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AmeriCymru Top Twenty
This playlist includes the tracks which have been most popular on the AmeriCymru site over the last ten years. Each of these tracks has been posted , liked and commented upon more than any others. They are not arranged in any particular order and no online vote was taken (we may do that next year). The list has been published to coincide with Dydd Miwsig Cymru 2019. If you don't know what Dydd Miwsig Cymru is, please visit their website here:- Dydd Miwsig Cymru
Track Listing
But what makes this competition so special? Some would say the judges, others the sheer quality of the winning entries but one thing is for sure the competition is here to stay.
Famous Welsh writer, filmmaker and environmental activist John Evans has played a big part. He judged the first two years and has returned on four other occasions choosing poems with subjects as diverse as 'the brutality of war', ‘the plight of captive killer whales’, ‘Munch’s The Scream’ and ‘vegetarianism’.
Other judges have included Sally Spedding, twice winner herself and a respected crime novelist. Celebrated children's writer Eloise Williams and Cardigan-based Bridport Prize winner Kathy Miles can also be counted amongst the competition’s excellent judges. This year, one of Wales' best poets, Cardiff City fan Mike Jenkins, returns for his second time at the helm.
But maybe there is another reason why writers from all over the world love this humble contest that began life as a drunken conversation between Dave Lewis and John Evans in a Clwb Y Bont backroom at one o’clock in the morning, and that is its honesty and integrity. Unlike many competitions your poems are judged anonymously and no filter judges are used. This means a complete beginner can compete against a seasoned veteran. A successful, traditionally published author can fight it out with a newly self-published blogger.
“We offer true equality,” says organizer Dave Lewis. “In a time when corporate greed and influence seem to infect every aspect of our lives and ruin the opportunity for the little guy to succeed the Welsh Poetry Competition is a rare beacon of hope,” he continues.
“Both myself and John love the underdog and coming from a no-nonsense town like Pontypridd you know you’re not going to get given anything for nothing, especially by the establishment that control the purse strings in Wales, so it’s best you just strike out on your own and go for it.”
The competition organizer, Dave Lewis, shuns the limelight however. A well-respected poet himself he continues to self-publish his often avant-garde work rather than seek acceptance from the mainstream just so he can continue to push the boundaries of his art. He also runs a small self-publishing company, called Publish & Print, where he helps other writers get into book form and realize their own ambitions.
This year’s judge, Mike Jenkins, needs no introduction of course being one of Wales’ top poets, famous for his lively performances and writing workshops. He has performed at the Hay Festival, won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors and has co-edited Red Poets for 25 years, an annual magazine of left-wing poetry from Wales and beyond. His latest book is ‘ From Aberfan t Grenfell ’ (Culture Matters) with artist Alan Perry.
With entrants from over 40 countries having taken part in the past this year promises to be no different and with £500 on offer to the winner, plus many other prizes for the chosen runners-up, the International Welsh Poetry Competition will once again punch above its weight in the literary calendar. If you want to enter just check out this year's contest on the official website - www.welshpoetry.co.uk
International Welsh Poetry Competition 2019
1st Prize - £500, 2nd Prize - £250, 3rd Prize - £100, plus 17 runners up published on our website and in a future anthology.
Judge - Mike Jenkins
Starts - 1st Feb 2019
Closing date - 26th May 2019
Poems in English, 50 lines maximum
Entry fee - £5 (£6 PayPal)
Entry forms, rules and details on our website:
Competition Web site - www.welshpoetry.co.uk
Competition Judge – www.mikejenkins.net
Organiser Web site – www.david-lewis.co.uk
Twitter - @welshpoetrycomp
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“ The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful...let it snow, let it snow let it snow!...Nos Da!” declared camp weatherman, Derek Brockway live to the nation from the BBC studios in Cardiff.
“ Since when have you been interested in the weather Charlie?” asked Tommy ‘Hilfiger’ Silverback to the leader member of the Lavender Road Mob.
“ Duh!....since I learned that the boss man Mr Bigg gets coded messages over the BBC about his delivery times for his drug shipments!” laughed Charlie Kong.
“ Mr Bigg...who’s dat den?” asked Alan ‘Tit-che’ Guevara.
“ He is the man who got our leader sent to clink and I need to hit back at him to show our power ....make him an offer he can’t refuse....!” declared the New Gurnos Godfather.
