Pinch, Punch, First Day of the Month! #politicalpoetry

 

Blame Andy Burnham

Keegan's Képi Blanc

 KEEGAN'S

Képi Blanc

remembrances

a work of faction

by

Daf Williams

It was 1976 and we were 10. Punk was dawning and the swamp of teenage-hood was before us. Me and my best mate Mickey lived in Cilcain, in the same village as Kevin Keegan who played for Liverpool. 

Kevin Keegan's Voice 

'Jean and I had decided to buy a house in Wales when we discovered how much more you could get for your money there. Our lovely house with two acres of land cost no more than the three bedroomed semis on smart estates in Liverpool that the other players usually favoured. The fantastic views and the peace and quiet of the countryside were well worth the time it took to commute to Anfield. We used to ride our horses for miles and miles in Parc Arthur and rarely saw another soul, although on one occasion we were out on horseback, scarecly identifiable in our riding gear and hats when a guy popped up apparently from nowhere and asked me for my autograph which was pretty weird.'

Extract from his autobiography.

Our Fathers were self made men, my dad had a printing business in Denbigh called Gwasg Ni and Mickey's Dad had a Jewellery business in Ruthin called Kinsellas. They were born Welsh and Classless. Class was an English Invention. Pops had come across it first when he had started work in Fleet Street in the 1950's. He was London Welsh and went to Jewin on a Sunday and Highbury on a Saturday. He'd had me late in life and looking back I had everything apart from cuddles.  Cilcain stands nestled under Moel Famau where on a Sunny Day you can see the Liver Building.  Mickey's Dad had been born in Liverpool, but his grandparents were from St Asaph. Mickey and I had gone to the Village School, Ysgol y Foel and that's where we came across Kevin Keegan for the first time. He was giving out prizes at the Sports Day.

Our fathers were deciding where to send us. It was our last year in primary. We wanted to go together obviously but our Dads had different ideas. Even though I spoke Welsh, Mickey didn't. Mickey's Dad was very pro the language and Welsh Culture even though he'd lost it in Liverpool. My Dad having lived in London just wanted me to have a good education, a head start. His business was doing well and he said that he could afford to send me private. I didn't know about such things in those days. Me and Mickey obviously wanted to be together. 

Other things were on our minds in the Spring of 1976. Through his Jewellery Business Mickey's Dad Gwilym or Bill as he was called had got tickets for the second leg of Liverpool V Barcelona at Anfield. Tickets were like Godldust. Toshack had scored in the first leg at the Nou Camp and the Spanish Fans had thrown their cushions down in disgust on the pitch at the end of the game. 55,104 tickets had gone on sale, a club record for Liverpool. It was the semi-final of the Uefa Cup.

One thing was sure, you couldn't see the Denbigh Mental from the top of Moel Famau. It was hidden as Mental Illness was hidden. It was taboo, verboeten.

Square Pegs in round holes, that's what me and Mickey were. We stayed friends until Margaret Thatcher came in to power and then we saw less and less of eachother. I had withdrawn into my shell not to emerge until my breakdown at 21. Admitted to the North Wales Medical Centre for two weeks under Dr Dafydd Alun Jones. I was told that I was very sensitive.

The First Punk Record to be launched in the UK was still seven months away. The Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK so we still had to put up with the likes of Chicago's 'If you leave me now' or David Soul's 'Don't give up on us baby'. Pants wot? We were ten and so alive. Telly Savalas was all the rage in 1976 and we just couldn't stop saying "Who loves you baby"? We must have said it a hundred times a day. We didn't think of him dying of cancer when we were just starting out on the fags and reading action magazine.

The Heather on Moel Famau was like a warm bed of curly hair that enveloped you when you fell. You pick the right spot and you could move across like Sid Vicious or Johnny Rotten on a sea of arms after they had thrown themselves into the crowd. Summers were hot and reliable in the seventies and the summer of 76 was to be the hottest of the lot. There was only a little wind and we made the most of it with our Peter Powell Stunt kites. One day Mickey's Gran from Liverpool came with us. She must have been about 80 then and she had the broadest Scouse accent I've ever heard. Mickey had a Red Kite naturally and I had a White one (Liverpool's home and away strip) She punched Mickey in the shoulder when he wouldn't hand it over.  Me and Mickey were big cyclists. We'd love nothing better than to descend into the villages below Llangynhafal, Hendrerwydd, Gellifor, spin through the red Rocks. Find the Village Shop and try it on with the fags. We had the money we just needed the fags. Our fathers smoked cigars and my dad preferred a pipe. We were enveloped in the smoke of Grandee and Three Nuns as we watched Liverpool in their all white strip playing Johan Cruyff's Barcelona. It was 1-1 and Liverpool went through on a Big Phil Thompson goal. I was blonde and Mickey had Black hair. We were always over eachother's houses playing. Our Mam's would make us great teas of Jammy Dodgers and Golden Wonder Crisps with Cherryade Corona.

