Welcome to English Ranter. It's not just you. Everything IS shit.

When England plunged into civil war in the 17th Century, a radical group called the English Ranters were formed.

There was no authority they respected any more, and so they turned to their own logic for inspiration.

They believed that if God was inside nature and themselves, there could be no sin. They put swear words in their church hymns cos they thought it was big and clever. They got naked. As long as it involved having a good time, shouting, taking your clothes off and/or didn't hurt anyone, they did whatever the fuck they liked.

The only real evidence that the ranters existed at all comes from writings by conservatives at the time about how terrible they were. This has led some historians to believe that they were mythical bogey men, invented by those wanting to bring Britain out of anarchy and restore order.

But ranters were very real. They had seen their monarchy become a laughing stock. The church only wanted their money. Cromwell's New Model Army was a democratic walking slaughter house and it was running the government and murdering innocents at home and abroad.

Sound familiar?

The ranters didn't want to fight, they wanted to have a good time. The only thing they owned to have fun with were their minds and bodies. They didnt give a shit what people thought of them, primarily drinking and shouting to be heard amidst the medieval chaos, and to wipe out the madness around them.

They were drunken Libertines formed of working class Londoners who knew the world was mad as hell, and they just couldn't take it anymore.

Welcome to the English Ranter. 350 years old and counting. Reborn on the web in 2006.