By virtue of the fact he had a CSE from Penydre School in woodwork, he was the leader by natural selection of the ‘Gurnos posse’ following the incarceration of Urko Fosse, the previous Urban Guerilla leader.
Looking at his watch, he felt the familiar buzz of a light helicopter overhead flying towards Cefn Coed Y Cwmmer.
The three wise monkeys, stood on the Gurnos ‘Ring’ Road roundabout, in amongst the embers of their bonfire, lazily lobbing the remainder of their stones at the back of the Lakeside Gardens Houses and Heads of the Valleys Road.
It was reminiscent of a scene from the Arthur C Clarke film ‘2001’, except that it was in fact 2009 , and the only ‘hal’ in sight was the halitosis on the breath of their leader , visible in the night air , as he strained the follow the helicopter towards its pre-arranged rendezvous point on Cilsanws Mountain.
As it passed overhead , Tit-che was dazzled by the red lights.
“ Was that a UFO then or wot?” he asked his fellow crew members.
“ Well me homie, me tinks dat ET is in da hood!” declared Tommy in his red and white tracksuit and Peruvian Indian style hat.
“ Speak in English not Ghetto pimp ...you are not from the Bronx but from Lupin Close man...I’ve told you before, you stand out as a drug dealer dressed like an extra from N-DUBZ ...you need to dress casual like me ...smart ‘French Connection’ brand man from Q9 (lads & ladette’s) clothing.....see this jumper...it has some ‘snow’ sown into the inside material...I call it my ‘Polar neck’..... so there’s no obvious link to my dealing”
“ Anyway, I want to get one of you soldiers on sentry duty up there before the next ‘Bigg’ Drop.!”
As Tit-che whispered to Tommy out of earshot of the boss...” I just thought he had ‘Buy Polar disorder!”
Mechanic Alf ‘Keanu Reeves’ Feta-mean, stood in the pit changing the oil sump on the battered Ford Orion that had just returned from France.
His garage, ‘Brake Lines’ was recognised by everyone from Marseille to Amsterdam as being a recognised international specialised dealer.
He had himself been in the import and export business since his shareholding in the Pentrebach ski-slope went downhill.
Now he had decided to diversify into a different snow business .
As he removed the sump, he would normally be covered in black oil...this time he did not have to worry about dermatitis, a bubble wrap package covered in coffee beans fell out into the pit.
He smiled as was his ‘custom- ary practice’.
*******************************************************************
Carwyn McMuffin looked nervously into the rear-view mirror, checking to see if he was still being tailed .
At 17 years old , he had passed his driving test first time, but had regretted telling his Lupin Close neighbour , Tommy ‘Hilfiger’ Silverback he had a clean licence.
Forced into collecting a car from Marseille in the South of France, he had caught the Ferris Coach bus service straight to Cannes and hitch-hiked the rest of the way.
Nobody at the Merthyr Driving Test Centre told him on his test, that they drove on the right on the continent.
He had found out the hard way by putting his new found driving skills to the test , squeezing between two oncoming Petrol Tankers and the central reservation barrier with all the skills of Colin McRae.
He had proved his mother wrong ...the hours spent on his Playstation 3 , had been of use to him.
In-continent, he felt as his underpants bore more skid-marks than Brands Hatch.
His mother was also a concern , he had been gone three weeks and he knew he should have told her where he was going, because he had seen his face on the back of a Paris milk carton.
He hoped that his Pen-y-dre Headmaster , would believe the handwritten note from his mother, that he had run off to join the circus but would be back in time to re-sit his woodwork GCSE.
Carwyn was very worried in deed, because he could smell a sickly sweet perfume aroma burning from his vehicle and was being followed by a motorcycle cop.
He had been warned by his employer ‘Keanu Reeves’ not to go over 70 KMH , as the car had a ‘maximum speed’ and that the car was likely to explode...but his school education hadn’t explained MPH and KMH conversion rates.
He looked nervously at le Motorway sign and noted he was only 10 KM from Calais.
The motorcycle cop was being engulfed in the grey smoke coming from beneath his car.
The cop signalled him with a hairy garlic hand to pull over.
His weak joke that it was a Q9 ‘Polar neck’ sweater , not a pullover was lost in translation.
As he pulled into the layby , the traffic cop dismounted and approached the car in a Gaullic swagger.
“ Gendarme ...can I help you ?” asked Carwyn nervously handing over his child passport , worried that his mother would see his faced splashed all over the news by Interpol as McMuffin the Drugs mule.
