"I want to lose weight and be able to go shopping again"

The Western Mail was hoping that this would escape my radar, not a chance. As the Toilet Paper was delivered through the pristine letter box, not 1 but 4 leaflets fell out all carrying the same message.(I am staying with family). They were working on the premise that 4 overweight people were living at the address


The leaflet was in pink with two red designer shopping bags and the heading was 


" I want to lose weight and be able to go shopping again" signed Tracy, Cardiff. 


Then a short succinct message

Weight loss surgery, Meet the weight loss surgeon(s) and support team at our open events for your free mini consultation. 


You can imagine what the surgeon will say "Hey Momma, you're packing a few pounds there, you need weight loss surgery instantly and it will cost you x thousands of pounds". 
I'm still confused as to what demographic they are targeting.
Come on thick boy, get with the programme. Isn't that sexist advertising though? Let's deconstruct the Tag line shall we! 


I want to lose weight and be able to go shopping again=I am so self conscious about my body mass index that I have low self esteem, that I don't want to be seen outside the home, shopping. 


Have I got that right? As a male bear of very little brain, I am trying to process the fact that you might go shopping, to be seen, to be looked at. Surely not! You go shopping to buy food and stuff.


Ooooh look what we have on the bottom of the leaflet, the logo for Spire Cardiff Hospital, Croescadarn Road, Pentwyn, Cardiff, CF23 8XL. They offer a wide range of weight loss operations, look you, gastric banding, gastric-bypass, sleeve gastrectomy and intra-gastric balloon.


So you would undergo the above operations to be able to go shopping again? Does Tracy exist? Probably but in the offices of the adman agency, Churchill way (Fictitious). She is stick thin and eats fresh air but she knows her genders' psychology down to a T.


I have reported in the citizen blog before that is 'Sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com' about the shallowness of content of our National Daily Newspaper. I for one am hoping that it will go weekly, then monthly, then quarterly, then disappear altogether. Does Rupert 'the bear' Murdoch know what he is missing down here in the Principality Kingdom of Serfs known as Walesa?


As if the NHS isn't under enough strain already with Conservative Privatisation by the Tradesmans' entrance. To alleviate the strain, Spire, previously known as Bupa, will take the strain with their mini consultations. How many Gastric Bandings will it take to pay for my new Golf Buggy and holiday to the Florida Keys?


"We'll get you shopping again Tracy, have no fear"!


'Twang'! "What the hell was that"? "Your new gastric band love".

Am feeling dis one today!

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good_night

Anger Management!

My name is David Williams and I have a problem with anger. I'm not showing off. I have a rage burning inside. It was a rage that I used to try and quash with alcohol and cannabis and if I wasn't such a coward and a novice I would probably have turned to the harder stuff.  Nowadays I have a trigger switch! in olden days I had a very long fuse. Too long! Now, its boom, blow, gone. It happened last week with a loved one and I am ashamed of that anger and rage. They didn't deserve it. It was a rage and grievance from the past that hadn't been aired. Some words, some memories, too much caffeine running through the veins and boom. My anger has got me into serious trouble. The DWP want me to go and see an  Employment Advisor. They would be better off sending me on an anger management course! With all the young people without a job why do they want to get an old crock like me back to work? Oh sorry I know, they want to save the pittance of benefit and they want to get me paying tax. I've paid tax for twenty years and my stamp and I've had a nervous breakdown par excellence. 

WORK CONTRIBUTED TO MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. 

Wow! That is spooky! The Keyboard went into Caps Lock, changed color and underlined all of its own accord then. If you work in an environment that triggers your anger, then if you need to keep that job, you have to internalise that anger . Your Physical Health is then compromised by not being able to call the Boss an arsehole or your workmates, likewise! This Mental policing is extremely tiring and can be treated with meditation and good diet but when you're working you don't have the discipline to do these positive things. Your so tired by the end of the working day, that you eat a takeaway and turn the Telly On! Then sleep and indigestion and if your worried about something, then insomnia! How many years of that before a physical illness manifests?  

If you live like this, where your mind is your master, then you are a danger to other people. You get behind a steering people! Tiredness, Traffic Jams,  The News from Hell on the Radio= A Menace to Society. I am a self confessed menace to society. I need to remain apart and aloof from the rat race or my health will suffer, mental and physical. It appears that I won't have much choice!  

Atos

Well I only had my last one in October 2011 and now they have sent me another Questionnaire....in English only. I told them last time that the English Language was an Oppression and I wanted to conduct the Interrogation in Welsh. I was told, that they would have to bring down a Doctor from Bangor to Cardiff if I wanted that to happen. Well, I didn't want to put them to any trouble! I'd made my point. I turned up at the Government Buildings, St Agnes Buildings, Gabalfa, Kairdiff and the first thing I was asked "Do I want to claim Travel Expenses?" "No thank you, I walked", I replied. I waited for twenty minutes, when a peroxide blonde marched into the office behind the reception counter and with the door open, proceeded to read my notes out to the people inside. Rather embarrassed I looked around the waiting room. I could hear what I had put down on the form being read out! The receptionist had already been to sit next to me to apologise that they couldn't conduct the interview in Welsh. Then PB (Peroxide Blonde) marches out, 'Mr Williams'. I wasn't sure whether she'd pronounced it with a V. Once through the double doors I said " Before we begin I'd like to put on record that you have broken my confidentiality by reading out my notes in a public place."

