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Lerwick Up Helly Aa


peeriebryan
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Female squad members in Lerwick Up Helly Aa (2022 poll)  

26 members have voted

  1. 1. In principle, should women be allowed to participate in Lerwick Up Helly-Aa as squad members?

    • Yes
      11
    • No
      15
  2. 2. Is logistics (already high numbers of guizers, waiting lists for squads etc) a valid reason not to allow women to participate in Lerwick Up Helly-Aa as squad members?

    • Yes
      15
    • No
      11
  3. 3. The current ‘male only’ squad member demographic of Lerwick Up Helly-Aa is….

    • Sexist
      8
    • Traditional
      18


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To any I have offended with my post, I do apologise. It was written as a doting (and ten year dry) grandparent who lives and loves to see the looks in my young granchildren's eyes at special times of the year such as Christmas and UHA. Before the world knocks it out of them. Slightly (slightly?!) mawkish and embarassing on the re-read and perhaps better kpt to my self. :oops:

 

It's still what I think about the night though! :wink:

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To any I have offended with my post, I do apologise. It was written as a doting (and ten year dry) grandparent who lives and loves to see the looks in my young granchildren's eyes at special times of the year such as Christmas and UHA. Before the world knocks it out of them. Slightly (slightly?!) mawkish and embarassing on the re-read and perhaps better kpt to my self. :oops:

 

It's still what I think about the night though! :wink:

 

As a kid, I def loved UHA, maybe because I was addicted to fire and that much fire and burning did make me look in amazement. There is still some magic at Xmas, I mean, everybody gets a present of some kind. Put it this way, I've never been turned away from dinner because I wasn't in the Xmas squad.

 

St. Patrick's day is a bit out of control as everybody believes they are Irish, which of course isn't true. However, I just don't like the exclusive aspect of UHA. I think it's the people that take it too seriously that get to me. I mean, if I want to dress up in a cool viking outfit like the Jarl squad, I think I should be allowed to - regardless if the Jarl knows me or not. Still it is a spectacle for the tourists, but personally that novelty wore off on me at 8 yrs old.

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Strip away all the dressing up and drinking, the exclusivity and excess, and still you're left with a very powerful symbol at its core ....

 

WIMI, the thing that strikes me about UHA is the burning of the object that 'da boys' have worked so hard to make beautiful (we may argue over aesthetic merits of that, of course) ... in this respect, it is pure Dada ... art that exists for one performance only, and is destroyed in the performance.

 

Thus it suggests the transience of all human effort, of all materiality ... and whether by design or not, it strikes to the very core our mortality ...

 

Or sumthien laek dat ...

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Strip away all the dressing up and drinking, the exclusivity and excess, and still you're left with a very powerful symbol at its core ....

 

WIMI, the thing that strikes me about UHA is the burning of the object that 'da boys' have worked so hard to make beautiful (we may argue over aesthetic merits of that, of course) ... in this respect, it is pure Dada ... art that exists for one performance only, and is destroyed in the performance.

 

Thus it suggests the transience of all human effort, of all materiality ... and whether by design or not, it strikes to the very core our mortality ...

 

Or sumthien laek dat ...

 

8O - well that's one way of looking at it.

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a pagan festival
wrote vailron.

 

The forerunner of up helly aa may have have started as a pagan festival, like Christmas, but like Christmas there is not much sign of religion now.

 

Outwith the Committee and its past current and future membership, there isn't much sign of exclusivity.

 

Our squad for example stared off as a bunch of friends from a certain gruelly head community. Over the years the membership has remained mostly within the same group of people and their children. We have recently taken in people from as far away as Cunningsburgh however and even Da Ness!! {crossing myself furiously here} (and yes no longer have to be a Lerwegian, sigh) Of course to get invited in you have to be someone that the majority like and is not restricted to purebreds. GruellyHeadVille is a diverse melting pot these days, but it is nice that on Tranny Tuesday we Ancient Ones get together as a group and rebond into our old Gruelly tribe.

 

Unless confronted by terrifying people of the other sex we are all always up for a dance, even at the toon hall.

 

We Never dress i' weemins claes usually.

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the thing that strikes me about UHA is the burning of the object

 

Indeed, I couldn't agree more. In this day and age they really shouldn't be letting an old man with a beard perish in such a way!

 

Now that would make him the Fisher King and not the Guizer Jarl ... bit mebbie dat wid be a fair price ta pay fir haein siccan a honour? An nae doot a certain class a tourists wid flock nort joost ta smell da sweein flesh o him ... :lol:

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WIMI, the thing that strikes me about UHA is the burning of the object that 'da boys' have worked so hard to make beautiful (we may argue over aesthetic merits of that, of course) ... in this respect, it is pure Dada ... art that exists for one performance only, and is destroyed in the performance.

 

Now that, ex-isle, is a fascinating idea.

 

Up-Helly Aa as Dadaist representation of our most fundamental fear.

I wonder if the guizers are aware of the depth of expression they're involved in acting out? :wink:

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Women and their pleepsin about exclusivity, i don't know. Being a fan of (eating) homebakes i might fairly enjoy a membership of the SWRI, but i canna see that happening, yet i dunna get in a twist about it. :P

 

 

 

bit like the buy a woman a tool for the kitchen they accuse you of being sexist.. yet when they buy you a tool for the garden shed.. you darent look disgruntled.

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I don't want to read through 6 pages - lazy lazy, and I promise this isn't intended to be one of those hard BigMouth questions, but I have been here for a number of years and have not yet got to Up Helly Aa, despite on one occasion living only a few hundred yards from the Lk UHA shed. My question is, are there any squads with soothmoothers in them?

 

Ooh ooh, I have another!! Have there ever been anyone of erm ...er ... erm, an obviously ethnic persuasion in a squad?

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UHA in Lerwick started of as nothing more than a big party for lerik boys. A way of letting off steam after a hard winter (tells you all about it in the programme) the Viking thing was only eked on as it became more organised.

 

Plenty of soothmoothers take part in UHA , the current rule is you have to have lived in Shetland for 5 years. As for ethnics probably not many have taken part but that’s mainly because there's not many here.

 

Just because something’s not completely politically correct or inclusive doesn't make it a bad thing. We've lost so much of what makes us special to the PC police already. If you enjoy it as a spectacle then just leave it at that.

 

UHA doesn't need analysed.

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Plenty of soothmoothers take part in UHA , the current rule is you have to have lived in Shetland for 5 years.

 

I seem to recall that the only exception to the 5 year rule is with the Jarl Squad. Can they not invite anyone they see fit into the squad? I don't believe it happens regularly but it does happen.

 

As for ethnics probably not many have taken part but that's mainly because there's not many here.

 

Blasphemy! Is Shetland and indeed 'Shetlanders' not in itself an ethnic minority? :)

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