sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com

"Croeso i ddyfnderoedd fy isymwybod: Welcome to the depths of my subconscious. Shark Fishing in Wales is one man's odyssey to understand the land of his birth through anecdote, observation and reminiscence! By learning about his country, perhaps he can learn more about himself. A process of individuation which Carl Jung suggests we should all go through. Less assuming one nationhood and more working towards one nationhood before we become Independent." Daf Williams

Friday 24 June 2022

The Shark Fisherman goes to Newport

Tuesday 21 June 2022

Driftwood

If you are a follower or reader of this blog you will be familiar with my style of anti-poetry.

I am loath to call it bad poetry because some of it is ok.

It is not 'conventional' poetry put it that way. The type of poetry that perhaps we studied and analysed forensically at school, the type of poetry that could put us off poetry and poetry appreciation for life.

I call my work 'poetry' for the lack of another word to describe it.

"Angry, Clenched Fist, Agit-Propaganda,Ranting"

You can read Driftwood on Kindle for £3.49 or in paperback for £6.49

As it says on the Amazon Blurb

Poetry of Alternatives.

Not conventional poetry.

There is politics and swearing aplenty in these poems.

I have taken my inspiration from Charles Bukowski, the poet laureate of the American lowlife and Cardiff poet, John Tripp.

My subconscious lies naked before you in verse form upon the page.

Will you buy some grapes and wine and indulge yourself while you read? 🍷🍇

Thursday 16 June 2022

“It’s incredible to live in a world where it’s easier to die than it is to have a nervous breakdown.”

https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-backstory-why-noise-pollution-is-more-dangerous-than-we-think

Fascinating Film. Please Watch ☝

Carry his dead body out of the terraced house

He died from noise pollution

Screaming kids, yapping dogs and vomiting adults on one side

and a banger and a driller and a thumper ont other.

He started at 8.10 this morning and it’s now 17.44.

If the deceased had not been an introvert he might have survived

but he chose to hide from the world but the world wouldn’t leave him alone.

Crooked mouths with Cardiff accents.

“We know you’re in there”

“I’m dead, call an undertaker”

“Do you want horses at the front?”

“Too expensive, a refrigerated van will do”

“Right o. That’ll teach you to be a loner! Keeping yourself to yourself!”

“Too late now, I’m dead. Can you hurry up cos rigor mortis has started and I have turned yellow. I’ll be stinking before long”

“Don’t worry, they won’t notice around here.”

“It’s incredible to live in a world where it’s easier to die than it is to have a nervous breakdown.”

Further Reading

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/02/my-house-coffin.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/03/terraced-soldiers.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/01/i-dont-go-to-funerals.html

Tuesday 14 June 2022

Victorian Bastard Work Ethic

I have just ended a telephone conversation with a Department of Work and Pensions decision maker. She phoned me to inform me that if I didn't send in sick notes then I would not be receiving Employment and Support Allowance. An absolute whopping £77.00 a week.

My tall tale and watch my nose grow as I tell it. My Doctor's surgery closed down in February with all patients on the list being transferred to another local surgery. I have not had reason to visit them yet but I did ring the reception one morning to navigate the procedure required should you wish to avail yourself of NHS services. I wasn't wasting their time because there was an issue that could have led to a medical appointment but once the rigmarole was explained to me I decided that my issue was non-emergency.

What I do consider to be a waste of GP's valuable time is writing out sick notes for work shy malingerers like myself. On the DWP computer I am down as claiming Incapacity Benefit from 2006 to approximately 2011 when the Tory trough meisters came in and changed everything. Making the lifestyle choice of not wanting to work unviable. So many hoop jumps later I was on Employment and Support Allowance (Support Group)

Support group is where they treat you like a child, say "There There" offer you a soother and encourage you to get back to work. Even work that caused you to have a nervous breakdown in the first place, in my case teaching."Have you thought of going back to teaching?" "I don't think you can be a teacher if you've had a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder" I replied while sucking on the soother. "Sign there please!"

The DWP know that I am snooker loopy nuts, cuckoo, crazy. A cracked egg, but they are instructed in the morning briefing by that Karaoke loving Latin incantator Therese Coffey to get everybody and she means everybody back to work. That includes corpses. "What do you mean corpse, you haven't got a sick note?"

So in this conversation which was I might tell you held in 'the language of heaven' a dysgwr with a cold hard Anglo Saxon heart informing me the Celtic fool "No Sick Note, No Benefit". I'm not going in to a new Doctor's Surgery to ask for a sick note first off. "Those are the rules". I informed the cold heart that the Department of Pensions had blood on their hands because people had died after having their benefits stopped.

What I learned from that conversation is that it doesn't matter what language you choose to conduct your business in 'Rules are Rules' "Rheolau yn rheolau"

I informed the decision maker that a Psychiatrist had diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder in 2006 and that should just be good enough. I informed her that the French firm 'Atos' had interrogated me 4 times and despite none of the privately hired and paid medical professionals being Psychiatrists, one had the temerity to send me back to the Victorian Bastard Work House. "But don't you see that will make me ill again" "Begone wastrel and get back to the Dickension bottling factory and despite your degree and post graduate qualification we expect you to get any minimum wage job on a zero hours contract"

On the day that the bastard Victorian Tories are sending refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda. On the 5th anniversary of the Grenfell murders, my little altercation with the gatekeepers of tax payers money is small potatoes. I am used to living off the scraps of the state after seven years of Carer's Allowance.

I am writing this blog post not to eek out any sympathy from the voyeurs of my blog but to highlight how once again institutions are instruments of injustice. From the Home Office to the Department of Work and Pensions, individuals are not seen as such, but are statistics. Incredible that Thatcher's emphasis on the individual at the expense of community should lead to individuals being treated like dirt.

Believe all that and you'll believe anything! FAKE NEWS.