Cymru Am Byth!
Right then, boys. Just leave me a pint of Brain’s Dark over b’there and a Clark’s Pie and we’ll have some proper music up b’yer quicker than Shane Williams can outrun the English!
I won’t lie to you, but, it’s all Max Boyce and Dame Shirl from now on…
Of course, it won’t be anything like that; but Matthew must have been expecting some such nonsense so I thought I’d humour him!
Okay, so I’ve been given the keys to Toad Hall for a couple of weeks, which I’m most grateful to his lordship for, but I’ll admit I’m a little out of my depth here guys. I’ve got a few ideas for posts – well, three - so we’re fine until Saturday; but feel free to chip in with any suggestions for posts, new music you’ve found, favourite recipes, anything really.
So to finish off my brief introduction in predictable, but no less grand for it, style. Here’s some classic Cool Cymru that his lordship would probably approve of.
Super Furry Animals – The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
60ft Dolls – Stay
Catatonia – International Velvet
You know; that particular Super Furries song is a dangerous one to get stuck in your head.
I just caught myself sat at my desk, in the middle of my open-plan office, next to my boss, absent-mindedly singing that rather catchy hookline to myself.
“The One Thing The Welsh Do Better Than Waving The Flag Is Making Sure People Are Aware They Are Waving The Flag”
Who said that?
Cymru Am Byth? What, are we speaking elvish now? Oh! That’s Welsh.
Hiya D-train. Well, I for one could certainly do with a little GZM, or perhaps some of Euros Childs’ solo work, not because they’re Welsh but because they’re brilliant. Perhaps something bucolic from the “Blue Trees” EP? As for post suggestions, have you heard the new Avett Brothers EP “The Second Gleam”? Absolute fucking gorgeousness. The best thing they’ve ever done in my opinion.
I did. Published, too. All proper, like. In a piece entitled show me on the doll where the bad man touched you – which is a critical look at the way in which internal Welsh politiking for the sake of politiking is internationally debilitating & a waste of precious energy. It touches on the huff & puff of anti-English sentiment (excusing casual racism/jingoism with reference to it being historical, without actually knowing why or even if it has any relevance other than to foster an identity) coupled with flag waving at any opportunity (Hurricane Katrina has lain waste to thousands of residential properties. No Welsh people were involved or killed, but a vaguely related charity in Cardiff has diverted funds from their jam making fete & cancelled all volunteer staff holidays just in case they’re needed by Wales Today for an ill-informed & irrlevant soundbite on the unfolding tragedy. We join Bethan at the charity’s headquarters (a brass-encrusted pub, generally) for a speculative, pre-air coached conversation on how things might change in the future for the charity (i.e. more photos in the South Wales Echo, pg. 14) should someone from Wales be found amongst the drowning pools. Bethan, over-enthuse for us will you?” Etc.
In essence, then, we are repeatedly, day in day out, being told, by uninspired figureheads (Sara Edwards? Jesus…) via a lazy, shoddy media (print, TV, radio), that Wales is fabulous without actually providing proof of this concept other than “s’Welsh, see” — which cuts no mustard with the EU, especially when we, as a ggggGGGGreat! nation, are begging them for funding in order to sustain a dead farming community & an economy consisting of nothing more than cottage industry of twee straw craft & the intangible entity/unquantifiable tourism. Oh, & singing. & Charlotte Church.
So, quite a meatie sentence when you think about it.
Excuse the punctuation/italicising balls ups.
I will also say that I didn’t even say above anything to do with the whole Welsh Language issue. Having been involved in the administration of the bi-linguistical change over I was in a unique position to see first hand how much the langauge actually cost the Welsh economy & still does.
Nothing, I’m positive, worth tub thumping for, despite what Wales On Sunday may try & have any idiot who reads that shitrag believe.
I agree, DC.
Welsh patriotism can be equally wonderful and ugly, and often at the same time, I think It’s got too complex for anyone to really be able to get a handle on it.
A nation capable of feeling pride, achievement, inadequacy, oppression, creativity, uniqueness and a lack of fulfillment all at the same time is always going to be a little fucked up. (Justified or not – I think as a nation we feel all of those and more)
You know as well as I do that that stuff I posted up there is firmly tongue in cheek, and was a response to Matthew’s gentle goading in his last post.. All good fun.
But at the same time, is there anything wrong with a pint of Brain’s, a Clark’s pie and a Max Boyce record? And if you agree there’s nothing wrong with them, is there anything wrong with celebrating them a little?..
Pardon my provincialism, but why does that chap have a leek pinned to his jacket?
Here you go C&B:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leek_%28vegetable%29#Cultural_Significance
By the way, thanks for the Avett Brothers tip – liking it…
Aha! The national emblem of the States is the twinkie, I believe. And instead of pints of Brains, we have cans of Bud, which is a form of penance really, in keeping with our ethos as a Christian nation.
Glad you’re enjoying the Avett Bros. I saw them a few weeks back with Alela Diane and they were top notch.
You went to see the Avett Brothers with Alela Diane? Like – on a date?!
More as a stalker really. I rode in her trunk.
No! Honestly. The Avett Brothers were with Alela Diane, and I saw them both. Good lord, man, go easy on the Brains.