"I hope you understand that I won't be able to conduct this interview in Welsh", she said "I don't speak Welsh". Well this official had got my dander up good and proper so I answered her questions looking at the floor with my arms folded. At conclusion, as I left a scene reminiscent of 'The Great Escape' where Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson get on the bus and the Gestapo say "Good Luck"!

And Gordon replies in his Scottish brogue " Thank you!" forgetting that he was an escaped P.O.W.

Well this Frauhlein at the door says to me "Your the fittest person, I've seen today". I turned around and replied in a Darth Vader voice "Physically maybe, but not Mentally" 

That was in October and it is February 21st today and they have sent me another form, in English, so Bollocks to them. I have answered all the questions this time in my native tongue. It is obvious that they don't believe me. It's obvious that they don't trust me. Well bring your person down from Bangor, I shall have my next interrogation in my native tongue 'Arbeit Macht Frei'

Ishy Din: Taxi driver turned playwright

Ishy Din: Taxi driver turned playwright

Anglo Saxon Attitude

Wales are playing England in Rugby on Saturday next at Twickenham. I hope that England win! Whilst the 'Prince of Wales' feathers is still on the Welsh Jerseys I will be supporting the opposition. It's hypocritical of me because the soccer team I support 'Wrexham FC', the only team in North Wales have the Feathers as part of their crest. Soccer is a very different game to Rugby. Soccer was Rugby before the buffoon William Webb Ellis picked the ball up at Rugby School and ran with it. Well I wish he had kept running. Rugby Football is an oppression. I played it from an U 15 level at school and when I came down to Kairdiff I stupidly joined Cathays High School Old Boys as Hooker. It was in my 'Losers' Script. Whatever team I played for, we always lost! Playing against Liverpool College we lost to a record 127-0. Even the Referee couldn't stop laughing at how bad we were.
As you may have guessed by now I go a lot on emotion and the vibe. When I realised what a lot of 'Toff Toss' like oppression school was I used to bunk off and go and watch Wrexham playing football at the Racecourse. Much of my anti 'Anglo-Saxon attitude' must hark back to this period when I lived in an area which didn't know whether it was English or Welsh, the Vale of Clwyd. The Liverpool overspill. Welsh was spoken in the countryside, English was the language of the towns of Ruthin, Denbigh and Mold.
Nick Griffin lives in Mid Wales, you know. The leader of the British National Party lives near Carno in Mid Wales and the last time I drove past, he had a Panzer Kampfwagon parked on his drive. He has even hosted Jean Marie Le Pen, the former leader of Le Front Nacional, in a Marquee in a field across to his house. Nick doesn't want to live next door to aliens and foreigners in England so he moves to Wales where we'll gladly have him. We'll have anybody!
Now 'i cadw'r ddesgil yn wastad'/ to keep the dish evenly filled, I have to say that I reserve the same amount of disgust at my fellow countrymen as I do towards the upper echelons of the Political Wing of The British National Party, namely the Conservative Party. We in Wales are satisfied in beating England at Rugby in the Six Nations! If that happens, then its heads down again. We have beaten the 'auld enemy' in a contact sport. That'll do! It doesn't matter that a certain strata of society are running our country. There never was a class system in Wales until the Anglo Saxon Attitude crept in after the Act of Union. A friend from University said " It's very unnerving to feel like I built the castles and was part of Edward I's army, they seem to hold me personally responsible".
We are a dumbed down nation, happy to drink S.A Brains firewater and laugh at their advertising campaign likening Twickenham to a toilet. Let me tell you, Wales is the toilet, and we have taken a lot of shit over the years. Don't worry, this is not a member of Plaid Cymru talking. I left them over twelve years ago.

 "Come on England"

Dear John!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/dearjohn/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_John_letter

Well! Happy Birthday to Shark Fishing in Wales. It is One Month old today and has had 1,100 page views. SFIW is in essence a 'Dear John' letter to Kairdiff and Wales. Whilst I will still continue to live here,(unless I get any other offers) I will be just a ghost in the machine. The older you get, the more invisible you become. Despite the protestations of SAGA and the University of the Third Age, getting old is no fun. It is in your twenties and thirties that you need to make your mark, then you can sit back in middle age and chew on the bones of your successes and do some fine tweaking and some ruthless P.R work. Old age where the beautiful become less beautiful. Unless of course they have worked on their inner selves. For some reason the BBC Comedy series 'Dear John' spoke to me and I collected the episodes religiously on V.H.S, the lilting and angelic theme tune, the first class acting by Ralph Bates and the observational comedy by John Sullivan. Its American adaptation with Judd Hirsch was longer lived. Thankfully I haven't been through the 'Rights of Passage' of Divorce like John, but there was just something of the 'Everyman' about the character that appealed.

