Cymru/Wales: Bipolar Nation

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Wednesday 31 December 2014

The Colonists' Tongue








Strolling down the street of Queens this morning, I heard the Romanian language and to me it sounded great. There were a group of about six or seven people and one woman holding court. I thought, great to hear another language apart from English in the Welsh Capital. I don't hear much Welsh now on the streets. I don't go to the 'Black Pig' or 'Clwb' or the Diwc of Clarence. In fact I don't do anything at all with Welsh Speakers in Cardiff and because I am a Welsh speaker, that in itself is strange. As a judgemental bastard I tends to categorise people by their human qualities, not by the language they speak, so a kind English speaker gets the vote and my approval over a cruel Welsh speaker any time. I still have Cymry as friends from the old days but having not had a television for ten years I don't tends to watch the old S4C like. I would only get jealous and resentful watching the 'cyfryngis' raking it in. As I might have mentioned before, I think it's immoral for people to make a living off the back of an endangered language. If it wasn't for Gwynfor Evans and the Welsh Language Society, some of these gracing our screens and airwaves would not now be making a killing. They weren't even born when Gwynfor threatened William Whitelaw and the Conservative Government with fasting until death unless a Welsh Language Fourth Channel was created.  Now the words fall out of their mouths like crumbs from the BBC's table. So hearing Romanian brought a rush, thinking what it would be like if everyone spoke Welsh and English was the minority language. As long as the majority who spoke it were kind because kindness in my opinion is the most important quality you can have regardless of which language you speak. Language, our primary means of communication takes second place when we hear of Ebola and ISIS. The two 'great' topics of our news channels in 2014.  There is a Polish shop now in Grangetown which is bigger than the Tescos Extra. I think 'Great', the entrepreneurial spirit less than a mile from the Purple & Gold UKIP shop in Colonial Penarth. Welsh as a language was erased from the Industrial Coalfield areas of South Wales by...the Industrial Coalfield areas of South Wales. The Industrial Revolution stripped away the language and now those Capitalists and their workers, their descendants, have the nerve to moan about immigration.   

Tuesday 30 December 2014

YOU







"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only"





And there you have it, Dickens couldn't have put it better himself in a Tale of Two Cities. So where are we guy? Five months from a General Election where the general population believe that there is a choice of two on the menu with a tickle or two on the ivories, for a change, if you want to protest the status quo. I am one of those strange creatures who likes the month of January because it brings promises of false hope and renewal and like a sucker I believe it every time. Anything that takes us further from Christmas and the New Year is Ok with me. So what does 2015 have in store for the Shark Fisherman and more importantly what does it have in store for YOU because in reality YOU are the only one who counts. It's not all about the Bass. It's all about YOU and don't forget that. You need to seize 2015 by the scrotum and swing it above your head because as sure as eggs is eggs if YOU don't nobody else will. I hope to do a bit more travelling! I don't enjoy the 'getting there' of travel. I enjoy being at the destination but the getting there is a drag. I'm sure that it's the same for YOU. We have so much in common YOU and I. I write this Blog and YOU read it. I believe in YOU because YOU believe in me. YOU do believe in me, Don't YOU! In reality we care very little about the world and others, we might think we do but we care about ourselves. ME, ME, ME and then another Christmas comes round and another New Year and in reality we are back in the same position in OUR heads. You're getting tired of me emphasizing in Caps Lock now so I shall stop. Don't stop believing in yourself because the snag is we do need other people to believe in us if we are to realise our short term goal of becoming famous or infamous. We need people to read our work, listen to us singing, appreciate our science. People who need people.....that's a song isn't it? Somewhere along the line we have been led to believe that we don't need eachother. The stealthy death of community. Was there ever such a thing? I believe that there must have been but even I am too young to remember it. We have been divided by trickle down economics and by the bright shiny objects in the shops. We can but hope that you will find a way to put you back into the Community in 2015. I'm sure you will. Thank you for following my Blog! God who am I kidding, It's all about that Bass!