“ Sir...I forget why I az to stopper u... (looking at the passport)...McMuffin ....do you have any thing to eat as I seem to have what you Eengleesh call ze munchies...non?”
“ I have a hairy wine gum stuck to the bottom of the front seat...I was saving it till Calais...but hey any port in a storm !” Carwyn replied handing over the sticky mess.
As he drove away, Carwyn was pleased to see that his Cannabis stashed in the Oil sump had finally stopped burning.
******************************************************************
Tommy sat completely inconspicuous in a bright red tracksuit and Black and White Peruvian Indian hat, high up on the Cilsanws Common overlooking the golf course and the ‘posh’ part of Cefn Coed.
He could see in the distance the Morlais Castle ‘ set to the backdrop of a million stars in the early November evening.
He was freezing , he wished he had a Q9 ‘Polar neck’, as he waited vainly with only his stolen mobile phone for company with one bar left on his battery.
He thought about how he had got caught up in the clutches of the Lavender Road Mob.
He had been shit on all his life...he reckoned that he had the reverse of the Midas touch....everything he touched turned to bling....a kind of ‘fecal attraction’.
Latchkey kid since he was three , his mother was in the Matchstick Man pub smoking and drinking away his inheritance.
Like Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome , he had been brought up suckling the milk from the multitude of teenage mothers on his estate...brought up by the Mob.
Tommy was proud of the fact he was part of the underclass.
His warped logic meant that he was responsible for keeping the only people in Merthyr with jobs employed.
His ‘one man crime wave’ ‘supported’ a lot of jobs in Merthyr...if it wasn’t for him there would be less policemen, firemen, prison staff, DSS staff, court staff and shop security employees.
Unlike New Labour...New Gurnos was head of ‘job creation’ in the economy.
It had not been Tommy’s fault.
The Penydre Careers Teacher had computed his skills and come up with promising careers in burglary, car theft or rap music for Tommy.
Burglary ...that reminded him, his mate was getting married on Thursday, at the Castle House Marriage Registry Office and his house and his future-in laws house-would be empty all day.
The sudden ring-tone awoke Tommy from his hyperthermia based slumber.
“ E-s are good...E’s are good...Ebeneezer Goode!” by the Shamen rang out on the silent common....as his mobile phone lit up like a Christmas Tree in the darkness.
“ Derek Brockway just said that Cilsanws Common would be full of ‘Galanthus’ this evening..... !” announced Charlie.
“ What about Mr Bigg’s cocaine delivery?” asked Tommy
“ Galanthus is a flower....snow drop...it’s code...!” shouted Charlie
....” I know it’s cold .....but is it still on for tonight...because I’m freezing and my gonads are so wizened they look like Paul Daniels forehead!” moaned Tommy.
“ Its CODE not Cold....what about the chopper ?” asked Charlie
“ My choppers fine ...me nan knitted me a Peruvian willie-warmer....its my balls that are wrinkled.!” replied Tommy as his reply was drowned out by a noise from the sky.
“ Look at that Twat in the red tracksuit holding that phone...announced Helicopter pilot Bob Boner to his passenger ........... .I think he is a foot soldier for the Lavender Road Mob.... if I swoop down low do you think you can get him!”
Tommy could hear the sound of the ‘Flight of the Valkeries’ but didn’t realise it was ‘Apocalypse Now’ as the helicopter ‘gun ship’ hovered above him red light flashing.
Tommy still thought this was a UFO and stood transfixed waiting for the music to change over and start to communicate with him by short blasts of ‘beat box’.
Tommy’s red tracksuit turned to brown as he was suddenly deluged in a downpour of shite.
As the contents of a former ‘Winchfawr’ septic tank were poured over the sentry, he had ‘close encounters of the turd kind’ as Tommy’s star trek ended with a Captain’s Log .
Dripping in sewage, Tommy admitted defeat , as he turned tail and fled home to the sound of much laughter from the helicopter crew.
As the chopper dropped off its load from the air –a strange delivery of stuffed Llamas , Alpacas and Donkeys were hastily packed into a horsebox trailer and whisked away by the waiting shadowmen.
As he squelched his way back to Lupin Close, Tommy tried to make up a good excuse for his failure to intercept the ‘snow’ for his posse.
“ What the Hell happened to you?” asked Charlie as he slid through the front door.
