As I am looking in Covid 19 time among others to "Midsomer Murders"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsomer_Murders 

I learned a lot about English country life (I guess  ) in fact about English life tout court (at all?)

But what I haven't seen is a "kermis/kermesse" (Kirmes? German?)
The word is translated by "fair" but that has seemingly nothing to do with our Belgian "kermis/kermesse"? 

Perhaps the Northern French/Belgian/Dutch/North-West Germany "kermesse" exist also in England, but it is not represented in Midsomerset because it are small villages overthere? Although one had a yearly "kermis" in each small village overhere.

A "kermis" as the Ostend "octoberfoor" ("foor" from "fair"? as in "foorkramers". And even that is not easy to translate. As I find at the end after some difficult research: "a person who has a fairyground attraction?" In Dutch it as also a connotation of "gypsie". As in English?)

But back to our Ostend Octoberfoor, and it is not "that"! much changed since my first visit, now some 70 years ago in my childhood!   )



Immediately followed by a video about an equal one at the Nothern French Calais (Kales)

Paul, I think you are referring to what is known as a "fete" in English, or in Wallon as a "fancy fair" ... ironic no, that English uses a French term while the French/Walloon equivalent is English? And yes in my childhood in southern England, they were a regular fixture of the summer holiday season. There was the school fete (mostly to try and raise money) but then also the big summer fete for the whole town, usually in a big public park or other 'common land'  ... with carnival rides (carousel/roundabouts, a big-wheel and dodgem cars etc), fancy-dress competitions, pony gymkana, dog-show, charity stalls, lucky-dip, raffles (or rifles as its known in French), ice-creams, beer-tents, and all the other opportunities for people to spend their pocket money while having 'fun'.

Meles meles wrote:

Paul, I think you mean what is known as a "fete" in English, or in Wallon as a "fancy fair" ... ironic no, that English uses a French term while the French/Walloon equivalent is English? And yes in my childhood in southern England, they were a regular fixture of the summer holiday season.

Thanks MM for the explanation. I hadn't access to my own message anymore overhere due to a virus. I had to change to Explorer to be able to have access again and by removing my last youtube about the Calais kermesse the virus is gone and I can again post on my message overhere. I will follow perhaps the latest recommendation from nordmann to have his recommended  anti virus sites overhere on this browser...

And yes the Walloon "fancy fair". But is this an equivalent for a "kermis/kermesse"? In my opinion at least? is a fancy fair in Flemish and Walloon a fair with a good cause? a charity?. I said it already I understand Comic Monster how difficult it is to translate English in Spanish...

And even "fete"?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fete

Perhaps "a fairground?" or just as I find "a fair?"...but I want an equivalent in English for the Ostend foor as seen in my youtube?...

And do such "kermis/kermesse/Kirmes" as in the Benelux, Northern France, West Germany exist in England?

Kind regards, Paul.

NB: I have just changed my sentence as it tends to misunderstanding:
"And do such "things" as in the Benelux, Northern France?, Northern Germany? exist in England?"
into:
"And do such "kermis/kermesse/Kirmes" as in the Benelux, Northern France, West Germany exist in England?"

OOPS MM, I see that you edited your message while I was composing mine. 
Yes perhaps as with your additions, but I still hesitate... ...

See you tomorrow again for further...
Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

And yes the Walloon "fancy fair". But is this an equivalent for a "kermis/kermesse"? In my opinion at least? is a fancy fair in Flemish and Walloon a fair with a good cause? a charity?.

And do such "things" as in the Benelux, Northern France?, Northern Germany? exist in England?

Re, fetes for charities and good causes?

In the 1960s and '70s in our small town in southern England, the main summer fete was, I think, principally organised by the Round Table charitable organisation, often teamed with another major charity (such as Royal National Institute for the Blind etc) primarily to raise money. Many local organisations and societies (such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, the local football club, the drama group, the brass band, the Red Cross, the Royal National Lifeboat Association, etc) then also used the same event to raise money for their own activities or for simple promotion, and of course the money-making opportunities also attracted professional showmen with their fairground rides and amusements, ice-cream vans, burger stalls etc. There were usually also some smaller events such as the summer church fete run by one or two local churches teaming up together; the hospital fete; and the various school fetes, all run simply to raise money for their own good causes.

I've also been to a local fancy-fair in Mettet, Namur, about 15 years ago. It was organised by the parish church and was essentially the same as the small summer church fetes I remember from England, with locally organised stalls, amusements, competitions and a beer tent (it's Belgium after all) but no big funfair rides (Mettet is only a very small town).

In Britain bigger towns and cities attracted (and I guess still do) regular travelling funfairs which are often the descendents of ancient medieval trade fairs, for example The Hoppings still held in Newcastle upon Tyne, but which in its modern form started in the late 19th century as a Temperance Rally. Such fairs still generate a lot of money for the organisers through rental of the pitches for stalls and car parking etc, though where it all goes I'm not so sure ... probably just into the city council's own coffers.

PS : I also said in my previous post that a raffle, in English, is a rifle, in French ... but actually a raffle is a known as a tombola in French, while a French rifle is what is known in English as bingo. This translating lark is difficult isn't it?

