Blogs

I am currently looking for Actors (Male or Female)in, or around, Swansea to appear in a new Audio Comedy Sketch Podcast I have written. Over the past few years I have been writing comedyfor other people after winning a National comedy writing Competition for Channel 4 - But as other production companies have been running the shows and DVDs my sketches have appeared in, the end results weren't exactly as I envisaged them (the only serious condrol I've ever had over my writing is when I perform my own material as a stand up) - so, I am taking matters into my own hands and have written a sketch show that I will be directing - it will be initially released on the web as a podcast, but some companies have said they'll give it a listen (including BBC Radio Wales) - so who knows what will come of it - in any case, I am going to get as much publicity for the finished podcast as I can. I really want actors, and not comedians, to perform my sketches, as they need to be "acted" - the if there is an actor who is also a comedian, all the better. I have set up a facebook page where interested people can sign up. It's at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_222757031070355

When I was a child, salad meant summertime. It's scorching June in Haverfordwest, hay making is in full swing, the tractors are slow as beetles on the road, but we're not eating cucumbers, lettuce or tomatoes.E-coli strains in imported vegetables have made it dangerous.

The quay in the old two town in Lower Fishguard is lined with holiday cottages but there are a handful where local people live all year round. Two of the houses, semi -detached, have square gardens on the side and I was particularly taken with one of them this afternoon.It hadrows of shallots ('shibwns' that I like dipping in sugar and eat between slices of thin bread and butter), lettuce andglaucus blue cabbages - abeautiful deep bluey purple colour.In between the rows of vegetables, clumps ofpink aquilegia (grannies' bonnets) and forget- me-nots grew and there were cream tea-roses in the corner, climbing up a wall.

If you can grow your own salad ingredients fine, but if you can't or don't?

I like half myplate to be filled with vegetables, whether we eat salad or not. (Did I mention that when Peter's thyroid troubles resulted in a swift loss ofa stone in weight, I gave him snacks and joined him? He put on ten pounds and stabilised and I put on a stone?)

To make up for the loss of salad this week at teatime,we have had asparagus with poached eggs (since the Eggwina Curry egg scare Peter will not eat 'runny' eggs). We've also hadhot boiled beetroot, squirted with lemon juice, ground pepper and a teaspoon of horseradish sauce beaten into a spoonful of mayonnaise, with dry-fried Halloumi cheese, Peter first checking that the milk was pasteurised.

A bowl of of peas (frozen can taste better than fresh) or broad beans with salty Sir Gar, Carmarthenshire, butter, with crispy fried coutons ofbacon scattered on top,takes your mind off salad. Don't cook the broad beans for longer than ten minutes because they lose the flavour and turn brownish.

Peppers, including the sweet ones that look like long fingers, can be roasted with onions andmushrooms. Scatter with thyme and rosemary,sea salt and brush with olive oil before puttingthem in the oven.Tear fresh basil leaves over the vegetables when ready to eat. I have borage in the garden and, apart from floating the blue flowers inlong drinks, they look good on roasted vegetables.Salads need mayonnaise and it's good with cooked vegetables, too. I'll talk about it nexttime.

We want to let your members know about the 7th annual Malad Valley Welsh Festival on July 1-2 and the first Welsh Family History Day on June 30, both in Malad, ID. See the attached flyer and schedule for more information or see www.welshfestival.com or call 208-766-4010. Thank you. Jean Thomas, Festival Co-chair

Welsh_Festival.ScheduleBrochure.2011%5B1%5D%5B1%5D.doc Welsh%20Festival.Family%20History%20Day%20Flyer.2011.doc

This superb design, the official West Coast Eisteddfod: Welsh Festival of Arts 2011 t-shirt ( designed by Celtic Jackalope ) is available for purchase now from this site.

HOW TO PURCHASE

Simply send $25 ( if you are in the U.S. ) via PayPal using the 'Donate' button on the right hand column on this page. If you are outside the U.S. please send $34. Both amounts cover shipping costs ( U.S. and Global priority shipping ) THEN email your postal address to americymru@gmail.com . Please allow 2-3 weeks for shipping. A proportion of every sale goes to support the West Coast Eisteddfod: Welsh Festival of Arts.