         




Thursday 25 December 2014

The Fable in the Stable






If it wasn't for the fable in the stable
you wouldn't be putting that turkey on your table
You wouldn't be having a beer, ya hear?
It's all very well, casting yer spell 
and telling me that I'm gonna hell.
I believe, Yes I do!
I believe that Jesus was Black
Yes he was born in a sack
And do you know what? he has been back!
but he took to the crack
cos ya see, the three wise men were dealers,
stealers, free wheelers.
They weren't to know that he was God's only son
but it's too late, it's over and done.
Another innocent lost to the drum
of the only begotten bum. 
cos the inner City is no place to be born
when Herod and the Met treat you with scorn.
You don't play to the white man's rules
the class, the corruption, the drug running mules.
August 2011 was the year of our birth
for a few days there was no mirth
Your shops and your tills 
there were no thrills
 in London town
when it was all
going 
down.

Sunday 21 December 2014

Dolig Dog End Dedwydd

Croen fy nhyn ar fy nhalcen
Daeth doethion Danescourt i'r dre
Carolau Christmas, crucifying clustiau
Crowds, mince spies a pharanoia
Does dim dianc
Cyfalafiaeth noethlymun
Smooth, fel croen babi 
Pwy sy'n elwa o'r gwallgofrwydd
Er mwyn Duw?
Teuluoedd, Gweithwyr, Capeli, Eglwysi, ia mwn
Ar demlau eraill yna
Yr Archfarchnadoedd.
Anrheg i ddangos fy mod yn dilyn y drefn
Ac i danlinellu fy niffyg dychymyg 
Dolig dog end dedwydd i chwi gyd.

Tuesday 16 December 2014

Elvis Powys?






And I thought Elvis was a Cardi
but realised last night
as I navigated the fairground ride,
the corkscrew aka the A44
that he wasn't Elvis Preseli after all
'Elvis Powys'
He was everywhere then,
working in the chip shop in Rhayader
singing 'Blue Christmas' on the bridge at Builth.  
I wasn't lonesome last night because I could
feel his presence on the dashboard
'Viva Libanus'
 'The Wonder of You' looking up at Pen y Fan
There was 'a little less conversation' going through Merthyr
and then it was 'in the Ghetto'
this 'hound dog'
was back in the land of
'Suspicious Minds'.

Thursday 11 December 2014

Learning to live without Anaesthetic

Bit more Psycho geography today, I wanted to get home from town but I didn't want to walk down Westgate Street because I find that the noise and pollution down there frays the nerves so I cuts down Womanby Street likes. I can't remember it being so interesting when I used to stagger home from 'Clwb' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clwb_Ifor_Bach but people had been painting things on walls.



Very rarely in fact have I walked down this street sober or in daylight. For much of the late eighties and throughout the nineties this was our haunt of choice. A veritable speakeasy where a few words of the old 'Cymraeg' and arian/pres was enough to gain entry into the early hours. It was here that I drank to quell the feelings of inadequacy. Rebel yelled conversations were held and the eponymous chatting up took more and more alcohol every time. I felt 'almost' nostalgic, almost mind you, thinking about the young uns today down from the sticks and going through the whole rigmarole all over again. I remembers the days of the Horse and Groom across the road and the Dog & Duck next door. This street ages me as I takes a few hurried photographs before appearing out by the clock tower. I remember Bob Delyn a'r Ebillion playing, Derec Brown a'r Rhacaracwyr, Tynal Tywyll, U Thant. A gig by Huw 'Bobs' Pritchard came to mind the other night. I wonder what happened to him? Clwb was an oasis of sticky floors, plastic glasses and shouting over the swn. I can't say that I remember it fondly because I always drank to self medicate and not to socialise but I remember it and I remembered it today.   

For Blog Posts with further references to 'Clwb'
see by here like!




Wednesday 10 December 2014

364


every Christmas time
I find
that I'm close to
losing my mind

society, god & jesus
in an attempt
to please us
freeze us

into spending automatons

my batteries are running low
I can't just go with the flow
avaricious children with
greed in their heart

make their parents part
with money they don't have.

I feel controlled, manipulated
forced into a community
that cares less on this day
than on the other 364

so instead of writing
shitty, witty odes
which might might be 
construed
as 
code.

I think
I'll just
Fuck Off!

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Stop Go Joe





My name is

'Stop Go Joe'

and my interest is in

arresting the flow

of traffic

going to and fro

I'm not high brow

I'm more of a bro

I didn't do real well at school

In fact they called me a fool.

