WHO should care what appears on an obscure little website set up to attack Welsh nationalists?
Not many of us, perhaps, but now someone has lost their job because of this site’s activities.
The Natwatch site published an e-mail from Rhodri Tomos, who worked at Gwynedd Council. It was perfectly obvious from its content that Mr Tomos would find himself in some difficulties if it was published.
Whoever it is that runs the website decided that he or she could not care less about the consequences though, and published it with Mr Tomos’s name attached.
As a result Mr Tomos has resigned from his position as research and information officer.
Natwatch had published his e-mail on its website in which he suggested there was more to the refusal of the Pwllheli marina deal than met the eye.
And what should happen next? Lo and behold the Labour party turn up like flies around…well, we all know what flies gather around, demanding an inquiry.
Last month Aled Cottle found himself on the receiving end when an intemperate e-mail from his address was sent to the Natwatch site and Labour was as keen then to make capital out of the situation.
Which leads to the question, just who is running the Natwatch site? It would seem, given their keenness to ride on its coat-tails that the Labour party are very familiar with its content.
Perhaps they’re just avid readers of the web and spend their days trawling sites like Natwatch on the off chance it will give them material about their opponents. Or perhaps they know more about the site and its creator than they are letting on.
It would be reassuring to see the Labour party distancing itself from the actions of this site rather than using it as a stick with which to beat their political opponents.
It’s fair enough targeting political parties like Plaid, they’re big enough to look after themselves. But when you cause someone to lose their livelihood simply because you don’t like their politics or they won’t give you the information you want then it’s no longer a bit of fun on a website.
But then to rub salt in the wound, after causing Mr Tomos’s resignation, the Natwatch site describes him as a “brave whistleblower.”
“This man had the guts to stand up to his employers over a poor decision that would have transformed the Pwllheli area for the better,” says the site.
Contrast that with their communication when Mr Tomos offered them the information in the first place, in which they said: “We can easily survive without the support of a nat (nationalist) with a chip on his shoulder.”
Now the site weeps crocodile tears for Mr Tomos and calls for his reinstatement, when it was its actions that caused him to lose his job in the first place.
The really stupefyingly dumb thing about the site though, is that there might have been something to the story.
What if there was more to be told about the Pwllheli marina? Instead of finding out, whoever the half-wit is that runs the site simply outed Mr Tomos as its source.
If there is anyone who knows more about the marina story, you can bet they won’t be going to Natwatch with the information given its scant regard for confidentiality of sources.
And then we get Labour lumbering in its wake calling for all correspondence of the matter to be published. Brilliant, like that’s going to get you anywhere.
Both Aled Cottle and Rhodri Tomos were foolish to communicate with this site and put themselves in jeopardy as a result.
If anyone out there is thinking of doing the same then I suggest you be very careful about concealing your identity.
Better still, contact the Daily Post, the journalists here are bound by the Press Complaints Commission Code to respect confidential sources.
You’ve seen how the Natwatch site betrays its sources, it’s your choice.
THE latest Wales Tourist Board promotion dropped out of the Sunday paper when they were delivered at the weekend.
Included in the leaflet extolling the virtues of Welsh mud in its many forms – from that applied as a beauty treatment to that which flies off the wheels of your mountain bike – was the fascinating fact that the sea off Wales is warmer in October that it is in June.
I suppose it’s just the temperature on the beach after your dip that might be a bit off-putting then.
But can the WTB explain why they keep banging on about a visit to Wales being and ‘honest’ experience.
Some marketing whizz has told them that this is the latest buzz word in holidays and they are wearing it out, I’ve heard it so often.
But what does it mean? What is an ‘honest’ experience? More important, what is a ‘dishonest’ experience.
Other than that I think the marketing is spot on and they’re doing a good job of showing the variety of holidays available in Wales all year round.
MUCH as I adhere to the view that footballers are a bunch of overpaid nancies who deserve a good slap, I can’t see the sense in what the Wales fans did at the weekend.
Booing someone’s national anthem, no matter how much of a colonialist dirge it might be, serves no purpose other than to pander to the fans whose knuckles scraped the floor as they entered the Millennium Stadium.
Really, did they expect Beckham to dissolve in tears and go back to the dressing room when he heard the first boo accompany the first bar?
All it achieved was to fire up an England side, who, given the narrowness of the victory, could have well done without firing up at all.
Just think, if you were there and you’d kept your trap shut, you might have been celebrating a victory instead of mourning yet another defeat.
It’s nothing to do with respect, its whether you want to go on losing, or whether the occasional victory might just lift the gloom.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Column, August 30, 2005
CORRECT me if I’m wrong, I often am, but did the sky fall in this past week?
I only ask because Plaid Cymru have been doing a pretty fine impression of Chicken Licken.
The cause of their distress is a plan by Gordon Brown to sell off the entire housing stock of North Wales to the moneybags English who are going to salt away every bit of brick and mortar between Connah’s Quay and Holyhead in their burgeoning pension funds.
The Iron Chancellor has gone a bit soft on the idea of second homes and second homes, as we all know, are the work of the Devil.
While the housing crisis in rural Wales, and any other bit of the UK with a view of a field for that matter, is undeniable, Plaid should really keep their powder dry for battles that are worth fighting. And this one isn’t.
Instead they go yapping like Pavlov’s dogs at the mere mention of ‘second’ and ‘home’ in the same breath. You have to respect politicians who stick by their guns and are consistent, it makes such a change from the present incumbent of Number 10, but now and again you have to check yourself for being consistently wrong. Yes, I can hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of hostages to fortune when I say that, but as I’ll explain I think Plaid are making a fuss over something which will hardly affect Wales.
I hesitate to mention the word pension, as in most people, myself included, it causes an immediate desire to jam fingers in ears and hum loudly until whoever brought it up has gone away.
I’m with those who think the endowment fairy will see me right when I become too old, short-sighted and mad to continue writing. Two down one to go.
But basically the changes in pensions introduced by Gordon Brown mean that people can buy buy-to-let properties and put them in their pension pot. The advantage of this for high-income earners is that with tax breaks they basically can get 40% of the cost of a second home back if they’re putting it in their pension.
Ah, say Plaid Cymru, yet another ruse for the English to buy holiday homes in North Wales and now they get a tax break for doing it.
On the face of it that might seem what will happen, and the Affordable Rural Housing Commission is also worried saying that this scheme will drive up prices in the countryside.
But there’s a great big spanner in the works of those who want to buy holiday homes and then put them in their pension pot.
Namely that if you do that, you have to pay your own pension fund a commercial rent for the time that you spend in the property.
Lots of people like holiday homes, but I’m pretty sure they would not be keen to pay themselves for the privilege of staying there, especially when they’re already paying for the place with a mortgage as well.
All of a sudden 40% off doesn’t seem so attractive when you’re having to stump up rent. And the rent will be determined not by you, but by your pension fund trustee who by law will have to enforce a proper market-value rent and we all know how high they can be in summer in Wales.
For these investment properties to be effective as well they need to be occupied most of the year, and given the fact that many refer to our holiday-home-owning friends as ‘swallows’ because they’re only here for the summer, we know that isn’t the case in North Wales.
The idea that the hordes that make their way down the A55 to their holiday homes will soon be doing it with a fat tax break too just doesn’t hold water.
This new system will drive up house prices, but mainly in cities where there is housing stock that the buyers do not want to live in themselves but that they will rent out on a long-term basis. Simple as that.
Plaid should pick a better battle than this one.
IT would seem that the law has not served the family of Richie Davies very well.
He was killed in a hit and run accident, and the car’s owner, who was a passenger in it at the time, has hidden behind his right to silence and refused to name the driver.
The courts have been powerless to extract that name from him and so Richie’s killer walks free today.
But only for today.
I hope the Davies family will take some small crumb of comfort from the fact that, on as is blatantly evident from the court case, we are dealing with low-life scum here.
They should remember that there is little honour among these people and their loyalties shift like the wind.
The killer, is relying for his liberty, on a network of people who are not talking….for the moment.
But things change, relationships with girlfriends end, best friends become worst enemies. When that happens all of a sudden the police start getting helpful phone calls.
I’m prepared to bet that the killer’s friends are people that are ‘known to police’ as it were and I’ll bet too they’ve got a pretty good idea who it might be.
The next time any of the killer’s cohorts are up on a string of offences they might be looking to cut a deal by giving the police a bigger fish to fry.
And Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe is on the case as well.
I trust the killer is enjoying his liberty, because I think his days are numbered.
CHARLOTTE Church, we hear, disapproves of the behaviour of Abi Tittmuss on Celebrity Love Island.
For those of you lucky enough not to have encountered her yet, Ms Titmuss is a model famed for not wearing many clothes.
Charlotte was once famed as a singer, but is now better known for not wearing many clothes on holiday where she is pictured with surprising frequency. I wonder how on earth the photographers always seem to know where she is, particularly when she has a new album or single out.
I’m not sure I have space in my brain to care what Ms Church thinks of Ms Titmuss but I am tempted to say strand the pair of them on a desert island and let them fight it out between them.
But then Channel Five would probably get a 10-part series out of it.
I only ask because Plaid Cymru have been doing a pretty fine impression of Chicken Licken.
The cause of their distress is a plan by Gordon Brown to sell off the entire housing stock of North Wales to the moneybags English who are going to salt away every bit of brick and mortar between Connah’s Quay and Holyhead in their burgeoning pension funds.
The Iron Chancellor has gone a bit soft on the idea of second homes and second homes, as we all know, are the work of the Devil.
While the housing crisis in rural Wales, and any other bit of the UK with a view of a field for that matter, is undeniable, Plaid should really keep their powder dry for battles that are worth fighting. And this one isn’t.
Instead they go yapping like Pavlov’s dogs at the mere mention of ‘second’ and ‘home’ in the same breath. You have to respect politicians who stick by their guns and are consistent, it makes such a change from the present incumbent of Number 10, but now and again you have to check yourself for being consistently wrong. Yes, I can hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of hostages to fortune when I say that, but as I’ll explain I think Plaid are making a fuss over something which will hardly affect Wales.
I hesitate to mention the word pension, as in most people, myself included, it causes an immediate desire to jam fingers in ears and hum loudly until whoever brought it up has gone away.
I’m with those who think the endowment fairy will see me right when I become too old, short-sighted and mad to continue writing. Two down one to go.
But basically the changes in pensions introduced by Gordon Brown mean that people can buy buy-to-let properties and put them in their pension pot. The advantage of this for high-income earners is that with tax breaks they basically can get 40% of the cost of a second home back if they’re putting it in their pension.
Ah, say Plaid Cymru, yet another ruse for the English to buy holiday homes in North Wales and now they get a tax break for doing it.
On the face of it that might seem what will happen, and the Affordable Rural Housing Commission is also worried saying that this scheme will drive up prices in the countryside.
But there’s a great big spanner in the works of those who want to buy holiday homes and then put them in their pension pot.
Namely that if you do that, you have to pay your own pension fund a commercial rent for the time that you spend in the property.
Lots of people like holiday homes, but I’m pretty sure they would not be keen to pay themselves for the privilege of staying there, especially when they’re already paying for the place with a mortgage as well.
All of a sudden 40% off doesn’t seem so attractive when you’re having to stump up rent. And the rent will be determined not by you, but by your pension fund trustee who by law will have to enforce a proper market-value rent and we all know how high they can be in summer in Wales.
For these investment properties to be effective as well they need to be occupied most of the year, and given the fact that many refer to our holiday-home-owning friends as ‘swallows’ because they’re only here for the summer, we know that isn’t the case in North Wales.
The idea that the hordes that make their way down the A55 to their holiday homes will soon be doing it with a fat tax break too just doesn’t hold water.
This new system will drive up house prices, but mainly in cities where there is housing stock that the buyers do not want to live in themselves but that they will rent out on a long-term basis. Simple as that.
Plaid should pick a better battle than this one.
IT would seem that the law has not served the family of Richie Davies very well.
He was killed in a hit and run accident, and the car’s owner, who was a passenger in it at the time, has hidden behind his right to silence and refused to name the driver.
The courts have been powerless to extract that name from him and so Richie’s killer walks free today.
But only for today.
I hope the Davies family will take some small crumb of comfort from the fact that, on as is blatantly evident from the court case, we are dealing with low-life scum here.
They should remember that there is little honour among these people and their loyalties shift like the wind.
The killer, is relying for his liberty, on a network of people who are not talking….for the moment.
But things change, relationships with girlfriends end, best friends become worst enemies. When that happens all of a sudden the police start getting helpful phone calls.
I’m prepared to bet that the killer’s friends are people that are ‘known to police’ as it were and I’ll bet too they’ve got a pretty good idea who it might be.
The next time any of the killer’s cohorts are up on a string of offences they might be looking to cut a deal by giving the police a bigger fish to fry.
And Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe is on the case as well.
I trust the killer is enjoying his liberty, because I think his days are numbered.
CHARLOTTE Church, we hear, disapproves of the behaviour of Abi Tittmuss on Celebrity Love Island.
For those of you lucky enough not to have encountered her yet, Ms Titmuss is a model famed for not wearing many clothes.
Charlotte was once famed as a singer, but is now better known for not wearing many clothes on holiday where she is pictured with surprising frequency. I wonder how on earth the photographers always seem to know where she is, particularly when she has a new album or single out.
I’m not sure I have space in my brain to care what Ms Church thinks of Ms Titmuss but I am tempted to say strand the pair of them on a desert island and let them fight it out between them.
But then Channel Five would probably get a 10-part series out of it.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Column, August 23, 2005
I FEEL it is something of an achievement to have attained the age of 40 and not, as yet, been made the subject of an asbo.
I only mention it because it would seem they are handing them out like Green Shield stamps nowadays.
Getting your first asbo seems to be as much a rite of passage as passing your driving test or convincing unwitting off-licence staff that you really are 18 despite your soprano voice and could you have two crates of the blue alcopops please.
Even OAPs are getting in on the act.
There was a time when eccentricity was a celebrated trait in this country. Every community had its fair share of crusty old fogies who would go off like a bottle of pop if you so much as cast a shadow on their front gate.
They were generally left to their own devices on the grounds that most of them had fought in wars for our freedom so the least we could do is leave them in peace to cultivate a garden full of weeds and develop a smell indistinguishable from that of their large dog that looked every inch capable of tearing your throat out should you have the temerity to knock on the front door.
Harmless? Well, very probably not, in fact a little bit dangerous and unhinged, but such is life.
It would be a very dull world if everyone was nice, middle-class, middle-aged and in possession of a full set of marbles.
But that is, apparently, the kind of society that we are trying to produce with our courts handing out asbos left, right and centre.
Of course there are some people whose lives are made a misery by anti-social behaviour and they should be protected by the law. However, you have to wonder just how effective asbos are when week after week you read of youths up in court having breached theirs for a fortieth time and that finally the courts have got round to thinking a period of detention might just curb them.
This government likes asbos, you can tell by the way they let all and sundry hand them out. Quite why they haven’t seen the sense in giving traffic wardens and lollipop ladies asbo powers is anyone’s guess – no doubt it will be in the next Queen’s Speech.
But now the police have even wider powers to deal with the youths that lurk on our streets in their dangerous hooded tops.
They can now seek a dispersal order for an area where there is nuisance behaviour going on. That means they can order anyone there to leave and not return for 24 hours and they can forcibly return under-16s to their homes if they are unaccompanied by an adult.
The question is what constitutes nuisance behaviour? For many of these youths there is little else to do other than to hang around in groups. And for some people of a nervous disposition it would seem that any group of more then three over-12s is as threatening as the Mongol Horde riding into town, only this time they’re on BMX bikes.
The simple solution is to ban them and force them back into their homes, where I’ve sure their parents will be absolutely delighted that an evening’s peace is disturbed by the early return of a truculent teenager accompanied by the Old Bill.
Is it altogether surprising that teenagers hang around in groups and try to buy alcohol when the alcohol industry targets them so ruthlessly?
After all, alcopops were hardly invented as an alternative tipple for the real ale brigade were they? You don’t get beardy chaps of a certain age walking into their local tavern and foregoing their usual pint of Ostlethwaite’s Dark and Peculier and going for something blue and fizzy instead do you?
They’re bombarded with advertising that says alcohol is cool and pubs are allowed to open 24 hours a day to sell it, yet we expect them to behave like they’re Trappists until they’re 18.
They may look sullen, but they’re not that stupid. They know they’re missing out on something and so they’ll do their best to try it. Show me a teenager who hasn’t got drunk before their 18th birthday and I’ll show you a very, very bored child.
All asbos do is sweep teenagers and mad old men under the carpet. We all know the problem is there, but it looks like we’re doing something about them if we slap an asbo on them.
The reality is that we’re just moving the problem round, not solving it.
THE burghers of Rhyl getting in a froth about comedian John Sparkes would do well to remember Oscar Wilde’s thoughts on the matter.
Thoughts on being talked about that is, not Rhyl – he had many memorable aphorisms, but I don’t think he ever passed judgement on Rhyl.
Unlike South Walian Mr Sparkes, whose routine includes a grandfather dying on a trip to Rhyl whose relatives are consoled with the thought that he has ‘gone to a better place.’
Wilde said that ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not.’
Or to put it another way, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
No-one is going to cancel a trip to Rhyl because of a stand-up comedian’s act and the more it gets talked about the more likely people are to visit to find out what all the fuss is about.
I only mention it because it would seem they are handing them out like Green Shield stamps nowadays.
Getting your first asbo seems to be as much a rite of passage as passing your driving test or convincing unwitting off-licence staff that you really are 18 despite your soprano voice and could you have two crates of the blue alcopops please.
Even OAPs are getting in on the act.
There was a time when eccentricity was a celebrated trait in this country. Every community had its fair share of crusty old fogies who would go off like a bottle of pop if you so much as cast a shadow on their front gate.
They were generally left to their own devices on the grounds that most of them had fought in wars for our freedom so the least we could do is leave them in peace to cultivate a garden full of weeds and develop a smell indistinguishable from that of their large dog that looked every inch capable of tearing your throat out should you have the temerity to knock on the front door.
Harmless? Well, very probably not, in fact a little bit dangerous and unhinged, but such is life.
It would be a very dull world if everyone was nice, middle-class, middle-aged and in possession of a full set of marbles.
But that is, apparently, the kind of society that we are trying to produce with our courts handing out asbos left, right and centre.
Of course there are some people whose lives are made a misery by anti-social behaviour and they should be protected by the law. However, you have to wonder just how effective asbos are when week after week you read of youths up in court having breached theirs for a fortieth time and that finally the courts have got round to thinking a period of detention might just curb them.
This government likes asbos, you can tell by the way they let all and sundry hand them out. Quite why they haven’t seen the sense in giving traffic wardens and lollipop ladies asbo powers is anyone’s guess – no doubt it will be in the next Queen’s Speech.
But now the police have even wider powers to deal with the youths that lurk on our streets in their dangerous hooded tops.
