Pub or Politics?

I've been posting polemical arguments to provoke the thought processes, sometimes by being the Devil's advocate. I run a pub, and pubs & politics don't go together. I was very active politically in Wales, but we went to rooms to discuss affairs and to vote on them, and when finished went to the nearest bar, because a pub is for conviviality, not for bickering. However a country without a language is a country without a heart, and there've been too many transplants in Wales & Brittany where the languages remind me of the melting of the polar icecap. It is obvious that with minorities being overrun there is more immigration than is helpful which creates an imbalance that can be controlled only with difficulty, e.g. incoming businesses; shops, factories and pubs refusing the language of the area, that is despicable, it doesn't help either when party members from outside become local councillors with no knowledge of, forethought nor intent to save our communities, but also the Bretons & the Welsh are their own worst enemies, not helping the situation any. I believe in self determination for the historical peoples such as the Welsh, Bretons, Scots, Catalans, Basques etc., etc. This may (or may not) be my last word on the subject, but If you want the best Breton beers, a very eclectic music collection of Breton, Welsh, Irish, world, rock and folk music, then come and join me, but no politics please; conviviality is the name of the game. Facebook is as much a tool to bring in customers as anything, obviously not all of my almost 3000 f/b contacts are personal friends, though many of you are real friends who have been with me all my life. If I was only to rely on nationalists I could close tomorrow! If I was only to rely on musicians I could close tomorrow, same with bikers, or Welsh. The only sure thing is the Bretons, obviously for that's where I live, and they all have conflicting attitudes, Breton speakers who are against the language, and non- Breton speakers who are for, Bretons for re-unification, others who don't accept Nantes as Breton, though I must say that as far as I know I've never met a fascist in my life!!!

Proud!!!

In response to becoming a minority: The English have always been an ethnic minority; after the Germans conquered the Welsh they in turn were half conquered by the Danes who then left it to their cousins the Viking Normans who left the throne to the Angevin empire ruled by the French Plantagenet family keeping it until the Welsh Tudors took over before being replaced by the Scottish Stewarts, who were succeeded by the Dutch family of Orange, followed by the Hanovers, the German family who rule over Britain today! Considering that Britain has never had an English ruling family an argument about foreigners is a bit debatable to say the least! Until the early twentieth century we all spoke Welsh in the valleys, then German, sorry English became gradually more & more introduced. Today hardly anyone speaks Welsh we all speak German, sorry English, and we consider it our own language which is blatantly illogical. Imagine if another similar culture such as Roumanian or Hungarian would be assimilated in the same way say in 50 years or so would we be going to a match in Cardiff not understanding a word of the national anthem; whoops, I forgot, we don't today do we? What's to be proud of, tell me what we are defending when we are letting go an ancient Welsh heritage to protect what?

New Year

Out of work for 3 years; 2013 was a testing time to get the pub back on the rails, my first Christmas & New Year back at the bar for 4 years and I've never felt better. It's going to get relatively quiet during January & February then I'll begin again with a bang, hopefully, with the first anniversary of the re-opening on 'Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant', Saint David's day, March 1st 2014, everyone's welcome.

Oddigartre'

I think some of you; deliberately perhaps, or not, as the case may be, missed my point about the greatest activists having been born outside the areas where their arguments were applied. The two arguably biggest proponents of Breton music, Alan Stivell and Gilles Servat were both born outside the 'land of their fathers'; ditto the 'Irish' revolutionaries at the post office in 1916 at the height of the first world war; Eamon de Valera was born in New York to an Italian father. Napoleon wasn't French; Hitler wasn't German; Stalin wasn't Russian; inversely, Jean-Marie le Pen was born in Brittany. Think about it; perhaps a knight on a white charger might come in to save Cymru; for a while in Merthyr we thought it was Emrys Roberts but it didn't last. We were fortunate for a moment in that we had Emrys, Dafydd Wigley and Gareth Foster, they even took power but they were eventually outmanoeuvered by the local labour cabal.

We are entering into dangerous right wing territory here; we the Welsh have an indigenous culture that we want to preserve, it's lasted for two thousand years and we, or certain amongst us want it to continue, but it shouldn't be a reason for explusion of other cultures so long as they become inclusive and they know that they live in Cymru. Perhaps the most inclusive forign community is the Somalis in Cardiff, they are Cardiffian Welsh, Tom Woodward Jones is Welsh, Shirley Bassey is Welsh. Someone living in Cardiff is like a doctor who only sees illnesses or a policeman who only sees criminals. I am an optimist, sorry I don't live there! Don't you think that thousands of people in the valleys would take it as an insult that because they don't speak the language they are not considered Welsh?