A dear john letter is a farewell to a former loved one. I used to love Wales but loving one's country is a useless notion. Loving one's planet is probably a better option. You've probably got more chance of finding someone with whom you have something in common. The Grey Lady or Carwyn Jones First Minister, to give him his proper title is appealing to Plaid Cymru voters to become turncoats and come home to Labour. Well Labour in Wales are what the Tory Party are to England. "You put a donkey up in the Valleys and I'd vote for it". Ed Millipede has been here to tell us how much we have in common and he is probably returning to London with the same uneasy feeling that David Cameron has, having been to visit the Independent Nation of Scotland. Labour have always been the dominant paradigm in Wales and this useless swinging, like Democrat and Republican in America from Red to Blue across the United Kingdom is slowly grinding to a halt. I have never quite worked out how you can become so powerful, so quickly by entering politics. This is a career path that all John Does should choose. Plenty of ego and ambition, the hide of a rhino, belligerence and you can become Prime Minister. Every four years we continue to vote for it, actually believing that whoever we vote for can make a difference. How ridiculous! The Shark Fishing in Wales party, yes well I'm starting to get some fan letters now so it might be an option. Don't watch this space but thank you for your birthday greetings and see you all in the next post.

Salmond Fishing in Scotland

Trout Fishing in America, Shark Fishing in Wales and now Salmond Fishing in Scotland! Whatever Next?

On the front page of the Western Mail (Llais y Sais) this morning, an action shot of David Cameron in bright blue tie with the headlines 'It's made us safer, it's made us stronger, it's made us richer, it's helped us in times of difficulty. We shouldn't give up this great thing-Our United Kingdom'

Now who are you calling 'us' paleface? Don't drag us into it! Now you see if I was Editor of the Western Mail, the National Newspaper of Wales(Ha! Ha!) I would have had a huge photograph of Alex Salmond with the headline:

"Go back to England, and tell them there that Scotland's daughters and her sons are yours no more. Tell them Scotland is free." 

I am not Editor however, thankfully, of this shallow rag with its emphasis on twirling the Prince of Wales feathers in your face and telling you on an almost weekly basis who the top 50 'hottest' men and women are in Wales. Shallow drivel bollocks! By their National Newspaper shall ye know them ! Now its all very well for this crazy little Welshman to write admiring words about the situation North of the Border "Ye dinnae have to live here". Well put it like this, I'd rather live in a country that teaches its children its own history than the Imperialist, sanitised propaganda that they force feed us this side of Offa's Dyke. I had the 1832 Reform Act, Sir Robert Peel, The Corn Laws. Whose History do you want us to learn?

Now I know there is a danger for some to feel alienated by such talk but perhaps we would be better off getting rid of certain words in the dictionary because they carry such heavy connotations. Here are my short list of words that I would get rid off because they carry such baggage.

• Nationalist: Not a helpful word this one, it can be used by academics and conservative politicians to make you feel like a Fascist. Ironic what?
• Schizophrenia: Not a helpful word or concept at all. So much media representation of this condition has given it such a heavy burden that the word needs to change. R.D Laing, the Scotsman Psychiatrist from the Glasgow tenements knew this when he wrote 'The Divided Self'
• Death: Not a good word. Apart from the most enlightened, we are all 'shit scared' of death therefore might I suggest 'The Long Sleep' or 'The Long Rest'. 
• Ethnicity: This word enhances the differences between human beings. A 'bad' word. Ethnic Minority is a ridiculous concept which just goes to strengthen the weakness inherent in the two words. 

Perhaps it would be better if the Scottish Border were brought down to just South of Liverpool. The North/South Divide would then be more equitable. The people of the North of England have suffered just as much if not more from the elitist ruling class of London and the Home Counties than we in Wales or Scotland. 

Cameron knows only too well the baggage of the word 'Tory' but I'm sure he's glad that he's called Cameron and not Campbell.

A Plan Stan!

Have you got a plan Stan? Well I haven't and I never have had. This state of stasis or limbo feels like it has lasted forever. I've never had ambition, never been a competitive sort. This was drummed out of me at my 'Public School' unlike my alter ego 'David Cameron'. I am slightly older than him but look at him, look at how he has risen up the greasy pole. He is in No 10 and I am still in my two up, two down in Grungetown.

Feel the Fear and do it anyway! Fuck that! I'll stay here behind my blinds and observe the comings and goings and dog shit freezing on the pavement from a safe distance. So this is my 'I could have been a Contender Blog' carrying on from my learned helplessness blog. After graduating with my cape and mortar board and a piece of plastic piping that was used by the photographer instead of a certificate that would wilt and warp. Well since graduating I have wilted and warped. I must re-visit my Victim/Survivor Blog to buck myself up. "Cheer up, it might never happen". The best advice of all, of course that you can give to someone who is clinically depressed. The Buddhist phrase above received a number of likes on my facebook page so methunks "this has struck a chord with folks" and it was my Psychiatrist who said 'we are all so similar'. Going about our daily business we would never concur with this statement because every day appears to be an exercise in futile lying! We hide behind the veil, we suck in the air on the bus and pop in the ipod!. We switch off because we're worried that someone will point out to us the futility of it all. The Emperor isn't wearing any clothes. We all know it, yet we carry on pretending because that's what everyone else is doing. Power to the Sheeple!

