Tallying Bananas in Settle

We were going to pay a visit to Malham Cove again today to watch the brass band play Christmas tunes, it’s a nice start to the festive period. (Note: Kerry got a little upset when I mentioned she doesn’t like Brass Bands in my post ‘Hard(raw) Cheese’, she does like them. We were watching the ‘Hot 8 Brass Band’ on the hootenanny and she brought it up. To clarify, I don’t think she’s too keen on the British traditional brass band (28 piece, the type you’d find in Brighouse or Otley dressed in summat like a Sally Army outfit) but a brass band associated with hip-hop or funk she does like.)

Any road, we stopped in Settle to get something for lunch and we noticed it was the Christmas lights switch on day and a quick glance of the internet showed that Settle had really pushed the boat out this year. The world’s largest Christmas light maze was coming to Settle, Elvis Costello was playing, Dweezil Zappa and even Tenacious D with Jack Black. There was even a theatre production, a very forward contemporary looking one called ‘Homo for the Holiday: Jingle all the Gay’, and I found myself thinking ‘Go on Settle, good for you’. But deep within my heart I knew that obviously the Yorkshire Dales wasn’t quite ready for homosexuality on this scale yet and I feared for the riots and pitchforks that would follow. I had actually typed ‘Seattle’ into the search engine instead of ‘Settle’!

However, Settle did have a truck and there would be artistes on in the afternoon. The guy that opened was Usifu Jalloh, an instantly likeable chap with an infectious smile and a black man from Africa. Once again, but slightly more cautiously, I thought ‘Go on Settle, good for you’. It isn’t the most culturally diverse place on the planet but Settle was trying to change all that. They had flown a black man in from Africa (naturally!) and had asked him to bring his own ‘bongo’ (they all have them!), they had probably also asked him to sing the song “Come on Mr Tallyman, tally mi banana”, which he did. And although I initially thought that he wasn’t doing much to prevent racial stereo-typing I guess you have to break these rural Yorkshire folk in slowly.

Joking aside, we had a very pleasant afternoon in Settle and Usifu was great.

"The Howgills"

"Graffiti (Not done by me!)"

"Usifu Jalloh"