Tendentious

I'm getting a bit fed up of these tendentious polemical arguments; we're all on the same side. WE know what's going on, there are too many outsiders, but many of our worst enemies lie within. The anti-social element couldn't care less anyway, it doesn't help when they are brought in from the London council housing misery. The English pub owners get out their shotguns to vacate the premises of their Welsh speaking natives for their forthrightousness in having spoken their first language which they deign offensive, even though they don't make an effort to understand where they actually live. At a pub in Llangadog I was told by an English landlord that he was a Paki basher, although the West Walians are alright, the North Walians are worse than the Pakistanis. How many times have I heard that English speakers, not English but South Walians, go on holidays to North Wales, enter into a pub where everyone was speaking English only to speak Welsh as they entered, blatant nonsense, who's going to speak his second language, English, only to turn to his second language, Welsh' to satisfy some kind of racist whim, I've got news for these people, they were speaking Welsh all the time, stupid as it may seem. We know from the last census that the language is growing among the Welsh born, but is diminishing on the whole through the influx of foreigners. Sorry Gareth I'm with you all the way and I think there's been a misunderstanding between us, but although Cymru has its 'downs' it also has its 'ups', although for the moment the 'downs' are greater than the 'ups', which they have been since Gruffudd ap Llewelyn lost his kingdom, who knows what could have happened if he could have held on for just another couple of years with a Welsh sovereign dealing with the Norman king resulting in no Norman lords of Glamorgan, Gwent and elsewhere, unfortunately that was not to be our destiny, then there was Llywelyn Fawr, Llywelyn ein Llyw Ola' who couldn't do for the Welsh what that other llyw did for the Chinese; then there was Owain Lawgoch who invaded the CHannel Islands on his way home only to be called back to help the eastern Friench in their war with the Angevin Empire and to be assassinated by a Scot taken into his confidence; then there was Glyndwr, a mighty royal Welshman but only a rebel lesser tenant in chief and a traitor in English eyes. Then as always was the Mab Darogan, this time it was Henry Tudor of dubious claim to the throne of England who conquered England with the help of (Sir) Rhys ap Thomas; the whole of the Welsh middle class built great mansions on former English estates; his son Arthur died, the intended rebirth of King Arthur of Britain, Henry Vlll took over the throne, annexed Cymru into England, we lost everything, we shouldn't really be in a state of existence, look at the former Welsh lands of Cumbria/Strathclyde. What are they proud to be today. THere's only one Welsh song that has any status in Brittany, except for the common national anthem, and it's Dafydd Iwan's 'Yma o Hyd, need I say more?

I was brought up in Merthyr town centre, roamed around the council estates and never heard a word of Welsh until I was accepted into the local grammar school at 11 years of age. My first day in the Welsh class our teacher asked how many pupils had a smattering of the language, about 5 or 6 children raised their arms, which took me completely by surprised because I didn't know that anyone in Merthyr spoke Welsh, so what's new? I'm a bit in the situation of Frank Hennessy, that until Ronnie Williams took him on a journey around Cymru (Wales) he didn't realize that there were still Welsh speakers in the country.

Caerdydd!

Just to be clear about this; when did Cardiff end being a little town in Wales, and when did Wales become a little part of Cardiff?; oh yes I955, when a Welsh town, of no previous value became, with a limited historical veracity or credibility allowed circumstances to dictate that after it took the iron & coal from Merthyr, Aberdare; then later the Rhondda, after outgrowing its boots, asked the Queen of England (I wrote King earlier on, seemed so long ago, but it was very recent) if it could become the capital based on its wealth & size, and was accepted. It became the most important town of Glamorgan, which for Glamorgan meant the same thing as most important in Wales, Gwynedd people have always seen it differently, so has Dyfed. Too late now to change the status quo and for the Welsh themselves to decide our own capital city, it would have been nice to have been asked in a national plebiscite, but except in sporting terms we weren't yet a nation, not fully grown and mature, which by the way we are still not!

Integration

Families integrated, as we see in the non-Welsh family names, there was assimilation, there never was any assimilation in Merthyr, except for when we all became Welsh rugby supporters, but only the satellite villages kept their language in a majority until the twenties, the Rhondda miners, a town that didn't even exist until the 1850s spoke Welsh, southern Pembroke never spoke Welsh, in fact for Dewi Sant to communicate with them he had to have spoken Gaelic before they became Flemish! I agree with you Gareth that there is only immigration, there is no inmigration, it was an effort, unfortunately perhaps, to distinguish between three related arguments, Christian English, non-Christians, and open gate Europeans. I KNOW THAT WE ARE LOSING OUR CULTURE, but we have more defences now than we've had since Arthur. Henry Vlll arbitrarily rearranged the borders and annexed the country so that our Tudor supporting middle class built their manor houses in England, conquered by the Welsh, who up till the Tudors were ruled by the French Plantagenets. Britishness was taken to England, 'that red haired Welsh harlot" ruled over the island, her advisors were Welsh, e.g. the Seisyllts (Cecils). There has been a leak since the 16th century, and our first university since Llanilltud Fawr was built at Jesus college Oxford; Caernarfon was the biggest English community in Wales, only North Walians or Welsh learners speak Welsh in Cardiff today, it was colonised from the West Country. If Caernarfon & Bangor Usaf can be Welsh speaking now all is not lost. Welsh, or should I say Cymraeg, is an official language which is more than be said for French rule; the largest French border is at the Amazonian jungle, not with Germany or Italy. There is immigration and there is work to be done, but don't compare ourselves with people who have no chance; we can come through it, others are lost; the Bretons are losing 10,000 speakers every year! They are French, there's only one language in France!

Do we still give Christmas tips (there was a word for it but I can't remember) to the milkmen? My last milkman was Barry Taylor, big friend of mine, brother of Jennifer who married Philip Corke. Their parents kept the Masons' next to Eddie Thomas' gym on Penydarren High Street. Over here for many years we gave a tip to the post men when they brought us a calendar; I don't know whether or not they stopped doing it or whether they left me alone when I was out of work for three years. I'll find out this week probably.