Oh yes, we'd passed the physical allright. We both had older sisters who thought we were pests and nuisances. Her and me Ma would be swooning over Sacha Distel and me Da would be puffing on his pipe in his brown and cream stripey cardigan and detachable Prince Charles Beard. Looking back it seems like he had a beard one day and then he wouldn't the next. Even though Mickey's dad and my Dad were businessmen they supported the Labour Party.

Me and Mickey were planning to find a car like Starsky and Hutches in Mold and steal it.

Mickey grew up to be a kind of Travis Bickle Character. We're all loners really. I don't know why the media make such a big thing of it. We live as we dream, alone.

The Big Treat would be going off somewhere sometimes Rhyl, sometimes Wrexham. Me and Mickey had viewfinders and we always needed to top up with new views because we'd got bored. We were also suckers for these Transfer Books you could get in WH Smiths. From War to Dinosaurs. Really 76/77 was to be our last year together. He would go to Ysgol Glan Clwyd in St Asaph and I was sent to Ruthin School, the Redcaps. Two of the worst decisions our fathers could have made. They loved us I know but they fucked us up like in Phillip Larkin's poem when they did that to us. We actually ended up discussing whether our Dad's had swopped us when we were babies. He spoke English at home and went to a Welsh Medium School and I spoke Welsh at home and ended up going to an English Public school. Still ours wasn't to reason why, ours was just to do or die. And that's what me and Mickey did during our teenage years, we died. He wasn't a particularly naughty lad in primary but by all accounts he went haywire in Glan Clwyd. I went the opposite in Ruthin. I went into my shell. We did Latin there and I even remember doing extra Latin. Latin when the Hen Iaith fy Nhadau was dying. I really don't know what happens to you and your body and your mind when you turn thirteen but kids should be warned. It's mental.            

Mickey went off and joined the French Foreign Legion

1284 and all that!

https://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/26246361.700-year-old-ruthin-school-enter-administration/

 Mae'r felltith di codi

mae'r ysgol di cau

ydy o'n deg dwed, wrthyt ti dal ffeindio bai?

Allbost trefedigaethol, staen ar Gymreictod yr ardal

Kraut, Knuckles, Smiley, Chizel, Biffo a Plug

llysenwau heb ei ail mewn ysgol ble oedd y Gymraeg yn olaf

Smiley yn dechrau cangen o'r Urdd a Knuckles yn arwr yn y rhyfel

Sgrifennodd llyfr 'Pum cynnig i Gymro' "What does it say?"

"Mi fydd rhaid i chi ddysgu geirfa", ei hanesion yn saff gyda fi

Lladin yn lle'r Gymraeg, Scripture oedd geiriau'r Beibl

Rygbi mewn ardal peldroed, allanolwr yn cerdded adref yn ei gap bach coch

Freintiedig roedd rhai yn ei galw ni ond ar goll ac yn golledig buodd yn hanes i  

Mae'r felltith di codi

Mae'r ysgol di cau

Ydy o'n deg dwed, wrthyt ti dal ffeindio bai?

Further Reading

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-lifting-of-curse.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/05/schola-ruthinensis.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2014/11/arithmetical-equation.html

 

I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk 

 

If these heatwaves carry on 

I’m going to have to move to Iceland 

and I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk 

We’ve had two already and it’s only just July 

We’d heard that the polar ice caps were melting 

but we thought that was April Fool 

Some people get such a kick out of denying climate change 

that even though they know it’s happening they still carry on 

cos they don’t want to be stopped 

from their capitalistic conveniences 

on this earth 

“I take advantage of you short time” 

The arrogance of man is breathtaking 

Especially right wing libertarian men who think that 

by shouting loudest they’ll end up shouting last. 

They may be correct 

I went to have a look for a fan in B&M but they’d run out 

no air conditioning for me 

My filltir scwar, my square mile is going to look like the Serengeti 

a desert during periods of severe drought. 

I think we’re starting to see the start of civilizational collapse in the West 

It won’t be long before the Capitalists and Tech Billionaires say 

“Stuff this for a game of working class soldiers” 

As they climb into their rockets for Mars. 

