Laboured

Am I stupid? That was rhetorical, don't answer; I've heard that the Labour Party is looking to be harder on aid for the out of work than the Conservative Party; this is so cruelly simplified in that they are looking for votes for the people in work who are disgusted at seeing rents paid for, new cars bought etc. for their neighbours who are taking home more than themselves at the end of the week/month. The members of the government that will now be capping benefits are multi-millionaires! To resolve the question of a country in debt is not easy, but one thing is sure, it's not the multimillionaires of the Conservative Party who will be suffering in the near future or ever. Shame on the Labour Party that they want to turn the screw on their own as a vote getter to use seemingly simple righteous or moral arguments, which are nothing of the sort, to turn neighbour against neighbour up in the working mens' clubs using petty jealousies that will cost them in the end. The Labour Party was created by the 'Unions' to help the 'working class'. If the English are not careful they will be governed forever by a class out of control whilst the Scots & Welsh will be waving them goodbye. P.S. It isn't right that certain types are taking advantage of a state given generosity, but divide & rule by Eton types is not the answer, and the Labour Party should know better.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; Who are They Kidding?

Just food for thought, as are most of my offerings: A Welshman is equal to an Englishman so long as he leads an Anglicized life; a Basque is equal to a Castillan so long as he lives the Castillan version of Spanish life; a Kurd is equal to an Ottoman Turk so long as he accepts his subservience; I used to read C.D. comic books during the 60s, they were always showing how the 'Red Indians' (Native Americans), could participate in the 'American' way of life once they dropped their 1000s of years history and joined the 'human race'; and Bretons are welcome to become French so long as they change their crazy ideas. Equality is there for us all at at a price that is so cheap to pay that it is easily acceptable. Market forces work in wondrous ways and we are all susceptible. We open our eyes to blindness and are happy not to see! To expand on this: some Bretons don't like the idea of speaking French all the time, some do; some Welsh don't like that once they leave the house they are forced into speaking a foreign language, it doesn't bother the majority who close their eyes to the fact that they've been so subsumed that they don't even see it as a foreign language anymore and who fight against their own heritage without an inkling that we are able to speak more than one tongue "the dragon has two tongues", the only trouble with that is that it gives an idea of not choice but conflict, when in reality we can accept multiple cultures and more than one language. English was a threat to Welsh for centuries so how the hell that Welsh people think that the Welsh language is a threat to English in Wales beggars belief especially that mono-lingualism is a state propaganda thing of the past. I was on my way out of my pub but had to come to comment that when one's hero decries a whole history & cultural heritage, when hardly anyone speaks the language anymore, one doesn't have to look to the 'Red Indians' (native Americans), one can look closer to home, when Aneurin Bevan stated 70 years ago "there are no Welsh problems, only problems, then we can see that the the monk on the borders of the Severn 1600 years ago on hearing a foreign Germanic language approaching had every reason to be worried. Romans; Germans; Vikings; Danes; Normans; Angevins; when your own man tells you that there are no Welsh problems only problems then you are assimilated worse than any tribes, but the worse thing is, not that you don't know it but that you are proud of it!!! The French subdue all their minorities, even to the extent that they refuse to ratify the charter of human rights concerning minority languages. I have Flemish French friends who have to take their children to Belgium to be educated. It just seems that things don't seem to be right in Wales. After centuries of oppression of the natural culture/language of the country. I am being told that Monmouthshire wasn't Welsh, when Welsh was spoken as far as the Clyde in Scotland it's a totally ridiculous argument, I'm just for fairplay for all, and I think that we can do our bit to raise our culture, even though perhaps most people still won't know that we had the greatest romantic poets of the middle ages. I think that we have a duty to ourselves. The problem is the lack of acknowledgement that it is WE OURSELVES who are being hurt. Of course if through any reason that 'we' do not accept that is 'we' who are being harmed then that is the end of the matter and 4000 thousand years of history goes down the drain. Some of you may be right in asking what right do I have having moved out 34 years ago to criticize you who are living there, especially as I was a Saturday night pub drinker, night club dancer & occasional fighter without many ideas on Welsh culture, but then I began reasoning; how was it that I was an English speaker in an area that had never known that language. I began a mobile Welsh library, a mobile Welsh disco, I set up my own Welsh language classes, got involved in local politics, and even became a trades union activist. Socialism & patriotism with a 'Welsh' (thousands of years earlier than England, with our own egalitarian laws) and not 'English' aspect. My hero and yours Aneurin Bevan turned his back on his country - Cymru (Wales) and I was with him until I realized that yours, his, and my country was being underdone for 'the greater good'. For circumstances beyond my control!! I now have 3 grandchildren in a 'foreign' country, but there again I live in Brittany where more people understand 'Cymraeg' than in Ebbw Vale. We have a greater problem than over there insomuch as the French government does not allow for its minority cultures. Paradoxically if I had my way I would take away the red shirts (all the sports) and then how Welsh would you be? If you think we've got it bad in Cymru (Wales), which is not to say we haven't, although some people are trying to turn things on their head in their blind & bigoted rejection of their own language; I'm drinking a glass of beer now with a Breton, younger than I am, brought up with his grandparents knowing one language, Breton, only to be caned in school for his ignorance, then to be caned again for writing with his left hand!!! This was the late 1950s when Cymraeg was beginning to be taught again. France has one people with one language! 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'; They can't kid us anymore!!!

