Abba - Happy New Year

BLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDA TACLA!

Robin the Referee

 

There was a robin on the bird feeder and the mercenary bastard that I am, 

I thought I'll get a prose poem out of that. 

I imagined the robin in a referee's shirt like the ones in Footlocker

but I can't do photo-shop so had to make do 

with a black and white striped hat instead.

A nightingale might have sung in Berkeley Square but this robin

 was refereeing a match between two gold finches who were going at it.

For such an attractive bird they are vicious little bastards. 

Robin was on the suet block, looking chesty and pleased

Some chubby long tailed tits arrived as a family, 

I wondered where they'd parked the caravan.

And then Goldie & Red wanted some niger seed and they wanted it bad man!

They were addicts.

They'd run out of thistle man and they needed a hit 

and they were anxious and angry

and moving from claw to claw.

And then they started fighting

and 'Robin the Referee' had to break it up.

In a hat, not a shirt, he got his whistle out and extended his wingspan

"Look ya little shits, this here's a communal bird feeder, it's for families.

 We don't want no preening junkies fighting over the food for Chrissake"

Robin was from the Bronx  

Then a magpie came down and in a Geordie accent exclaimed

"What are ya doing in me hat marra?"

"Your hat?"

"Aye, last time I saw it I was at the 1998 FA Cup Final against Arsenal at the Old Wembley, I thought some Cockney Sparrow had nicked it"

"He had, I got it off E bay"

"Can I have it back bonny lad?"

"You can if you can help me sort these goldfinches out"

"Goldfinches? little bastards"

"You're telling me, they've frightened the other birds off"  

"Ya've heard of the old rhyme Robin? One for sorrow, two for joy?"

"Yes"

"Well when I get to six and shout gold, they'll turn their heads

 and you knock the niger seed feeder on the ground"

And what happened after that was a secret never to be told 

ya nosey bastards 😂

Some more shite for yez!

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/08/red-robin.html

Just before Christmas

 

Just Before Christmas

 

I was sacked from a job once just before Christmas

I was released from prison once just before Christmas

I had my Universal Credit stopped once just before Christmas

Christmas is neutral

It’s just that we imbue it with meaning.

These things could have happened to me on April 1^st

And I would be called a fool

The Covid Lockdown happened just before Christmas

And it happened to us all.

We will not change

Once it’s all over we will return to our books and our headphones

  on the daily commute.

None but the brave or crazy will dare to question "what just happened?"

“Just one of those things I suppose, like war, 

like man’s inhumanity towards woman”

Fat Santas socially distanced, mask wearing and hands cleansed 

after every drop off delivery go through the yearly routine

“It’s for the kids” cry the lonely

“We don’t mind being alone because people just don’t know

 how to break down the barriers of distrust built up over 40 years”

Just before Christmas

We should write out our New Year’s Resolutions

that we don’t go back to normal

but that we collectively tackle climate change

before it collectively tackles us

THE END

Of

Civilisation

As

We

Know

it

Er fy mod yn ddirwestwr

 Er fy mod yn ddirwestwr

Efallai mai yna mwy i hwn sydd yn amlwg

Gormod o Benmaenmawr gyda'r bore a Llanfairfechan gyda'r hwyr

Mi fuodd y ddiod gadarn byth yn gyfaill i mi

Chwydu a blackouts, yfed a gyrru

Doedd byth esgus ond "Afiechyd Meddwl"

Rhai doedd dim yn dallt yn deud "Dyn Dwl" 

Wedi deud a gwneud pethau ofnadwy yn chwil

Dim wedi lladd ond roedd hwnna ar y bil

Y blas cas yn troi'n felys gyda'r hwyr

Yr hylif yn gweithio fel olew i'r ymennydd

yn troi yn 'balm' 

Dim ar alcohol di'r bai efallai ond ar y meddwl

Anwybyddwn at gost fawr yr effaith cymdeithasol

Adrannau damweiniau ac argyfwng yn llawn ar y penwythnos.

Un nos Sadwrn ar ôl ffrwgwd yn y Dog & Duck

Llanciau yn rhoi 'Kicking i'r hen lanc'

Mi es at yr Heddlu a rheina yn anfon at yr ysbyty

"Dewch 'nôl yn y bore i roi adroddiad"

Wnes i ddim

Gwraig fy Hyfforddwr Rygbi yn gweithio fel nyrs yn rhoi'r gorau iddi gyda fy mharablu

ag yntau yn deud "dy fod yn wahanol ar y sauce"

Roedd yn gweithio ei ffordd mewn i bob agen a hollt

Y camddefnydd o alcohol

Dwi ddim yn cael gymaint o hwyl bellach hebddo ond eto dwi'n henach

Mae'r amser yna drosodd ac mae afu fi'n iachach.

Darllen Amgenach

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2012/01/booze.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2019/08/on-being-mild-in-bitter-world.html

  

The Curse of Canal Street

In Llanishen, Ken Frane, last of the Cardiff Docks’ detectives was cleaning out the litter tray of his fastidious but fierce feline, Smudger, a black stray with green eyes who had taken a fancy to Frane’s three piece suite and was now Lord and Master of the down at heel and dishevelled gumshoe. Ken was trying to work out how to tell Smudger that he didn’t have enough money for more Cat food. Smudger wouldn’t have accepted his pathetic excuses anyway. Frane needed a new job to get his teeth into, something just to pay the bills over the winter.

