englandandwales

If you've been following my you tube channel you will know that I have been on my travels this past week to Stratford upon Avon, to Warwick, to Leamington Spa to Hay on Wye to Caerphilly and then on to Bath. 

A random collection of places to visit in a hire car. I have itchy feet since returning from Japan so after Ireland and the North of Ireland 2024 has been a year of travels and jaunts.

Coming back in to Wales on the Prince of Wales Bridge I booed at the sign. Criss crossing the border from Hereford to Brecon I didn't see the sign that said Wales just one that said Radnorshire. I'm sure you would have numerous examples along the border where it's not clear where England ends and Wales begins.

What's the big deal daddyo? 

The big deal is that English/British Royalty have done a number on Wales since the investiture at Caernarfon Castle in 1969 and before that with Lloyd George being the Liberal (Democrat) Prime Minister of Great Britain. He has two statues, one out on a limb on the Maes in Caernarfon and the other under the trees in Museum Place, Cardiff, where many walk passed not knowing he's there. They are isolated. They give the vibe that "I once was a thunderous orator" but now they have put me in these remote places. 

The 'Royal Welsh' show continues this patronage where the Welsh peasantry and from beyond know that after paying a King's ransom to enter the showground that they are the 'little people' and that they are there because of the Royals.

Cymru has ostensibly been pushed back to the West and North West where Plaid Cymru holds the four parliamentary seats. Imagine if they had tried to build Caerphilly Castle in Carmarthen or Aberystwyth? These would now be Labour or Reform UK strongholds.

What Wales and England have in common is how rough the towns have become! Leamington Spa and Warwick can now compete with Caerphilly. 

Gentrified, Regency, posh as hell Bath is being held together by tourists and the well to do. I am not sartorially elegant and I have never pretended to be believing that fashion like theatre and golf are the pastimes of those who have too much time and money on their hands. Even I in my rags felt well dressed compared to some of the citizens of englandandwales towns that had just fallen out of bed.

Caerwrangon/Worcester was a disappointment. The town was evidently run for the benefit of car drivers. In Warwick, Leamington Spa and Worcester I had to ask ordinary citizens who were pleasant and helpful where the town libraries were because they no longer appear on the little signposts. The three were housed in  buildings that had other uses, one for the Council, one for a museum and tea rooms and the other a University.  

Libraries used to be refuges for the old boys reading newspapers. Now I am an old boy myself there is nowhere left to go. There are no third spaces where you can just be without arousing suspicion. You cannot be alone in a park or a library. There must be something iffy about you. You can sit there but you will have to pay for an overpriced latte. Your wifi isn't working? Well f**k you, it's free! 

There was a big statue of Queen Victoria outside the town hall in Leamington Spa

The front is inscribed: 'Victoria Queen Empress 1837-1901 She wrought her people lasting good'

The ordinary people of englandandwales have been in thrall to the German dynasty forever and a day and to their Norman forbears before that. The visible austerity of British towns will be blamed by Reform UK voters on immigrants from countries that Queen Empress Victoria colonised in the name of Great Britain. 

How did she wrought her people lasting good? workhouses and lunatic asylums?

How is Royal Patronage doing anything for the people of englandandwales? 

Prisoner Cell Block Keir Starmer

"On his way to Washington for the Nato summit, Starmer also warned there would be no immediate fixes to the small boats crisis of asylum seekers crossing the Channel, suggesting he expected numbers to rise over the summer months. He said the government would not put any number on when they expected the crossings to begin to fall."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/10/starmer-prisons-crisis-early-release-scheme

Reform UK voters will be stewing in juices of their own making upon reading that. It is why they didn't vote Tory, why they didn't vote Labour. Their over riding concern is illegal migrants. "There's too many of em, there are not enough jobs for em. Why have they got to house em round here?" 

From multiple victim crossbow killer to human remains in suitcases, QC Keir Starmer has picked a good week to let people out of prison early. Shoplifters, the mentally ill, the drug addicted will all be turfed out on to the chewing gum stained streets of Britain and we won't know who they are. They could have done anything and we just don't know. The curtain twitchers, the CCTV addicts, the doorbell cam enthusiasts will be sat in their hallways with whatever can legally pass for ammunition because these are law abiding citizens. They are just very scared and frightened citizens because our governments have been letting em in! You know, the other, foreigners, them.

The culture of fear, paranoia and distrust that pervades every social interaction on the UK mainland is the limbic system of every cavedave and cavekaren going back to the age of the dinosaurs. It is dinosaurs that we have in government who actually believe that prison is a deterrent to committing crime. If it was why are there so many prisoners, so many prisons and so much overcrowding? Because in this country we want to punish everything? If we could we would punish the way you think.We would do that! We've got Xy Brexy twitter for that! Elon Musk will break you long before we will!  

Blame the Victorians! They are responsible for our sewerage system and they are responsible for our human sewerage system namely prisons. They were built to dehumanise people who couldn't toe the line. Debtors! The poor, workhouses. Those who could not or would not subscribe to the Industrial Revolution Capitalist meat mincer. Years of bird would break you in the Pentonville system.

Britain is broken and Reform UK want to fix it! Why not have cell sharing? A Tommy Robinson patriot with an illegal immigrant. No, we've had that before with devastating consequences. Mr Timpson probably means very well but in the favourite word of Nigel Farage #Cobblers. Cutting keys and putting soles on old shoes is soul destroying but it is lauded as rehabilition. "It keeps them on the straight and narrow"

Life is so shit in Britain after 14 years of Tory government and even before that! Fat cats get fatter and the poor, destitute and homeless get thinner and then die.

At least in prison you get fed and a TV! I wonder how many of the prisoners being let out of prison early actually want to be let out. It is damned difficult living in the outside world once you have been inside and for many it is impossible. It is not just the human being who is being jailed it is their demons and their demons are likely to get worse with 23 hours of lock up in their cell.

Prison dehumanises people! It appears from the news stories this week that living in Britain is enough to dehumanise people. Inside bars, outside bars? What really is the difference?

In a society with too many straight and too many narrow the revolving doors of prison highlight a human problem. We can blame the institution of prison and the moral fibre of prisoners but what about blaming the Ministry of Justice? what about the solicitors and barristers and the bewigged judges? These guys depend on crime to pay their salaries.

Prison is a seriously fucked up answer to a seriously fucked up question and that seriously fucked up question with all its caveats is

"WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST OBEY THE LAW?"

       Further Reading

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2020/01/brew-to-blog.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2019/08/punishment-rehabilitation.html

loitering with intent

#poetry #newpoemshort #spokenword