They can now seek a dispersal order for an area where there is nuisance behaviour going on. That means they can order anyone there to leave and not return for 24 hours and they can forcibly return under-16s to their homes if they are unaccompanied by an adult.
The question is what constitutes nuisance behaviour? For many of these youths there is little else to do other than to hang around in groups. And for some people of a nervous disposition it would seem that any group of more then three over-12s is as threatening as the Mongol Horde riding into town, only this time they’re on BMX bikes.
The simple solution is to ban them and force them back into their homes, where I’ve sure their parents will be absolutely delighted that an evening’s peace is disturbed by the early return of a truculent teenager accompanied by the Old Bill.
Is it altogether surprising that teenagers hang around in groups and try to buy alcohol when the alcohol industry targets them so ruthlessly?
After all, alcopops were hardly invented as an alternative tipple for the real ale brigade were they? You don’t get beardy chaps of a certain age walking into their local tavern and foregoing their usual pint of Ostlethwaite’s Dark and Peculier and going for something blue and fizzy instead do you?
They’re bombarded with advertising that says alcohol is cool and pubs are allowed to open 24 hours a day to sell it, yet we expect them to behave like they’re Trappists until they’re 18.
They may look sullen, but they’re not that stupid. They know they’re missing out on something and so they’ll do their best to try it. Show me a teenager who hasn’t got drunk before their 18th birthday and I’ll show you a very, very bored child.
All asbos do is sweep teenagers and mad old men under the carpet. We all know the problem is there, but it looks like we’re doing something about them if we slap an asbo on them.
The reality is that we’re just moving the problem round, not solving it.
THE burghers of Rhyl getting in a froth about comedian John Sparkes would do well to remember Oscar Wilde’s thoughts on the matter.
Thoughts on being talked about that is, not Rhyl – he had many memorable aphorisms, but I don’t think he ever passed judgement on Rhyl.
Unlike South Walian Mr Sparkes, whose routine includes a grandfather dying on a trip to Rhyl whose relatives are consoled with the thought that he has ‘gone to a better place.’
Wilde said that ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not.’
Or to put it another way, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
No-one is going to cancel a trip to Rhyl because of a stand-up comedian’s act and the more it gets talked about the more likely people are to visit to find out what all the fuss is about.
Column, August 16, 2005
IN less enlightened times the insane would be displayed for public entertainment in the infamous Bedlam asylum.
Sometimes I feel this column fulfils the same purpose.
It seems that those who feel that to say out loud quite what the voices in their head are telling them might attract the attention of the men in white coats often feel that dashing it off in a letter to me will do just as well.
I’m happy to help, but you do worry a bit about folie a deux – that to be exposed so often to those to whom Mr Sanity is only an occasional caller might lead to barking at the moon myself.
Witness the two letters which dropped on my doormat this week – from opposite ends of the spectrum, as you’ll see, but both delightfully barmy in their own very special way.
The first is from, well, we’ll just leave her name as H shall we? She knows who she is and I’m not sure it’s wise that her neighbours should know who she is and what she’s writing about them.
H is unhappy at my support for Liverpool in its offer to host the 2007 National Eisteddfod. Here goes, you were warned.
“Dear Mr Banks,
After living next door to a couple from Liverpool for 43 years I have not got a good thing to say about Liverpool. Most of the time I kept out of their way, they were evil, they hid behind curtains watching me all the time.
I was quite sure someone was paying them for watching me, they had quite a few crooked friends around. I could go on and on 25 times and more.
She had men going to see her, found out that she was saying that they were coming to my house, whom to I just don’t know, not me that’s for sure. How evil can you get?
The reason why they blame me for everything is because I’m Welsh and a Welsh speaker and proud of it, and I wouldn’t go bowing to them.
If I had money I’d give it to Flint to hold the National Eisteddfod of Wales there. I’d hate to see it going to Liverpool. When I hear people saying that Liverpool is the capital of North Wales I shiver. I think of Caernarfon as the capital of North Wales, I was born in Caernarfonshire.
I can’t think of one good thing to say about Liverpool after 43 years of hatred, they left their hatred behind to the woman that’s living there now, her family are from Liverpool.”
Well, H, all I can say, and I think it’s inadequate in the face of such an onslaught of bitterness, is that it’s time to let go of the hatred. Whatever your neighbours did or didn’t do to you, it’s a little unjust to think ill of a whole city on the basis of two people who happen to come from it.
I dare say there are one or two rum coves in your beloved Caernarfon, but you wouldn’t write off the whole town because of them would you?
The next is another from my new-found correspondent in Rhyl. You know the one, he thinks the Welsh Not never happened and he has, incredibly, found a pub in Rhyl where everyone switches to Welsh to talk about him when he walks in.
A friend e-mailed to point out that it’s a little puzzling to make such a claim, because if you don’t speak Welsh, how do you know everyone is talking about you?
Anyway, without further delay, here’s the next instalment from Rhyl:
“David,
Who are you to criticise my spelling!!
You can’t wrote, it allways goes pear shaped in that s*****e (here he even manages to misspell an expletive) paper!
And get your facts right I sent the letter days before that muppet Cottle said what he said. I’m 100% genuine, problem is Welsh nationalists like you don’t like the truth!!
The pub in Rhyl I went to is near my flat in West Rhyl they won’t serve me cos I’m English.
and about that resuvror (he means reservoir, we established his inability to spell it in his first letter) it had to be built cos people wanted water, where do you think it should have been built? Moon? Mars? No-one lived there anyway cos it was full of trees and sheep.
I won’t be writing again so I bet you won’t publish this letter.
From a proud Englishman”
If I were a betting man I’d say that, despite his promises, this is not the last we’ve heard of him, more’s the pity.
LEIGHTON Andrews writes of take me to task for crediting him with being the first AM to draw attention to the Natwatch website.
This honour, he points out, was not his, but the Lib Dem AM Peter Black got in there first and would I mind setting the record straight?
I am, of course, happy to do so and confirm that a whole day, 24 little hours, before Leighton Andrews pointed people in the direction of the Natwatch site, Mr Black had got in there before him.
So that’s clear then.
What is not so clear is who is behind Natwatch. It could be a private individual with an intense interest in Scottish and Welsh politics, particularly those of a nationalist persuasion.
On the other hand, as has been suggested, it could be a little project by political opponents of parties like Plaid and the SNP.
While you’re perfectly at liberty to say what you want about any political party, if you do so from behind a cloak of anonymity, you shouldn’t be entirely surprised if people wonder who you are.
AS I’ve mentioned recently, I moved house in the past couple of months.
Having been invited to dinner by our new neighbours this week it was revealed to us that the lounge of my new home was, until we took up residence, used for meetings of the local Conservative party.
Just think of it. In my house they were toasting Maggie’s election victory; glasses were raised to the defeat of the miners. They probably had a wild party to celebrate the introduction of the poll tax and who knows what debauchery ensued after John Major’s against-the-odds victory in’92.
I was wondering whether to have some sort of exorcism.
Or should I just welcome them back and offer them tea and sympathy?
Your suggestions are welcome.
Sometimes I feel this column fulfils the same purpose.
It seems that those who feel that to say out loud quite what the voices in their head are telling them might attract the attention of the men in white coats often feel that dashing it off in a letter to me will do just as well.
I’m happy to help, but you do worry a bit about folie a deux – that to be exposed so often to those to whom Mr Sanity is only an occasional caller might lead to barking at the moon myself.
Witness the two letters which dropped on my doormat this week – from opposite ends of the spectrum, as you’ll see, but both delightfully barmy in their own very special way.
The first is from, well, we’ll just leave her name as H shall we? She knows who she is and I’m not sure it’s wise that her neighbours should know who she is and what she’s writing about them.
H is unhappy at my support for Liverpool in its offer to host the 2007 National Eisteddfod. Here goes, you were warned.
“Dear Mr Banks,
After living next door to a couple from Liverpool for 43 years I have not got a good thing to say about Liverpool. Most of the time I kept out of their way, they were evil, they hid behind curtains watching me all the time.
I was quite sure someone was paying them for watching me, they had quite a few crooked friends around. I could go on and on 25 times and more.
She had men going to see her, found out that she was saying that they were coming to my house, whom to I just don’t know, not me that’s for sure. How evil can you get?
The reason why they blame me for everything is because I’m Welsh and a Welsh speaker and proud of it, and I wouldn’t go bowing to them.
If I had money I’d give it to Flint to hold the National Eisteddfod of Wales there. I’d hate to see it going to Liverpool. When I hear people saying that Liverpool is the capital of North Wales I shiver. I think of Caernarfon as the capital of North Wales, I was born in Caernarfonshire.
I can’t think of one good thing to say about Liverpool after 43 years of hatred, they left their hatred behind to the woman that’s living there now, her family are from Liverpool.”
Well, H, all I can say, and I think it’s inadequate in the face of such an onslaught of bitterness, is that it’s time to let go of the hatred. Whatever your neighbours did or didn’t do to you, it’s a little unjust to think ill of a whole city on the basis of two people who happen to come from it.
I dare say there are one or two rum coves in your beloved Caernarfon, but you wouldn’t write off the whole town because of them would you?
The next is another from my new-found correspondent in Rhyl. You know the one, he thinks the Welsh Not never happened and he has, incredibly, found a pub in Rhyl where everyone switches to Welsh to talk about him when he walks in.
A friend e-mailed to point out that it’s a little puzzling to make such a claim, because if you don’t speak Welsh, how do you know everyone is talking about you?
Anyway, without further delay, here’s the next instalment from Rhyl:
“David,
Who are you to criticise my spelling!!
You can’t wrote, it allways goes pear shaped in that s*****e (here he even manages to misspell an expletive) paper!
And get your facts right I sent the letter days before that muppet Cottle said what he said. I’m 100% genuine, problem is Welsh nationalists like you don’t like the truth!!
The pub in Rhyl I went to is near my flat in West Rhyl they won’t serve me cos I’m English.
and about that resuvror (he means reservoir, we established his inability to spell it in his first letter) it had to be built cos people wanted water, where do you think it should have been built? Moon? Mars? No-one lived there anyway cos it was full of trees and sheep.
I won’t be writing again so I bet you won’t publish this letter.
From a proud Englishman”
If I were a betting man I’d say that, despite his promises, this is not the last we’ve heard of him, more’s the pity.
LEIGHTON Andrews writes of take me to task for crediting him with being the first AM to draw attention to the Natwatch website.
This honour, he points out, was not his, but the Lib Dem AM Peter Black got in there first and would I mind setting the record straight?
I am, of course, happy to do so and confirm that a whole day, 24 little hours, before Leighton Andrews pointed people in the direction of the Natwatch site, Mr Black had got in there before him.
So that’s clear then.
What is not so clear is who is behind Natwatch. It could be a private individual with an intense interest in Scottish and Welsh politics, particularly those of a nationalist persuasion.
On the other hand, as has been suggested, it could be a little project by political opponents of parties like Plaid and the SNP.
While you’re perfectly at liberty to say what you want about any political party, if you do so from behind a cloak of anonymity, you shouldn’t be entirely surprised if people wonder who you are.
AS I’ve mentioned recently, I moved house in the past couple of months.
Having been invited to dinner by our new neighbours this week it was revealed to us that the lounge of my new home was, until we took up residence, used for meetings of the local Conservative party.
Just think of it. In my house they were toasting Maggie’s election victory; glasses were raised to the defeat of the miners. They probably had a wild party to celebrate the introduction of the poll tax and who knows what debauchery ensued after John Major’s against-the-odds victory in’92.
I was wondering whether to have some sort of exorcism.
Or should I just welcome them back and offer them tea and sympathy?
Your suggestions are welcome.
Column, August 2, 2005
AS contributions to political debate go, the one tapped out by Aled Cottle is hardly the most helpful.
Wales has had more than its fair share of great orators, men and women who were often able to sway public opinion solely through the power of their words.
Lloyd George, Nye Bevan, Gwynfor Evans and Neil Kinnock have all made their mark on the character of this country through their speeches.
It’s fair to say that Mr Cottle’s memorable, albeit brief, remarks were about as useful as Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army who often volunteered of the enemy that they: “Don’t like it up ‘em.”
Writing to a website so obviously partisan as Natwatch, the one to which Mr Cottle is said to have fired off his intemperate e-mail, was a mistake.
Pointing out that the Anglo Saxons originally came from Holland/Germany was about as useful to a 21st century audience as telling them that Julius Caesar arrived here from Rome.
Using abusive language rather negated whatever mixed up point was trying to be made in the first place.
It’s easy to see why a website set up to expose “the failure, mendacity and xenophobia of nationalists in Scotland and Wales” would stir up hostility in some quarters. But to respond with a tirade like that is simply playing into their hands.
What a shame there was no-one there to say in the finest traditions of bar-room brawls: “Put down the keyboard Aled, they’re not worth it.”
It was a brave move of Labour AM Carl Sargeant to call for Mr Cottle’s job. I trust he will be insisting this set a precedent and that AMs and MPs, all of whom, like Mr Cottle, are paid from the public purse, should forfeit their jobs if anything other than honeyed words are uttered by them. Unfortunately at the moment we have to wait until an election to remove them if we are offended by their words or deeds.
It’s good to see Mr Sargeant taking a stand over the decline in political debate though and I’m sure he will be insisting his political colleagues live up to the same standards that he sets for Menter Iaith staff like Mr Cottle.
But what of this site Natwatch. Well you can see it for yourself at www.natwatch.co.uk/blog and make your own minds up.
You’ll notice though that all of its messages are by the conveniently anonymous “price4president” and that while the site is keen to expose the mendacity of nationalists, it’s not so keen on debate, as you cannot post a message to the site yourself, unlike many other Blogs.
It’s latest contribution to the Welsh political scene is this: “Tomorrow Nat Watch will be gate-crashing Seimon Glyn's annual family holiday. Yes, you've guessed it. We're sending a correspondent to the Eisteddfod (lucky her!). We will bring you a series of special reports from the maes, at the biggest Welsh nat festival of the year.”
You and I thought the Eisteddfod was a cultural festival where all shades of political opinion were present. It would seem price4president knows better.
And it is interesting, very interesting, that the two AMs who have drawn our attention to a site that has only been running since May are both Labour AMs. First Leighton Andrews and now Carl Sargeant. How very public-spirited of them.
If you want the alternative view, log onto natwatchwatch.blogspot.com which has a healthier attitude to debate.
AND talking of unhealthy contributions to debate, this missive recently arrived after a recent column.
Now, I have to preface it with a health warning – I don’t believe someone could be stupid enough to hold these views.
It’s timing, coming so soon after the Cottle e-mail scandal is somewhat suspicious as well. Almost as if it were intended as a diversion. Make your own minds up anyway.
“David
I read your column last week, I agree 100% with Chris Bryant , cos no one cares about Welsh language, no one speakes it, I moved here 10 years ago from London and I’ve heard little Welsh. We are in Britain don’t these thickoes speak English?!
Its not a real language anyway, it should be BANNED! Only sheep*******s speake it! And for your information Welsh not never happened, its just propaganda from nationalists who should be shot. So a valley drowned for a resov resouvir, who cares?
If I had my way I’d drown the whole f***ing Wales! And you’re ignorant, cos I walked into a pub other nite in Rhyl and everyone turned Welsh – all talking about me! Why don’t you wright abot that.
From a PROUD Englishman”
Dear God almighty where to start, where to start?
Well, 14 errors of spelling, grammar or punctuation in the space of 135 words does rather make one wonder just what this little man is so proud of. These ‘thickoes’ probably do speak English, and I’m prepared to lay money that they have a better command of it than the rather loose grip he has of its intricacies.
They’re my asterisks, not his, this is, after all, a family newspaper and there might be children reading, and I’m already exposing them to his atrocious spelling, best to spare them his appalling language as well.
While claiming in his first paragraph that no-one speaks Welsh, he says as he signs off that when he walked into a pub in Rhyl everyone started speaking Welsh and they were all talking about him. A contradiction which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t strike our letter writer all that readily.
It does rather make one wonder which pub though, because Rhyl is hardly a heartland of the language. If it did happen, I’m sure that if the letter’s author looks as mad as he sounds most people were indeed talking about him and one word would have been on their lips – NUTTER.
I’m taking it that a ‘resouvir’ is a reservoir, and as for drowning all of Wales, well you had a go not so long ago and gave up. But I would point out that Wales is generally a good bit higher than England and so if you ever succeeded then England would sink below the waves long before we did.
ONTO a far more rational correspondent. This is from Stan Granton, a reader from Anglesey, who like many parents is fighting the council’s decision to make parents cough up a lump sum to pay for children’s bus fares.
“Dear David,
Thanks for highlighting the plight of Anglesey parents, of which I am one. This ridiculous new charge is horrendously high, I have two children at high school and one more going in Sept 2006, yes that magic £180 comes to mind.
There is a side of this situation that I think some people have missed. Many parents such as myself, will choose to do the school run themselves, I am in a position to be able to take and collect my children on a daily basis.
I know many more from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, who will also be doing the same. Can you imagine the congestion at approximate. 8.30am and 3.30 PM, dreadful, and I suspect that other parents on Anglesey with children at the other high school will do the same.
This will go against both UK Government, Assembly Government and police policies. We parents are forever being told to stop the school run in order to reduce early morning and early afternoon congestion.
I am unable to comment on the situation at the other high schools on the island, but I do know that Ysgol David Hughes's site will struggle to cope with the numbers that will be involved.
Just to give you the figures relating to Ysgol David Hughes, 600 children between Llandegfan and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. Yes that £36,000 for school transport should we all be mug enough to pay.
I would be grateful if you could ask parents of Anglesey, both high school and junior level(after all they will one day be affected if we do not stop this) to write to Anglesey Council Education and Leisure Department to protest.
The more of us that do this the more they will realize that this situation is going to get out of hand should they go ahead. I for one do not have the ability to keep £180 a year spare with three growing children around, getting them back to school and though the year is expensive enough without this added cost.
I reckon I spend approximately £1,830 per year on my children's requirements for school, (uniform, trips, shoes and coats, dinner money and school equipment.)
Hoping that you are able to help and thanks for your comments in your column lots of us are affected and support form someone such as yourself is grateful appreciated.”
The decision by Anglesey is bad for children, bad for education and bad for the environment and it is time that someone with an ounce of common sense on that council got a grip of the situation and revoked what is a bad policy.
Wales has had more than its fair share of great orators, men and women who were often able to sway public opinion solely through the power of their words.
Lloyd George, Nye Bevan, Gwynfor Evans and Neil Kinnock have all made their mark on the character of this country through their speeches.
It’s fair to say that Mr Cottle’s memorable, albeit brief, remarks were about as useful as Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army who often volunteered of the enemy that they: “Don’t like it up ‘em.”
Writing to a website so obviously partisan as Natwatch, the one to which Mr Cottle is said to have fired off his intemperate e-mail, was a mistake.