Canal Street, Cardiff was a misnomer really because the Canal had flowed between Central Library and the impressive old warehouse type buildings on Mill Lane. There were places in the centre of town where you could still see evidence of the old canal network for example in Park Place in a Car park behind some railings. This was the canal that had brought down millions of tonnes of coal from Merthyr Tydfil before the bed had silted up and it was no longer economical to run. Half its capacity against the railway was not tenable so Cardiff Council did what so many City Councils had done. Filled the canal network in and concreted it over. Heritage lost and the opportunity for Cardiff to become a Venice or an Amsterdam was lost so all that went up Canal Street now were buses. All one way around the Marriott Hotel and the Golden Cross Pub.

That is why Ken Frane was shaking his head and looking perplexed when he heard the news from Terry Heston. He did not enjoy drugs cases. Give him a murder any day. Drugs were too messy and caused so much long term damage to individuals and communities.

“Now listen Terry, we need an inside contact with Cardiff Bus, because that is all Canal Street Cardiff is, a bus stop”

 “What about your erstwhile neighbour Robert Weston?”

“He’s retired and anyway the less I have to do with him the better”

Terry smiled as the comparison with Cato and Inspector Clouseau was one too obvious too ignore.

“ He does your head in Ken, that’s why”

“ How could your informant be so sure that was where the drugs drop and swap were going to happen?”

“Price’s informant, not mine. I just take the call”

Shit is going to hit the fan

 

You knows it! I anticipate that by this time next year the shit will have hit the fan. When and if Covid dies down, the all clear is sounded and the barrage balloons are pulled down Boris Johnson better get into his bunker fast because these four nations of the Dis-United Kingdom are ready for a rumble.  A No Deal Australian Style Brexit Deal? Australia and Brexit in the same sentence? Strewth mate, it makes me want to go down the Dunny to take a dump. I wouldn't be surprised if we were under some kind of tiered lockdown for the next four years, even if the virus has packed its bags, just to avoid civil unrest.

As many of you who tune into my blog posts will know I'm not averse to the idea of civil unrest. We have all been living under a pressure cooker of emotions in 2020 and its got to come out somehow and instead of Millwall Supporters Saving our Statues vs Black Lives Matter, the working class both black and white, cherry red and gammon need to come together to unseat the British Aristocracy and the Monolithic Monarchy. 

The mainstream media, the Labour right wing and the Murdoch news blood hounds ran to ground the only politician of integrity since Tony Benn. There is no Government & Opposition. It is the Establishment who have taken our votes for granted in a first past the post stitch up since we were first able to vote at the age of 18. Hopefully, in Wales at least, a critical mass of 16 year olds will vote next year with their untarnished conscience and hope that they will vote for change.

I can't see how Boris Johnson can last until the next General Election due in 2024 with his Waltzing Matilda Brexit deal and his Covid-19 head count. He must be running out of notches on his bedpost. The French had their revolution. Isn't it time that the British Isles had theirs? One, that like the French, has long lasting repercussions.The Bullingdon Club don't have to be beheaded, they can instead be transported to Australia like the Judges of old used to do to the ordinary man and woman for coveting their neighbours piece of bread or doing a bit of sheep fancying on the sly. Then they'll be able to taste what an Australian style No Deal Brexit is like in the sweltering heat of the outback. Dead flies and each others piss!

Further Reading

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/10/pay-up-pay-up-and-play-game.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-visit-from-saint-boris.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2017/02/civil-unrest.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2020/07/cesspit-britain.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2020/08/cesspit-britain-part-two.html

Shamanic

I don't know about you but I am feeling a little bit shamanic. So much so, that the fat cat entrepreneurial spirit has entered my body and forced me to put another T shirt on the market. I have been a right little shit with this one by taking a photograph of graffiti art that I took of a wall in Shoreditch, London in 2015, slapped the word Shaman on the top of it and Bob's your Uncle, £17.50 in yer back pocket guvnor. Next thing you know I'll have a stall down Petticoat Lane selling apples and pears. Now I am going to use this blog post to ask for the graffiti artist to step forward. I haven't sold any of the beauties below yet but if I do I want to make sure that the Graffiti/Wall Artist is remunerated or at least acknowledged if it turns out to be a Banksy. I have cheated. I have taken somebody else's work and slapped it on a product and am trying to sell it for profit but I ain't no Sir Phillip Green. 

Shaman

It's not the first time I have been caught doing this type of thing. The last time I took a photograph of some graffiti art in Sevenoaks Park, Grangetown, Cardiff and stuck it on the front of a slim volume of poetry. No credit given to the artist then either because again I didn't know who they were. 

Graffiti Girls by David Williams

The profits from both enterprises thus far are negligible but if you are reading this and you fancy supporting an Indy Writer & T Shirt Entrepreneur I will endeavor to recompense the above Wall Artists if they can make themselves known to me. I would like to apologise to them for using their work without permission but my defence would be that they are too good just to be left up on a wall. They need a wider audience. They might not get that with me but at least I am trying. A conscience is a terrible thing I tell you!