If these heatwaves carry on 

I’m going to have to move to Iceland   

and I’ll end up marrying a bird like Björk    

but knowing my luck I’ll only get as far 

as the JORVIK Viking Centre in York.    

 WHAT IS WORTH DEFENDING?

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor or his brother Charles?

I'm not sending my son to die for Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe

Some old rear admiral, a walrus of a man wants yer tax

spent on warfare not welfare on killing not kindness 

He says the Russians especially the Chechens are going to come 

down yer street and rape and kill ya!

Do you believe him?

Nature abhors a vacuum

and the Tories and the Military are banging the drums and rattling the sabers.

What is worth defending?

The people who scream at hotels in our name?

Those who terrify refugees and asylum seekers?

We need to defend the rights of racists and patriots and Islamophobes

to march down Whitehall for a bit of a piss about and a tear up

Our Tommies shall die so that Luton Tommy can sniff his gack and spout his bile

This time

if we go to war against the Russians then we will be the Fascists.

Hitler had his turn

Our loyalist, Protestant Orangemen will turn it from Volgograd to Vulgargrad

We've always deferred to the Toffs of Public Schools and Sandhurst

They will find the money to send the children of the poor to war

NEETS NO MORE!

The Fleamarket Game

It's about time I wrote another bloody blog post.

 

I'm not squeamish but I didn't watch either 'scene' from Southampton or Belfast. I've written many times about the insanity to come, on here, and it appears that we are in the middle of it now.

The hard right are worried about the fall of Western Civilization. Let it fall I say! There seems to be an inevitability about it.

Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't fall in a day either. I'm boycotting the World Cup 2026 this time as I boycotted Eurovision 2026. Not difficult for somebody who has put a table cloth over the television. See picture above if you happen to work for TV Licensing.

Despite blatant BBC propaganda during the Israeli Genocide of Palestine I was holding on and holding on to watch the football highlights on a Saturday night to catch 10 seconds worth of a Wrexham FC game and then turning it over to watch MOTD just to fall asleep. The removal of Gary Lineker for speaking his truth was the final straw for I have always been a Bread & Circus man! I could no longer justify the £180.00

£180.00 a year to be traumatized by global news. Instead of being sued by Trump, the BBC should be funding him for the daily drama he provides "We've got a deal with Iran, we don't know who we're dealing with because we killed the head guys, we're very close to a deal, we're going to bomb them back to the Stone age" ad infinitum

That little or probably huge flatscreen television in the corner of your living room has been playing with your subconscious since the 2nd June 1953 when good queen Liz was crowned at Westminster Abbey and filmed in colour.

The amount of horror and tragedy that has been beamed in to our collective lives to keep us fearful and obedient. Do you remember being severely affected by a particular global news story? Did your father or mother ever say "Turn it off, turn it off"

The light entertainment programmes of the 1970s, Morecambe & Wise, Dad's Army repeated on various channels remind us wistfully of more innocent times but were they more innocent times in reality. While the middle classes were trying to work out what would be on the conveyor belt in Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game. What do points make? The National Front and the BNP.

The scenes from Belfast watched on this computer were enough to put you back into New Cross in 1981  

I would contest that Britain has always been a racist collective of countries. If the white man had not introduced slavery to Capitalism then the Windrush Generation might not have arrived as economic migrants in 1948.

Many of those care workers and health workers burned out of their homes in Belfast had arrived there from countries ravaged by war. Colonialist Britain & France will be reaping a whirlwind of Karma despite the worst efforts of ReformUK Ltd and Restore Britain.

If and when all this blows over, the kindling will still be burning, the gorse and the heather will still crackle with the burning resentment of loyalist, protestant, poverty fueled, and austerity driven working class white Britain with pompous public schoolboys ready to lead from behind.

Pinch, punch, first blog post of the month!

 

I mean the acting community no ill will but get over yourselves! You are being paid to play. It's none of your business whether somebody in the audience is texting or on their laptop. They have paid their money. You need to shut up and get on with your job. 

Actors & Celebrities and their BAFTAS and their OSCARS have far too much clout and presence. Especially in the UK where it is predominantly plummy voiced actors who make it to the top and stay there. There are exceptions but do you really need to take yourselves so seriously?

When Drama is off the curriculum in Secondary Schools and it is only the wealthy who can afford the West End seats what kind of message is this giving out?

The person in the audience texting might have been a tourist and had no idea of British Theatre etiquette. What impression of London are they going to take home?