I think it is important to have a plan. You can create a 'Vision Board' and cut images out of papers and magazines reminding you of the things that you aspire to and the people who inspire you! On my vision board is a picture of Steve Berkoff and Charles Bukowski. There is a picture of me in the middle with the Anarchist symbol on one side and the Hammer and sickle on the other. Below is 'Tafod y Ddraig' the symbol of the Welsh language Society. Written on my vision board are the titles of the plays and monologues I have written. I shall have to remember to add sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com to it. I have put this piece of A4 in a Red Frame purchased from Ikea and I have nailed it to the wall so it is the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up. I have also written the words ACTOR, WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER in Capitals at the top because these are the roles that I aspire to fulfill. Therefore I share this dream with 80% of the population as the Arts Degrees and Stage Schools alumni are a testament to. I am also obsessed with age and even though I am kindly reminded by those that care that it is only a number, 46, is probably too late to embark on a career of this sort especially in Wales, that ugly, lovely country, that graveyard of ambition! So you bright young things, have a plan, pull up your pop socks and go for it!  I had the dream many moons ago but let the oppression of economics and work and other peoples' well meaning scripts get in the way. It made me mentally unwell.   

GIZZA JOB

'Gizza Job'! I will be 46 years of age on St David's Day. I have been a Head of Drama in a tough, inner city secondary school, I have been a development officer for a Youth Organisation. I haven't worked in the 'traditional' model, you know labour in exchange for pay and taxes for six years. I have been a Benefit Scrounger since January 2006 when I was diagnosed with 'Bipolar Affective Disorder'.

This blog is my C.V.I don't have conventional referees unless you wish to contact my 'Occupational Therapist'.

Watching 'Boys from the Blackstuff' recently after thirty years I realised that Yosser Hughes was a man who was losing his mind. A man whose mental state was degenerating due to the circumstances he found himself in. Thatcher's Britain with obscene levels of unemployment. The behaviour he portrays in Yosser's story could be 'psychosis'. Lurching between fierce optimism and a catatonic state of depression. That far away, glazed look in the eye. 

Thirty years on, we have yet another Conservative Government, and from the debris of the austerity cuts will grow another army of 'Yosser Hugheses'. Bashed from pillar to post by the Nazi Atos so that the comfy  readers of the right wing newspapers can feel that their taxes are being used in the right way, ie to keep the underprivileged down. 

There are men and women of my generation who have placed themselves by circumstance or choice outside the circus ring that is the reality of life in the UK today. Because we grew up with Thatcher, her policies and their effects have been ingrained on our sub-conscious. We cannot believe that History has repeated itself. We cannot believe that we have allowed it to happen. The Government is hoping that the August Riots of 2011 were a flash in the pan. Well they weren't! Those that can feel the vibe know that great anger and hurt is festering within the walls of Her Majesty's prisons. Give a critical mass of people enough time, to work out that they have been living off crumbs, in an unjust society and more unrest will follow. Guaranteed! And it won't be in another thirty years. It will be soon!

Gissa Job! Go on Gissa Job! I don't want just any old job. I want your job David Cameron!

Fe Flogiwn Ni Eto!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/eclips/pages/cym_11to14_mam_llenyddiaeth_hon.shtml

Rwy'n caru'r Gymraeg! I love the Welsh Language. I wish I could write this blog post in my mother tongue. My Welsh is not good enough and if I wrote it in Welsh then I would be preaching to the converted.
It was 50 years to the day, yesterday, that Saunders Lewis broadcast 'Tynged yr Iaith', the Fate of the Language. Out of a population of 3 million, 585,000(This keeps changing, this is an optimistic if not realistic figure) allegedly speak the language. Census figures will update us but these do tend to be massaged. 3000 people less are speaking it fluently every year. I have mentioned before about the context in which a language is spoken. Language cannot exist in a vacuum but it appears to be doing so in Wales. I love the language but I don't love the artificial context that it is used. In business or media or over a pint! That is why I am writing this blog on Valentine's Day and not on Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen. The Glass half full/empty scenario might say that it is a miracle that it has survived so well as it has living alongside and amongst the second most spoken language in the world. English, the language of the Empire which is now the language of America and Australia and Canada. Welsh is spoken in Wales which is a country the size of well....Wales and in Patagonia where seekers of religious freedom settled in the 19th Century.  Language is an Oppression, even languages that we have an emotional attachment to. In one of my last attendances at an organised congregation of worship, the Minister encouraged us to say the Lord's Prayer in our chosen language. The Welsh and English were spoken in prayer, almost in competition and having started in Welsh, I went to silence and my wish was that the universal language of the world, be silence. 
We all make excuses and we all pass the buck. I wish to make a contribution. I write monologues in Welsh or Wenglish to be un-exact. They reflect my use. My written work reflect the experience of those who are on the fringes of mainstream society. I am uncomfortable with a reality that has an emphasis on profit before people. What use a language which is used, in the same social context as others? Learning a language in order to secure a better job or to make more money does not cut the mustard with me. You are then using the language as a vehicle. You are more concerned with the destination than the journey.   Living once again with mortality is a responsibility that perhaps we wouldn't choose but those who speak it and those who live within the artificial borders of Wales, also have a responsibility.


