Obstruction

Anywhere you go, in this day and age, you are likely to be obstructed. Your physical progress in day to day activities like driving gas guzzlers is likely to be impeded by traffic jams and parking restrictions. We have sensed a rise in racism since the Brexit vote of 2016 but the Shark Fisherman of Wales has also felt a growing sense of claustrophobia. If you want to get somewhere you have to physically factor in the likelihood of delays. This over powering sense on occasion of being hemmed in, of gasping for air, especially on sweaty, sultry days like yesterday. If I feel like this in the countryside, imagine what sensitive snowflakes in the cities feel like. When I return to Kairdiff from West Wales which is less often these days, if I am able to borrow a motor vehicle, I make sure that I leave late in the evening so that there is less likelihood of traffic congestion. I, like everyone else, prefer a smooth run but dependent on the time of day this is less and less likely. The Bus takes 4 and a half hours from Aber to Cardiff (although I am told that there is a faster one now), the train takes you through Shrewsbury to get to Caerdydd and that is over 4 and a half hours. When you consider that it is 2 and a half hours to get to Paddington from Cardiff Central by train, then the word obstruction springs to mind. We in Wales are being obstructed from progressing. Barricades are being put in our way, both physical and metaphorical. It is not in London Government's best interests to have a Wales where people can get about, they might unite.

Another example of obstruction is in ones pursuit of employment. If one has been unemployed as long as me, then the matter of references becomes a burden. I wonder now, who can I contact from 2005, who will be able to give me a reference?  How do you give somebody who suffered a drug induced psychosis a character reference? Here are a number of fictitious references I imagine could be written about me:

"If he gets bored, he will just walk off the job"

" Keep him interested and give him some variety, otherwise he will tell you what you can do with your job"

" He is not interested in money so make sure that you can spin some higher, esoteric, altruistic motive behind your soulless, mind numbing job"

The obstruction is in my mind. I have bought into 'Learned Helplessness' big style. The rats putting their paws on a pad and getting an electric shock and then giving up. I realise that I gave up on life at the age of 22. I have been going through the motions for the last 30 years, not feeling anything, not allowing myself to feel anything. This disassociation as a defence mechanism. Withdraw into yourself and then just leave your physical form for others to deal with. The reality of life's obstructions are just too much to deal with so we just pretend that they don't exist, we retreat into drink and drugs and addictive behaviour to numb the pain of thwarted ambition, or we cheat and go round the obstruction, instead of over it. You will recognise the people who do this immediately. They are our elected representatives in Parliament. They realised very early on that they wouldn't need references. Just join the local party and voila, you can become leader without very much life experience at all. I am starting to realise that Government is the obstruction in all our lives and 'learned helplessness' is voting them back in every 5 years.     

A View from the Bridge

The amount of heavy goods traffic now crossing the bridge in #Aberaeron is a traffic and environmental hazard. Here and in Llanon #A487 you are relying on goodwill of drivers to facilitate oncoming traffic. Not acceptable @CeredigionCC @ElinCeredigion pic.twitter.com/tRgKdqUA8u

— Red Button🔴Theatre (@davidredbutton) May 23, 2018

The Shark Fisherman of Wales is spending much of his time in Ceredigion these days attending to family needs and cares. This requires travel down the beast of a road known as the A487. Last Thursday I was stationary outside the Aberaeron Stores (aka the Spar) on the Bridge for five minutes awaiting oncoming traffic coming from the South (Cardigan) Those familiar with the picturesque Georgian town know that residents, churchgoers, Wncl Tom Cobblers et al, park all along the left side of the road up as far as the Craft Centre at Clos Pencarreg. It used to be the case that two sets of traffic, Northbound and Southbound could pass each other with care. Not any more. Due to the size of the Heavy Goods Vehicles going North and South along this trunk road, somebody has to give way. So similar to the village of Llanon, because of parked cars along one side of the carriage way, drivers have to stop to give way to oncoming traffic. Summer's here and temperatures are soaring and I foresee road rage incidents and possibly accidents at these two specific places in the months to come. Yesterday, I was a Pedestrian on the bridge awaiting a family member to finish shopping and not once in the twenty minutes was I stood there did any traffic flow freely. South Bound Traffic had to stop for North Bound Traffic. If you are a regular user of this road, then you know, otherwise a sign outside the Aberaeron Stores GIVE WAY TO ONCOMING TRAFFIC might be helpful. This is the single yellow line that people are parking along which causes the delays. People are parking to pick up prescriptions from Boots and to use the Cash Machine at Aberaeron Stores. This is causing all the congestion.

One suggestion would be to divert all heavy goods vehicles or cars down from Ffos-y-Ffin, down passed Rhiwgoch and on to the A482 thus avoiding the bridge all together. Is this feasible I ask Civil Engineers and Council Officials? 



The A487 has been in the news recently due to lobbying by petition to get road widening and passing places between Cardigan and Aberystwyth. As the Presiding Officer and Assembly Member for Ceredigion, Elin Jones actually lives beside this busy trunk road going through Aberaeron, you would have thought this would have been a priority for her.  

The Aloneness of the Long Distance Runner

GUEST POST BLOG by Matthew Lidis

You all remember my 600th post by special guest Matthew Lidis which has been viewed 961 times since its publication and over 1000 times by the time this one goes to press. Well my old writing buddy from Salford International University has gone and done it again. This time, he has achieved something pretty remarkable, hang on, I'll let him tell you about it himself. 

