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Monday, 18 February 2013

Aliens Cymraeg



 
 
 
 
 
Meddyliais i’m hun wrth deithio o Rhayader i Lanelwedd yn ddiweddar, yr unig ffordd i gael cynnydd sylweddol yny nifer o siaradwyr Cymraeg os tase rhyw UFO yn glanio gyda bataliwn o aliens bach, gyda Chymraeg perffaith glan gloyw. Dwi ddim yn meddwl fydd nhw yn cael llawer o groeso, dim ei fod nhw yn aliens ond oherwydd bod nhw yn siarad Cymraeg ac mae 81% o boblogaeth Cymru ddim yn medru’r iaith. Efallai fod ni fel ‘Cymry Cymraeg’ honedig, the Welshest of Welsh ddim yn sylweddoli pa mor anodd ydi o i ddysgu. Mae’r bobol fwyaf brwdfrydig dros yr iaith yw'r rheina sydd wedi dysgu fel ail iaith. Maen nhw yn gallu yn rhoi pobl iaith gyntaf to ‘shame’ fel petai. Mae Cynnydd ddim yn mynd i ddigwydd dros nos ond weithiau dwi yn meddwl dan ni yn mynd yn obsessed gyda’r mewnlifiad a rhoi bai ar Loegr a’i thrigolion. Dydym ni ddim yn berthnasol i bobol Lloegr ond mi rydan ni yn berthnasol i bobol un iaith Saesneg sydd yn byw o fewn muriau Clawdd Offa? Dydi gorfodi bobol i wneud rhywbeth byth yn mynd i weithio ond mae rhaid meddwl am friwsion mwy tantalising na’r Eisteddfod a S4C i ddenu dysgwyr. Fasa ail poblogeiddio rhywle fel Sir Maesyfed gyda Chymry Cymraeg ei iaith yn un syniad. Creu rhywfaith o gymuned gynaliadwy a symud mas o fanna ond nid i’r dinasoedd mawr ond ail greu cymunedau yn y wlad. Ydi pobol y pres yn mynd i wneud gwahaniaeth i’r Gymraeg neu ydi ewyllys da'r ‘werin datws’ y ‘folk potatoes’ at ei iaith a’i etifeddiaeth fydd y gwahaniaeth rhwng cynyddu neu gynilo?
 


Thursday, 14 February 2013

Avenues @ Alleyways



My part of the 'Diff' has become a Gated Community. The Avenues and Alleyways of Grangetown are being gated and locked. Anti-Climb Paint is also being sprayed on the bars in case you fancy a jump for freedom down the alleyways of your memory. We are living in an age of fear and distrust where community has all but disappeared apart from in the hearts of a certain generation. We head for the supermarkets in our little exhaust producing bubbles. We worship car parking spaces as if they were Gods. Walk? Wassat then? There have been a spate of burglaries in the South side of Grangetown. The Marl. 16 houses have been targetted, mid afternoon. Persons unknown have been getting over from the avenues and alleyways behind the houses allegedly and in this age of austerity, the poor have turned on the poor. Whilst those in the Gated Communities of the more affluent parts of Cardiff have their reasons for living in isolation, their wealth being among them, we in the less salubrious parts are creating visual images that we are not to trust eachother.

"They are coming in over the back, Jack, get the shotgun"
    
Do we trust eachother? Do we really? Are you in fight or flight mode when you go into town? Maybe it's just me but I'm looking over my shoulder a lot more often these days.





Some Classic Examples of Grangetown Alleyway Graffiti

Monday, 11 February 2013

Half Price Love


It was Valentine's Night in Somerfield, Aberystwyth.
You can tell how long ago it was because the shop is now a Home Bargains having been a Co-Op & Budgen in the interim.
I had popped down to get some Bics (Product Placement) that nick!
It was 7.30pm on February 14th 2009 and there to the right was a stand with cards and balloons and hearts and things.
And there above in Pink were two signs: Half Price & Love
Half Price Love
Then what price full love?
Which got me to thinking and to writing this ode to a commercial money grabber called Valentine who just like his cousin Nicholas excludes those who have no love!
Is no love better than half price love?
I don't know!
Best check your change to find out.



Saturday, 2 February 2013

Cymry am Ddiwrnod/Welshmen for a Day


Wassail



Never done it before, but today, this afternoon as the men in red were getting whopped by the men in green(Le Religion de Rugby) I was wassailing round an allotment somewhere in deepest, darkest, Cardiff. If you don't know what wassailing is then check this link out daddyo.


Good ol wikipedia! Well a gang of us crypto-pagans, druids and new agers (Not your common and garden allotment holders) went around an allotment blessing the fruit trees with plenty of noise to ward off evil spirits. I had a whistle and a rattle and considering I had never wassailed before, I got well into it. We then dipped toast into mulled wine and placed the small triangular pieces on to the branches of an apple tree. A Gentleman poet, the Green Man, then serenaded the trees in verse. To be frank, it just felt good to be out in the open air on a sharp, cold but sunny day.  The reason I was there, I have started volunteering on an allotment project and am thoroughly enjoying it.




Sunday, 27 January 2013

Patience

Patience is a virtue
Posess it if you can
Seldom in a woman
but never in a man.

