In praise of single, middle aged men

We must be one of the most maligned sub groups in society. 'The Single Middle Aged Man'. I remember being asked by a well meaning but intrusive and annoying work colleague why I wasn't married and I replied 'I haven't met the right one' and she replied "Oh you're one of those". This was way back in the naughty 1990s when I wasn't as middle aged as I am now. I was un-diagnosed in those days. An un-diagnosed Manic Depressive. So why is there such an invisible army of single, middle aged men? It is an army that never meets together to fight the common foe of conditioned conformity. The smarmy breeders and procreators who inhabit the Sunday color supplements in their his and hers matching Aran sweaters throwing their spring-offs into the air. So why are we still single for Christ-sake? Well we might be divorced, emotionally wounded, shit scared of intimacy, we might have mental health conditions, diagnosed or un-diagnosed that makes the idea of coupling more intimidating than death and of course we might be homosexual, the LGBT without the L. When you live in an area with a high density population, you can stand out in your street if you stubbornly refuse to lose your single status. You choose to proceed through middle age, to old age and onwards to death without a significant other. "But don't you get lonely?" Of course I do you well meaning, intrusive git but being lonely is the price I am prepared to pay for not being in a miserable and stressful relationship. Stress triggers my Manic Depression. The trouble is, you become a target, a target for your own self hating thoughts. You start thinking that others are thinking, why is he middle aged and single? Is he dangerous? The reality is, they are not thinking about you. They are checking their phone. I am polite but I do not look to hold anybody's eye contact. Move along please! nothing to see here but a single, middle aged man.       

My Life as a Boiled Egg

"What happened?"

asked my mother

"to that boy there, up upon the wall

the one playing with the orange plastic ball?"

"It takes twelve minutes to harden a boiled egg" 

 I replied, as she sighed.

She'd got used to my caustic, cynical humour

my shell had taken 50 years to make,
twice in that time it took a break.
Hospital & then Prison
because my mind was trying to find
a place of sanctuary  

no longer the shy smile and sensitivity

"It's every man for himself

and dog eat dog"
"He became a writer" I laughingly lied
she was so happy, she broke down and cried.
"He doesn't get paid for it though"

Plaid Tea Cosy Party

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/12-ams-who-receive-payoffs-10775357

Today sees the Official Launch in Wales of Plaid Tea Cosy Party. Our aim is to fight the Welsh Assembly Elections on Thursday May 5th in a key marginal that could really F***k it up for any or preferably all of the Political Parties contesting the election. This is because we think Politics and especially Politics in Wales is a Joke and the Assembly Members who are meant to represent us in a talking shop in Cardiff Bay get a golden handshake of £64,000 when they leave office. This is your money. Money that could be used by the NHS or by Port Talbot Steelworks. The key points of our manifesto is that every member is to knit their own Tea Cosy, we stand for the Environment First and an Independent Wales second. Independent from a Westminster Government but still in the heart of Europe. If elected, our brothers and sisters in tea cosys will campaign to get the National Assembly moved to the Victoria Dock in Caernarfon. If S4C are going to Carmarthen, then the Gravy Trainers can move back up North and bring some much needed investment into North Wales. The Tea Cosy Party will fight against anything Cardiff centric and will return power to the regions. Unlike Plaid Cymru, not one single member will be taking their Tea Cosy in to the House of Lords. Peerages & Knighthoods will be refused point blank and no communication or acknowledgement will be given to those wearing Tea Cosys in Buckingham Palace. 'Not in my name gwboi'. As other policies come to us, we'll let you know but we are generally going to make it up on the hoof like the other political parties. So gwd people get knitting thy Tea Cosys innit and if it takes off we will take our message to the rest of the countries that make up the Dis-United Dom. 