"It's correct what they say about London, stabbings, killings and no go areas and the West End actors are vicious"

My suggestion would be that the next time such affrontery happens in the stalls, instead of the lead actor debasing themselves in a telling off, just call for the man who sits behind the desk at the stage door because these are the people who fail GP receptionists' interviews for being too rude.

Just get them into the audience with their torches and opera glasses and when you have discovered the miscreant make sure that you bawl them out in front of everybody in received pronunciation by shouting up to the leading lady in the process.

"M'lady this scabby urchin was in the cheap seats and he had the affrontery to interrupt your soliloquy. We will take him down to the bowels of the stage door and give him a right good kicking in his testicles. What do you mean your name is Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? Ms Pike, please to tell Ms Stevenson that the gentleman texting on his phone was King Charles III's brother and that he was texting Lord Peter Mandelson. They both deny any wrongdoing"

And with that the cast and crew exit stage left because they are all a bunch of woke lefty bastards! 

Further Reading

 https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2012/03/free-theatre-movement.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-yer-face-theatre.html

Môr Ladron y Senedd : Pirates of the Welsh Assembly

 

They've only been in situ for two weeks and the Tory Lite Upstarts of ReformUK Ltd are behaving like Pirates in the Welsh Assembly. We have a Harry Potter lookalike Cai Parry- Jones complaining about the amount of Tech he's been gifted because he's a Tech Bro and DOGE enthusiast. The same member is complaining about the flying of the Ukrainian flag outside the Senedd building stating that it should be another Union Jack. Well I propose that the 'Butcher's Apron' is taken down and the Jolly Roger hoisted because Pirates have taken over the Senedd.

Joseph Martin, now there's a good name for a Pirate, has been caught on social media taking photographs of Tampons in the mens' bathroom at the Senedd and using the slur 'mental' to describe them.

Andrew RT Davies the 'Heavy Tory' from the Vale of Glamorgan is up in arms with this wet wipe because he uses sanitary products to wipe up the "separatists" that he's been collecting on his rounds of the Senedd premises. The building and institution that he was campaigning to ban in his election campaign, but against his iron will, he's back.

I hope I'm wrong but I fear the Plaid Cymru administration might suffer the same fate as the current UK Labour Government, frustration and impatience from the general public and from the political opposition. Labour are being blamed for 14 years of Tory mismanagement and Plaid Cymru will be blamed for 27 years of Labour mismanagement.

Our politics has become how we order our fast food and how we consume our social media. We cannot for one second or god forbid minute, be bored. Our scrolling and our Kahuna burger must not be interrupted by safe and sensible politics.

Donald Trump knew this from early on, that is why he has systematically gone about creating war on a daily basis. Panama, Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, this oversized mafiosa boss from prohibition America has kept us on the edge of our seats and we have become addicted to the drama.

If it's not exploding in front of us or unleashing a deadly virus, then we don't want to know.

Captain Nigel Farage in his three cornered hat and mustard colored pantaloons has amassed a Fred Karno's Army of opposition in Cardiff Bay, an opposition that like good pirates have been briefed to spoil and disrupt.

"Get in there chaps and chapesses and disrupt the woke ideology of Cardiff Bay with your best right wing populism. Don't stray into Libertarianism because that is for wankers"

Captain Henry Morgan, as legend has it of Llanrumney Hall, must be shaking his head at this new bunch of pirate militia that has arrived in Cardiff Bay. He would have made this gang of populist privateers walk the plank before they had a chance to take pictures of sanitary products or complain about Ukrainian flags.

Let us just hope that a few of this rabble fall overboard drunk or are caught in sting operations by the Welsh Media. Captain Danny Thomas, the cutthroat buccaneer of Barnet will have a job on his hands keeping this flock of miscreants in line.

Herding Cats anyone?              

State Sanctioned Milk, Bread & Eggs

 

Not since the days of Margaret Thatcher stopping school milk have we seen such a flurry in the supermarket aisles. In conspiratorial pirate tones "there be talk of maximum pricing for milk, bread and eggs.  

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents supermarkets, said the policy would "force retailers to sell goods at a loss"

Head for the hills, do not pass go, do not collect £200.00.

Yesterday on BBC Radio 4's Today programme it sounded as if Nick Robinson was holding John Swinney, Primate of Scotland, by the neck and threatening through clenched teeth "You won't be doing this will you?"