Pointing out that the Anglo Saxons originally came from Holland/Germany was about as useful to a 21st century audience as telling them that Julius Caesar arrived here from Rome.
Using abusive language rather negated whatever mixed up point was trying to be made in the first place.
It’s easy to see why a website set up to expose “the failure, mendacity and xenophobia of nationalists in Scotland and Wales” would stir up hostility in some quarters. But to respond with a tirade like that is simply playing into their hands.
What a shame there was no-one there to say in the finest traditions of bar-room brawls: “Put down the keyboard Aled, they’re not worth it.”
It was a brave move of Labour AM Carl Sargeant to call for Mr Cottle’s job. I trust he will be insisting this set a precedent and that AMs and MPs, all of whom, like Mr Cottle, are paid from the public purse, should forfeit their jobs if anything other than honeyed words are uttered by them. Unfortunately at the moment we have to wait until an election to remove them if we are offended by their words or deeds.
It’s good to see Mr Sargeant taking a stand over the decline in political debate though and I’m sure he will be insisting his political colleagues live up to the same standards that he sets for Menter Iaith staff like Mr Cottle.
But what of this site Natwatch. Well you can see it for yourself at www.natwatch.co.uk/blog and make your own minds up.
You’ll notice though that all of its messages are by the conveniently anonymous “price4president” and that while the site is keen to expose the mendacity of nationalists, it’s not so keen on debate, as you cannot post a message to the site yourself, unlike many other Blogs.
It’s latest contribution to the Welsh political scene is this: “Tomorrow Nat Watch will be gate-crashing Seimon Glyn's annual family holiday. Yes, you've guessed it. We're sending a correspondent to the Eisteddfod (lucky her!). We will bring you a series of special reports from the maes, at the biggest Welsh nat festival of the year.”
You and I thought the Eisteddfod was a cultural festival where all shades of political opinion were present. It would seem price4president knows better.
And it is interesting, very interesting, that the two AMs who have drawn our attention to a site that has only been running since May are both Labour AMs. First Leighton Andrews and now Carl Sargeant. How very public-spirited of them.
If you want the alternative view, log onto natwatchwatch.blogspot.com which has a healthier attitude to debate.
AND talking of unhealthy contributions to debate, this missive recently arrived after a recent column.
Now, I have to preface it with a health warning – I don’t believe someone could be stupid enough to hold these views.
It’s timing, coming so soon after the Cottle e-mail scandal is somewhat suspicious as well. Almost as if it were intended as a diversion. Make your own minds up anyway.
“David
I read your column last week, I agree 100% with Chris Bryant , cos no one cares about Welsh language, no one speakes it, I moved here 10 years ago from London and I’ve heard little Welsh. We are in Britain don’t these thickoes speak English?!
Its not a real language anyway, it should be BANNED! Only sheep*******s speake it! And for your information Welsh not never happened, its just propaganda from nationalists who should be shot. So a valley drowned for a resov resouvir, who cares?
If I had my way I’d drown the whole f***ing Wales! And you’re ignorant, cos I walked into a pub other nite in Rhyl and everyone turned Welsh – all talking about me! Why don’t you wright abot that.
From a PROUD Englishman”
Dear God almighty where to start, where to start?
Well, 14 errors of spelling, grammar or punctuation in the space of 135 words does rather make one wonder just what this little man is so proud of. These ‘thickoes’ probably do speak English, and I’m prepared to lay money that they have a better command of it than the rather loose grip he has of its intricacies.
They’re my asterisks, not his, this is, after all, a family newspaper and there might be children reading, and I’m already exposing them to his atrocious spelling, best to spare them his appalling language as well.
While claiming in his first paragraph that no-one speaks Welsh, he says as he signs off that when he walked into a pub in Rhyl everyone started speaking Welsh and they were all talking about him. A contradiction which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t strike our letter writer all that readily.
It does rather make one wonder which pub though, because Rhyl is hardly a heartland of the language. If it did happen, I’m sure that if the letter’s author looks as mad as he sounds most people were indeed talking about him and one word would have been on their lips – NUTTER.
I’m taking it that a ‘resouvir’ is a reservoir, and as for drowning all of Wales, well you had a go not so long ago and gave up. But I would point out that Wales is generally a good bit higher than England and so if you ever succeeded then England would sink below the waves long before we did.
ONTO a far more rational correspondent. This is from Stan Granton, a reader from Anglesey, who like many parents is fighting the council’s decision to make parents cough up a lump sum to pay for children’s bus fares.
“Dear David,
Thanks for highlighting the plight of Anglesey parents, of which I am one. This ridiculous new charge is horrendously high, I have two children at high school and one more going in Sept 2006, yes that magic £180 comes to mind.
There is a side of this situation that I think some people have missed. Many parents such as myself, will choose to do the school run themselves, I am in a position to be able to take and collect my children on a daily basis.
I know many more from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, who will also be doing the same. Can you imagine the congestion at approximate. 8.30am and 3.30 PM, dreadful, and I suspect that other parents on Anglesey with children at the other high school will do the same.
This will go against both UK Government, Assembly Government and police policies. We parents are forever being told to stop the school run in order to reduce early morning and early afternoon congestion.
I am unable to comment on the situation at the other high schools on the island, but I do know that Ysgol David Hughes's site will struggle to cope with the numbers that will be involved.
Just to give you the figures relating to Ysgol David Hughes, 600 children between Llandegfan and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. Yes that £36,000 for school transport should we all be mug enough to pay.
I would be grateful if you could ask parents of Anglesey, both high school and junior level(after all they will one day be affected if we do not stop this) to write to Anglesey Council Education and Leisure Department to protest.
The more of us that do this the more they will realize that this situation is going to get out of hand should they go ahead. I for one do not have the ability to keep £180 a year spare with three growing children around, getting them back to school and though the year is expensive enough without this added cost.
I reckon I spend approximately £1,830 per year on my children's requirements for school, (uniform, trips, shoes and coats, dinner money and school equipment.)
Hoping that you are able to help and thanks for your comments in your column lots of us are affected and support form someone such as yourself is grateful appreciated.”
The decision by Anglesey is bad for children, bad for education and bad for the environment and it is time that someone with an ounce of common sense on that council got a grip of the situation and revoked what is a bad policy.
Column, July 26, 2005
UNTIL now the travails of the country landowner are not something that have furrowed my brow unduly.
Having lived in a flat where the sum total of the acreage under my control amounted to one balcony; followed by a Victorian terrace where, were I cruel enough to swing a cat, it would have bashed it head against the four walls of a tiny back yard – I have been untroubled by the onerous duties that rest on the shoulders of the landowner.
But then I moved house. Now I have gardens, or, as I like to refer to them when getting ideas way, way above my station, grounds.
Hedgerows, a rose garden, stone walls, lawns, and even a small woodland comprise Banks acres. I can now order someone off my land and it will involve a longer walk than them stepping out of the front door.
Since acquiring the spread I have come over all bucolic and it can only be a matter of time before the Country Landowners Association come a-calling offering me honorary membership, or even life presidency.
Our nearest neighbour is a farmer, we’re surrounded by fields, and our two-year-old having spent his summer in the great outdoors, has acquired the bronze perma-tan of a horny-handed son of the soil rather than a pasty-faced son of a hack.
I was half-wondering whether I could set aside the front lawn and claim EU subsidy for it and is a tractor really out of the question as a second car?
My agricultural credentials duly established I feel I can hold forth with farmers on an equal footing. While my fortunes are not so wedded to the vagaries of oil seed rape prices as are theirs, nevertheless I feel their pain.
So it was that conversation on Saturday fell, as it does when you’re a custodian or our rural heritage, to the subject of hedgerows and when to cut them.
I was feeling rather proud to have neatly-trimmed my rambling row, but my farming acquaintance revealed that he could not tackle his until the end of the summer.
This wasn’t because other farming duties took precedence, but it was because of something called cross compliance.
I can see your eyes glazing over, and so were mine, you’re thinking here’s another whinging farmer aren’t you? And you wouldn’t be wrong, but he was whinging with good reason. Furthermore he drove a modest Ford Mondeo, not a large, new Volvo.
Here’s how it works. To get his full subsidy he must comply with certain environmental regulations – and hedgerow cutting is one of them. No cutting between March 15 and August 31 in Wales, March 1 to July 31 in England.
This is to allow birds to nest, breed and for the young to fly the nest.
This all seems to make perfect sense if you’re a bird lover and who can argue against such a regulation, even if it means untidy hedges?
Well, my new farming mate could give you one or two things to think about.
For a start the dates apply from the southernmost tip of the UK to the northernmost. You’re not telling me that birds in the balmy southern climes of Kent nest and breed at exactly the same dates as those on the Llyn, or in Northumberland are you?
Secondly, my new-found friend said that a hedge cut now produced a dense, thick hedge which was accessible to small hedge-nesting birds, but was impenetrable to predators such as magpies. By leaving the cutting until later, the hedge was loose and so the magpies can get in and kill the very birds that the rules are trying to protect.
Thirdly, by the end of the summer the thorns on hedges like hawthorn have hardened, and so when they’re cut they get into the hooves of livestock causing suffering to them, which they wouldn’t if they were cut earlier when the thorns are still soft.
All of this is as a result of well-intentioned rules being imposed on a on-size fits all basis. We all know that the climate of North Wales is different from that of the South East of England and yet the rules are being applied across the board instead of allowing for some local leeway.
This is just a small example of the sort of bureaucracy that farmers have to cope with now when dealing with the minefield that is subsidy.
Of course, you might argue that they shouldn’t be getting subsidy in the first place, but without subsidy we’d be paying more for our food, so take your pick.
Some cynics might argue that if farmers were allowed a free hand there wouldn’t be a bird left and every hedgerow in sight would have been grubbed up in the name of profit.
But if you’re going to have rules, surely it’s better to have rules that make sense and work rather than ones which endanger the very species you’re trying to protect.
I’M not surprised parents on Anglesey are less than thrilled at the council’s latest cost-cutting wheeze.
Making parents stump up £60 to pay for the school bus fares must have seemed a stroke of genius to whoever it is that counts beans at the council, but if you’re the one who foots the bill you might not be as impressed by a display of penny-pinching that would make Scrooge blush.
Imagine if you’ve got three kids of school age – that’s £180 that you’re expected to find in one go.
As father-of-two Eddie Gardner not unreasonable asks, why can’t the kids still pay on a day-by-day basis, even if the fares go up?
The council spokesman, while neatly passing the buck to the Assembly, does not explain why they want the cash in one, difficult to find, lump sum, rather than allowing children to pay the fares on a daily basis.
Surely they knew this would create hardship, or are they so out of touch with their own electorate that they imagine a family with three kids has £180 lying around doing nothing in particular?
Bringing up kids is expensive enough without ill-thought-out policies like this one making life even harder.
The end result of this will be children walking to school because their parents simply can’t afford to fund Anglesey’s ham-fisted attempt to cut costs.
And when a child gets knocked down walking on an unsafe route to school, where will those who made this decision be then?
My best guess is: Nowhere to be seen.
The council should reconsider this decision immediately and allow parents to pay fares on a daily basis.
Having lived in a flat where the sum total of the acreage under my control amounted to one balcony; followed by a Victorian terrace where, were I cruel enough to swing a cat, it would have bashed it head against the four walls of a tiny back yard – I have been untroubled by the onerous duties that rest on the shoulders of the landowner.
But then I moved house. Now I have gardens, or, as I like to refer to them when getting ideas way, way above my station, grounds.
Hedgerows, a rose garden, stone walls, lawns, and even a small woodland comprise Banks acres. I can now order someone off my land and it will involve a longer walk than them stepping out of the front door.
Since acquiring the spread I have come over all bucolic and it can only be a matter of time before the Country Landowners Association come a-calling offering me honorary membership, or even life presidency.
Our nearest neighbour is a farmer, we’re surrounded by fields, and our two-year-old having spent his summer in the great outdoors, has acquired the bronze perma-tan of a horny-handed son of the soil rather than a pasty-faced son of a hack.
I was half-wondering whether I could set aside the front lawn and claim EU subsidy for it and is a tractor really out of the question as a second car?
My agricultural credentials duly established I feel I can hold forth with farmers on an equal footing. While my fortunes are not so wedded to the vagaries of oil seed rape prices as are theirs, nevertheless I feel their pain.
So it was that conversation on Saturday fell, as it does when you’re a custodian or our rural heritage, to the subject of hedgerows and when to cut them.
I was feeling rather proud to have neatly-trimmed my rambling row, but my farming acquaintance revealed that he could not tackle his until the end of the summer.
This wasn’t because other farming duties took precedence, but it was because of something called cross compliance.
I can see your eyes glazing over, and so were mine, you’re thinking here’s another whinging farmer aren’t you? And you wouldn’t be wrong, but he was whinging with good reason. Furthermore he drove a modest Ford Mondeo, not a large, new Volvo.
Here’s how it works. To get his full subsidy he must comply with certain environmental regulations – and hedgerow cutting is one of them. No cutting between March 15 and August 31 in Wales, March 1 to July 31 in England.
This is to allow birds to nest, breed and for the young to fly the nest.
This all seems to make perfect sense if you’re a bird lover and who can argue against such a regulation, even if it means untidy hedges?
Well, my new farming mate could give you one or two things to think about.
For a start the dates apply from the southernmost tip of the UK to the northernmost. You’re not telling me that birds in the balmy southern climes of Kent nest and breed at exactly the same dates as those on the Llyn, or in Northumberland are you?
Secondly, my new-found friend said that a hedge cut now produced a dense, thick hedge which was accessible to small hedge-nesting birds, but was impenetrable to predators such as magpies. By leaving the cutting until later, the hedge was loose and so the magpies can get in and kill the very birds that the rules are trying to protect.
Thirdly, by the end of the summer the thorns on hedges like hawthorn have hardened, and so when they’re cut they get into the hooves of livestock causing suffering to them, which they wouldn’t if they were cut earlier when the thorns are still soft.
All of this is as a result of well-intentioned rules being imposed on a on-size fits all basis. We all know that the climate of North Wales is different from that of the South East of England and yet the rules are being applied across the board instead of allowing for some local leeway.
This is just a small example of the sort of bureaucracy that farmers have to cope with now when dealing with the minefield that is subsidy.
Of course, you might argue that they shouldn’t be getting subsidy in the first place, but without subsidy we’d be paying more for our food, so take your pick.
Some cynics might argue that if farmers were allowed a free hand there wouldn’t be a bird left and every hedgerow in sight would have been grubbed up in the name of profit.
But if you’re going to have rules, surely it’s better to have rules that make sense and work rather than ones which endanger the very species you’re trying to protect.
I’M not surprised parents on Anglesey are less than thrilled at the council’s latest cost-cutting wheeze.
Making parents stump up £60 to pay for the school bus fares must have seemed a stroke of genius to whoever it is that counts beans at the council, but if you’re the one who foots the bill you might not be as impressed by a display of penny-pinching that would make Scrooge blush.
Imagine if you’ve got three kids of school age – that’s £180 that you’re expected to find in one go.
As father-of-two Eddie Gardner not unreasonable asks, why can’t the kids still pay on a day-by-day basis, even if the fares go up?
The council spokesman, while neatly passing the buck to the Assembly, does not explain why they want the cash in one, difficult to find, lump sum, rather than allowing children to pay the fares on a daily basis.
Surely they knew this would create hardship, or are they so out of touch with their own electorate that they imagine a family with three kids has £180 lying around doing nothing in particular?
Bringing up kids is expensive enough without ill-thought-out policies like this one making life even harder.
The end result of this will be children walking to school because their parents simply can’t afford to fund Anglesey’s ham-fisted attempt to cut costs.
And when a child gets knocked down walking on an unsafe route to school, where will those who made this decision be then?
My best guess is: Nowhere to be seen.
The council should reconsider this decision immediately and allow parents to pay fares on a daily basis.
Column, July 19, 2005
IS having a form in Welsh the biggest issue to face our country?
Well, I suppose some might say it depends on what’s on the form. I rather think it does not matter a jot what’s on the form unless you are simply paying, if you’ll pardon the pun, lip service to us being bilingual.
Elfyn Llwyd thinks it matters and asked Tony Blair why pub landlords in Wales had not been given the opportunity to have new licensing forms in Welsh.
Blair replied that urgent discussions were going on between the secretary of state for Wales and the culture secretary on that very matter.
One imagines that the discussion might have gone something along the lines of:
Welsh sec: “What do you bloomin’ well mean you didn’t know we spoke a different language here – get typing.”
You can perhaps, just about, forgive tourists venturing here for the first time and who are initially thrown by bi-lingual road signs. But for a whole ministry to forget we speak a different language is beyond the pale.
One person who, apparently, did not think it so important was Chris Bryant, MP for the Rhondda valley.
You can I suppose, understand, if not forgive him not being that bothered about the lack of a Welsh language form. There would not be that many votes in it in the Rhondda where the closes they get to the language is to correctly pronounce the double-d.
“Was the availability of a Welsh language form the biggest issue in Wales?” he asked, having jeered at Mr Llwyd while he was asking his question of the PM.
Perhaps it isn’t.
I’m fairly certain that Wales will get up tomorrow and get on with the business of being Wales, unhindered by the absence of a Welsh language form for licensees.
But it’s just another little chip away at our identity, another inconvenience to be overcome by those who choose to use the language of their birth.
This is how languages die.
No one, not even Chris Bryant, is going to introduce the Welsh Language (Kill It Stone Dead) Bill to parliament. But what they do, which is just as bad, is ignore it, forget it, fail to take account of the fact that people want to speak it.
The days of the Welsh Not are, thankfully, so far behind us now that I’ve met many English people who seriously doubt it ever existed. But if the pub licensing forms are allowed to stand then the Welsh Not is replaced with the Welsh Can’t. Instead of being punished for speaking Welsh it is just made more and more invonvenient.
To protect the language against death by a thousand cuts like this it needs guardians more vigilant than Labour’s Chris Bryant.
But to return to his question – is this the biggest issue in Wales at the moment? Perhaps not.
Are we to take it then that Mr Bryant spends his Parliamentary time dealing with matters more weighty than this?
Well, he is very busy voting that’s for sure and he’s only disagreed with the Government nine times in 1,007 votes thus far, giving us an altogether new definition of lobby fodder some might say.
But he’s full of bright ideas and came up with an Early Day Motion on a very important matter only a month ago.
His EDM read: “That this House commends the Registrar-General, Len Cook, on his recommendation to relax the rules governing the list of readings, songs or music that contain reference to a god or deity in civil wedding ceremonies; and looks forward to the Government bringing forward new guidelines as soon as possible.”
Now, of the availability of Welsh on licensing forms is a pressing issue, then I’m surprised that what you can and can’t sing at a civil wedding has not been the subject of a Panorama special.
Superb. Worth £1,000 – the usual cost of an EDM – of anyone’s money. Only this time it wasn’t anyone’s money it was the taxpayers’ wasn’t it?