DYNIADON

Perchnogaeth y Pumdeg

Perchnogaeth y Pumdeg

Mewn dau fis fydd Pysgotwr Siarcod Cymru yn bumdeg oed. Edrych yn ôl ar y degawdau mi fydd rhaid i mi deud 

 0-10 = Iawn

 10-20 = Crap 

 20-30 = Crap 

 30-40 = Crap 

     40-50 = Weddol

felli dwi'n mawr obeithio bydd y degawd nesaf unai yn iawn neu yn weddol. Dyle fe fod. Dwi ddim yn mynd i edrych am drafferth bellach ond weithiau mae trafferth yn eich ffeindio chi yndydi? Dwi dal i botsian gyda'r sgrifennu yma, mwy allan o ddiddordeb na unrhyw ymgais bellach i wneud pres neu enw wrtho. Gan feddwl, dwi yn teimlo fel hen ddyn, yn wir dwi'n meddwl ces i fy ngeni yn hen ddyn neu gyda hen enaid beth bynnag. Arolwg difrifol ar y byd sydd wedi bod a dim ond yn ddiweddar dwi wedi ymlacio rhywfaint gan sylweddoli does dim lot o bwynt gofidio am ddim. Os ydych dal yn anadlu dyna'r gorau allech obeithio tybiwn ni. Yn ifancach roedd troi yn bumdeg yn arwydd eich bod yn hen a faswn byth wedi sgwrsio gyda'r fath bobol sydd bellach yn ei saithdegau os ydynt dal yn fyw. Y wers fwyaf dwi wedi dysgu ydy byw gyda’n syniad o farwolaeth a gyda'r ffaith fydd y jôc yma o fywyd drosodd rhyw ddydd. Beth a pwy sydd yn rhoi'r disgwyliadau yma i ni? Disgwyliadau fydd byth yn gallu cael ei gwireddu.

Yn ddiweddar mae hen lanciau dwi'n adnabod wedi bod yn son am berthynas a phriodi, edrych yn ôl a difaru, neu edrych ymlaen gyda phryder ag ofn gan amlaf. Well i mi beidio lleisio barn yn famau ond mae 'na golled neu ryw dwll ym mhob dyn a dynes sydd ddim wedi ffeindio ei gymar, twll sydd gan amlaf yn cael ei llenwi gyda phrysurdeb, diod, Duw neu gathod. O ble ddaeth y syniad ffôl yma o'r un? Erbyn hyn dyle fe ddim bod yn unrhyw un? I gadw'r iaith yn fyw, chi'mbod,  neu yn yr oes sydd ohoni dyle bobol sengl ddim cael mwy o barch am ei safiad a'i safbwynt. Maent wedi gwrthod y 'norm' unai trwy ffawd neu anffawd, dydynt ddim am ddod a phlant mewn i'r byd yma, hunanol neu anhunanol? Pwy a ŵyr? 

https://translate.google.co.uk/

Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned!

Another rejection! Usually Sebastian would let it lie but this time something was gnawing at him. This time he would use his pen as a sword, literally. He knew that he had written a 'tight beauty' this time. It had all the ingredients bar one, the audience appeal. What he had written would not appeal to genteel audiences, it would be awkward to cast, getting actors cheaply over 60 at short notice is tricky for any receiving house and the fact that perhaps only a 1/3 would understand the language written. Writing had recently become a competition in 'precis'. "Keep it brief ya fuckers" was the message from the Theatres. "Our audiences have the concentration span of gnats on shit and so have I for that matter". Let's let the audience decide? No, because these are the audiences who watch X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. Sebastian had been patient, he had done all that was required in these competitions, he had abided by the rules or was it abid but this time he was rabid. It could have been the yapping dogs next door, the fact that he had thrown the ghastly word processor in disgust at the wall having scanned the brief, impersonal email from the receiving house that could have been written by a robot. It could have been his borderline diabetes, the fact that he was an addict and could find nothing suitable to be addicted to. He had become addicted to flogging his soul on the keyboards to get some kind of recognition from somewhere. "He perceives himself to be some kind of writer" was written in flashing neon as Sebastian walked across town to the Theatre. The Theatre thought that he was going to pay £8.00 to see the work of the other writers that had been chosen. 'The Chosen Ones'. If he'd had some success along the way, if he'd had some encouragement and nurturing rather than begrudging comments then perhaps the 50 year old Sebastian would have behaved differently but this time, this time......Toilets! The Theatre did not know that Sebastian had left a trail of blocked U bends across the world and last night's vindaloo, pork pies and out of date strawberries and Guiness were fermenting nicely in the guts of this writer. A so called writer wot had had a guts full. The door to the cubicle fair fell off its hinges after Seb had done the 'Business'. The toilet in Trainspotting had nothing on the one that Sebastian left in the 'Receiving House'. 'Take that you Bitch', thought Sebastian as he looked in the mirror, and left his fountain pen to the side of the sink. 