“ It was those Aliens they tried to abduct me... you gotta believe me....there were farm animals flying everywhere on that common....da horse...da donkey...da llama...!” bleated Tommy.
“ Da pigs?” asked Tit-Che.
“ No police there man !” he replied removing a ‘ baby stool’ from his earhole.
“ Mr Bigg...he is out of order....!” snapped Charlie slamming his fist hard down on a stolen blue ray DVD player with a Heolgerrig Postcode.
“ Tit-che I want his house in Cefn staked out ...I want to pay him a little visit!” said Charlie ominously.
A different kind of smell was on the mind of Carwyn McMuffin, how could he get his car and its illicit contents past French & English Customs - smelling the way it did.
He began to shake rattle and bang his aging catalytic converter, until it began to stink to high heaven.
He also remembered a trick that the IRA had invented at H Block, in the Maze prison, opening a packet of maltesers, he placed a few of the chocolate balls in the bottom of his cotton shorts , smearing some on the top of his legs .
The customers official motioned for him to wind down his window , and stuck his head close to the car.
“ Anything to declare Sir?” he asked .
The combination of the smell of a sweaty Penydre- pupil who hadn’t washed for three days, in a car without sunroof and air conditioning, together with the stench of the dodgy catalytic converter and the sight of the brown balls rolling from his stained shorts, meant he moved through customs quicker than Kevin Spacey at gate 7 of American airlines.
Carwyn smiled to himself , as he was waved through without challenge, sniffer dogs falling like flies as he went past onto the ferry.
Next stop ...’Brake Lines’ garage he thought.
Rhys Wonka couldn’t believe his eyes...one minute he was scrambling ‘Walkers & Wilding style’ across Pontycapel Road - the next he had slid off into a secret glen of stuffed donkeys and other animals hidden at the back of a massive mansion underneath the Cefn Viaduct.
‘Perfect’ he purred like his finely tuned engine...’we need a guy for the bonfire tonight....’ selecting one of the stuffed animals ...he declared that this ‘ass was toast’.
Taking off his helmet, the ‘easy rider’ put it on his stuffed pillion passenger and headed for the bonfire site at ‘the black patch’ Cefn Rugby field.
“ I know where Mr Bigg lives!” cried Tit-che in triumph.
“ Where?” asked Charlie.
“ Underneath the arches .....down Pontycapel Road!” the street boy sang like the recently departed Danny La Rue.
“ How did you find out....from your homies?” asked Charlie suspiciously.
“ I heard in the Gurnos Club , that his daughter’s marrying someone on Thursday and the house will be empty all day.....we can pay him a little visit then!” laughed Tit-che.
“ Roll on Thursday!” roared Charlie ...”I can’t wait!”
******************************************************************
“ I found him...I get first hit of donkey ‘Hote’!” shouted Wonka as the rugby boys hoisted the stuffed animal up the old oak tree.
“ Piñata ... Piñata... Piñata” the boys squealed as one , as Rhys Wonka swung his stick at the stuffed creature hanging like he was from Bridgend, high up in a tree.
As he struck its hide, huge clouds of white dust covered the schoolchildren.
“ Hey !” said Blue-bottle....”that powder gives me a real buzz!”
“ Careful...it could be ASS- bestos!” warned Zebulon the Prop.
“ I think its sherbet” second-rower Monsters Inc.
“ I thought it was washing powder...if I could be so Bold ...that was my automatic reaction !” laughed Dodger the scrum half.
“ I think it’s Cocaine.... dabbing it on his finger....I think that is ‘Columbian Marching Powder’” declared Polish boy JOW.... ‘and it’s a bad omen!”
“ We should get rid of it!” declared Bluebottle.
“ Let’s burn it ...like that witch Joan of Arc!” said Monsters Inc.
“Don’t be daft...half of Cefn Coed will be high...they will all think their on the stairway to Cefn !” said JOW.
******************************************************************
Thursday morning came and the Lavender Road Mob watched as the Silver Mercedes left its drive, dressed up to the nines in full wedding regalia , electric gates closing slowly behind it.
“ Now we move!” said Charlie to the rest of the mob as Mr Bigg’s vehicle disappeared down the narrow lanes towards Cefn High Street.
The three hoodies made their way expertly over the wall gaining entry to Bigg Mansion with the flick of a stolen credit card on the ‘yale’ lock.
Once inside the house, each of the Lavender Road mob knew their ‘modus operandi’ like a ‘crack’ team from Oceans 11.