But look who's got the power now

you sadistic old sow?

I like sport, some women and beer

you can sneer

I can smell your fear.

I have the power over swots, bullies and geeks

and it's they that call me a freak.

I have a one off sign

that I like to give a bit of a shine.

It says 

Green for Stop
&
Red for Go.





























Saturday 6 December 2014

Get yer tits oot for the bairns







The wonderful thing about being the maitre d' of a blog such as this is that I can write about anything I like. So I am going to write about breast feeding in Claridges. And I wont be sugar coating it with a napkin either. My well thumbed copy of the I Spy book of afternoon tea and breast feeding is no longer well thumbed because I don't see breast feeding anywhere not even in the Creche also known as Chapter Arts Centre, off the ley line in Cowbridge Rd East, Canton, Caerdydd. Not even here in the 'cwtch' can you observe the erotic spectacle of a mother feeding her baby. I don't think this story is about a woman's right to breastfeed in public, I think it's yet another story about 'Class'. Would this mother have whipped out her mammaries at Greasy Joe's Cafe off the Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria? Would she eck as like!!! 
Was it too cold to nudge her nipples out in that part of Hyde Park that nestles neath Bayswater where the privileged wheel their uniformed offspring every morn, to the sound of Polish workers being crushed by sofas and falling ledges? I only ask because what the F**k was anybody doing having afternoon tea in Claridges anyway? What right does an establishment such as Claridges have to exist? So that working class northerners can go home and tell their families that they have had 'afternoon tea and tiffin' in Mayfair. I will not be voting UKIP because I think 'Breast Feeding' in public should be compulsory, not down to the whims of a privileged mother. "If it's one out, it's all out"  



Thursday 4 December 2014

LONE SHARK


I thought of the title of this blog post before I knew what I was going to write. A play on the words loan/lone shark. ha ha! Been done before mate! Oh ok then! So what do I want to say about lone sharks. I am a lone shark as opposed to a loan shark. I am not a loan shark because I do not have any money to lend you but I am a lone shark because I tend to do everything alone (Yes even sex) and then when you least suspect it, I bite. I want to avoid the 'whoa is me' post because we all know that worse things happen at sea. Yes people get eaten by sharks but I have been observing myself and I realise that I have a default setting now of 'withdrawn'. Some might mis-interpret it as depression but I am relatively content. Instead of getting involved with things, I now observe from a safe distance. I am a passive observer of life. I do not live dangerously as 'Osho' recommends. Boring and basic but relatively safe. I am being relatively successful in avoiding the 'C' word. Trying to avoid all retail outlets for the month of December. I was somewhere in November where they were playing carols on a loop. It was a retail outlet and if I'd had my gun, I would have shot the speakers off the wall. I don't have a gun of course because I have a 'Mental Health History' and I don't live in America where in the Constitution you have the right to arm bears. Unfortunately at this time, it is the wrong bears that are being armed. The 'Force' is now running on fear and shooting and killing anything that moves. This time nine years ago I was in Prison in Amsterdam having been assaulted by a Dutch Police Officer. The three words that got me the blow to the back of the head were 'God Bless You'. We know that the Filth, the Bizzees, the Pigs and the Rozzers get a bad press but they get a bloody good pension as well and allegedly they are our servants, but they are not, they are servants of the Queen or the White House with the emphasis on 'White'. You would have thought that after the Conservative Andrew Mitchell had been found guilty of defamation that the 'Garda' would be more 'on side' with us the public, but one whiff of trouble and it's 'Kettling' at dawn. Why? because they are on a bloody good screw and pension, but it is a bloody dangerous job, because there are some real 'nut jobs' out there. Hands up Lone Shark.  What happened before Sir Robert and his Peelers? Was there more crime? Well we don't know because there weren't any records but they have grown all around the world into a Leviathan, a non-accountable monster and in America the Sheriff and his deputies are killing people. As if cameras will stop them doing that! When the police are finally punished and imprisoned for carrying out their duty, then maybe people will stand up and take note but as in Peter and Gordon's words 'A world without love', don't hold your breath because you won't be able to breathe.        


Fruity old fruit bats

  Hello my fruity old fruit bats! That is a term of endearment by the way. I thought I would treat you to a piece of prose rather than the b...

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