Forest of Fools - Glether Me Hinges

Every August I would visit my friend Andy in Thame Oxfordshire, and walk to the Towersey folk festival. Towersey has run for over fifty years, one of the longest-running annual festivals in the UK, although like many other festivals it was run online last year due to covid-19 restrictions.

We first went to the festival to see Kate Rusby, but ended up going every year for twelve years. We had both, in our late 30s, become folkies. Mrs Oblong was a compere at the Cambridge folk club, which I thus became obliged to frequent, and slowly our record collections mutated from thrashing indie guitars to the gentle tinkle of mandolins.

Alas, though the festival is still going it has moved away from its home of fifty years and I can no longer crash on Andy's sofa and potter to the festival from his flat.  Things move on. The festival is no longer accessible to me, and during lockdown I've been back listening to the thrashing guitar music on a daily basis.  

The last band I ever saw at Towersey was Forest of Fools, who feature a euphonium, an accordion, a beatbox and a rapper, playing electronic dance versions of traditional morris tunes. No, this is not my usual taste in music. But they were good, impossible not to dance to. So good in fact that I bought the T-shirt.

If I never return to Towersey then the shirt will serve a souvenir, a reminder of twelve years of eclectic and glorious music, from favourite bands oft revisited like the Oysterband and Kerr & Fagin, to unexpected wonders, like the Peagbog Faeries and Forest of Fools.

What does 'Glether me Hinges' mean? I've no idea. It's almost certainly rude, probably an in-joke of the band's, but importantly if you search google you won't find it, so I can wear the shirt without offending anyone. I can even quote it on abctales with a 15 rating!