and always will be!" workshop.
I had in fact got the right night after all and it was a Blues class above a local pub.

There is always a slight gender imbalance in every class in every genre, sometimes one way sometimes the other. It doesn't matter. Nobody comes in pairs. But to create one by pairing up women unnecessarily was very strange, you might say antisocial even. (Which would normally suit me just fine).

But it became obvious to me that this is a male led partner dance.
It is really. But also it's not really. It's complicated.
But whether you're leading or following, you might as well do it with somebody of the opposite gender if they happen to be in the same room, Rather than with grandad Geordie from down the road.

I was perplexed. It made me feel like the instructor thought traditional dancing was 'sexist'.
The random reader (there aren't any) may have speculated that political correctness is not my "thing".

So I e-mailed the boss. (The boss of the event. Not of me).

And she replied .....

but good night for now.....