Here is a link to the book 'Burning down the Dosbarth' by David Greenslade
http://www.ylolfa.com/dangos.php?ISBN=0862432715

Adios Amigo!

So in 1991 I left the Parks Department to go and begin a degree course at the University of Glamorgan. Once again without a plan, like a cork on the waves, tossed about from place to place I chose a general Arts Degree. The only reason I was accepted was that I had gained an A level in English at night school when I was still in North Wales. Whilst living with Mrs Bailey in York Street, Colwyn Bay, I went twice a week to study A levels in Llandrillo College. A BA in Humanities at Trefforest was to introduce me to the field in which I am still passionate to this day. Drama. I graduated in 1994 majoring in Theatre & Media Drama. I studied for the whole three years whilst self medicating my Manic Depression. Clwb Ifor Bach on a Saturday night with its sticky floors and plastic glasses. I was that much older than the other students 25 when I started and 28 when I finished and from there I went straight to Caerleon to study a Post Graduate Certificate in Further Education. By completing the degree course I was trying to prove to myself that I was not such a failure after all. Interestingly there is no psychological profiling required to enter the teaching profession and I never mentioned to anybody in those days that I had had 'an episode' whilst younger. Learning about Teaching was tough, as similar to Drama, what I was attempting to do was to work against my default setting of being shy and withdrawn. It required you to be outgoing as you were working with people. It was an effort. An effort that needed anaesthetising. 

Whilst working for the Parks in 1989, my interest in Politics began and I took a weeks holiday to go and leaflet and canvass for Dr Dewi Evans, the Plaid Cymru Candidate in the Neath By-election. He was opposing the Labour candidate Peter Hain. I believe that my passion for Plaid Cymru came from the fact that it was emotion based. It was when the Party was more of a protest party rather than the mainstream affair it is today. I was exorcising the ghost of my English Medium education by becoming a Welsh Language and Culture activist. In my purple blazer, I had joined Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg in Eisteddfod yr Urdd in Rhyl in the early nineteen eighties. I was training to become a Teacher to be a better Teacher than the ones that I had. To be somebody who would have empathy with a young person growing up. 

At University we studied a broad base of subjects for the degree and I remember a Lecturer in History called Neil Wynne who had become aware of my politics and it seemed to irk him somewhat. In those days I was pretty active, canvassing, leafletting, standing as Council Candidate in Cardiff South and Penarth and going to a number of summer schools. There had been an election in 1991 and a gang of us had gone up to Ceredigion to support Cynog Dafis who was the joint Plaid/Green candidate. At University, Mr Wynne went round the seminar group and asked each one of us why we had voted in the election. Halfway round he came to me and my response was 'Language and Culture'. "Aha" he announced with relish as if catching me in a trap "That's what Hitler's followers were voting for in the lead up to the war". He was trying to equate Nationalism with Fascism and what made it obvious that it was a set up was that he stopped the questioning with me and left the other half of the seminar group with their mouths agog having been denied the opportunity to answer. It had been a mistake to choose history as this gentleman brought my marks right down at the end of the course and if it hadn't been for a distinction in Drama then my final grade would not have been the 2:1, I finally achieved. Mr Wynne was obviously not to know that I was a Manic Depressive but this little episode was to lead to a confirmatory bias in my mind, that there were individuals who seemed to take a pleasure in belittling others or pulling the metaphorical rug out from underneath you. There was another lecturer who diminished my enjoyment of another topic, Creative Writing, a Professor of Poetry no less, Monsieur Tony Curtis of Barry, a lecturer with a bombastic manner who reduced some members of his classes to tears with his observations and critiques and was not very encouraging. In tutorial he said that my poetry " was clench fisted" and was not too his taste at all.

At this point, my Mental Health was triggered mostly by other people and their behavior and reactions. I would either rise up and rage very quickly or more commonly withdraw and brood like an old hen, neither reaction was very healthy really.

Toilet Blocker

the Khazi, , the lavatory, the loo, the john, the privy, the outhouse, the shithouse, the crapper, the dunny, the bog, the latrine, the water closet, the little boys room, cludgie, y tŷ bach.

I block toilets.

I’ve blocked one at Central Library.

I’ve blocked one at the Hospital where the Community Mental Health Team gather.

I’ve blocked them in hotels and I blocked one on a bus.

If blocking toilets was illegal, then I’d be a lifer.

I keep forgetting about all this CCTV.

It is the ones, that provide no brush or plunger that cause the most constipation...er...I mean consternation.

Because dark panic grips you after the relief of unloading when you realize that you have been flamboyant in twirling the role on its holder.

It’s an act of judgement and mine has always been askew.

You’re just never sure what the house rules about ‘Blocking’ are.

Do you admit or do you run? As a rule, I run because unless the establishment want to go down the route of stool analysis then its very difficult to prove that it was you.

However you have to live with the guilt and the shame.

You could call this a  kind of ‘Khazi Confessional’

I have dreams you see about narrow u bends and about fluffy paper taken down on the backs of amphibious labrador puppies.

Andrex, Soft, Long and very very strong.

Bring back Izal, Bring Back Izal.

It was shiny and smooth and you could feel every contour of your hairy, pimply arse and sometimes given the corresponding law of Chemistry/Physics your finger would go through which was appropriate because it was schools which had shares in the company. 