If Scottish supermarkets cap the price of food staples it appears that the King's Men will be sent up from London to put a stop to "The caring, sharing Co-op"

We all know why this has sent the allegedly profiteering supermarkets into a tizzy. It's because it smacks of socialism. If you haven't actually bled red white and blue blood on a Tommy Robinson march in the name of Uniting the Kingdom and the West then how dare you even imagine that you are going to be able to purchase Milk, Bread and Eggs at rock bottom prices.

Sir Keir has given Rachel Reeves a nudge and said "Do something to make people believe that we care. We need to get a head start on Scotland because otherwise they will leave this befouled, decrepit and disintegrating Union and Andy Burnham is getting his training shoes on again, so do something Rachel"

We all know why food and fuel are going up! Because Donnie filled his diaper threatening the ancient civilization of Iran with being bombed back to the Stone Age.

This oversized mobster from Prohibition America and his neo-liberal acolytes, the former Tories of ReformUK Ltd are planning to plunge the world into darkness. "They will suffer as they have made us suffer with humiliating taunts and memes"

Asking British supermarkets to introduce a voluntary price cap on the food required to give us distended bellies and lactose intolerance is like telling people to go to work on an egg at the height of the salmonella crisis.

Why not put a price cap on pate de foie gras and a bottle of Bollinger?

The men and women with huge yachts and offshore bank accounts are addicted to the markets, stiff "they don't like it up em" competition and every man and woman for themselves ethos.

"If they can't afford the basics of a miserable existence, then let them eat cake"

     

   

Feeling Flat

A week on from the results of the Senedd elections and the Shark Fisherman of Wales is feeling flat.

Plaid did well. I predicted in my raw dogging on the traeth video in the previous post that they would do better than expected.

The ReformUK Ltd bots on twitter had us all believing that we would all be swept away in a tidal wave of British Nationalism.

Not a good weekend to be having a Unite the Kingdom and the West march in Central London with Tommy Robinson giving it lairy and large with the Prime Minister's job under scrutiny. Is Elon Tusk going to be doing another live link from his reconstructed apartheid home in South Africa?

I'm flat because even though there is a rearguard action by the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens the flavour of the month still seems to be right wing populism.

 Imagine if Donald Trump and Nigel Farage were required to take a lie detector test on the same day on the same machine. The contraption would have to be scrapped as it would be questioning itself and its algorithm. Lie detector test gaslit by constestents in the 'Biggest Lie in the Land' Competition.

Trump & Farage have become living embodiments of Fake News made flesh. They have convinced themselves that their lies are truth and even we who know they are talking bollocks begin to doubt.

When you begin to doubt you weaken and then the populist right despite its ignorance and flannel march on with soundbites and racist rhetoric.

I'm flat because I believe that as a society we have become de-humanised. We would never have tolerated these Unite the Kingdom rallies years ago! Their proponents will claim that years ago is what is causing their grievance.

I don't believe the left have been too tolerant because the left haven't been given a chance to do anything.

If the Fagash Fuhrer has said that Angela Rayner would be his toughest political rival then do we believe him or do we just sit agog as weaselly Wesley Streeting starts playing mind games with Sir Keir Starmer?

The cost of living has gone through the roof and the hantavirus is circling our collective unconscious.

Trump & Putin & Netanyahu make you wake in a cold sweat.

Even though Plaid Cymru did well last Thursday I'm feeling flat.           

Rawdogging on the traeth

 

Building an extension on the extension

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9958227r38o

A Dime for Donny

A Dime for Donny 

 

Hey Buddy! Can you spare a dime for Donny? 

Melania’s just gone rogue 

trying to put the Strait of Hormuz between her 

and her sugar daddy. 

She’s denying that she was a victim of Jeffrey 

What caused this deflection? 

The talks in Pakistan? 

I hope they’ve locked up all the couches in Islamabad 

cos JD’s on the adVance. 

Donny keeps talking about people having no cards! 

He told Zelensky who replied 

“I’m not playing cards” 

The man child Donald Trump 

If you criticize him you’ve got TDS 

I call BS 

He doesn’t like the regime 

so he kills the Top Guys of the Tehran firm. 

We gotta ask 

is Donald Trump Al Capone reincarnated? 

He’s behaving like a mobster being run by the Star of David  

What is all this about re-opening Alcatraz? 

Both mobsters had homes in Florida! 

Past tense! 

Because I hope by the time I finish writing this 

the world will finally taste some bliss 

and impeach dime a dozen Donny 

under the 25th Amendment! 

JD get off that goddam couch! 

Praise be to Allah!