Oh my.
I can see this thread going all Rod Stewart on us again if we’re not careful.
The trouble is, Dylan, the ‘nation’ is led by its nose by a hysterically inadequate bandwagon creating media. Individuals, groups, movements, etc. don’t feel all you listed above simultaneously & never have – however, The Echo, Western Mail, Wales On Sunday, etc. + Wales Today, The Ferret, Week In Week Out, Wales Tonight, Gavin & Stacey, Belonging, etc. would have you believe otherwise – why? It keeps us thinking we’re victims of our good manners. The national stereotype of your average Welsh person has been created by the media (who operate on an inward, colloquial level, rather than on a progressive, inclusive level) &, despite so many things disproving its existence as a going concern, they persist in telling us we are brilliant but hard done by. Fucking bollocks. We are no more brilliant or hard done by than any other Western nation on the planet. We are in an economic predicament, presided over by farmers & market stall holders; NOT politicians – none of these fine, upstanding liggers have a tried & tested background in politics outside of townhalls & debating societies – occupying seats of power in a Lego government, begging for subsidies on the basis we have a cultural ‘icon’ in an enforced language. Lest we not forget, the whitepaper for language reform/language bill was voted for by, what? 22% of the overall population? Given that the language itself, at the time, was only spoken by approx 18% of the actual population – i.e. the real population don’t give a fuck about the language they are now forced to pay for on a daily basis – I would say if we are a hard done by nation then its because we allowed the faux Assembly to be railroaded by a minority of nostalgia nazis.
Wales bankrupted itself overnight because of the laziness involved in not getting out & ticking the ‘NO’ box on referendum night – no one bothered to reiterate loudly that, come the devolution, the Welsh were expected to pay for their own bilingualism. Therefore, funds were diverted from infrastructure concerns, health, education, local councils, etc. in order to change every piece of public literature or written word into Welsh & English. As a result a very dodgily balanced economy now no longer existed, & nothing in the country would ever be able to sustain itself with domestic industry any longer (absolutely because domestic industry does not exist any longer in Wales & hadn’t since the death of coal & the privatisation of steel).
Because we have royally fucked ourselves historically, despite there being many, many occasions where we could have collaborated & sustained the status quo but O NO we are WELSH & we are desperate for an IDENTITY!, the media turn this on a pinhead & make it sound like our inadequacies are the result of other nations (i.e. the ENGLISH) raping our cultural rights. Historically & woefully inaccurate, but the average Joe believes what he reads over his sandwich lunch on the building site rather than historical fact. Why is this? Welsh history in schools has slowly been corrupted or removed by Welsh language Nationalism. Even in schools where it is taught (& by that I mean as an A-level, not as some bollock soft primary Eisteddfod lead-in or GCSE patronising soft sell) the other side of the story is NEVER actually addressed with any academic integrity. I think my generation, post O Level, but just on the GCSE first draft, were the last to actually get a well rounded eduction on what happened in Britain between the 4 nations – & that was fucking 20 years ago! Even so, TWoTH’s school, Welsh language, West Walean, didn’t even teach Welsh history except for, wait for it, the fucking Rebecca Riots (i.e. anti-English bullshit)!!! They relied, mainly, on the fucking Eisteddfod! Which, as we know, is an insular, arts-obsessed made up pagan-lite scam. Is it any wonder the only professions open to the Welsh langauge graduates is the media & teaching?!
Anyway, to point: the Welsh have nothing to complain about. No more than the Yorkshire farmer & steel worker & coal miner communities – thing is, the Yorkshire area has no ambitions to be recognised as ‘unique’ & of world import.
The media is a fucking disgrace & whips up this bollocks for the sake of selling papers & retaining viewing figures. The sooner this nation stops acting like a fake rape victim the better it will be for all the kids who now have the burdon of sacfiicing a genuine educational subject for the compulsory, marginal language of a long dead society. (TWO if you also include Welsh Literature, which is compulsory also).
Finally, if we gained independence – who are we gaining it from? Because we will be reliant on inward ‘investment’ & spurious grants & subsidies for as long as we have no economy to back up & support a population with only two real choices of a career – and one of those is fucked the moment S4C becomes digital & all the BBC funding disappears & the advertising revenue dries up. If you want a model of Wales, look at S4C as a perfect template. Born of demand & violence, subsidised by ‘the enemy’, playing up to nostalgia (repeat after repeat after repeat after repeat), fucked the moment independence somes along, & desperately jumping on bandwagons in a hope they may remaon relevant (Internet TV, for fuck sake – for who? Pensioners in Dyfed who don’t & won’t ever give a fuck what broadband is?).
I am very proud to be from Wales, but I am not proud to be Welsh. That way leads to narrowmindedness & the collapse of a social integrity.
Good Christ, DC, a blowjob from Rod Stewart would be a relief after that. Soooo … on a less controversial note, does anybody here like necrophilia?
I still don’t understand how to do italics…….:o(
Oh, but Euan, you make up for it with your emoticons. This one (3:-o) means that a new attack of mad cow has been reported, while this one (8-/) means “I have suddenly become blind.”
Matthew who?
Good lord, man, go easy on the Brains.
Generally, he does.