But nice to know what a New Labour loyalist views as important in Wales. The language – not very, but what you can sing at a civil wedding – that’s important enough to waste taxpayers’ money and parliamentary resources on.
If I were Elfyn Llwyd, in the face of such mighty intellects, I would rather be jeered than cheered.
IN the aftermath of the London bombing London’s commuters continued with life as normal as they could.
Our stout allies in the war on terror – the US air force, was told to stay out of London, but hey, they’ve got a track record of hanging about on the fringes of things before getting stuck in haven’t they?
But quite a few people were wary of going back on the Tube, and in the wake of the atrocity they were less than keen to get on a bus either.
Cars are expensive and you get hit with the congestion charge and taxis are exorbitant.
So what did they do in their droves? Went out and bought bikes.
Cycle shops reported huge increases in sales in the days after the London bombing as those scared of going underground sought other ways of getting into work.
The cycle shops – unlike London’s hotels who profiteered their way through the bombing by shoving up room prices for one day only – sold bikes at massive discounts so they were not profiting from the atrocity.
But did no-one whisper in the ear of these new cyclists one little statistic.
Last year in the UK 134 cyclists were killed in accidents on the road. The toll of the London bombs stands at 55. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who is the biggest threat to you.
It’s not terrorist atrocities, it’s the driver behind you who’s taken his eye of the road.
Well, I suppose some might say it depends on what’s on the form. I rather think it does not matter a jot what’s on the form unless you are simply paying, if you’ll pardon the pun, lip service to us being bilingual.
Elfyn Llwyd thinks it matters and asked Tony Blair why pub landlords in Wales had not been given the opportunity to have new licensing forms in Welsh.
Blair replied that urgent discussions were going on between the secretary of state for Wales and the culture secretary on that very matter.
One imagines that the discussion might have gone something along the lines of:
Welsh sec: “What do you bloomin’ well mean you didn’t know we spoke a different language here – get typing.”
You can perhaps, just about, forgive tourists venturing here for the first time and who are initially thrown by bi-lingual road signs. But for a whole ministry to forget we speak a different language is beyond the pale.
One person who, apparently, did not think it so important was Chris Bryant, MP for the Rhondda valley.
You can I suppose, understand, if not forgive him not being that bothered about the lack of a Welsh language form. There would not be that many votes in it in the Rhondda where the closes they get to the language is to correctly pronounce the double-d.
“Was the availability of a Welsh language form the biggest issue in Wales?” he asked, having jeered at Mr Llwyd while he was asking his question of the PM.
Perhaps it isn’t.
I’m fairly certain that Wales will get up tomorrow and get on with the business of being Wales, unhindered by the absence of a Welsh language form for licensees.
But it’s just another little chip away at our identity, another inconvenience to be overcome by those who choose to use the language of their birth.
This is how languages die.
No one, not even Chris Bryant, is going to introduce the Welsh Language (Kill It Stone Dead) Bill to parliament. But what they do, which is just as bad, is ignore it, forget it, fail to take account of the fact that people want to speak it.
The days of the Welsh Not are, thankfully, so far behind us now that I’ve met many English people who seriously doubt it ever existed. But if the pub licensing forms are allowed to stand then the Welsh Not is replaced with the Welsh Can’t. Instead of being punished for speaking Welsh it is just made more and more invonvenient.
To protect the language against death by a thousand cuts like this it needs guardians more vigilant than Labour’s Chris Bryant.
But to return to his question – is this the biggest issue in Wales at the moment? Perhaps not.
Are we to take it then that Mr Bryant spends his Parliamentary time dealing with matters more weighty than this?
Well, he is very busy voting that’s for sure and he’s only disagreed with the Government nine times in 1,007 votes thus far, giving us an altogether new definition of lobby fodder some might say.
But he’s full of bright ideas and came up with an Early Day Motion on a very important matter only a month ago.
His EDM read: “That this House commends the Registrar-General, Len Cook, on his recommendation to relax the rules governing the list of readings, songs or music that contain reference to a god or deity in civil wedding ceremonies; and looks forward to the Government bringing forward new guidelines as soon as possible.”
Now, of the availability of Welsh on licensing forms is a pressing issue, then I’m surprised that what you can and can’t sing at a civil wedding has not been the subject of a Panorama special.
Superb. Worth £1,000 – the usual cost of an EDM – of anyone’s money. Only this time it wasn’t anyone’s money it was the taxpayers’ wasn’t it?
But nice to know what a New Labour loyalist views as important in Wales. The language – not very, but what you can sing at a civil wedding – that’s important enough to waste taxpayers’ money and parliamentary resources on.
If I were Elfyn Llwyd, in the face of such mighty intellects, I would rather be jeered than cheered.
IN the aftermath of the London bombing London’s commuters continued with life as normal as they could.
Our stout allies in the war on terror – the US air force, was told to stay out of London, but hey, they’ve got a track record of hanging about on the fringes of things before getting stuck in haven’t they?
But quite a few people were wary of going back on the Tube, and in the wake of the atrocity they were less than keen to get on a bus either.
Cars are expensive and you get hit with the congestion charge and taxis are exorbitant.
So what did they do in their droves? Went out and bought bikes.
Cycle shops reported huge increases in sales in the days after the London bombing as those scared of going underground sought other ways of getting into work.
The cycle shops – unlike London’s hotels who profiteered their way through the bombing by shoving up room prices for one day only – sold bikes at massive discounts so they were not profiting from the atrocity.
But did no-one whisper in the ear of these new cyclists one little statistic.
Last year in the UK 134 cyclists were killed in accidents on the road. The toll of the London bombs stands at 55. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who is the biggest threat to you.
It’s not terrorist atrocities, it’s the driver behind you who’s taken his eye of the road.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Column, July 4 2005
Sorry I've been remiss.
Here's one from July, more to follow.
If there's anyone out there reading them that is.
I’M sorry I’ve been busy in the last week but can you tell me which day they found a cure for cancer?
And my attention must have strayed quite a bit, because apparently they also saw off heart disease.
Respiratory diseases became a thing of the past while I nipped to the shops and didn’t have my eye on the game.
Strokes were solved while I was having a nap.
Medical miracles every one and this can only explain why the British Medical Association’s illustrious membership turned their mighty collective brain to the subject of that other mass killer – cycle helmets.
Or rather, that is, the lack of cycle helmets.
Cyclists venturing out without the benefit of a large lump of expanded polystyrene was something up with which the BMA would not put.
I tell you, they must blooming well hate that Alexander Fleming chap, he had it easy didn’t he? Grew a bit of mould on a few melons, found it patched up cuts something marvellous and hey presto he’s got penicillin and he’s saved half the planet.
They’re running out of fixes like that one, hence they turn to cycle helmets. Whichever member of the Brains Trust it was that put this on the BMA agenda, I suspect he’ll be waiting a while before the Nobel Committee come a calling.
But why get so worked up at what seems a very sensible idea? Helmets are bound to make you safer as a cyclist aren’t they?
Well, this is where it gets bit complicated, but basically the answer is yes, but only some of the time.
And why should we get worked up about it in Wales, especially if we don’t go biking? I’ll get to that in a minute, stay with me.
A helmet only protects you from certain types of impact, and if your brain gets rattled about enough there’s nothing a helmet will do to protect you. Sadly some cyclists don’t realise that and they think a helmet makes them indestructible – it doesn’t as they and their next of kin find out.
Secondly, a helmet makes motorists think you’re indestructible and they drive even more recklessly around you.
Thirdly, and this is where the BMA should have been really paying attention instead of seeking to grab headlines. Where they have made cycle helmets compulsory, such as parts of Australia, people gave up cycling. And what happened then? The rate of heart disease went up.
Fewer people got on bikes, they got fatter, they got coronary heart disease and they died. All because an Australia politician thought it would be a great idea to make everyone wear helmets.
Which brings us back to where I started. In 2002 there were about 500,000 deaths in the UK. Of those deaths 39 per cent – 195,000 – were due to coronary heart disease.
And how many cyclists died on the roads that year? 130.
Now, even if every one of those deaths could have been prevented by the using of a helmet, and I’m prepared to bet that quite a few of those killed were actually wearing helmets, you have to wonder at the BMA’s sense of priorities.
Instead of focusing on the UK’s number 1 killer they decide to wade into something they clearly have not read the research on, and, after a particularly short and ill-informed debate, they decide they want cyclists to be compelled to wear helmets.
Because heart disease is a much tougher nut to crack. They’re going to have to get us to change our whole lifestyle. Instead of laws to compel cyclists to wear helmets I’d like to have seen the BMA try to ban chips. They’d need more than a good bedside manner to push that through.
Now, you might be tempted to trot out the well-worn cliché “Well, if it saves one life….etc, etc” Just don’t, we’ve already shown that for all the lives it saves, more will be lost because people won’t take up cycling and they’ll die of heart disease as a result.
Which brings me round to Wales. Why should we care here more than anyone else?
Because we’re trying, and succeeding, in cornering the activity holiday market in the UK.
As was revealed last week, for every £1 spent on promoting Wales as the great outdoors, tourists spend £25 in return, which is better than most of us do on the lottery every week.
So just as we win a hard-fought battle for visitors, the BMA starts putting them off cycling by telling them that if they do it without a helmet some policeman should nick them. And I’m sure the police are well pleased with the BMA for handing them that victimless crime to pursue in the masses of free time they have left over from tackling the binge drinkers who really are filling most hospitals’ A&E units.
Still, who am I to stand between the BMA and another headline? After all, it probably won’t be this generation of doctors who will pick up the pieces. It will be the next, whose wards will be full of even more cardiac patients whose presence could have been avoided if the BMA had listened to sense instead of its own prejudices.
GREAT concerts, great bands, wonderful cause and Sir Bob, eh, well, he’s a saint isn’t he?
Well, let’s leave aside the crushing irony of some of the world’s most fabulously wealthy rock stars telling us we should do something about world poverty.
Let’s skate over the fact that more than a few of them will have teams of accountants working for them to help them evade tax which goes, amongst other things, toward overseas aid.
And let’s turn a blind eye to the fact that amongst their number may be a fair few tax exiles whose convenient country of residence may not even pay overseas aid at all.
And let’s just imagine that the G8 leaders will give two hoots what was said at the Live8 concerts even though they know full well that if they cut us a tax break come election time we will troop to the polling booths like loyal little voters no matter how many starving Africans fill our TV screens.
So how do we make poverty history. Well trading fairly might be a start, and let’s take the example of sugar.
The EU grows masses of it, and it subsidises its farmers who grow it to the tune of €1.5billion a year.
It closes its sugar markets to third world imports and then dumps its excess production onto markets in the rest of the world, preventing developing countries from getting a decent price for their sugar.
So lets make poverty history, lets trade sugar fairly. To do so will mean some revision to the Common Agricultural Policy and as we’ve seen recently, that’s not going to happen overnight.
Making poverty history is the noblest of causes, but it is not a cause that is served well by a bunch of overpaid rock stars getting up on stage and saying it’s an easy thing to do.
That sort of trite reasoning invites the same sound-bite response from the G8 leaders and that is the last thing that those in poverty need.
Here's one from July, more to follow.
If there's anyone out there reading them that is.
I’M sorry I’ve been busy in the last week but can you tell me which day they found a cure for cancer?
And my attention must have strayed quite a bit, because apparently they also saw off heart disease.
Respiratory diseases became a thing of the past while I nipped to the shops and didn’t have my eye on the game.
Strokes were solved while I was having a nap.
Medical miracles every one and this can only explain why the British Medical Association’s illustrious membership turned their mighty collective brain to the subject of that other mass killer – cycle helmets.
Or rather, that is, the lack of cycle helmets.
Cyclists venturing out without the benefit of a large lump of expanded polystyrene was something up with which the BMA would not put.
I tell you, they must blooming well hate that Alexander Fleming chap, he had it easy didn’t he? Grew a bit of mould on a few melons, found it patched up cuts something marvellous and hey presto he’s got penicillin and he’s saved half the planet.
They’re running out of fixes like that one, hence they turn to cycle helmets. Whichever member of the Brains Trust it was that put this on the BMA agenda, I suspect he’ll be waiting a while before the Nobel Committee come a calling.
But why get so worked up at what seems a very sensible idea? Helmets are bound to make you safer as a cyclist aren’t they?
Well, this is where it gets bit complicated, but basically the answer is yes, but only some of the time.
And why should we get worked up about it in Wales, especially if we don’t go biking? I’ll get to that in a minute, stay with me.
A helmet only protects you from certain types of impact, and if your brain gets rattled about enough there’s nothing a helmet will do to protect you. Sadly some cyclists don’t realise that and they think a helmet makes them indestructible – it doesn’t as they and their next of kin find out.
Secondly, a helmet makes motorists think you’re indestructible and they drive even more recklessly around you.
Thirdly, and this is where the BMA should have been really paying attention instead of seeking to grab headlines. Where they have made cycle helmets compulsory, such as parts of Australia, people gave up cycling. And what happened then? The rate of heart disease went up.
Fewer people got on bikes, they got fatter, they got coronary heart disease and they died. All because an Australia politician thought it would be a great idea to make everyone wear helmets.
Which brings us back to where I started. In 2002 there were about 500,000 deaths in the UK. Of those deaths 39 per cent – 195,000 – were due to coronary heart disease.
And how many cyclists died on the roads that year? 130.
Now, even if every one of those deaths could have been prevented by the using of a helmet, and I’m prepared to bet that quite a few of those killed were actually wearing helmets, you have to wonder at the BMA’s sense of priorities.
Instead of focusing on the UK’s number 1 killer they decide to wade into something they clearly have not read the research on, and, after a particularly short and ill-informed debate, they decide they want cyclists to be compelled to wear helmets.
Because heart disease is a much tougher nut to crack. They’re going to have to get us to change our whole lifestyle. Instead of laws to compel cyclists to wear helmets I’d like to have seen the BMA try to ban chips. They’d need more than a good bedside manner to push that through.
Now, you might be tempted to trot out the well-worn cliché “Well, if it saves one life….etc, etc” Just don’t, we’ve already shown that for all the lives it saves, more will be lost because people won’t take up cycling and they’ll die of heart disease as a result.
Which brings me round to Wales. Why should we care here more than anyone else?
Because we’re trying, and succeeding, in cornering the activity holiday market in the UK.
As was revealed last week, for every £1 spent on promoting Wales as the great outdoors, tourists spend £25 in return, which is better than most of us do on the lottery every week.
So just as we win a hard-fought battle for visitors, the BMA starts putting them off cycling by telling them that if they do it without a helmet some policeman should nick them. And I’m sure the police are well pleased with the BMA for handing them that victimless crime to pursue in the masses of free time they have left over from tackling the binge drinkers who really are filling most hospitals’ A&E units.
Still, who am I to stand between the BMA and another headline? After all, it probably won’t be this generation of doctors who will pick up the pieces. It will be the next, whose wards will be full of even more cardiac patients whose presence could have been avoided if the BMA had listened to sense instead of its own prejudices.
GREAT concerts, great bands, wonderful cause and Sir Bob, eh, well, he’s a saint isn’t he?
Well, let’s leave aside the crushing irony of some of the world’s most fabulously wealthy rock stars telling us we should do something about world poverty.
Let’s skate over the fact that more than a few of them will have teams of accountants working for them to help them evade tax which goes, amongst other things, toward overseas aid.
And let’s turn a blind eye to the fact that amongst their number may be a fair few tax exiles whose convenient country of residence may not even pay overseas aid at all.
And let’s just imagine that the G8 leaders will give two hoots what was said at the Live8 concerts even though they know full well that if they cut us a tax break come election time we will troop to the polling booths like loyal little voters no matter how many starving Africans fill our TV screens.
So how do we make poverty history. Well trading fairly might be a start, and let’s take the example of sugar.
The EU grows masses of it, and it subsidises its farmers who grow it to the tune of €1.5billion a year.
It closes its sugar markets to third world imports and then dumps its excess production onto markets in the rest of the world, preventing developing countries from getting a decent price for their sugar.
So lets make poverty history, lets trade sugar fairly. To do so will mean some revision to the Common Agricultural Policy and as we’ve seen recently, that’s not going to happen overnight.
Making poverty history is the noblest of causes, but it is not a cause that is served well by a bunch of overpaid rock stars getting up on stage and saying it’s an easy thing to do.
That sort of trite reasoning invites the same sound-bite response from the G8 leaders and that is the last thing that those in poverty need.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Column, March 22, 2005
THERE was a point in Saturday’s match when you could tell Welsh rugby was back.
In recent weeks the Welsh team’s success had been written off by those who had predicted they would come fourth this year as a fluke.
A flash in the pan, and Henson with his gelled hair was nothing more than a show pony.
Now, already, English papers geared up for an English win, or at worst, a French, are damning us with the faint praise that this was not a ‘vintage’ Six Nations.
Former Lions coach Dick Best even said it was a team built on sand.
The point at which his words must have turned to ashes in his mouth came in the second half, when Wales were ahead, but under siege on their own line by the Irish.
Wales won a turnover, the ball came out and in any other match you would have seen it hoofed into touch to win a breathing space.
But no, Henson looked to his left, and thought ‘There might be something on here’ – passed it out across his goal and we attacked – from our own try line.
Cocky? Certainly. Arrogant? Well, maybe. But it was something else as well – beautiful to watch.
Here was a Welsh team forged from the ferocious Southern Hemisphere fitness regimes of Graham Henry and Steve Hansen.
Added to that was relentless, attacking, open rugby of Mike Ruddock and the result was a team that were runaway winners of the Grand Slam.
Run it out from your try line? Well, why not, if it’s Shane Williams running with it, anything is possible.
Teams built on sand do not field props like Gethin Jenkins who charge down a kick, play football with it and then beat the Irish defence to score a try.
And Henson, a show pony? Some show when you drop a goal and then slot a 53-metre penalty like it was a training ground kick. Ask Brian O’Driscoll who was folded as efficiently in a monstrous Henson tackle on Saturday as England’s Matthew Tait was when Wales opened this campaign.
There is one thing that will always, always strike terror into the heart of a rugby team and that is pace, and the Welsh are now playing at a speed which simply bewitches them.
No sooner was one red shirt tackled than another appeared carrying the ball. Built on sand? The Irish must have felt like they were trying to hold onto sand as wave after wave of Welsh attacks came their way.
Whereas in the past we bemoaned one dropped pass or one missed kick that meant the difference between victory and defeat, now an attack which comes to nought is shrugged off, safe in the knowledge that there will be another one along soon.
And what attacks they are. Shane Williams and Dwayne Peel must live on a diet of nectar. Swift as hummingbirds, they are a blur on the pitch, in the time it takes an opponent to realise they are there, they’re off twisting, turning in another direction, leaving tacklers to grasp at the air turbulence in their wake.
But what does the win mean for Wales? This was a question addressed by the BBC in the run-up to Saturday by Wyre Davies in a report from a feverish Cardiff. But to put things in perspective he took his cameras to Pontypool where unemployment is still high and the goalposts rust on a rugby ground that has seen better days.