"In August 2004 I started running. I was living with my dad as I recuperated from a particularly nasty bout of depression. One night, from nowhere, I decided to put on a pair of battered indie Golas, seemingly the most suitable footwear I had for the task in hand, and ran round the block. It took me about three minutes. On my return I was drenched in a thick, cold sweat and my lungs were burning - the result of a long, fruitful and happy relationship with skunk weed and Embassy Number One. After necking a pint of water and flaking out on my single bed, my breathing and heart rate eventually returned to normal. And I felt, eventually, fantastic. Something had disappeared, something had clicked, something made sense. Within an hour I was raring to get out there again just so I could feel that rush and buzz that had faded far too quickly. The fog I had been swimming around in for the three or four years before had not lifted, but it was suddenly easier to navigate.

Over the coming weeks I could be seen pounding the streets of BL1 in my entirely unsuitable footwear and a broad array of ageing Britpop t-shirts. My distances slowly increased and I noticed my mind travelling to places it had never been before. I would come home from my temp job at a car finance firm eager to get out there on the pavement, just so I could see what revelations my legs would feed to my brain that night. It became clear that excercise was having as much a positive effect on my mental well-being as my physical health - a benefit the PE teachers failed to mention as they berated my teenage rejection of rope climbing and horse vaulting.

I made my way down to London that November and, by then, I had upped my mileage to around four per night. Running had become part of my daily routine, so much so that my new housemates would notice when I had not been for my daily fix. I had become addicted. New doors swing open the first time you take any drug. Avenues painted in never-before seen colours are yours to explore. Running was no different. I was chasing that sensation of release I felt after that first run, just like every junkie does. Without my daily hit I would become irritable and angry, which would melt away after a mile or two in exactly the same way as draining a couple of pints or a few tokes on a spliff.

Fast forward a few more years and, following the death of my mum and a particularly nasty break up, I had learned to cope by means of the all too rare combination of running and drinking. One justifying the other. By the time I was 30 I was happily running eight miles a day, followed by a good few beers or a bottle of wine or two. The carbs from the drink fuelling my running and the running allowing me to feel no guilt about drinking. As my miles/units crept up my thoughts inevitably turned to the challenges these bring. Could I manage a whole bottle of whisky in one go and could I run a marathon? The answer to the former, despite the disturbing events at a house party in Stoke Newington, was a resounding yes. A life goal achieved. I applied for the London marathon soon after. I didn’t get on an ended up running the Blackpool marathon instead. Which was great. I got a good time (3:40) But there was this niggling need to run the one I wanted to. Nine years of rejection magazines later, I finally got on. I was fat, but I was nearly two years sober.

I trained and trained, lost a stone and a half and paid £137 for a night in the Tottenham Premier Inn. As I made my way to Blackheath with 41000 other runners, I felt anxious. People shoved past me to get on the train, nobody talked. A nervous throng and the feint smell of Vaseline. Where was the #spiritoflondon? It was right there, the same as I’d ever known it. Brutal, unforgiving -  like the heat. I dragged myself round the course on the cusp of heatstroke the whole way. I remember very little about trotting through London in 24 degree heat other than the deafening noise of the crowd began to irritate me when I was focusing all my energy on simply not collapsing.

I feel a sense of emptiness as I write this on the swinging Virgin train home, sad that the legendary London marathon was not all I was expecting, although what I was expecting to enjoy about running along with the population of Skelmersdale, I am unsure. I do feel a sense of achievement and I do feel empathy for the other battered runners I see on this train, struggling to waddle up to the toilets. But, most of all, I feel a craving for the silence of pounding an open, empty road early on a Sunday morning. For if this fourteen year relationship with running has taught me anything it is that that my race is with myself and it is one I am happy to run alone."

Oh to be left alone

The Swinging Sixties were not very swinging in Wales. I don't need to remind the historians and cognoscenti amongst you of the three events that shook Wales to its core but if Tryweryn, Aberfan and the Investiture of the Prince of Wales (all man made disasters that could have been avoided) didn't put the cap on it, was it not so surprising that it took another ten years to see the results of this at the polling booth. 1979, a mere decade after Carlo's bethroning at Caernarfon and a confused and divided people who had been munched up in World War 2 were asked whether they wanted a Welsh Assembly. The results really do speak for themselves. I was 13 at the time and the stirrings of my slavering, rabid Welsh nationalism were sown in this year. 
It took another 18 years for a defeated people ( traumatised by Thatcher's Decade and her defeat of the NUM and Arthur Scargill in 1984/85) to engender just enough interest to vote for a Welsh Assembly in 1997 and whilst it might have been a very good morning in Wales, around the world were the stirrings of events that would lead to the toppling of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001. In the 17 years since then Wales has essentially been a by-stander on the World Stage. I am trying to amass my thoughts whilst writing and am wondering what it will take for the Welsh people and the Welsh Nation to unify and take on the insidious might of Monarchy & Westminster. I hear this word sovereignty bandied about and it was a word that UKIP used to such an effect in the Referendum vote of 2016 and now look at them.

The Council elections and results yesterday were reminiscent of two dinosaurs fighting. As you may me aware I am rather partial to a bit of profanity so cover your ears. F*****g Conservative & F****** Labour were at it again with no clear winner. Similar to America we are victims to the Big Beasts of the two party system and with this first past the post nonsense it doesn't give any of the others much of a look in. The two party state is a monolith and people are no longer excited by the class war of Conservatism and Labour.  I suspect that like most people, they just want to be left alone but if there is one thing more certain in the modern age, you are not going to be left alone and by ere is a little poem I wrote about being left alone.