Why am I admitting to such dark, heinous deeds and why am I doing it in a Cape Cod American Accent? 

Well it’s one of those things that if you suppress it to long, it turns into a watery, runny neurosis. 

When I was a younger man 

I  left a trail of blocked u bends across the United States of America. 

The First was in Boulder, Colorado. Home to Mork and Mindy. 

It was 1985 and I had gone with my mate Keith to stay with many of his relatives and friends. 

I remember it was a Sunday and Marian and Tom had gone up to the mountains or the lakes and left me and Keith to look after the house. 

In American houses you walk down to the basement and there gurgling away was the John. 

I went in with my copy of MAD magazine. I squatted and waited. I shat which is the past tense of I shit and I wiped and I flushed. I looked down. It was blocked. Nanw, Nanw, Shazbat! 

I went upstairs and told Keith. 

He called me a dumbarse, he’d gone all American you see. 

I got the Yellow pages. I should have used them instead. 

It was twenty three years ago but I remember the name of the guy and the company. 

It was Ray from ‘Roto-Root’. Look I’m going to have to charge you $50.00 because it’s a Sunday. 

$50.00 I could buy a new toilet cheaper from Wickes. 

He ascended the stairs in his blue mask and overalls and gasped. 

“What the hell did you put down there?”

“Did a toothbrush get stuck or something?" 

“Thank you very much indeed for coming out at such short notice”. (North Wales Accent) 

I spoke like that in those days because I was brought up in North Wales. 

“I didn’t understand a word you said then”

“Could you slow down and say it again” 

I waved goodbye to Mr Raymond Roto-root and looked at Keith who had a face like a smacked arse. 

There’s a theme here aye. 

Next a greyhound bus depot was my target in El Paso.

 “No Problemo”. 

I came out of the cubicle bemused and a guy in a leather jacket was combing his hair in the mirror.

He said ‘Çan you spare some dough’?

“I thought how does he know”.

"How much I asked?"

"$5.00".

"No"

"Anything then".

"No"

"Why did you ask how much then?"

"Because I’ve just blocked another Goddamn toilet now buzz off greasball.

I’m a student from the UK and I’m on a mission" 

We stayed with Keith’s auntie’s friends in San Diego.

We were going out to the cinema with Cousin Carmine. 

I headed to the bathroom. 

We came back from the Cinema Complex full of dunkin donuts and cheerios and there was Uncle Buck, he was ashen faced. 

“While you were gone, Mary used the bathroom and it overflowed. We’ve spent the night drying out the floor. We’re a little shaken by the experience”. 

I looked suitably concerned and shook my head. 

“Blocked in the U.S.A, Blocked in the U.S.A”(a la Springsteen) 

Shit, the Feds were on to me! Men in Black were tailing the bus. 

Sigmund Freud was my constant companion on that Greyhound Bus Trip across the U.S.A.   

He was saying “Look, there will be global warming in the future and it will be your responsibility. You are using too much paper my little Welsh friend. They won’t be able to cut enough trees down for you”. 

"But Sigi", I replied, "they make the U bends too small. There’s not enough room for my defecation and the paper especially if it comes out like a Mr Whippy, Nine Coiler."

The Vernacular proved too much. He sat back next to me on the greyhound bus. He looked exhausted. I offered him a cigar. 

He told me that I was his most difficult patient. 

I was very proud. 

I  blocked so many toilets on my trip to the States I was thinking of getting them marked up on the side of the bus like the shoot-ups on the side of the Memphis Belle. 

After all these years I have finally learnt my lesson. 

Poo Plops, then Flush, Wipe, Wipe, Flush. 

Shit I’ve blocked it again. 

The next time someone describes me as anal as they very often do. It means that I’ve blocked their toilet.

The End

Capital 2

London is to England what Cardiff is to Wales. Very busy places with lots of shops and a pace of life that would knock a widow from Waunfawr off her walking stick. It's all about vibe! Many reading this blog will have spent time in London, either living or working there or visiting. Capital Cities engender mixed emotions. The oft used expression 'a Time and a Place'. I suppose the stretch of road between Victoria Coach Station and Victoria Railway Station, Buckingham Palace Avenue would not be the ideal place to hold a Shamanic Sweat Lodge calling out the Spirits in a Vision Quest but it does appear to be the ideal place to go very fast in a vehicle or on two legs, belch out toxic coach exhaust fumes and offer you quick, soulless, no strings attached (Looks round furtively)....food. Anybody who has bought a sandwich and because of hunger have ripped the packaging off in a frenzy of desire will know the disappointing flatness that follows as the last piece of cress is pulled from your teeth. It goes in one end and out the other, if you are fortunate enough to find a WC, or in London what might be called an inconvenience. I have walked the length of Fleet Street, looking for a Toilet, all the way from the Strand, finding a Tardis finally next to St Paul's Cathedral. With trepidation you enter your 50p or 1000 Euro note, at any moment expecting a Brass Band to appear with Dom Jolly.
In Cardiff, London or anywhere for that matter, how much time do we spend thinking about what happens once the fast food has passed very quickly through our digestive systems and into the sewerage systems. Not a lot of time I would wager because it's not our problem anymore. The food has done its job in hardening our arteries or giving us energy, its hit the porcelain and gone. Somebody else's job! The Sewerage Meister's job! We are surrounded by Crap on a daily basis, metaphorical shit, much of it visual! Have you seen Leicester Square recently? You'd be wiping off builder's rubble before you get on the Red Carpet. There are so many of us 'bods' that I suppose tis only in a blog post that you can take the required time to 'muse' upon such matters.
This Post catchingly titled Capital 2 as a head bow or nod to St David's 2, the all new singing and dancing shopping emporium in Kairdiff City Centre. Not satisfied with one St David, we have to have 2. With our Patron Saint's Day fast approaching and this Blogger's 46th birthday on the same day, the latter has to wonder, apart from being an energy sump what a capital has to offer apart from shops and rugby. Much more I'm sure, but I'll leave you with this urban myth. Twas said on the streets of the old city that when St David's 2 was under construction, that the developers wanted the land that the Tabernacle Baptist Chapel lies on. The Chapel was offered £1,000,000  big ones to vacate (to make way for Capitalism/Progress). The Capel refused in Welsh to this request.
It's nice to know that not everything can be bought! The Spirits are calling. 