All well and good to put things in perspective, but when England returned with the World Cup I don’t remember such navel gazing.
Sometimes it does you good to lose all perspective and believe in yourselves. Who would have thought after last year’s performance we would have won the Grand Slam.
Who would have had the confidence, with Wales at 40-1 against to do it, to risk the housekeeping money down the bookies (not me, and if you did, I don’t want to know)?
But to be fair to the Beeb, their build-up to the match was beautifully done, especially the sequence about the Welsh side-step.
“You can teach someone how to sidestep,” said Ieuan Evans, as footage rolled by of him dancing around flailing defenders, “But you can’t teach them when.”
But Gerald Davies must have brought tears to the eyes of anyone who has played rugby at any level when he said: “The sidestep is the small man’s act of retribution. In a game of big men this is one moment of revenge. There is a way, a Welsh way, a special way to play rugby football.”
In this Six Nations Wales could not have been truer to his vision. In the 90s you would have been forgiven for thinking that rugby had become a game only for big men. Large, grinding forwards who could batter down a defence and force a penalty for Jonny Wilkinson to kick – time, after time, after time.
You might have enjoyed watching it if you were wearing a white shirt, but only for the result, there was precious little spectacle to behold. The England team’s performance having lost just a few key players shows just which one was built on sand.
Wales did more than just win the Grand Slam on Saturday, they won back rugby. Over the course of this Six Nations they reminded us all of what a truly sublime game it can be and we fell in love with it all over again.
It was a game that was enthralling to watch, full of possibilities and most of all, fun. Wales had not abandoned the ethos that made them a legendary force in international rugby. This was not victory at all costs; this was not victory brought with New Zealanders grandfathered into the side. This was a Welsh team playing wonderful, truly Welsh, rugby.
Whether this was indeed a vintage Six Nations history will decide, but remember the average age of those playing was just 26 years – there’s a lot of rugby left in them before these ‘show ponies’ are put out to grass.
Those who believe this is a team built on sand might also be interested in another result from the weekend – Wales 32, Ireland 5.
That was the result from the Under-21s match, where Wales also won the Grand Slam.
As Henson said after the match: “This is just the beginning.”
In recent weeks the Welsh team’s success had been written off by those who had predicted they would come fourth this year as a fluke.
A flash in the pan, and Henson with his gelled hair was nothing more than a show pony.
Now, already, English papers geared up for an English win, or at worst, a French, are damning us with the faint praise that this was not a ‘vintage’ Six Nations.
Former Lions coach Dick Best even said it was a team built on sand.
The point at which his words must have turned to ashes in his mouth came in the second half, when Wales were ahead, but under siege on their own line by the Irish.
Wales won a turnover, the ball came out and in any other match you would have seen it hoofed into touch to win a breathing space.
But no, Henson looked to his left, and thought ‘There might be something on here’ – passed it out across his goal and we attacked – from our own try line.
Cocky? Certainly. Arrogant? Well, maybe. But it was something else as well – beautiful to watch.
Here was a Welsh team forged from the ferocious Southern Hemisphere fitness regimes of Graham Henry and Steve Hansen.
Added to that was relentless, attacking, open rugby of Mike Ruddock and the result was a team that were runaway winners of the Grand Slam.
Run it out from your try line? Well, why not, if it’s Shane Williams running with it, anything is possible.
Teams built on sand do not field props like Gethin Jenkins who charge down a kick, play football with it and then beat the Irish defence to score a try.
And Henson, a show pony? Some show when you drop a goal and then slot a 53-metre penalty like it was a training ground kick. Ask Brian O’Driscoll who was folded as efficiently in a monstrous Henson tackle on Saturday as England’s Matthew Tait was when Wales opened this campaign.
There is one thing that will always, always strike terror into the heart of a rugby team and that is pace, and the Welsh are now playing at a speed which simply bewitches them.
No sooner was one red shirt tackled than another appeared carrying the ball. Built on sand? The Irish must have felt like they were trying to hold onto sand as wave after wave of Welsh attacks came their way.
Whereas in the past we bemoaned one dropped pass or one missed kick that meant the difference between victory and defeat, now an attack which comes to nought is shrugged off, safe in the knowledge that there will be another one along soon.
And what attacks they are. Shane Williams and Dwayne Peel must live on a diet of nectar. Swift as hummingbirds, they are a blur on the pitch, in the time it takes an opponent to realise they are there, they’re off twisting, turning in another direction, leaving tacklers to grasp at the air turbulence in their wake.
But what does the win mean for Wales? This was a question addressed by the BBC in the run-up to Saturday by Wyre Davies in a report from a feverish Cardiff. But to put things in perspective he took his cameras to Pontypool where unemployment is still high and the goalposts rust on a rugby ground that has seen better days.
All well and good to put things in perspective, but when England returned with the World Cup I don’t remember such navel gazing.
Sometimes it does you good to lose all perspective and believe in yourselves. Who would have thought after last year’s performance we would have won the Grand Slam.
Who would have had the confidence, with Wales at 40-1 against to do it, to risk the housekeeping money down the bookies (not me, and if you did, I don’t want to know)?
But to be fair to the Beeb, their build-up to the match was beautifully done, especially the sequence about the Welsh side-step.
“You can teach someone how to sidestep,” said Ieuan Evans, as footage rolled by of him dancing around flailing defenders, “But you can’t teach them when.”
But Gerald Davies must have brought tears to the eyes of anyone who has played rugby at any level when he said: “The sidestep is the small man’s act of retribution. In a game of big men this is one moment of revenge. There is a way, a Welsh way, a special way to play rugby football.”
In this Six Nations Wales could not have been truer to his vision. In the 90s you would have been forgiven for thinking that rugby had become a game only for big men. Large, grinding forwards who could batter down a defence and force a penalty for Jonny Wilkinson to kick – time, after time, after time.
You might have enjoyed watching it if you were wearing a white shirt, but only for the result, there was precious little spectacle to behold. The England team’s performance having lost just a few key players shows just which one was built on sand.
Wales did more than just win the Grand Slam on Saturday, they won back rugby. Over the course of this Six Nations they reminded us all of what a truly sublime game it can be and we fell in love with it all over again.
It was a game that was enthralling to watch, full of possibilities and most of all, fun. Wales had not abandoned the ethos that made them a legendary force in international rugby. This was not victory at all costs; this was not victory brought with New Zealanders grandfathered into the side. This was a Welsh team playing wonderful, truly Welsh, rugby.
Whether this was indeed a vintage Six Nations history will decide, but remember the average age of those playing was just 26 years – there’s a lot of rugby left in them before these ‘show ponies’ are put out to grass.
Those who believe this is a team built on sand might also be interested in another result from the weekend – Wales 32, Ireland 5.
That was the result from the Under-21s match, where Wales also won the Grand Slam.
As Henson said after the match: “This is just the beginning.”
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Column, March 15, 2005
I WONDER what reception the Presbyterians of North Wales will receive when they arrive at the Pearly Gates?
This is, of course, rather assuming that you all believe in the Pearly Gates, but it’s a fairly safe bet the Presbyterians do, although they may believe in gates a mite less ostentatious than pearly.
St Peter might ask them what they have done to deserve entry to Heaven and they will tell him proudly that they stopped a craft market being held on a Sunday.
Wrote in and complained they did, to the council, stopped them selling their trinkets on a Sunday and thus Beelzebub and all his little demons were thwarted by the Godly in Pwllheli.
OK, it’s hardly the parting of the Red Sea of the feeding of the 5,000. I suspect that if they are still making stained glass windows ‘The Miracle of the Sunday Market’ will not be featuring among them any time soon.
It would seem that far from making itself more relevant to potential worshippers, some of the churches around Pwllheli are determined to show they are mired in the 19th century, never mind the 20th or 21st.
The source of their discontent is the idea of a Sunday market to be held in the town for 13 weeks this summer.
This suggestion has run into the stout opposition of the Llyn and Eifionydd Presbytery, Pwllheli Church Council and the Association of Presbyterian Churches in the Pwllheli area. Which is a lot of church associations for a little corner of Wales.
Powerful though, for they’ve given the council pause for thought as they have inexplicably deferred the application for more information.
Quite what more information they need I’m not sure – it’s a market, it’s on a Sunday, what more do you need to know?
But the God-fearing folk who are quite happy to traipse along to Tesco, or their newsagents on a Sunday are apparently of the view that to allow the market would be to give in to the forces of Evil and thus the Devil would get a foothold in the Llyn.
So your average shopper can buy an entire week’s groceries, enough booze to bathe in, a computer to indulge his internet porn fantasies and a video camera to capture it all and post it on the web for all to see – but he can’t buy some homemade jam from a craft stall.
Well that’s a relief, because without the Presbyterians of the Llyn we’d all be going to hell in a handcart. We’re so lucky to have them on watch saying “thus far but no further, get thee behind me Satan and take your wickerwork garden trugs with you.”
The Llyn is safe from the heresy of pokerwork, tapestry and little bags of lavender – if they’d opposed it on the grounds that most of these markets sell tasteless tat I’d be right behind them, but they’re all for the market, just not on a Sunday.
Of course I risk some Presbyterian form of excommunication saying all this having been christened by a Presbyterian minister (I don’t think they actually call it a christening, but I was too young to recall what they did call it)
He was on the sick the day he did it, but sneaked me in by doing it at a house, not the chapel. So while you can’t labour on the Sabbath, it’s ok to diddle the DSS
Which does make me wonder whether I’ve been officially baptised, and if not, is a special fire in Hell being stoked for me. I might not ask the Presbyterians for their opinion on that.
YOU know that somehow the world has changed when you find yourself seriously contemplating buying a new hat.
Not just any hat mind, a sequin-encrusted Welsh dragon cowboy hat.
It’s on the WRU website and a snip at £3 I’m sure you’ll agree.
But only those seriously anticipating a glorious outcome this Saturday could contemplate such a purchase. This is not the sort of hat to be caught wearing unless in the throes of headless delight having won the Gra…….. but no, even now, even after Scotland it’s too early to utter the words.
First word beginning with G, means a thousand pounds, second word begins with S, what you do to a door.
Dare we dream that 27 years of slim pickings are coming to an end?
I was 13 the last time this happened, I can hardly remember it. There are children being born this year who will have the name Gavin inflicted upon them, and anyone want to place a bet on a baby girl being christened Gavina in Henson’s honour?
The WRU shop is a delight, selling all manner of inflatable Welsh paraphernalia, though, hopefully the DVDs showing the glories of the 1970s will have to be updated after Saturday.
Of course there was the small matter of the team treating it like a cricket match and declaring once they were 38-3 up, allowing the Scots to run two tries in in the second half.
Ireland will be up for salvaging a championship from the ruins of what could have been their Grand Slam (I can mention it in relation to them, it’s just bad luck to apply it to us just yet)
But that first half against the Scots was just bliss. It’s rugby like they used to play it – fluid, breathtakingly fast, more passes than a Cardiff nightclub on a tanked-up Saturday night, and, at last, tries galore.
If Wales in reinventing their game have ended the dull percentage game where ground was won for kicker to slot forced penalties then they’ve done the whole Northern hemisphere game a big favour.
Because in relying on kickers, teams are built on one man, and you only have to look at Jonny Wilkinson being stretchered off again on Saturday to see how dangerous that can be.
I did want to write this whole column in anticipation of what joy might happen on Saturday, but to do so would have tempted fate.
But be warned, if the G***d S**m happens on Saturday, it’ll be pig in clover time.
NEW research shows that sheep can fall in love.
I know, don’t ask me why they came up with this line of research but they did. They showed the ewes pictures of rams and recorded brain activity.
From this they deduced that ewes enjoy sex, but forget their partners quicker than women. Why they felt the need to compare the two is quite beyond me.
Apparently the research has implications for the rearing and care of livestock, which is all well and good.
But did they have to do the research on a flock of sheep on a Welsh farm?
This is, of course, rather assuming that you all believe in the Pearly Gates, but it’s a fairly safe bet the Presbyterians do, although they may believe in gates a mite less ostentatious than pearly.
St Peter might ask them what they have done to deserve entry to Heaven and they will tell him proudly that they stopped a craft market being held on a Sunday.
Wrote in and complained they did, to the council, stopped them selling their trinkets on a Sunday and thus Beelzebub and all his little demons were thwarted by the Godly in Pwllheli.
OK, it’s hardly the parting of the Red Sea of the feeding of the 5,000. I suspect that if they are still making stained glass windows ‘The Miracle of the Sunday Market’ will not be featuring among them any time soon.
It would seem that far from making itself more relevant to potential worshippers, some of the churches around Pwllheli are determined to show they are mired in the 19th century, never mind the 20th or 21st.
The source of their discontent is the idea of a Sunday market to be held in the town for 13 weeks this summer.
This suggestion has run into the stout opposition of the Llyn and Eifionydd Presbytery, Pwllheli Church Council and the Association of Presbyterian Churches in the Pwllheli area. Which is a lot of church associations for a little corner of Wales.
Powerful though, for they’ve given the council pause for thought as they have inexplicably deferred the application for more information.
Quite what more information they need I’m not sure – it’s a market, it’s on a Sunday, what more do you need to know?
But the God-fearing folk who are quite happy to traipse along to Tesco, or their newsagents on a Sunday are apparently of the view that to allow the market would be to give in to the forces of Evil and thus the Devil would get a foothold in the Llyn.
So your average shopper can buy an entire week’s groceries, enough booze to bathe in, a computer to indulge his internet porn fantasies and a video camera to capture it all and post it on the web for all to see – but he can’t buy some homemade jam from a craft stall.
Well that’s a relief, because without the Presbyterians of the Llyn we’d all be going to hell in a handcart. We’re so lucky to have them on watch saying “thus far but no further, get thee behind me Satan and take your wickerwork garden trugs with you.”
The Llyn is safe from the heresy of pokerwork, tapestry and little bags of lavender – if they’d opposed it on the grounds that most of these markets sell tasteless tat I’d be right behind them, but they’re all for the market, just not on a Sunday.
Of course I risk some Presbyterian form of excommunication saying all this having been christened by a Presbyterian minister (I don’t think they actually call it a christening, but I was too young to recall what they did call it)
He was on the sick the day he did it, but sneaked me in by doing it at a house, not the chapel. So while you can’t labour on the Sabbath, it’s ok to diddle the DSS
Which does make me wonder whether I’ve been officially baptised, and if not, is a special fire in Hell being stoked for me. I might not ask the Presbyterians for their opinion on that.
YOU know that somehow the world has changed when you find yourself seriously contemplating buying a new hat.
Not just any hat mind, a sequin-encrusted Welsh dragon cowboy hat.
It’s on the WRU website and a snip at £3 I’m sure you’ll agree.
But only those seriously anticipating a glorious outcome this Saturday could contemplate such a purchase. This is not the sort of hat to be caught wearing unless in the throes of headless delight having won the Gra…….. but no, even now, even after Scotland it’s too early to utter the words.
First word beginning with G, means a thousand pounds, second word begins with S, what you do to a door.
Dare we dream that 27 years of slim pickings are coming to an end?
I was 13 the last time this happened, I can hardly remember it. There are children being born this year who will have the name Gavin inflicted upon them, and anyone want to place a bet on a baby girl being christened Gavina in Henson’s honour?
The WRU shop is a delight, selling all manner of inflatable Welsh paraphernalia, though, hopefully the DVDs showing the glories of the 1970s will have to be updated after Saturday.
Of course there was the small matter of the team treating it like a cricket match and declaring once they were 38-3 up, allowing the Scots to run two tries in in the second half.
Ireland will be up for salvaging a championship from the ruins of what could have been their Grand Slam (I can mention it in relation to them, it’s just bad luck to apply it to us just yet)
But that first half against the Scots was just bliss. It’s rugby like they used to play it – fluid, breathtakingly fast, more passes than a Cardiff nightclub on a tanked-up Saturday night, and, at last, tries galore.
If Wales in reinventing their game have ended the dull percentage game where ground was won for kicker to slot forced penalties then they’ve done the whole Northern hemisphere game a big favour.
Because in relying on kickers, teams are built on one man, and you only have to look at Jonny Wilkinson being stretchered off again on Saturday to see how dangerous that can be.
I did want to write this whole column in anticipation of what joy might happen on Saturday, but to do so would have tempted fate.
But be warned, if the G***d S**m happens on Saturday, it’ll be pig in clover time.
NEW research shows that sheep can fall in love.
I know, don’t ask me why they came up with this line of research but they did. They showed the ewes pictures of rams and recorded brain activity.
From this they deduced that ewes enjoy sex, but forget their partners quicker than women. Why they felt the need to compare the two is quite beyond me.
Apparently the research has implications for the rearing and care of livestock, which is all well and good.
But did they have to do the research on a flock of sheep on a Welsh farm?
Friday, March 11, 2005
Column, March 8, 2005
FOR those not content to wear their hearts on their sleeves there is always the option of wearing a wristband.
It is no longer enough simply to support a cause by dropping your loose change in a charity box, or quietly making a donation by direct debit.
Oh no, now you’ve got to really show your support for a cause, if you’re not wearing the wristband, you don’t really care.
Which is a bit of a presumption really isn’t it. Because I’m not wearing a yellow plastic band on my arm, does that mean I’m in favour of cancer?
If you are incapable of articulating your opposition to something, or support or, heaven help us, ‘solidarity’ with some oppressed, deprived or outcast group, then it’s a sad state of affairs if you have to resort to a wristband to do your talking for you.
They are a continuation of the ribbons that started off with a good idea – red ribbons for AIDS awareness – which then multiplied so rapidly and so colourfully that they soon lost all meaning and there were no longer enough days in the year to wear all the ribbons that were out there.
So I’m right behind Denbigh High School’s ban of theses fatuous wristbands. The school says they’re not in keeping with uniform and they’re a health and safety risk. I just think they’re an affront to the intellect and are just another fad to be foisted upon our youth.
But you need to know your enemy, after all, if your sullen teenager comes home with a lump of plastic attached to his wrist you might want to know just what he is ‘against’ this week. This will avoid dinnertime arguments, after all it’s only too easy to go and put your foot in it by saying you’re all in favour of bullying and that, on reflection, prostate cancer isn’t an entirely bad thing.
If junior is wearing a blue wristband (anti-bullying, anti-prostate cancer) then an unseemly row can be avoided.
Likewise, pink means he’s against breast cancer, whereas red means he’s against tobacco, not at all keen on HIV, he’s got a downer on heart disease, but he wants George Bush to get elected.
If he’s adorned with a green armband then he’s for the environment, but against leukaemia, and he might be an organ donor.
If it’s yellow, he’s ‘living strong’ whatever that platitude may mean, or he’s supporting our troops, which must come as a great comfort to them as they dodge bullets in Iraq.