     

As he left the Foyer, it occurred to Sebastian that if he was 50 and had had no success, then perhaps, just perhaps he was a shit writer but it was too late now. The alarms in the Theatre had started to go off.

4 years a Blogging

On Tuesday 19/1/2016 will be the Fourth Anniversary of this Blog.

"So what?" Yeah so what? 

This was the first ever post 

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/toxic-kairdiff.html

That was 479 Posts ago and Tuesday's Celebratory Post will show that I post on average 40 Blog Articles a year which is 3 and a bit a month which is not that fantastic actually but is better than nowt and it does show a certain degree of 'dyfalbarhad' which is the Welsh word for 'Perseverance', something for which I have not been renowned for in other areas of my life which also proves to me that I believe in this Blog. Even though, I'm still not sure what I'm trying to do here, it gives me pleasure and satisfaction to write something as the muse strikes. I don't write enough in Welsh and wonder whether I have the same turn of phrase 'yn y Gymraeg'. It feels a bit clunky to me. Many of my posts have been poems or humorous verse. Humorous to me. I suppose it's like a version of my own personal diary that I have been sharing with you, dear follower and reader. I would have thought that I would have accumulated more than 13 followers in 4 years, that's a little bit over 3 Followers a year but I am grateful for their loyalty. Where the Blog goes from here? I'm not sure but it will continue despite the indifference and antipathy. People are reading it and I've got the numbers and the numbers have steadily increased since I've been covering more Politics. I was truculent and unsettled in that first Blog post and four years on, I still am.   

The Pine Cones of Pontcanna

Canton/Pontcanna ‏@CantonPontcanna  8 hours ago

Christmas trees aren't being picked up in Pontcanna for another two weeks. Don't leave them out till then. Or at least not decorated!!!!

Artificial Leaves on Real Trees in an Artificial part of town.

This damn charlatan blogger has used the word Artificial three times because it is a damn fine word ne'st ce pas?

nursery turned meithrinfa for the kiddy winks of the cossetted

"We work damn hard for our dough thank you very much

The media is stressful I'll have you know"

Canton & Riverside cut by Cathedral Road and the rest as they say is gentrification and social division

but then the cyfryngis the luvys and the dahlings came in

to have their ciabatta

and designer vodka

People who make a living on the backs of an endangered language

give that language a bad name.

It fuels resentment.

Many  souls have been lost on the rocks of the Pontcanna Triangle

the Halfway, the Conway before making a Cameo appearance

and all that they have to show

are fine cars

and

designer bars

and what makes it worse is that these people have no answers but plenty of opinions about what is happening in the Middle East.

Please read your #Twitter Feed.

The very sad tale of Sammy the Snail

This is a very sad tale of the snail that read the Daily Mail 
Samuel (snail) had just got out of jail, 
He was a working class Tory
He’d been sharing a cell with a pygmy sperm whale and a striped button quail 
Conversations late into the night about the fright of immigrant snails, whales and quails
They even discussed running away to Wales and when they said running they meant the kind of movement that snails, quails and whales undertake which is nothing like running.
Even though they’d been told by prison guards and other inmates that it was full of old wives' tales
they didn’t have the nerve to hang it up on the toilet door nails.
The paper was an atomic cocktail but was sold on a sliding scale
that played on the fears of working class snails
the type that clock in and always complain,
the sort that dream of their two week holiday to Spain