Now I am not the most patient man in the world. In fact I may be one of the most impatient men in the world. I am impatient to die. I am impatient to get this life over and done with. I am not depressed nor suicidal but this lingering life does not suit me. Every day my subconscious thinks about death, others, but mostly my own. I am impatient at the moment to leave Cardiff. I have been here 25 years and you don't get that for murder. Why have I stayed in the same house for 25 years, FEAR! I did leave once, to go to London but I ended up in Amsterdam self medicating my Mood Disorder if you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.
 
 
 
 
I do not want to acknowledge and I do not want to be acknowledged. Going about our daily business is like going to the toilet. I have no time for pleasantries or for flirting. I am a Puritan for heaven's sake.  Now there are some of the fairer sex who suss me out straight away and know by pure intuition that I have a problem with patience and the teasing and the taunting is not worth the pay off in the end. On two occasions on two subsequent days I have been stood behind two dithering dames at the checkout counter, once at the 'super super super oh I how I love thee so supermarkets' and the other at a pharmacy. On both occasions I was getting 'stuff' for others and I am held up in my tracks by people who can't make their mind up. I'm sorry women, but you know that I am impatient, you can see it in my face then why o why do you still insist on fucking about in front of me. So I'll notice you? Do you really want a Manic depressive with bad breath and yellowing teeth to notice you? Do you really want to be wooed by me? No, well get out of the fucking way then, I have a life to waste elsewhere on Facebook and on Twitter. Now some ladies will be shocked that I a male supporter of Feminism can talk like this about some in the sisterhood but this Blog Post finds me 'pissed off' with gender wars and gender games! I notice if somebody has a bad experience then 'all men are bastards' and fathers for justice are just meant to take it? Why do people bother courting, fucking and getting married? Oh I forgot, for the fucking of course which in turn produces children which more often than not suffer from the parents blazing gender wars rows after they are born. Peeps do not work on their subconscious enough before they enter into relationships. They work out their neurosis on their partner. I know, I've been there! And I'm not going there again. So today Sunday 27th January I am feeling particularly impatient to get my kitchen plastered because I am a fuckwit DIY and I am getting fucked(My favourite word) about by a plasterer who can't plaster outside when its snowing.What is wrong with people? I want to get a basic kitchen fitted, again more benefit money wasted so I can fuck off from this 'Fear Factory' which has been my home for the last 25 years. Where will I go? Well the way I'm feeling at the moment back to Amsterdam to self medicate my mood disorder.
Fuck Reality.   

(Freud was right, it's all about sex really)

Saturday, 19 January 2013

Bullshit aka The Big I am

Today is the first anniversary of Sharkfishinginwales, a small boutique blog full of self indulgence and ephemera floating around in one man's subconscious like the pink toilet paper and stools floating off Barry Island. 
This was my first ever Blog post http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/toxic-kairdiff.html
It started off as a Farewell letter to Cardiff. A Capital City of a Country not a Principality. I have been a resident here since 1988. A quarter of a century and all I have to show for it is a Blog and a Mental Health Diagnosis. In this time my house has gone from becoming a prison to a home. Houses are neutral. It is how we are within them that counts. I have gone from being very negative and a hater to slighly more positive and hating less. Perhaps this comes with age! I have tried to maintain a light touch to the Blog. Although prone to anxiety and sadness I find it increasingly hard to take life seriously. It is patently absurd. As an older single man I am realising how important it is to have hobbies. From none for many years I am now developing an interest and passion in gardens and growing and allotments et al. I love walking and walk everywhere. Writing will always be a passion but I am not so hard with myself on deadlines and commitment but perhaps this is a bad thing. In this year I have crossed the rubicon from ESA to JSA. Since my diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder in 2006 I have been interrogated by Atos 4 times. The last time in my mother tongue. I didn't see much point in appealing. My mental health has improved and I attribute a good deal of that to writing the blog. I find it very cathartic. I worked for 18 years prior to diagnosis so was just getting a return on my investment. Critics might say that it's like 'Hanging out your dirty washing' in public but like Buzby I believe that it's good to talk.


I am volunteering with a substance abuse charity and ostensibly I am content.  I am anticipating bereavements and I am trying to emotionally and mentally prepare myself for these. I am working on my fear and distrust of the opposite gender by trying to develop friendships rather than romantic attachments. I believe that it is important for a man to work on understanding women as human beings and not as love interests or sexual beings as some of us are  conditioned especially those of us who suffered single sex education.
Most of all I have been given time. My mind and body have demanded 'Time Out' from the collective insanity. To filter out what works and what insults my soul. Time to step out, Time to become more confident and time to enjoy life.



The Sasquatch of Sasgwent

  The Sasquatch of Sasgwent If you put Chepstow into Google Maps, the American dame the other end will tell you that you are closing in on ...

Blog Archive

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Hitler navigates the A487 from Aberaeron to Aberystwyth

Goodreads

David's books

How To Be Idle
Second Sight
Freud: The Key Ideas
The Yellow World
Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
Going Mad?: Understanding Mental Illness
Back To Sanity: Healing the Madness of Our Minds
Ham on Rye
Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Mavericks
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
I Bought a Mountain
Hovel in the Hills: An Account of the Simple Life
Ring of Bright Water
The Thirty-Nine Steps
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Seat of the Soul


David Williams's favorite books »

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