Shirts are double sided with attractive large three-color back print and smaller version printed on the left chest. Shirts are high quality 5.5. oz pre shrunk 100% cotton.

Shirt designed by renowned Celtic Artist: Maxine Miller and produced by CelticJackalope.com.

For more information on Maxine Miller's Work and other CelticJckalope Products, please visit: http://celticjackalope.com

Well I guess most people know the rules by now so without further ado here are this months winners:-

1. Gillian Morgan 88 points ( 68 ranking points plus 10 for quality and 10 for 'traffic', Gillian has blogged consistently on the site this month and our log files indicate that her posts have been well received. View Gillians blog on AC here )

2. SwanseaJack 59 points ( 49 ranking points plus 10 for quantity. Swansea Jack continues to be the most prolific blogger overall on AC. Twice winner of the coveted 'Gold Sheep of Excellence' we confidently predict that Swansea will be the sites first three time winner. View SwanseaJacks blog on AC here )

3. Zoe Brigley Thompson 22 points ( 16 ranking points. View Zoe's blog on AC here )

Fabulous digital prizes will be awarded to our three winners today and Gillian will receive a copy of Aled Lewis Evans, 'Driftwood'. For details of our June 'Top Blogger' prize see below. To view the current weekly leaderboard and peruse the rules of the competition go to this page

If you would like to congratulate our winners please feel free to do so in comments on this page

The Dead of Mametz is a crime novel with an unusual setting, set as it is against the backdrop of the famous battle of Mametz Wood during the Great War in the summer of 1916. Several events also take place in Barry and Swansea. The central character, Thomas Oscendale, is a captain in the Military Police who is charged with investigating the murder of two soldiers of the Welsh Regiment and, subsequently, that of a local Frenchwoman.

Overview

It is early July 1916, the third year of the First World War. The soldiers of the Welsh Division are poised to begin their assault on the German-held Mametz Wood.But there is a murderer in their ranks.

Captain Thomas Oscendale of the Military Police is in a race against time to apprehend the murderer and to find what lies buried in Mametz Wood. He is not alone. Sinister forces on both sides have taken an interest in his investigation and are closing in.

I have been informed by my publisher that my "Welsh-tern" Dragon & Hawk is now available in paperback!

Normally Champagne Books releases a novel in ebook formats first, then paper in about four to six months. Well, ta-da! This has only been two months, so I am totally excited!

SO... for those of you who love the feel of a real book, here is the link:

Dragon & Hawk paperback

Can't wait to get my promo copy!

Jude

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog, all material 2011, David Western --


I've been beavering away on the sections of the Americymru spoon which our prize winning design ideas are to fill. Everything went very well and the front face of the spoon is almost completed! A bit of tweaking and some judicious shaving here-and-there is all that is required now!





I'm more than pleased with the beautiful grain and colourful figure of the birch used for this year's spoon. It is gorgeous stuff!! Like last year's spoon, the carving has gone very well and the wood seems to handle all the various design ideas without getting crumbly or cracking. I think itwill be a lovely spoon when it is done!

I really sweated about carving Laura's Daffodil design...both because we worked together on last year's spoon and I know how elegant and delicate she makes her flowers and because I decided not to fret cut through the design. Usually Laura's flowers have their surroundings cut away sothat they can stand proud without the weight of the background pulling them down. This year I didn't do that, so there was pressure on me to get the flowers nice and light and not have the background become too obtrusive. Hopefully, I've done it right and Laura will be happy with it.... otherwiseit is back to the drawing board for me!!! I positioned the Daffs design at the foot of the dragon's body so as to make a symbolic link with the ground. I also thought the earth makes the right metaphor for growth and that is what our Eisteddfods have been all about over these last 3 years!!