Lick the Spoon

I won't mince my words. I never do. The BBC are shit stirrers. On the lesser listened to radio stations like Radio 5 live, they are trotting out complete Labour non-entities, to support those who have been shuffled out in the re-shuffle. The lemmings who threw themselves over the cliff are just that. I had never heard of Pat McFadden or Steven Doughty, even though the latter is my MP in Cardiff South and Penarth. I didn't vote for him. I voted Green. Dough boy Doughty is obviously a Blairite. I have never had any interest in Labour until last year when the most unpopular boy in the class came to the fore to be the Head Boy. These horrible careerists are now peeking out of their holes and squeaking their goodbyes.  They have come out of the shadow cabinet to go into the shadows. I would suggest to any body in Wales thinking of voting Labour for the National Assembly elections on Thursday May 6th, if you are unfortunate enough to get a knock on the door from the 'Red Menace' ask them point blank "Are you Labour or are you a Corbynite?" Look at the flicker in the eyes, do they look up and to the right before replying to you? You should know whether the man or woman you are voting for is loyal to the leader of the party surely? If they decline your request or state that they are a die hard Carwyn man, Welsh Labour, through and through, then pin a tail on the donkey, pat them on the head, offer them a carrot or a sugar lump and say, "You might as well be Tory, then".  

They say don't shoot the messenger  but in this case I think that we must challenge the Monopoly that is the BBC. They are spreading their Anti-Corbyn message and vitriol across their many stations. One interview is re-played ad infinitum and eventually it becomes the story loop that informs you when you come to placing your X in the box. Will the BBC get burned? Probably not! Auntie is loved and lauded across the world because it gives us Strictly Come Dancing. It is quite obvious that most people would prefer to dance than to engage politically, ie listen to dumbed down trivia and gossip instead of recognising integrity.

Porpoise Pink Potel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-35226958

loosely based on the rhythm of Cargoes by John Masefield

porpoise pink potel from distant Poldhu

bobbing like detergent in a bath full of beer
 poisonous contents
  conscience of capitalism
business as usual
nothing to see here

the spillage will be investigated
by cheque books with sharpsuits
moving through the bubbles like a shark on speed
with intention of whitewash, screenwash, facewash
anything really
nature's f**k*d again

Poldhu is on the Lizard 

but the lizards are in the boardroom

polluting the sea-life, wildlife, they're pondlife

with a cargo of invisible, 'stain remover'

this is a potential danger to the Captain's Wife.

potel:bottle  

Ten Years a Free Man

The Shark Fisherman of Wales has written an ebook. It is the sequel to Amsterdamned. It is a brief synthesis of what has happened to me since my release from prison for 'crimes against convention and inhumanity'. Ten years of freedom where I haven't had to do what most people are forced to do, or indeed what their conditioning forces them to do and that is to work. Work 9-5 in a Job or Career. Before my 114 days in prison in 2005 because I over-reacted to the bombings in London on July 7th, I worked. I was a workaholic in the jobs that I did. I have an all or nothing personality. A friend once described me as an Extremist. I am coming up to the 4th Anniversary of this Blog and my 5th Anniversary on Social Media. As an oldie, the Internet has been a revelation. I realise that it is a weapon of mass distraction but I am still at a loss as to what I would do without it. I certainly wouldn't be finding more people to talk to. 
A hermit, an introvert gets his kicks on Broadband 66.  
The above e-book is an attempt to distill the tricks of the unemployed trade that I have had to learn over the last ten years. There are ten top tips to match every year that I have been free. I have read a number of self help books and mind, body, spirit publications. I found that when writing 'Ten Years a Free Man' that some of this homespun psychology and philosophy came to the fore. It started out as a description of the ten years but then I realised that I had forgotten much of what I'd done. A similar situation I'm sure if I had been in employment for the last ten years. I am 'materially' impoverished' but 'spiritually' wealthy. As I stated in the Epilogue, I am not interested in money but very keen on encouraging a collective spiritual wealth, especially here in Wales. What gives me this right to pontificate? Well I suppose it is because I became spiritually re-born within the walls of a Dutch prison cell. I looked for answers towards a higher force or energy. I could not find any answers in my 39 years before this. I had found life up till this point to be a conspiracy of lying and I had bought into it. Now at 49 I feel able and confident to share this, my Survivors' Manifesto, it is a call to spiritual arms, a call for a simpler life where people can regain a sense of community. Until they get rid of the bling and the jingle of material wealth, until they stop competing and start co-operating, then I will always be on the outside, writing about the inside.