If he’s got a white one then he’s sure Jesus loves him, or else he believes in the right to life. Black and white and he’s against racism in football – black and white, geddit?
If it’s black then he’s raising awareness of melanoma, or else he’s in mourning.
As well as the above there are also wristbands in purple, orange, grey and gold and I won’t burden you with the simplistic statements they make about various diseases, afflictions or those afflicted by them.
As you can see, should you choose to support all of these causes – and who wouldn’t, it’s like asking who wants to show solidarity with Santa Claus – then you would need extendable arms to cope with the rainbow of plastic hanging from them.
And let’s not even start on all the ribbons that you can wear to show that you are aware of all sorts of things that everyone else if perfectly well aware of without getting dressed up like a demented Morris dancer.
And what of the kids sensible enough not to wear these things, what happens to them? I have visions of the one boy in school not wearing a blue band (anti-bullying, anti-prostate cancer) being pursued around the schoolyard by a gang of kids all wearing their, bullying him because he’s not wearing his anti-bully wristband.
But of course if you deprive these children of the right to wear their wristbands then they become yet another victim group don’t they?
Isn’t it time we showed solidarity with the poor oppressed wee lambs? And what better way to do that than by wearing a wristband? Any suggestions as to which colour?
THE decision of some teachers to tuck into fish and chips while their pupils endured rice and water to raise cash for tsunami victims will have taught the youngsters a valuable lesson.
Far from being shameful that the teachers at Lyndon prep school in Colwyn Bay were guzzling while the kids were fasting, in fact it will have taught them much about the way of the world.
While the rich developed nations grow fatter by plundering natural resources (cod stocks, dwindling already and now three less thanks to the teachers who tucked in) the poorer nations have to make do on starvation rations.
As a lesson in inequality and the misery caused by world poverty, it couldn’t have been better planned.
SO Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson are the Welsh answer to Posh ‘n’ Becks are they?
Sweeping aside the, frankly quite cruel, inquiry as to which is the posh one, I wonder if this is entirely wise?
Beckham is a footballer, an altogether less demanding game then rugby, and so he can afford to indulge his wife in the hedonistic lifestyle they pursue. Attending fashion shows, movie premieres and then getting your hair cut in yet another ridiculous style does not take its toll when you earn a living from the occasional free kick.
Rugby is different and Mr Henson should remember the dire warning of so many a rugby coach to his team as matchday approached – women weaken legs.
I’m not sure we want to go into the mechanics of it in a family newspaper, and it’s probably a myth perpetuated by grizzled old rugby coaches jealous of their young players’ female fans.
But with an historic Grand Slam so tantalisingly close, can we afford to take chances? I would suggest not.
There’s plenty of time afterwards, Gavin, to let her persuade you to wear a skirt, get tattooed top to toe and have fashion makeovers to Charlotte’s heart’s content. But let’s give it a fortnight or so eh?
Ms Church, perversely, is held high in the affections of large sections of the Welsh public, but should any shenanigans with Gavin give rise to a poor performance on the pitch, then the wrath of Wales will descend upon her.
So an appeal, just in case there were any thoughts in that direction Charlotte – don’t do it for Wales.
It is no longer enough simply to support a cause by dropping your loose change in a charity box, or quietly making a donation by direct debit.
Oh no, now you’ve got to really show your support for a cause, if you’re not wearing the wristband, you don’t really care.
Which is a bit of a presumption really isn’t it. Because I’m not wearing a yellow plastic band on my arm, does that mean I’m in favour of cancer?
If you are incapable of articulating your opposition to something, or support or, heaven help us, ‘solidarity’ with some oppressed, deprived or outcast group, then it’s a sad state of affairs if you have to resort to a wristband to do your talking for you.
They are a continuation of the ribbons that started off with a good idea – red ribbons for AIDS awareness – which then multiplied so rapidly and so colourfully that they soon lost all meaning and there were no longer enough days in the year to wear all the ribbons that were out there.
So I’m right behind Denbigh High School’s ban of theses fatuous wristbands. The school says they’re not in keeping with uniform and they’re a health and safety risk. I just think they’re an affront to the intellect and are just another fad to be foisted upon our youth.
But you need to know your enemy, after all, if your sullen teenager comes home with a lump of plastic attached to his wrist you might want to know just what he is ‘against’ this week. This will avoid dinnertime arguments, after all it’s only too easy to go and put your foot in it by saying you’re all in favour of bullying and that, on reflection, prostate cancer isn’t an entirely bad thing.
If junior is wearing a blue wristband (anti-bullying, anti-prostate cancer) then an unseemly row can be avoided.
Likewise, pink means he’s against breast cancer, whereas red means he’s against tobacco, not at all keen on HIV, he’s got a downer on heart disease, but he wants George Bush to get elected.
If he’s adorned with a green armband then he’s for the environment, but against leukaemia, and he might be an organ donor.
If it’s yellow, he’s ‘living strong’ whatever that platitude may mean, or he’s supporting our troops, which must come as a great comfort to them as they dodge bullets in Iraq.
If he’s got a white one then he’s sure Jesus loves him, or else he believes in the right to life. Black and white and he’s against racism in football – black and white, geddit?
If it’s black then he’s raising awareness of melanoma, or else he’s in mourning.
As well as the above there are also wristbands in purple, orange, grey and gold and I won’t burden you with the simplistic statements they make about various diseases, afflictions or those afflicted by them.
As you can see, should you choose to support all of these causes – and who wouldn’t, it’s like asking who wants to show solidarity with Santa Claus – then you would need extendable arms to cope with the rainbow of plastic hanging from them.
And let’s not even start on all the ribbons that you can wear to show that you are aware of all sorts of things that everyone else if perfectly well aware of without getting dressed up like a demented Morris dancer.
And what of the kids sensible enough not to wear these things, what happens to them? I have visions of the one boy in school not wearing a blue band (anti-bullying, anti-prostate cancer) being pursued around the schoolyard by a gang of kids all wearing their, bullying him because he’s not wearing his anti-bully wristband.
But of course if you deprive these children of the right to wear their wristbands then they become yet another victim group don’t they?
Isn’t it time we showed solidarity with the poor oppressed wee lambs? And what better way to do that than by wearing a wristband? Any suggestions as to which colour?
THE decision of some teachers to tuck into fish and chips while their pupils endured rice and water to raise cash for tsunami victims will have taught the youngsters a valuable lesson.
Far from being shameful that the teachers at Lyndon prep school in Colwyn Bay were guzzling while the kids were fasting, in fact it will have taught them much about the way of the world.
While the rich developed nations grow fatter by plundering natural resources (cod stocks, dwindling already and now three less thanks to the teachers who tucked in) the poorer nations have to make do on starvation rations.
As a lesson in inequality and the misery caused by world poverty, it couldn’t have been better planned.
SO Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson are the Welsh answer to Posh ‘n’ Becks are they?
Sweeping aside the, frankly quite cruel, inquiry as to which is the posh one, I wonder if this is entirely wise?
Beckham is a footballer, an altogether less demanding game then rugby, and so he can afford to indulge his wife in the hedonistic lifestyle they pursue. Attending fashion shows, movie premieres and then getting your hair cut in yet another ridiculous style does not take its toll when you earn a living from the occasional free kick.
Rugby is different and Mr Henson should remember the dire warning of so many a rugby coach to his team as matchday approached – women weaken legs.
I’m not sure we want to go into the mechanics of it in a family newspaper, and it’s probably a myth perpetuated by grizzled old rugby coaches jealous of their young players’ female fans.
But with an historic Grand Slam so tantalisingly close, can we afford to take chances? I would suggest not.
There’s plenty of time afterwards, Gavin, to let her persuade you to wear a skirt, get tattooed top to toe and have fashion makeovers to Charlotte’s heart’s content. But let’s give it a fortnight or so eh?
Ms Church, perversely, is held high in the affections of large sections of the Welsh public, but should any shenanigans with Gavin give rise to a poor performance on the pitch, then the wrath of Wales will descend upon her.
So an appeal, just in case there were any thoughts in that direction Charlotte – don’t do it for Wales.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Column, March 1, 2005
I WONDER if the men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in its three glorious centuries of history used the language deployed by Army top brass today?
I suspect that, had the men of the Royal Welch talked like the pencil-necked, paper-pushing desk jockeys that obviously hold sway at the Ministry of Defence, the regiment’s roll of honour would have been curtailed more than somewhat.
You only have to look at the mealy-mouthed way they have done away with the Royal Welch’s name to know that these are not the sort of soldiers you would want at your side when the bullets started to fly.
The Ministry of Defence said the new “Royal Welsh” regiment “would offer a strong brand image and an effective way of maintaining a distinct Welsh identity for the future within the British infantry.
The MoD added: “There is also real enthusiasm within the Army for pressing forward with all the changes, rather than looking back.”
So we get to keep a Welsh identity, but not a “Welch” identity. But imagine if you will the scene at Waterloo, as the French cavalry thundered toward the tiny British squares of red-coated infantry. Do you think the officers spoke like that as they sought to stiffen the resolve of their men against the onslaught that approached?
“Look men, I know there’s a lot of hairy Frenchmen approaching who want to cut you to ribbons, but do well today and it will do wonders for the brand image of the regiment.”
Likewise, when the Royal Welch raised 42 battalions to send to the trenches of World War I, do you think the rallying call as they stormed the Huns’ machine guns was: “Off we go chaps, I know you’re all very enthusiastic to press forward.”
If the MoD is really serious about brand image, then it might do something to stop soldiers in Iraq torturing prisoners. Torture that only came to light and was only subject to a court martial because one of the torturers was stupid enough to take the pictures to a photo shop to be developed.
The British Army’s ‘brand image’ was developed over centuries in which it built an empire the like of which the world has never seen. You might not approve of that, but it certainly did the job that was asked of it by its political masters.
Then it fought two world wars, the latter of which was to defeat probably the most evil regime ever spawned.
And wherever those battles raged you will find the Royal Welch were at the thick of it.
Not an entirely bad track record then and certainly not one to be tinkered about with in the name of developing ‘brand image.’
But then it’s not really about branding is it? This is about squeezing every last nit of cost out of the armed forces. And this bizarrely manifests itself as cutting back on the numbers of the ‘poor bloody infantry’ while spending £19billion on the Eurofighter – a plane which is going to have to have a lump of concrete fitted where its machine gun should have been because the vibration from the gun upsets its delicate computers.
And lets remember it was a fighter that was designed to tackle our erstwhile Cold War enemies – who no longer exist. Now the threat comes from nebulous terrorist cells, against which this £19 billion turkey is completely useless.
All that cash spent, remember, when soldiers were marching through the battlefields of Iraq in boots that melted, with guns that jammed, radios that were useless and without proper body armour.
Of course what is of use against terrorist cells is a battle group of British soldiers landing in whatever God-forsaken country they’re holing up in and making life very unpleasant for them. But then that’s exactly what we’re cutting back on.
It’s not for nothing that the Secretary of State for Defence is known among the ranks as “Buff” Hoon.
But what’s in a name, you may ask, particularly when its only one letter different.
Well, the British army’s regimental system has served the country well over hundreds of years and this Government should know that better than most.
It has been happy to send troops off to Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and it has been happy to use them to break the firefighters’ strike.
This Government is as trigger-happy as any in living memory, but perversely while throwing soldiers at a problem, its happy to see the number of recruits dwindle so that Gordon Brown can balance his books and give us a nice tax break in the Budget so those with short memories and thin wallets will vote them in again.
The loss of the “Royal Welch”name is just a symptom of a greater problem. Of course the new regiment will carry on the traditions of its predecessors, including serving their country with honour.
The British Army was once described as ‘lions led by donkeys’ – it’s as true now as it was then.
QUANTUM theory tells us that the very act of observing something affects its properties.
I think the same applies to Welsh rugby.
There I was on Saturday, glued to the screen and the French were running all over us. Wonderful to watch unless you wanted Wales to win.
So by the end of the first half, 15-6 down, various pressing DIY tasks summoned me elsewhere chez Banks, but I was still listening for the occasional roar from the TV set.
And then Wales go and score a try, I managed to catch the replay having downed tools and raced to the lounge.
So I decided to put the theory to the test and resumed hammering, drilling, sanding or whatever other job was required – and they go and score another try.
Then I watch for a while, and France go and score.
So if I sit there giving them my rapt attention, I’m like a jinx, if I pretend to be uninterested, they run riot.
So, if by Quantum rugby rules, I only watch them out of the corner of my eye for the next couple of weeks, the Grand Slam is ours – for the first time in 27 years.
NEEDLESS to say after Saturday most Welsh people have a great big cheesy grin on their faces.
And what a great gift for St David’s Day.
I hope you all have a very happy one.
I suspect that, had the men of the Royal Welch talked like the pencil-necked, paper-pushing desk jockeys that obviously hold sway at the Ministry of Defence, the regiment’s roll of honour would have been curtailed more than somewhat.
You only have to look at the mealy-mouthed way they have done away with the Royal Welch’s name to know that these are not the sort of soldiers you would want at your side when the bullets started to fly.
The Ministry of Defence said the new “Royal Welsh” regiment “would offer a strong brand image and an effective way of maintaining a distinct Welsh identity for the future within the British infantry.
The MoD added: “There is also real enthusiasm within the Army for pressing forward with all the changes, rather than looking back.”
So we get to keep a Welsh identity, but not a “Welch” identity. But imagine if you will the scene at Waterloo, as the French cavalry thundered toward the tiny British squares of red-coated infantry. Do you think the officers spoke like that as they sought to stiffen the resolve of their men against the onslaught that approached?
“Look men, I know there’s a lot of hairy Frenchmen approaching who want to cut you to ribbons, but do well today and it will do wonders for the brand image of the regiment.”
Likewise, when the Royal Welch raised 42 battalions to send to the trenches of World War I, do you think the rallying call as they stormed the Huns’ machine guns was: “Off we go chaps, I know you’re all very enthusiastic to press forward.”
If the MoD is really serious about brand image, then it might do something to stop soldiers in Iraq torturing prisoners. Torture that only came to light and was only subject to a court martial because one of the torturers was stupid enough to take the pictures to a photo shop to be developed.
The British Army’s ‘brand image’ was developed over centuries in which it built an empire the like of which the world has never seen. You might not approve of that, but it certainly did the job that was asked of it by its political masters.
Then it fought two world wars, the latter of which was to defeat probably the most evil regime ever spawned.
And wherever those battles raged you will find the Royal Welch were at the thick of it.
Not an entirely bad track record then and certainly not one to be tinkered about with in the name of developing ‘brand image.’
But then it’s not really about branding is it? This is about squeezing every last nit of cost out of the armed forces. And this bizarrely manifests itself as cutting back on the numbers of the ‘poor bloody infantry’ while spending £19billion on the Eurofighter – a plane which is going to have to have a lump of concrete fitted where its machine gun should have been because the vibration from the gun upsets its delicate computers.
And lets remember it was a fighter that was designed to tackle our erstwhile Cold War enemies – who no longer exist. Now the threat comes from nebulous terrorist cells, against which this £19 billion turkey is completely useless.
All that cash spent, remember, when soldiers were marching through the battlefields of Iraq in boots that melted, with guns that jammed, radios that were useless and without proper body armour.
Of course what is of use against terrorist cells is a battle group of British soldiers landing in whatever God-forsaken country they’re holing up in and making life very unpleasant for them. But then that’s exactly what we’re cutting back on.
It’s not for nothing that the Secretary of State for Defence is known among the ranks as “Buff” Hoon.
But what’s in a name, you may ask, particularly when its only one letter different.
Well, the British army’s regimental system has served the country well over hundreds of years and this Government should know that better than most.
It has been happy to send troops off to Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and it has been happy to use them to break the firefighters’ strike.
This Government is as trigger-happy as any in living memory, but perversely while throwing soldiers at a problem, its happy to see the number of recruits dwindle so that Gordon Brown can balance his books and give us a nice tax break in the Budget so those with short memories and thin wallets will vote them in again.
The loss of the “Royal Welch”name is just a symptom of a greater problem. Of course the new regiment will carry on the traditions of its predecessors, including serving their country with honour.
The British Army was once described as ‘lions led by donkeys’ – it’s as true now as it was then.
QUANTUM theory tells us that the very act of observing something affects its properties.
I think the same applies to Welsh rugby.
There I was on Saturday, glued to the screen and the French were running all over us. Wonderful to watch unless you wanted Wales to win.
So by the end of the first half, 15-6 down, various pressing DIY tasks summoned me elsewhere chez Banks, but I was still listening for the occasional roar from the TV set.
And then Wales go and score a try, I managed to catch the replay having downed tools and raced to the lounge.
So I decided to put the theory to the test and resumed hammering, drilling, sanding or whatever other job was required – and they go and score another try.
Then I watch for a while, and France go and score.
So if I sit there giving them my rapt attention, I’m like a jinx, if I pretend to be uninterested, they run riot.
So, if by Quantum rugby rules, I only watch them out of the corner of my eye for the next couple of weeks, the Grand Slam is ours – for the first time in 27 years.
NEEDLESS to say after Saturday most Welsh people have a great big cheesy grin on their faces.
And what a great gift for St David’s Day.
I hope you all have a very happy one.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Column, February 22, 2005
SO it’s goodbye to all that.
No more tally-ho or view halloo, whatever they may mean.
No more stirrup cups, and men in pink (what you and I call red) jackets, or hunting horns ringing out across the fields on a frosty morning.
And who will mourn their passing?
Well, despite what I’ve written in the past, I will. Because somewhere along the way the hunting ban ceased to be about preventing cruelty and instead became an exercise in the curtailment of liberty.
We’re not talking fundamental freedoms here, nowhere in the Human Rights Act does it enshrine your right to go chasing a fox on horseback with a pack of hounds.
But the hunting ban is about a parliamentary majority, made up primarily of Labour MPs from urban seats, imposing its will on people who live in the countryside and who primarily elect MPs sitting on the Opposition benches.
Now, MPs make laws all the time that will be unpopular with sections of the community – need I mention the Poll Tax, which was pretty well reviled by everyone. But this ban seems peculiar in its single-minded determination to give those in the Shires a good kicking because the metrocentric Labour MPs have the means to do so for the first time in their party’s history.
This is not about animal cruelty, because, as was apparent after the ban came into effect, foxes are just as much in danger now as they were before. More so, in fact, because it’s harder to outrun a well-aimed shotgun than it is a pack of hounds.
And if new Labour are so concerned about animal welfare where is the Act of Parliament banning factory farming of chickens. Where is the law to stop animals being pumped full of growth promoters and antibiotics all in the name of a quick buck for huge agri-business conglomerates?
Nowhere to be seen because those very companies produce cheap rubbish masquerading as food, and there are no votes to be had in putting up the price of chicken breasts on the supermarket shelves.
For many animals raised for consumption, life, if it can be called that, is nasty, brutish and its only mercy is that it is short. So Labour MPs complacently patting themselves on the back having eliminated the ‘cruelty’ of the fox hunt, ought perhaps to take a trip to a shed used to raise broiler chickens.