Bingo has been around in the UK for a long time (a recognisable form of it popular in London gentleman's clubs in the 18th century), but only in less than half of which time it has been called "Bingo" - at least according to Victoria Coren Mitchell's BBC programme "Balderdash & Piffle" (all of which series can be found on YouTube and worth a watch if you missed it first time round). The exact moment it went from "Tombola" or "Lotto" to "Bingo" is disputed but the OED trace it back to a patented version of the game produced in the 1920s for playing at home.

"Bingo" as a word in English has a much longer pedigree too, though for most of its existence it has referred to brandy in some form or other, either the drink itself or someone with more than a little fondness for the substance. Which also brings it back to the same clubs, I suppose, but yet with no member credited with the wit or intelligence to combine the concepts in situ apparently (probably no surprise there either).

On the question of fetes they are a remarkably thin tradition in Ireland, and if the term is used at all it still suggests something organised by the Church of Ireland, suggesting that the bulk of the population either used a different term ("sale of work" was the one I grew up with) or didn't organise them at all. Outside the towns and other centres of middle class life fairs seemed to serve the function, and those organised by the "big house" in an area, to which only the tenants would normally be invited, were - from old photos and accounts - probably closest in character to the "village fete" in England. In Norway the tradition gets even thinner. The closest I could find - homemade stuff being sold and judged, some sideshow attractions, "most beautiful baby" competitions and so forth  - were a relatively short lived feature of Lutheran Church fundraising activities between the end of the 19th century and the outbreak of WWII. These went by different names, though Norwegians settled most for "messe" (relation of "kermesse"), a term which covers just about any formal or informal staging of partly commercial activity to which the public is invited, including everything from wartime rallies staged by Quisling to cake sales run by the Norges Bygdekvinnelag (literally "Norway's Village Woman Team" which sounds like something that should be competing in a very sexist edition of "It's A Knockout" but is the local version of the WI).

Meles meles wrote:

Re, fetes for charities and good causes?

In the 1960s and '70s in our small town in southern England, the main summer fete was, I think, principally organised by the Round Table charitable organisation, often teamed with another major charity (such as Royal National Institute for the Blind etc) primarily to raise money. Many local organisations and societies (such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, the local football club, the drama group, the brass band, the Red Cross, the Royal National Lifeboat Association, etc) then also used the same event to raise money for their own activities or for simple promotion, and of course the money-making opportunities also attracted professional showmen with their fairground rides and amusements, ice-cream vans, burger stalls etc. There were usually also some smaller events such as the summer church fete run by one or two local churches teaming up together; the hospital fete; and the various school fetes, all run simply to raise money for their own good causes.

I've also been to a local fancy-fair in Mettet, Namur, about 15 years ago. It was organised by the parish church and was essentially the same as the small summer church fetes I remember from England, with locally organised stalls, amusements, competitions and a beer tent (it's Belgium after all) but no big funfair rides (Mettet is only a very small town).

In Britain bigger towns and cities attracted (and I guess still do) regular travelling funfairs which are often the descendents of ancient medieval trade fairs, for example The Hoppings still held in Newcastle upon Tyne, but which in its modern form started in the late 19th century as a Temperance Rally. Such fairs still generate a lot of money for the organisers through rental of the pitches for stalls and car parking etc, though where it all goes I'm not so sure ... probably just into the city council's own coffers.

PS : I also said in my previous post that a raffle, in English, is a rifle, in French ... but actually a raffle is a known as a tombola in French, while a French rifle is what is known in English as bingo. This translating lark is difficult isn't it?

Thanks MM for your enlightenement about fetes for charities and good causes. 
And again I am a bit troubled to make comparisons with Belgium.
I recognize what you said about the Walloon Mettet, we had the same here in the North too, organized mostly by Catholic schools to raise money. And in my time it was sometimes to rise money for a missionary from the town posted in the Belgian Congo...

As your example of Newcastle that ressembles more with our Oostende foor/kermis but all these events had never to do with charity, just from the "foorkramers" to gain money for their own pocket, as they moved from town to town many times with extended families...
And yes even in the small towns the yearly "kermis" had nothing to do with charity, just the same as in the big cities, but on a lesser level.

MM, you can't imagine it how difficult it is to recognize words, which are perhaps very common for you...

as for instance the English "raffle" that I learn today as being:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/raffle
which let me think that it was the French "raffle", but now I see that it is "rafle"
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafle_du_V%C3%A9lodrome_d%27Hiver
I saw two well known fictional films about it, both mentioned in the list of wiki.

And "rifle"
https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com/dictionnaire/definition/rifle
Lucky that I found also:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle

And today I learned from you about
"but actually a raffle is a known as a tombola in French, while a French rifle is what is known in English as bingo. "
I see: if I understand it well:
bingo/rifle (we call it a "lotto" with "lottokaarten" and "lottos" from 1 to 99 in a sac...)
raffle/tombola (we call it also a tombola)


Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann, thank you for your explanation about "bingo" and about my new learned English word "fetes".
 
An aside about bingo...
I was for work on visit to our factory in England some fifty miles above London. After work dwelling in the evening alone (winter already dark) in the main street and seeing a pub open, entering to drink a "pint" of beer (no "lager") Half a liter.
And nobody at the bar but me...but in the pub if I remember well at some 9PM some eight/ten people "playing?" bingo...how recognizable wasn't that all...in the family and with our cousins playing exactly! the same "game?" in our childhood.

nordmann and thanks for you help about Google Chrome with the link you mentioned...and it's works as you see...no red squares anymore and able to post on this  "Customs" forum again.

Kind regards from Paul.