Where is our Capital then?

 

In my almost 60 years on this planet I can safely state without fear of contradiction that "The British are horrible bastards" So convinced am I of this undisputable fact that I have put it as my bio on my/Elon Musk's twitter account.

I need to extrapolate to further hurt the feelings of the skull now scratching its head in perplexity. We have seen with our own eyes that those who identify as Loyalist in Northern Ireland have a propensity for bigotry and xenophobia. The British in England are the racists, the anti-boat people, the pro Lucy Connolly people, the Rupert Lowe fan club. In Wales, the British are the loyalist swans, the Valley patriots, the keep our hotels for paying guests and not migrants brigade. In Scotland, they are the Rangers, Orange Order, Sectarian, We love the Queen brigade. All horrible, horrible bastards because they worship a made up culture and that made up culture is the British one. It is one that has been foisted on the Irish, Scots, Welsh and English by Monarchy and the Upper Classes to get them more cannon fodder to fight foreign wars. 

The picture above mooching about on twitter yesterday got me to thinking. If London is Loyalist Swans Capital then where is our Capital here in West Wales. It should be Machynlleth of course, the seat of Owain Glyndwr's Parliament but it isn't very big. Should it be Amwythig, Shrewsbury the seat of power of the old Marcher Lords. We know that in North Wales Liverpool is referred to as the Capital and with good reason. Geographically closer than Cardiff it provided work for Gogs who could nip back and across the invisible border for tea.

Cardiff, that reluctant capital of Wales, the city that didn't vote for devolution in 1997 has had the Senedd as an appendage on its South shore since 1999. Working Class Cardiff and it is still predominantly working class has no time for these out of towners who bring their 'Welshness' into a Somali and Irish city.

"Why do we have to speak Welsh? Why do they want to ram it down our throats" said my former neighbour in Grangetown who knew full well that I had sympathy for the language and spoke a few words.

Having lived in the Diff for thirty years I can say that Cardiff doesn't care about the rest of Wales. The rest of Wales does not exist as far as it is concerned. If it swapped geographical location with Bristol it would be perfectly happy. It could be that over the last two decades in particular and in the two decades before that, Cardiff saw an influx of Welsh Speakers who decided to take the mother tongue and implant it with zeal fostering Welsh Language Primary and Secondary schools. My old neighbour was one who stood outside what is now Glantaf Secondary School in Ystum Taf/Llandaff North with a placard which said 'No Welsh School here'. "We didn't want it here" he used to shout, his Cardiff twang almost shattering the chandeliers of City Hall. I deduced before I left the reluctant Capital of Wales that he was so bitter towards the Welsh Language because he had married a Welsh girl from Ffald y Brenin in Carmarthenshire and she divorced him after seven years and he carried that wound around as a badge of dishonour enabling him to be emotionally dysregulated towards Wales' first language.

Strangely enough he didn't identify as British, he used to say "I am Cardiff and European". The attitude of the horrible bastards in Northern Ireland almost mirrors that to the British in Wales. Their thought patterns go along the lines of "the Welsh language here is a nuisance, it makes the Welsh feel less Welsh because they don't speak it and it's a fucking difficult language to learn so why should I go to the trouble of learning it". Kneecap, the rap band promote the Irish Language and the Loyalist Horrible bastards use that as a stick to beat them with. It's not British, it's Irish so it's not welcome here. 

Cardiff, the Edwardian City was built on the back of the Industrial Revolution. Capitalism begat the Capital, it makes sense. The language of commerce in all the towns of Wales is English. Even in Caernarfon they will count the bank notes out for you in English whilst keeping up a Welsh conversation. Ruthin, Carmarthen, Denbigh, English Language towns where the countryside around was fully Welsh speaking. The Church in England which became the Church in Wales played no small part in dispatching the Welsh Language from its services and its life and those Norman Church towers stood as beacons of anglicisation.

So where do I in Aberystwyth and surrounds believe our Capital to be?  After much deliberation I would have to say Rhayader because of the ridiculous traffic situation in the town. Any four way crossroads with a clock tower in the middle that relies on the courtesy and common sense of drivers to allow smooth traffic flow deserves to be christened a Capital. With the 'Royal Welsh' looming, good luck!