Of course the Countryside Alliance and others in favour of the hunts do themselves no favours in their choice of spokesmen. They hit upon a bright idea with their poster campaign showing the likes of a nurse who enjoys the hunt, trying to prove that it was not just the preserve of the landed gentry.
Why then do they insist on fronting up their campaigns with red-faced double-barrelled hoorahs who confirm every cliché there is about huntspeople?
And it is apparent that the hunts have a fairly unpleasant thuggish following too, and they might win more friends among the undecided if their whippers-in kept these under control as well.
Still just because you don’t like the cut of someone’s gib, that’s no reason to go banning their way of life. Hunting has been going on for a long time in this country and it played its part for better or worse, in shaping rural communities. You don’t just do away with it on the whim of city MPs who never set foot in the country.
Of course hunting involves some cruelty. But then so does angling, and I wonder whether New Labour will consider banning that next.
I suspect there will be much muttering, shuffling of feet and averted glances at the thought of the electoral suicide involved in trying to ban the biggest participatory sport in the UK. So it’s not about principles is it? It’s about what’s politically possible. Metropolitan Labour MPs were ideologically opposed to hunting and the ‘class’ of people they perceived were involved in it, so they banned it, because they could.
And the League Against Cruel Sports should save us its shrill certainty now it has achieved its aim, no-one likes a sore loser, but a smug winner is even more irritating.
And what of the sabs? Just to digress, I was covering a hunt once, and I thought the smell of the pack of hounds was bad…until a van full of sabs emptied out.
Do you think the hunt saboteurs will quietly go home once hunting is no more. Will they hang up their balaclavas and start using soap for the first time in their lives?
I’m guessing perhaps not, I’m guessing that angling is next on the list and they won’t be happy until everyone complies with their lentil-eating ideology.
And let’s face it, the hunt ban was Blair’s sop to the party for its lap-dog support for the war in Iraq. The Labour party has saved the lives of a few foxes in exchange for the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
It would make Keir Hardie so proud.
IT’S a long, long time since I went to Glanllyn, the Urdd centre on the banks of Llyn Tegid.
So I can’t comment on whether it is a hotbed of nationalist sentiment or, as it was in my day, a rather fun way of promoting Welsh, although the food was terrible, but then they did make us cook for ourselves.
But I have to say that Cardiff’s Fitzalan High School seems to have got the wrong end of the stick in accusing if of peddling racist comments.
I’m no expert in poetry, but when a verse talks of ‘Welsh’ food like coq au vin and curry being better then frogs’ legs, snails and Bombay Duck, I think a hefty dose of irony is being served up.
For the slow of understanding – coq au vin and curry aren’t Welsh.
AS you shiver in the sub-zero temperatures of this week, take a little cheer in the fact that it has been presented to you entertainingly.
John Ketley was on the radio complaining about the cult of celebrity that has taken over in weather forecasting (although few of them, like him, have had a song named after them) and the exaggeration of their forecasts.
I’m bugged by their desire to give weather a personality. This morning as I drove to work some witless woman was talking about ‘organised snow.’
What can she have been think of? Organised by who, what fiendish mind is behind this sinister organisation of all those flakes.
You hear it all the time, cloud ‘pushing it’s way in’, rain ‘marching in from the West’, and sun ‘poking its way through the clouds.’
I don’t know what’s more irritating, the personality of the weather, or the ‘personalities’ presenting it.
No more tally-ho or view halloo, whatever they may mean.
No more stirrup cups, and men in pink (what you and I call red) jackets, or hunting horns ringing out across the fields on a frosty morning.
And who will mourn their passing?
Well, despite what I’ve written in the past, I will. Because somewhere along the way the hunting ban ceased to be about preventing cruelty and instead became an exercise in the curtailment of liberty.
We’re not talking fundamental freedoms here, nowhere in the Human Rights Act does it enshrine your right to go chasing a fox on horseback with a pack of hounds.
But the hunting ban is about a parliamentary majority, made up primarily of Labour MPs from urban seats, imposing its will on people who live in the countryside and who primarily elect MPs sitting on the Opposition benches.
Now, MPs make laws all the time that will be unpopular with sections of the community – need I mention the Poll Tax, which was pretty well reviled by everyone. But this ban seems peculiar in its single-minded determination to give those in the Shires a good kicking because the metrocentric Labour MPs have the means to do so for the first time in their party’s history.
This is not about animal cruelty, because, as was apparent after the ban came into effect, foxes are just as much in danger now as they were before. More so, in fact, because it’s harder to outrun a well-aimed shotgun than it is a pack of hounds.
And if new Labour are so concerned about animal welfare where is the Act of Parliament banning factory farming of chickens. Where is the law to stop animals being pumped full of growth promoters and antibiotics all in the name of a quick buck for huge agri-business conglomerates?
Nowhere to be seen because those very companies produce cheap rubbish masquerading as food, and there are no votes to be had in putting up the price of chicken breasts on the supermarket shelves.
For many animals raised for consumption, life, if it can be called that, is nasty, brutish and its only mercy is that it is short. So Labour MPs complacently patting themselves on the back having eliminated the ‘cruelty’ of the fox hunt, ought perhaps to take a trip to a shed used to raise broiler chickens.
Of course the Countryside Alliance and others in favour of the hunts do themselves no favours in their choice of spokesmen. They hit upon a bright idea with their poster campaign showing the likes of a nurse who enjoys the hunt, trying to prove that it was not just the preserve of the landed gentry.
Why then do they insist on fronting up their campaigns with red-faced double-barrelled hoorahs who confirm every cliché there is about huntspeople?
And it is apparent that the hunts have a fairly unpleasant thuggish following too, and they might win more friends among the undecided if their whippers-in kept these under control as well.
Still just because you don’t like the cut of someone’s gib, that’s no reason to go banning their way of life. Hunting has been going on for a long time in this country and it played its part for better or worse, in shaping rural communities. You don’t just do away with it on the whim of city MPs who never set foot in the country.
Of course hunting involves some cruelty. But then so does angling, and I wonder whether New Labour will consider banning that next.
I suspect there will be much muttering, shuffling of feet and averted glances at the thought of the electoral suicide involved in trying to ban the biggest participatory sport in the UK. So it’s not about principles is it? It’s about what’s politically possible. Metropolitan Labour MPs were ideologically opposed to hunting and the ‘class’ of people they perceived were involved in it, so they banned it, because they could.
And the League Against Cruel Sports should save us its shrill certainty now it has achieved its aim, no-one likes a sore loser, but a smug winner is even more irritating.
And what of the sabs? Just to digress, I was covering a hunt once, and I thought the smell of the pack of hounds was bad…until a van full of sabs emptied out.
Do you think the hunt saboteurs will quietly go home once hunting is no more. Will they hang up their balaclavas and start using soap for the first time in their lives?
I’m guessing perhaps not, I’m guessing that angling is next on the list and they won’t be happy until everyone complies with their lentil-eating ideology.
And let’s face it, the hunt ban was Blair’s sop to the party for its lap-dog support for the war in Iraq. The Labour party has saved the lives of a few foxes in exchange for the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
It would make Keir Hardie so proud.
IT’S a long, long time since I went to Glanllyn, the Urdd centre on the banks of Llyn Tegid.
So I can’t comment on whether it is a hotbed of nationalist sentiment or, as it was in my day, a rather fun way of promoting Welsh, although the food was terrible, but then they did make us cook for ourselves.
But I have to say that Cardiff’s Fitzalan High School seems to have got the wrong end of the stick in accusing if of peddling racist comments.
I’m no expert in poetry, but when a verse talks of ‘Welsh’ food like coq au vin and curry being better then frogs’ legs, snails and Bombay Duck, I think a hefty dose of irony is being served up.
For the slow of understanding – coq au vin and curry aren’t Welsh.
AS you shiver in the sub-zero temperatures of this week, take a little cheer in the fact that it has been presented to you entertainingly.
John Ketley was on the radio complaining about the cult of celebrity that has taken over in weather forecasting (although few of them, like him, have had a song named after them) and the exaggeration of their forecasts.
I’m bugged by their desire to give weather a personality. This morning as I drove to work some witless woman was talking about ‘organised snow.’
What can she have been think of? Organised by who, what fiendish mind is behind this sinister organisation of all those flakes.
You hear it all the time, cloud ‘pushing it’s way in’, rain ‘marching in from the West’, and sun ‘poking its way through the clouds.’
I don’t know what’s more irritating, the personality of the weather, or the ‘personalities’ presenting it.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Column, February 15, 2005
THERE are a lot of things you need when you have heart trouble.
The best possible care for a start, better diet, no cigarettes and less stress.
I’m no expert in cardiac care, but I’m willing to stick my neck out on this one. I’m guessing that a 200-mile round trip for tests is probably not high on the treatment options that heart specialists have at their disposal.
When it comes to quality care, they probably don’t say: “No what you need is a nice trip down the A55, then the M56, then a nice sit in a Manchester traffic jam just to get you good and wound-up.”
I’m thinking that they might prefer another treatment regime for their patients. And yet this is exactly what the shower masquerading as the Welsh Assembly Government have foisted upon the people of North Wales.
There’s a unit in Bangor perfectly capable of administering angiograms, it was built just three years ago at a cost of £1m, but now its having to do other work because the Assembly won’t give the funds to carry out the tests there.
So into your cars you get, and pray your test doesn’t fall on a Friday when just to compound your misery you will be spending the journey home in the stationary queues of holidaymakers travelling to the North Wales coast.
In Cardiff city centre stands a statue of Nye Bevan, architect of the NHS, and it’s a wonder it hasn’t been dragged down by the lackeys of the Welsh Assembly Government so intent are they on ripping up his legacy and depriving us of whatever benefits we might think a lifetime contributing to National Insurance might entitle us to. Not very much it would appear. Not a dentist certainly, despite the vain promises of Tony Blair, and certainly not heart tests on your doorstep, despite the obvious detrimental effect a 200-mile journey is going to have on someone with a heart condition.
Would anyone else in the country put up with this sort of thing? Would people in London happily travel to Birmingham for something as routine as an angiogram? I’m suspecting that if you started suggesting to Londoners that they would have to set off up the M1 for their heart test, heads would roll at the Deprtment of Health.
But in poor old second class Wales shuffling patients around the country like just so many cattle has become par for the course. It doesn’t matter if they complain because Welsh health is so poor the chances are they won’t be around for too long to moan eh?
Of course there’s a glib answer and that is that a unit for the whole region is being built at Glan Clwyd, but that won’t be open until 2006. And let’s face it the Bangor unit was only built three years ago and yet its now not getting the funding it needs to carry out the tests. It’s all very well building new facilities, but if you won’t fund the staff to put in them to do the work then they’re small comfort to the people who need them.
But then this is the latest mess with health that the assembly has made. Jane Hutt presided over the utter fiasco of waiting lists until she was shown the door by Rhodri Morgan.
I wonder if the Assembly is keeping track of the numbers of people suffering heart conditions in North Wales who die awaiting treatment and whether the journeys to Manchester cause a rise in mortality.
When the NHS was set up to care for us from the cradle to the grave I don’t think it was envisaged that it would shuffle us between the two quite as quickly as the Assembly is apparently planning.
FURTHER to the, not entirely surprising, revelation that Jesus had Welsh blood, in last week’s column, Iolo Griffiths, e-mails to remind me that Wales has more holy connections than that.
“You might also be aware of the allegation a couple of years ago that the Virgin Mary was buried in Llanerchymedd (perhaps she was visiting relatives!). King Arthur is allegedly descended from Joseph of Arimathea, so perhaps he could have been eligible to play rugby for Israel!
Do I believe these claims? As a born-again Christian I am very sceptical about something which has such tenuous historical and biblical support, but you have to admit this theory is quite fascinating, even if it is far-fetched.”
Far-fetched or not it’s all beginning to add up. Your head positively spins with the possibilities. Of course the clues have been there all along haven’t they.
Wales – God’s own country, where we speak, wait for it, the language of heaven. Coincidence? I think not.
Any publisher daft enough, sorry, willing to pay me a stonking great advance to cobble together the above into a farrago of cod mythology and conspiracy theory, please contact me at the above e-mail address.
I HAVE a theory regarding the stunning success of the Wales rugby team, who made short work of the Italians on Saturday.
Our neighbours appear to be ready to place an order for spoons, wooden, one for every ticket holder at Twickers, but I digress and intrude into grief so back to my theory.
The more like a boyband they look, the better they do. Gavin Henson is all spiky hair and shiny boots. Now the new hero is Shane Williams whose disturbingly-coloured hair is reminiscent of some exotic bird of paradise, a fast one at that.
Where the theory falls to the floor is in the pack, who, with the best will in the world, will not be adorning many a teenage girl’s bedroom wall. And it would be a brave man who suggested they start shaving their legs like Henson – if Adam Jones started now he wouldn’t be finished in time for the Stade de France.
The best possible care for a start, better diet, no cigarettes and less stress.
I’m no expert in cardiac care, but I’m willing to stick my neck out on this one. I’m guessing that a 200-mile round trip for tests is probably not high on the treatment options that heart specialists have at their disposal.
When it comes to quality care, they probably don’t say: “No what you need is a nice trip down the A55, then the M56, then a nice sit in a Manchester traffic jam just to get you good and wound-up.”
I’m thinking that they might prefer another treatment regime for their patients. And yet this is exactly what the shower masquerading as the Welsh Assembly Government have foisted upon the people of North Wales.
There’s a unit in Bangor perfectly capable of administering angiograms, it was built just three years ago at a cost of £1m, but now its having to do other work because the Assembly won’t give the funds to carry out the tests there.
So into your cars you get, and pray your test doesn’t fall on a Friday when just to compound your misery you will be spending the journey home in the stationary queues of holidaymakers travelling to the North Wales coast.
In Cardiff city centre stands a statue of Nye Bevan, architect of the NHS, and it’s a wonder it hasn’t been dragged down by the lackeys of the Welsh Assembly Government so intent are they on ripping up his legacy and depriving us of whatever benefits we might think a lifetime contributing to National Insurance might entitle us to. Not very much it would appear. Not a dentist certainly, despite the vain promises of Tony Blair, and certainly not heart tests on your doorstep, despite the obvious detrimental effect a 200-mile journey is going to have on someone with a heart condition.
Would anyone else in the country put up with this sort of thing? Would people in London happily travel to Birmingham for something as routine as an angiogram? I’m suspecting that if you started suggesting to Londoners that they would have to set off up the M1 for their heart test, heads would roll at the Deprtment of Health.
But in poor old second class Wales shuffling patients around the country like just so many cattle has become par for the course. It doesn’t matter if they complain because Welsh health is so poor the chances are they won’t be around for too long to moan eh?
Of course there’s a glib answer and that is that a unit for the whole region is being built at Glan Clwyd, but that won’t be open until 2006. And let’s face it the Bangor unit was only built three years ago and yet its now not getting the funding it needs to carry out the tests. It’s all very well building new facilities, but if you won’t fund the staff to put in them to do the work then they’re small comfort to the people who need them.
But then this is the latest mess with health that the assembly has made. Jane Hutt presided over the utter fiasco of waiting lists until she was shown the door by Rhodri Morgan.
I wonder if the Assembly is keeping track of the numbers of people suffering heart conditions in North Wales who die awaiting treatment and whether the journeys to Manchester cause a rise in mortality.
When the NHS was set up to care for us from the cradle to the grave I don’t think it was envisaged that it would shuffle us between the two quite as quickly as the Assembly is apparently planning.
FURTHER to the, not entirely surprising, revelation that Jesus had Welsh blood, in last week’s column, Iolo Griffiths, e-mails to remind me that Wales has more holy connections than that.
“You might also be aware of the allegation a couple of years ago that the Virgin Mary was buried in Llanerchymedd (perhaps she was visiting relatives!). King Arthur is allegedly descended from Joseph of Arimathea, so perhaps he could have been eligible to play rugby for Israel!
Do I believe these claims? As a born-again Christian I am very sceptical about something which has such tenuous historical and biblical support, but you have to admit this theory is quite fascinating, even if it is far-fetched.”
Far-fetched or not it’s all beginning to add up. Your head positively spins with the possibilities. Of course the clues have been there all along haven’t they.
Wales – God’s own country, where we speak, wait for it, the language of heaven. Coincidence? I think not.
Any publisher daft enough, sorry, willing to pay me a stonking great advance to cobble together the above into a farrago of cod mythology and conspiracy theory, please contact me at the above e-mail address.
I HAVE a theory regarding the stunning success of the Wales rugby team, who made short work of the Italians on Saturday.
Our neighbours appear to be ready to place an order for spoons, wooden, one for every ticket holder at Twickers, but I digress and intrude into grief so back to my theory.
The more like a boyband they look, the better they do. Gavin Henson is all spiky hair and shiny boots. Now the new hero is Shane Williams whose disturbingly-coloured hair is reminiscent of some exotic bird of paradise, a fast one at that.
Where the theory falls to the floor is in the pack, who, with the best will in the world, will not be adorning many a teenage girl’s bedroom wall. And it would be a brave man who suggested they start shaving their legs like Henson – if Adam Jones started now he wouldn’t be finished in time for the Stade de France.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Column, February 8, 2005
A NEW picture hangs on my wall this morning.
It shows Mathew Tait wondering just when Gavin Henson might let him back down on the ground.
Henson looks like he’s quite happy to carry Tait around under his arm for the rest of the afternoon. “Don’t worry about this one boys, I’ll just keep him here, and I’ll tackle at the same time, oh and I’ll kick the winner too.”
February is a miserable month, none of the excess of Christmas and not quite into the promise of Spring, but Saturday was a day to bask in the warm glow of an England defeat.
Not just a defeat mind you, a performance in which they were outclassed in pretty much every aspect of play and even their most devoted fans went away counting themselves lucky not to have lost by more than they did.
You have to admire the Welsh rugby fan though, if this had been football they would have long ago lost their appetite for seeing the men in red beaten by a white tide of percentage rugby.
But they have kept the faith, turning up every time, often more in hope than expectation. But on Saturday you could sense that something was going to happen.
The national anthem has never sounded more like a call to arms, an outpouring of raw emotion, a collective expression of the hopes and desires of those thousands assembled there. In those few verses they did their bit, and what a bit it was.
It has become hard to watch Wales in recent years, such is the promise, only to be followed by bitter disappointment. But then Gavin Henson tackled Tait, not just tackled him, but gave a perfect demonstration of physics and what happens when you hit someone with just the right amount of force (a lot) and at the right point – they go backwards.
You began to sense that the tectonic plates of rugby were shifting as quickly as the rather shoddily placed turf was beneath the scrum.
England were a ‘team in transition’ we were told – management-speak for ‘not as good as they used to be’. Wales played direct, fast rugby and were wonderfully assisted by the fact that England took five minutes a time to extract the ball from a ruck. I could swear I saw some of the Wales back line having a sly fag while Matt Dawson tried in vain to extricate the ball from amongst his players. You can forgive them for wanting to keep the ball in the ruck though, as long as it was in there they were safe, the Welsh couldn’t run at them with it.