England, What England?

The Mid-West, North, & South-West of the country we now call England is undoubtedly Celtic. The country shouldn't be called England as the Germanics who landed there and who lent it their name after the heptarchie became united was conquered by the Vikings of the mouth of the Seine whom we call 'Normans', so the name 'England' should have disappeared with the conquest! Then there was the Angevin empire of which England was but a minor party, and the Plantagenet French wh ruled the country until the Welsh Tudors took over at the end of the 15th century; England, what England?

Our Heritage

Just been informed that Huw Lewis is our new education secretary. One of Neil Kinnock's disciples, as are most of the 'valleys' A.M.s; doesn't bode well for our language & heritage. When one thinks back to when the Vale was invaded by the Normans the valleys managed to keep the native language & laws with little interference. At least getting on doesn't necessarily mean getting out any more, and we are an officially bi-lingual country. A lack of objective education over the last 100 years or so has people believing that English (or Wenglish in its transitional form) is the language of the valleys, whereas in reality it's only become the prime medium of expression in Merthyr for example since the '20s, and in some parts of the borough only since the 60s. Unbelievable to listen to some people from the western valleys wantonly replacing their heritage & culture with that of a neighbouring country, throwing out thousands of years of history & literature; shame that the only world renowned Welsh poets such as the two Thomases, R.S. & Dylan were the first to write in that foreign Germanic/Latin tongue we refer to as English; without Cymraeg (Welsh) we wouldn't hear of perhaps the greatest romantic poet of the middle ages - Dafydd ap Gwilym. But there again it isn' our language is it; what blatant propagandist non-historic nonsense. I can only despair at such a wanton denial of a heritage that gave us Roman emperors, the second Pope, the first university; romantic poets of the middle ages, all before the English language existed. A heritage second to none that we shouldn't be afraid to shout about from the roof-tops & the hills (obviously we wouldn't) but where's the education, and who's the new education minister? I repeat 'I despair."

Another Fantastic Evening

What a fantastic evening with wonderful music; pity there weren't more people, improvised as it was. Tourists are starting to dribble in, Germans from Stuttgart yesterday, some cyclists are calling in to get out of this miserable weather, namely 3 men last friday who'd just cycled up from Foret de Fouesnant on their way to Uhelgoat; they approached the bar, and in their best French ordered a few beers, and in my best valley accent I advised the boys from Abercarn, Blackwood & Pontllanffraith which were the best choices available, having as I do the best beers of the region, if not further. Dumbfounded as they were on finding out that I'm from Merthyr we had a little chat, especially the bit about the one from Abercarn organizing a do in the local rugby club with Max Boyce who made them proud with a mention in one of his most famous rugby trip songs about 'The Boys From Abercarn'. Loads of live music since the reopening with a few quiet days, not being near any towns I'm fortunate in that people come so far out of their way. The beer I sell is artisanal (craft) therefore not of the 'popular sort', it doesn't go down well with the local farmers who prefer the gassy chemical sort of beer that they've been brought up with, but it does attract customers from all over the country, so I took a gamble to give up the majority of the locals and instead to have a minority of every town & village in Brittany (& elsewhere), only time will (eventually) tell.

Nomers

Looking at the 'genets' on my raised chimney got me thinking that If the Plantagenets were really English kings and not just kings of an England which was part of the greater Angevin Empire the 'Brooms' would have been on the throne instead, and the Tudors who followed them would have been the 'Merediths' if Owain had chosen his father's and not his grandfather's patronym on moving to England.

Breton Culture in the Bar

What a fantastic evening last friday in the bar; story tellers and singers from the locality, including a choir, entertained a packed pub in the Breton tongue, the true (together with Gallo in the Eastern part) but unofficial language of this country, with the bonus of contributions from Katell Kloarec & Lleuwen Steffan giving a bit of cultural diversity with their bi-lingual offerings, once again placing Cymraeg (Welsh) next to Brezhoneg (Breton) in fraternal empathy.

The Missing Gesture of Solidarity

I'm restarting at zero, some people are helping me begin to decorate the bar, and my first beers are on credit, BUT, CREDIT AGRICOLE (my bank) in 2010 telephoned me with a gesture of solidarity, which was an advance of a sum of money, half of which was to help me in my troubles, and the other half to be kept back for the reopening. Now there's been a change of staff resulting in nobody knowing anything about it! At the moment I've managed to get 1/3 of the sum they've agreed to give me which is 3/5 of the sum promised. Come on Credit Agricole, keep to your word.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant & Pub Renovation

Grand party to celebrate the rising of the phoenix from the ashes on its meeting with the dragon of Cymru/Wales on the day of the Patron Saint David/Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant, March 1 (2 & 3) for the reopening of 'Tavarn Ty Elise' after 3 years of closure, at Plouie (Plouye), Finistere, Brittany.

Pub Reopening

March 1/2/3: Fête of Welsh/Breton bar, Tavarn Ty Elise, Plouie (Plouye), reopening after 3 years of forced closure due to incendie, coinciding with Welsh national festival of Saint David/Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant. Music & dance over 3 days accompanied by mesdemoiselles Ambrée, Blonde, and Stout, there for your pleasure.