'Capital' by John Tripp

Capital

This will be the last ditch to fall

to the swing of its country.

Significance blowing down the hills

dies on the wind. Here the puffed

clink in their chains of office,

and the hagglers squat like a junta.

It is still as separate as an arm

lopped from its body: a strange sleeve

of territory spilled across the border.

What time has so carelessly mixed

clots here, where the ideals sag

and roots sprout only on the surface.

As long as I remember, the droll warmth

of its people has blurred

when our flag is lifted. Mouths are stitched.

Nothing is put to close scrutiny;

a knotted topic is flicked

into the bin, with a grin for Wales.

But now, in the distance, I think I hear

the young villagers build our future,

laying the first bricks of change.

This capital means less to them

than the land, where everything stems.

'Wait', they are saying. 'Wait for us'.

JOHN TRIPP

Beaut Park

So I failed my exams, I've been sacked twice from a script I sleptwalked into and now I have a failed business under my belt. Enough! Time to take an observer role again. Still didn't know that I had Bipolar Disorder! What do I do now? Well the Bowling Green Gig had been easy enough, why not try again with Cardiff City Council's Department of Leisure and Amenities? This time as a Gardener. I walked through Bute Park today, the Jewel in the Crown of Kairdiff. I started as a Driver/Gardener in September 1989 based at the Castle Mews which is now the Welsh College of Music and Drama. A fine building and suits its present purpose better. Bute Park has changed a lot over the years. When I started as a Park Keeper, there were 56 now referred to as Rangers across Cardiff Parks, now there are only 10. Cost Cutting and all that! The Park has changed a lot in all that time. The Parks were started as Public Amenities! It is the only place to escape from the crass concrete commercialisation and capitalism of a capital city but now you can't escape from the money makers because now two cafes have opened in the park and a third one will be opening soon in the North Lodge by the Animal Wall. Roads have now been run through the Park to allow for the easier movement of gas guzzling vehicles to set up for the many shows that the Park now hosts.

I did a year as a Driver Gardener and then I did a year as the 'Triple Driver'. The little green machine with three blade mechanisms that cut the grass in the parks. This was the summer job and then back on the litter picking gang in the winter. It was a pleasant outside job in the summer but the symptoms of my Bipolar, mostly depression was no more evident than in the Mess Room. It was about the time that Eddie Shah had his Today Newspaper and it was behind its colour pages that I hid while chewing my sandwiches and slurping my tea. The Gang were the salt of the earth but my withdrawn manner I'm sure made a few uneasy. In fact, when I was over Tremorfa, a guy called Trefor, another Triple Driver, a very affable chap actually said to me '"You're depressed aren't you?" It was the first time that anybody had noticed or commented. At a Family Funeral, an Uncle said to me 'You were a strange child'. Well before you start conjuring up pictures of Damien, I know that my Bipolar Disorder began at the tender age of 13. I completely over reacted to a perceived injustice at school and from that day for four years I became extremely introverted. I withdrew from social contact with other children. I went to school, I studied and I went home. I did this for four years. I played Rugby because it was obligitory and perhaps explains my view now that Rugby is a major Oppression in Wales. Now I dread the start of the Six Nations Competition and rejoice that I don't have a television.
You might think that this blog is rather self indulgent and why should we want to know all this but I'm realising that I am writing it as a warning to people to be vigilant with their young people. It is not surprising that Bipolar Disorder is now reaching epidemic proportions in America. Mood Disorders can easily be misinterpreted as  normal teenage behaviour, which is what happened in my case. They were less enlightened times.
Bute Park or Beaut Park as I refer to it is a National Treasure and provided a sanctuary to me for two years. I am grateful for this respite and opportunity. Looking back I now realise that the action of calling into an Off Licence after work and buying a Flagon of Cider, getting back to the adobe in Grungetown and the first action I take after closing the door behind me, was to open the flagon and to start drinking, glugging, in a standing position were the actions of somebody who was seriously self medicating. I didn't bother to sit or get a glass. It was only a short step to the park bench!  