The Harp design came out very well too! The harp seems nice and full and stands out clearly from the background with the text bringing some action to the big space on the right side of the circle. I think this design will certainly illustrate the importance of music both to the Eisteddfodand to the Welsh people. It's location at the Dragon's heart is also critical with the metaphor a simple and fairly obvious one!



The Awen was another design I sweated over a bit. I was tempted to fret cut it out to really make it bold, but in the end I decided to stay with a very simple and elegant low relief carving. Because of its etherial nature, I felt it was ideally suited for the wing area of the dragon as it would have an association with flight and with other-worldliness (is that a word...it is now).



The Dragon's head is nicely set off with this lovely little piece of abalone inlay. (In case I am about to take a hammering from the environmental crowd for using abalone, I cut this particular piece from an old ashtray I found at the Salvation Army Store a few years back. It seemed a shame for something sobeautiful to be used for that purpose, so I have recycled, using it in dozens of spoons over the years.....besides, I don't even eat seafood!!!) The figure of the wood perfectly accentuates both the body and the back scales of our dragon and brings some extra zip to the Celtic knotwork....niiiice!!





So there it is so far! I hope that now you can see it is, indeed, coming along, you will be inspired to donate a few bucks to the Eisteddfod for your chance to win it!! Someone will be taking it home after the Eisteddfod (and no, you don't have to be present to win) so enter now and enter often!!!

Your donation (whether exceedingly generous or very close to the bone) will be used to make our Eisteddfod better and better!! Help hoist the Driag Goch amidst the sea of tartan and shamrocks that is Celtic North America!!!

Anyone visiting the site in the last few days will have noticed that we have adopted a new look template. We did this for three reasons. Firstly AmeriCymru has looked the same for the last three years and we felt that it was time for a change. Secondly the new two column layout allows us to present more content and links on every page on the site whereas the old left hand column only appeared on the homepage. Last but not least.....Ning, our platform provider, has introduced a new Design Studio and will be ending support for our old template sooner or later .

We recognize that the new layout will wreak havoc on existing page customizations. Indeed we have weeks of work ahead re-formatting blog posts etc BUT the new Design Studio makes it very easy for members to customize their home pages in a great many interesting ways. We will be holding a 'Homepage Layout Design Competition' later in the year once people have had a chance to familiarize themselves with the new feature. Home pages on AmeriCymru can be personalized and used to promote goods and services and we will assist anyone who opts to use the platform for this purpose. Of course home pages can be customized 'just for fun' as well.

To access the new feature simply click 'My Page' on the top navbar and look for 'Customize my page' in the left hand column. Click on 'Customize' and the 'Design Studio' drop down will appear. Please have fun and feel free to be creative with your page but bear in mind that we will NOT be providing technical support, SO unless you know what you're doing ( with CSS and LESS ) don't alter anything in the 'Advanced' tab. There is plenty that you can do without editing the code directly, but if you are able to do this or get someone to do it for you, then the sky is the limit.

Another side benefit of all the recent upheaval is that we were able to examine every element on the old site and analyze its effect on page load times. As a consequence we ditched a great many features that were slowing the site down. We also decided to do away with background colors in page modules in order to facilitate easier readability. Soon we will introduce a number of new features in the activity feed which should greatly increase participation and interactivity.

So there you have it We have been striving recently to increase speed, interactivity and readability. We even coined a cheesy marketing b/s acronym especially for the occasion:-

Welcome to AmeriCymru S (peed) I (nteractivity) R (eadibility)! Because your time on our site is special to us

OK...once you have finished groaning and guffawing at the apocalyptic awfulness of the above piece of over ripe gorgonzola, please try out the new Design Studio and let us know your thoughts below in comments.

The New Design Studio

If you've got a google account, google has unveiled a new recommendation system, Plus One.

To sign up and use plus one to help us tell the world about how awesome Wales is, first sign up for a gmail account at: http://gmail.com

Next, sign up for google plus one at: http://www.google.com/+1/button/

Last, google "americymru" and click the plus one button next to the title of the entry (see graphic below, in which I have helpfully circled it in red):

Use plus one to promote what you think is good, especially Wales and Welshness!