And while the London-based press has made much of Henson’s gelled hair, shaved legs and silver boots, the opposition can mock as much as they want, it’s hard to laugh when he’s broken past you ball in hand on yet another surging run. It’ even harder to laugh when he’s holding you up waist high and pointing your head at the ground – ask Mathew Tait.
In a way it is sad that we invest so much in defeating England. It is, perhaps, not entirely healthy to feel this way about one match. Indeed if you ask a lot of people what’s more important, winning the six nations or beating England, many will settle for a victory over the English.
It is as if it is payback for all that has been done to us over the years. Instead of undoing those wrongs, we settle for dominance on the sporting field. Throughout the ‘70s and into the ‘80s it was a given that the English would get a drubbing here and most times at Twickers too.
But then they even took that away from us – until Saturday.
Welsh rugby has had too many false dawns and this may be one of them, but let’s enjoy the sun while it lasts and look forward to Saturday and the Stadio Flaminio.
THERE is not a lot you can say to oppose the head of Ysgol Frongoch in Denbigh in his quest to clean up the language of a minority of his pupils.
These foul-mouthed youngsters have caused consternation in the streets, demonstrating quite how wide their vocabulary has become.
The head, Gareth Davies, blames TV in part for the problem.
While applauding his aims, you can’t help but feel he is a little Canute-like, as the tide of bad language laps gently around his knees.
Having a good swear is part and parcel of growing up. Some of us grow out of it, some of us do not (and it would appear, go on to work in newsrooms up and down the land)
The worst thing you can do is react to it. Once they know they’ve shocked you, they’ll use it again and again.
I have to confess to having form for this myself, having been hauled over the coals by Mrs Thompson, my teacher at Ewloe Green CP for gratuitous use of the f-word on the playing field.
She inquired whether I could find the word in my dictionary and, sad to say, the Pocket Oxford let me down badly, containing no mention of it. This, she said, showed that it was not acceptable language.
Oh to have had the large Concise volume in my desk – the word would have been there in all its glory, I could have given her definition, etymology and a host of examples of usage. An opportunity missed.
Ban all swearwords and you add to their mystique. It would be better to teach appropriate usage, although it would be a brave headmaster indeed who added that to the curriculum.
AND so, as promised, to the website that shows that Jesus was Welsh.
Well, it shows that his grandmother was Welsh, which would have made him Welsh enough to step out onto the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, giving us two players capable of walking on water.
I came across this little gem while reading a website called “The Guild of Glyndwr” - http://www.guildofglyndwr.co.uk/index.htm - which carried a list of Welsh claims to fame.
And down there at number 7 is the following “According to the latest research, Jesus' grandmother (Mary's mother) was Welsh!” Exclamation mark indeed.
It kind of makes you wonder what the previous seven claims to fame were, that this should only be number 7 – but they are much more mundane – St David’s is the smallest city in Europe and so on.
But back to Our Lord’s grandma. This could be big. I’ve seen what Dan Brown has done with this sort of gubbins and I’m thinking the ‘Dai Vinci Code’ could make my fortune (see what I did there, Da Vinci, Dai Vinci? Forget it, pearls before swine)
Anyway, the only ‘research’ I could find was on a very strange site called ‘The Royal House of Britain’ which seems to indicate that Jesus’s grandmother was called Bianca.
There the trail goes cold though, where in Wales Bianca was meant to come from I’m not sure. It sound like she might be more at home in Albert Square to be perfectly honest.
If any readers more learned in the Scriptures than me (that is, all of you) would care to enlighten me, a small share in the ensuing royalties from my international bestseller is yours.
It shows Mathew Tait wondering just when Gavin Henson might let him back down on the ground.
Henson looks like he’s quite happy to carry Tait around under his arm for the rest of the afternoon. “Don’t worry about this one boys, I’ll just keep him here, and I’ll tackle at the same time, oh and I’ll kick the winner too.”
February is a miserable month, none of the excess of Christmas and not quite into the promise of Spring, but Saturday was a day to bask in the warm glow of an England defeat.
Not just a defeat mind you, a performance in which they were outclassed in pretty much every aspect of play and even their most devoted fans went away counting themselves lucky not to have lost by more than they did.
You have to admire the Welsh rugby fan though, if this had been football they would have long ago lost their appetite for seeing the men in red beaten by a white tide of percentage rugby.
But they have kept the faith, turning up every time, often more in hope than expectation. But on Saturday you could sense that something was going to happen.
The national anthem has never sounded more like a call to arms, an outpouring of raw emotion, a collective expression of the hopes and desires of those thousands assembled there. In those few verses they did their bit, and what a bit it was.
It has become hard to watch Wales in recent years, such is the promise, only to be followed by bitter disappointment. But then Gavin Henson tackled Tait, not just tackled him, but gave a perfect demonstration of physics and what happens when you hit someone with just the right amount of force (a lot) and at the right point – they go backwards.
You began to sense that the tectonic plates of rugby were shifting as quickly as the rather shoddily placed turf was beneath the scrum.
England were a ‘team in transition’ we were told – management-speak for ‘not as good as they used to be’. Wales played direct, fast rugby and were wonderfully assisted by the fact that England took five minutes a time to extract the ball from a ruck. I could swear I saw some of the Wales back line having a sly fag while Matt Dawson tried in vain to extricate the ball from amongst his players. You can forgive them for wanting to keep the ball in the ruck though, as long as it was in there they were safe, the Welsh couldn’t run at them with it.
And while the London-based press has made much of Henson’s gelled hair, shaved legs and silver boots, the opposition can mock as much as they want, it’s hard to laugh when he’s broken past you ball in hand on yet another surging run. It’ even harder to laugh when he’s holding you up waist high and pointing your head at the ground – ask Mathew Tait.
In a way it is sad that we invest so much in defeating England. It is, perhaps, not entirely healthy to feel this way about one match. Indeed if you ask a lot of people what’s more important, winning the six nations or beating England, many will settle for a victory over the English.
It is as if it is payback for all that has been done to us over the years. Instead of undoing those wrongs, we settle for dominance on the sporting field. Throughout the ‘70s and into the ‘80s it was a given that the English would get a drubbing here and most times at Twickers too.
But then they even took that away from us – until Saturday.
Welsh rugby has had too many false dawns and this may be one of them, but let’s enjoy the sun while it lasts and look forward to Saturday and the Stadio Flaminio.
THERE is not a lot you can say to oppose the head of Ysgol Frongoch in Denbigh in his quest to clean up the language of a minority of his pupils.
These foul-mouthed youngsters have caused consternation in the streets, demonstrating quite how wide their vocabulary has become.
The head, Gareth Davies, blames TV in part for the problem.
While applauding his aims, you can’t help but feel he is a little Canute-like, as the tide of bad language laps gently around his knees.
Having a good swear is part and parcel of growing up. Some of us grow out of it, some of us do not (and it would appear, go on to work in newsrooms up and down the land)
The worst thing you can do is react to it. Once they know they’ve shocked you, they’ll use it again and again.
I have to confess to having form for this myself, having been hauled over the coals by Mrs Thompson, my teacher at Ewloe Green CP for gratuitous use of the f-word on the playing field.
She inquired whether I could find the word in my dictionary and, sad to say, the Pocket Oxford let me down badly, containing no mention of it. This, she said, showed that it was not acceptable language.
Oh to have had the large Concise volume in my desk – the word would have been there in all its glory, I could have given her definition, etymology and a host of examples of usage. An opportunity missed.
Ban all swearwords and you add to their mystique. It would be better to teach appropriate usage, although it would be a brave headmaster indeed who added that to the curriculum.
AND so, as promised, to the website that shows that Jesus was Welsh.
Well, it shows that his grandmother was Welsh, which would have made him Welsh enough to step out onto the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, giving us two players capable of walking on water.
I came across this little gem while reading a website called “The Guild of Glyndwr” - http://www.guildofglyndwr.co.uk/index.htm - which carried a list of Welsh claims to fame.
And down there at number 7 is the following “According to the latest research, Jesus' grandmother (Mary's mother) was Welsh!” Exclamation mark indeed.
It kind of makes you wonder what the previous seven claims to fame were, that this should only be number 7 – but they are much more mundane – St David’s is the smallest city in Europe and so on.
But back to Our Lord’s grandma. This could be big. I’ve seen what Dan Brown has done with this sort of gubbins and I’m thinking the ‘Dai Vinci Code’ could make my fortune (see what I did there, Da Vinci, Dai Vinci? Forget it, pearls before swine)
Anyway, the only ‘research’ I could find was on a very strange site called ‘The Royal House of Britain’ which seems to indicate that Jesus’s grandmother was called Bianca.
There the trail goes cold though, where in Wales Bianca was meant to come from I’m not sure. It sound like she might be more at home in Albert Square to be perfectly honest.
If any readers more learned in the Scriptures than me (that is, all of you) would care to enlighten me, a small share in the ensuing royalties from my international bestseller is yours.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Column, February 1, 2005
I WONDER when it was that Wales became the international yardstick of things that are quite big?
What did the ancient Greeks do when they stumbled upon another of their interminable islands and needed to report its size to their fellow citizens?
As Alexander conquered vast tracts of land how was their area expressed?
Until Wales was mapped and its size decided the world was stumbling round in the dark for a handy comparison.
It’s no use using the number of football pitches something is as big as, once you’ve got past half a dozen or so it’s meaningless.
No, when it comes to size, your object is only truly on the map when it’s been compared to the size of Wales.
I’ve mentioned this before, particularly the insidious creep of countries like Belgium as a measure of size – a step too far towards metrication and wholly to be resisted.
Reader Alison Jones e-mails with the latest use of the size of Wales:
“From time to time we see Wales used as a handy comparison to give an idea of the size of something. You, yourself have commented on this rather questionable habit. Why not turn it into a competition to see who can find the most ludicrous example. I would like to start the ball rolling with something heard on BBC2 last week. The programme was 'Sweeney Investigates.....Roman Abramovitch' Apparently, Siberia has an oilfield the size of Wales.”
A whole oilfield the size of Wales? Once the English discovered a coalfield the size of Wales which they exploited for centuries – ah, no, that was Wales.
It has to be said that at least Alison’s oilfield is something useful.
Usually the things that are the size of Wales are rather bad – such as asteroids poised to plummet into Earth extinguishing all life; or areas of rainforest that are burnt down every day; causing global warming which leads to icebergs breaking off Antarctica which are…you’re ahead of me aren’t you…the size of Wales.
The irony is that such is Wales’s success in cornering the market for expressions of ‘ooh isn’t that big’ that it is used the world over, often by people who could not even point to Wales on a map, never mind know how big it actually is.
So let’s look at few examples of just how useful Wales has become to people who have found an object 20,000km² but don’t know to tell people just how big that is.
Well as I said, bad news can dominate, so when an earthquake struck Gujarat in 2001, it was almost inevitable that the area affected, as GlobalEye, the website of the Department of International Development, confirmed, would the size of Wales.
The Environment Investigation Agency was very concerned a few years back when forest fires threatened Indonesia’s Orangutans, particularly given the area of forest that was burning down – yep, big as Wales.
The battlefields of Normandy covered an area the size of Wales.
In the USA, where they are a good deal more tolerant of GM crops than we are, an area the size of Wales is under cultivation growing mutant veg.
When the Government was spicing up its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, much was made of the fact that Iraq was said to have enough chemical warfare agents to contaminate an area the size of Wales. That’s a lot of chemical warfare agent, strange how none of it was about when we actually invaded.
We do get our revenge now an then for being used as the bearer of bad tidings – the Campaign to Protect Rural England calculates that the tranquil countryside lost in England over the past 30 years is about the size of its neighbour.
But perhaps the use of Wales to portray the size of whatever nemesis is approaching, be it deforestation or asteroids, is all for the good. There is no such thing as bad publicity and the use of Wales keeps us there in the public consciousness. No-one after all, talks about icebergs the size of England now do they?
So perhaps we should embrace it and use it ourselves in our day-to-day measurements.
If you want to, the very handy website http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~kelky/sk/sizeofwales.html can help you do just that with an online calculator to tell you how many Waleses your object is as big as.
So let’s look for a bright side in all this.
Is anyone out there using Wales as a comparison with something good?
Well, historians looking for the fabled utopian land of Shangri La now believe it is a remote part of China that was once known as Muli, and you can guess for yourselves how big it is.
But my own favourite usage comes from the Scotch Whisky Review website which informs us that Diageo has some 7m barrels of the stuff maturing – enough to flood an area the size of Wales. What a way to go.
IT is, as I said last week, rather galling to be told a Welsh accent holds you back when most English people don’t know a Welsh accent in all its varied intonations.
But Jean Parry writes in with some encouraging experiences of her own:
“I enjoyed your article today in the Daily Post. Coming from Flintshire I have the same problem. Some people think I have a scouse accent, which is nonsense.
Some years ago we were on the Norfolk Broads and we visited Norwich. A lady stopped us she was doing some kind of survey.
Straight away she asked us were we from Flintshire, I was very impressed and then she said “You’re both from the Mold area.” You can imagine our surprise.
Apparently she was researching local dialects and she worked in Mold for a time and pinpointed us immediately.
That was a good experience because I knew then that we had a regional accent.
A similar experience happened to us in New Zealand last year.
When we were in Christchurch a waitress asked us which part of North Wales we were from and this occurred in another part of New Zealand.
It’s a shame that some people (English in particular) don't pick up these nuances.”
ONE of the delights of the world wide web is the truly barmy sites that get set up.
People who one had to confine themselves to shouting their lunatic views on Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park now have a potential audience of millions at the click of a mouse.
And it is the backwaters of the Net that you find some of the strangest sites.
This week I was beside myself with glee to find a website that proves Jesus was Welsh.
Well, if not quite Welsh, because after all we know he wasn’t born here, then Welsh enough to play for Wales.
More of this, quite frankly, divine website next week.
What did the ancient Greeks do when they stumbled upon another of their interminable islands and needed to report its size to their fellow citizens?
As Alexander conquered vast tracts of land how was their area expressed?
Until Wales was mapped and its size decided the world was stumbling round in the dark for a handy comparison.
It’s no use using the number of football pitches something is as big as, once you’ve got past half a dozen or so it’s meaningless.
No, when it comes to size, your object is only truly on the map when it’s been compared to the size of Wales.
I’ve mentioned this before, particularly the insidious creep of countries like Belgium as a measure of size – a step too far towards metrication and wholly to be resisted.
Reader Alison Jones e-mails with the latest use of the size of Wales:
“From time to time we see Wales used as a handy comparison to give an idea of the size of something. You, yourself have commented on this rather questionable habit. Why not turn it into a competition to see who can find the most ludicrous example. I would like to start the ball rolling with something heard on BBC2 last week. The programme was 'Sweeney Investigates.....Roman Abramovitch' Apparently, Siberia has an oilfield the size of Wales.”
A whole oilfield the size of Wales? Once the English discovered a coalfield the size of Wales which they exploited for centuries – ah, no, that was Wales.
It has to be said that at least Alison’s oilfield is something useful.
Usually the things that are the size of Wales are rather bad – such as asteroids poised to plummet into Earth extinguishing all life; or areas of rainforest that are burnt down every day; causing global warming which leads to icebergs breaking off Antarctica which are…you’re ahead of me aren’t you…the size of Wales.
The irony is that such is Wales’s success in cornering the market for expressions of ‘ooh isn’t that big’ that it is used the world over, often by people who could not even point to Wales on a map, never mind know how big it actually is.
So let’s look at few examples of just how useful Wales has become to people who have found an object 20,000km² but don’t know to tell people just how big that is.
Well as I said, bad news can dominate, so when an earthquake struck Gujarat in 2001, it was almost inevitable that the area affected, as GlobalEye, the website of the Department of International Development, confirmed, would the size of Wales.
The Environment Investigation Agency was very concerned a few years back when forest fires threatened Indonesia’s Orangutans, particularly given the area of forest that was burning down – yep, big as Wales.
The battlefields of Normandy covered an area the size of Wales.
In the USA, where they are a good deal more tolerant of GM crops than we are, an area the size of Wales is under cultivation growing mutant veg.
When the Government was spicing up its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, much was made of the fact that Iraq was said to have enough chemical warfare agents to contaminate an area the size of Wales. That’s a lot of chemical warfare agent, strange how none of it was about when we actually invaded.
We do get our revenge now an then for being used as the bearer of bad tidings – the Campaign to Protect Rural England calculates that the tranquil countryside lost in England over the past 30 years is about the size of its neighbour.
But perhaps the use of Wales to portray the size of whatever nemesis is approaching, be it deforestation or asteroids, is all for the good. There is no such thing as bad publicity and the use of Wales keeps us there in the public consciousness. No-one after all, talks about icebergs the size of England now do they?
So perhaps we should embrace it and use it ourselves in our day-to-day measurements.
If you want to, the very handy website http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~kelky/sk/sizeofwales.html can help you do just that with an online calculator to tell you how many Waleses your object is as big as.
So let’s look for a bright side in all this.
Is anyone out there using Wales as a comparison with something good?
Well, historians looking for the fabled utopian land of Shangri La now believe it is a remote part of China that was once known as Muli, and you can guess for yourselves how big it is.
But my own favourite usage comes from the Scotch Whisky Review website which informs us that Diageo has some 7m barrels of the stuff maturing – enough to flood an area the size of Wales. What a way to go.
IT is, as I said last week, rather galling to be told a Welsh accent holds you back when most English people don’t know a Welsh accent in all its varied intonations.
But Jean Parry writes in with some encouraging experiences of her own:
“I enjoyed your article today in the Daily Post. Coming from Flintshire I have the same problem. Some people think I have a scouse accent, which is nonsense.
Some years ago we were on the Norfolk Broads and we visited Norwich. A lady stopped us she was doing some kind of survey.
Straight away she asked us were we from Flintshire, I was very impressed and then she said “You’re both from the Mold area.” You can imagine our surprise.
Apparently she was researching local dialects and she worked in Mold for a time and pinpointed us immediately.
That was a good experience because I knew then that we had a regional accent.
A similar experience happened to us in New Zealand last year.
When we were in Christchurch a waitress asked us which part of North Wales we were from and this occurred in another part of New Zealand.
It’s a shame that some people (English in particular) don't pick up these nuances.”
ONE of the delights of the world wide web is the truly barmy sites that get set up.
People who one had to confine themselves to shouting their lunatic views on Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park now have a potential audience of millions at the click of a mouse.
And it is the backwaters of the Net that you find some of the strangest sites.
This week I was beside myself with glee to find a website that proves Jesus was Welsh.
Well, if not quite Welsh, because after all we know he wasn’t born here, then Welsh enough to play for Wales.
More of this, quite frankly, divine website next week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)