Dinas Studios!

 

After bidding farewell to Jimmy and the bowlers of Maindy I saw an advertisment from a gentleman who was selling the lease and goodwill on a business in the Royal Stuart Workshops, James Street, Cardiff. I was 22 years of age and ready to become a self employed businessman after failing my exams and being sacked twice (Did I mention that before?) Unit 4 Dinas Studios. I started walking down here from the Canton Flat before moving down to my present abode in Grungetown, Cardiff.  So September 1988 I looked out of the back window and saw the fading picture of Lynette White on an A4 Poster on a lampost by ironically enough the old Butetown Police Station.
I have alluded to Mental Health earlier but what I omitted to say was that before coming down to Cardiff from North Wales, I spent two weeks under observation at the North Wales Medical Centre under Dr Dafydd Alun Jones after suffering a breakdown.
"Its got nothing to do with Kairdiff, he brought his misery with him".
 My life, not for the first time imploded after being stopped for drinking and driving on the Denbigh by Pass(Shame)and after losing my licence for eighteen months. I was living in Colwyn Bay and travelling every day to Kinmel Bay to work in a.....Printers(Aaaaaaaaagghhh!) It was the Curse of the Conservative Party again because if the shame of drinking and driving wasn't enough, the drink had been imbibed in the Conservative Club in Ruthin where I knew there was a female I might impress by getting very drunk. I was completely unconscious and depressed and fundamentally unhappy but had no insight whatsover. I thought this was what everybody's life was like. I started cycling a bike and then catching a bus and then as the Crossville was trundling up the hill to Colwyn Bay, I thought I'll return to the land of my birth, South Wales. I wouldn't need a car in Kairdiff. The diagnosis I had been given by Dr Dafydd Alun was 'Extreme Sensitivity' what perhaps might now be classified as 'Hypersensitive'. A 'Bipolar' Label at that age might not have been helpful as I would have started on a medicine regime that would have resulted by now in side affects I'm sure.  I left the Medical Centre and North Wales in denial. I returned to the South Wales of my birth in denial. Not knowing that I had a serious Mental Health Condition, I spent every day with mood swings that might have floored many but which I dealt with by drinking and smoking (Cigarettes) in copious amounts.
Two events stand out in my mind from Dinas Studios.
One early morning I turned on the radio and heard the following.

"Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flightfrom London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday, 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route — a Boeing 747–121 registered N739PA and named “Clipper Maid of the Seas” — was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Eleven people in Lockerbie, in southern Scotland, were also killed as large sections of the plane fell in the town and destroyed several houses, bringing total fatalities to 270. As a result, the event is also known as the Lockerbie bombing. During the 2011 Libyan civil war a former government official claimed that Muammar Gaddafi had personally ordered the attack".


A Global Tragedy that like Lynette White's murder has had reverbrations throughout the following decades. What I couldn't understand was that I started sobbing. I didn't know the victims, it had no personal relevance to me but I locked the Unit's door, sat down in the seat behind the counter and sobbed. Another event related to the radio was hearing on the Welsh News that an elderly lady in Old Colwyn had been attacked in her own home by two intruders. She was my landlady in York Street, Colwyn Bay, after I was released from the Medical Centre. She was a dear, sweet old lady who had moved up to North Wales to be near her sister. She gave me a book as I left 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam' and wrote to Dafydd with kind thoughts in the front cover. I knew immediately from the news flash that this was Mrs Bailey. Like ET, I phoned home to have this news confirmed and went to visit her in hospital. She was black and blue around the head and was 92 at the time.
Dinas Studios was not going well. I was getting phonecalls asking about rehearsal times for the Soap Opera 'Dinas' which was showing on S4C. I was having problems with the machinery, an old Gestetner machine which had been left was now misbehaving and I made a mistake by purchasing a Multilith sheet fed from the Exchange and Mart. I spent hours shouting and kicking this machine much to the mirth and amusement of the stained glass workshop next door. Another neighbour was a very miserable man who fixed fruit machines. He was forever scowling and complaining about me cleaning my ink rollers in the communal sink. Across the corridor, the musician Dave Burns from the Hennesseys had a unit and upstairs was an independent Film Company called Gaucho run by the Musician and Film Director Endaf Emlyn. Ironically years later I sent a Film Script in to them which was accepted as a work in progress. It was called 'After The Asylum'. After closing the doors after each day's disappointments I would meet up with my friend from 'The Printers' and we would waste my money and time in the old Cardiff Pubs.
It wasn't going well. I had to wear many hats and coping with my high and low moods and hangovers proved too much. A kind man from Williamstown in the Rhondda, Bill Cheal, was a typesetter in the Castle Arcade. He offered a partnership and with that brought new machines and more business. I was getting disillusioned. I was thinking about life outside of Printing and in August of 1989 I sold what was left of the goodwill to Bill and wished him well. A couple of years afterwards I was watching the underwhelming Wales Today and was amazed to see the buildings above shown in a news report regarding forged American Express cheques. Apparently a Police Sting had lured Bill's son into a forging scam. The case collapsed but all Bill's hard work after taking over was for nothing. The case collapsed after another example of Police Corruption. Hey Ho! Happy Days!