Charlie removed the tapes from the security cameras.
Tommy located the loot – which was hidden as usual in used notes in the mattress of the King-Size main bed..
Tit-che planted the stolen knickers.
Placing the mattress against the external wall, they then got to work on the garden.
Carwyn McMuffin , the drugs mule was easing his way up the A470 happy in the knowledge that he was on the home strait.
Oblivious to his surroundings , cameras flashing meant little to him...it wasn’t his car.
His check of the vehicle at a service station had revealed Cannabis , Cocaine and Amphetamine with a street value of 2 Million pounds.
Pulling into the ‘Brake Lines’ garage he was met by the smiling owner Alf Fetamean.
The smile changed to a frown as an unmarked Police car pulled in behind him.
“ It’s a fair cop guv....!” he said in a TV ‘Bill’ style confession...(which happens all the time in the real world.... ) ...”but how did you know there were drugs in the car?” asked Alf & Carwyn simultaneously.
“ Speed Cameras!” came the reply....” that and the fact you phoney sump was marking a different kind of ‘white lines’ in the centre of the road!...the trail led us here to you!”
Knock Knock....came the sound.
Charlie looked at Tit-che nervously.
It was the sound of a schoolboy knocking the front door of Bigg Mansion.
“ Penny for the Guy Mister?” asked the angelic two foot Dodger.
“ Guy...? “ said Tommy...that’s not a guy it’s a donkey...!” snatching out of the hand of Dodger.
“ How did you get in here anyway...this gaff has electric gates!” asked Tommy.
“Threw Donkey Hote over the top and limbo-ed under them!” replied Dodger.
“ How come you can afford a place like this then ...are you a drug dealer or a gangster rappa ....anyway can I have my donkey back now?” he asked politely
The boot up the arse was the only reply.
“ I’ll get him back somehow!” ...pledged Dodger belying his size and picking up the mattress carrying it Masai- style on his head towards his rugby mates massed up at the entrance.
“ Penny for the Guy ...or Five Pounds a sniff!” declared Rhys Wonka to each of the boys as they passed into the Cefn Rugby Club.
He had only been sat outside for half-an hour, but he had made over £500.00 thanks to the generosity and stupidity of the older boys.
Prop Milo O’Shea- Bray, the only rugby boy with a single uni-brow placed evenly on his face, handed over a crisp £5.00 note.
Sniffing deeply, the tail end Charlie, he raced towards the rest of his mates who were heading towards Cefn Viaduct to see the impromptu ‘U2 concert’ of local man ‘Dai’ Van Halen’ had set up his amp.
Head full of ass and nose full of Charlie, he tore off his shirt and dived headlong at his friends who lifted him up and over their heads until he reached the front.
The prop was mad and lived life in the fast lane.
He had once tried to give himself ‘liposuction’ with a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a pen knife resulting in a lop sided gut – but Dirty Sanchez just sent the tape back unused.
The Dirty Sanchez effect was one thing , but the ‘Jackass’ effect was ten times worse.
This left Milo totally ‘West-life’ as he was caught up in the music he ‘went ahead and ‘Jumped’ over the side of the bridge.
‘Flying without wings’ the Prop went into survival mode stretching his flab skin like a flying fox squirrel.
Full of ‘the real thing’ he felt in his own mind like a shaman joining in with the Condor spirit soaring high on the thermals below the bridge and landing triumphantly on the Swansea Road side of the bridge.
“ Those ‘Nasca’ lines were brilliant!” he dribbled picking himself out of the gorse bush .
“ That’s a nice touch !” laughed ‘Don’ Charlie ‘Kilo’ Kong noting that Tommy had placed the head of the donkey in the bed in true Godfather style.
“ I am going to make him an ‘Eeyore’ he can’t refuse!” he quipped Don ‘Ki’ Kong.
The finishing touch was the calling card bearing their Christian names in the areas of the garden that they had worked.
“ Where’s that mattress gone?” asked Tit-che suddenly.
The bonfire was in full swing .
Gone were the days of old tyres billowing out black smoke.
The rugby boys ‘ donkey pyre’ had caught fire instantly and a huge pall of grey and white smoke drifted into the night sky...like they were electing Pope Don –key ‘Hote the First.
Fire ‘egg- spurt’ Frank Heavens, sat eating his sandwiches in the ‘Green goddess’ provided by the Fire Authority in his Don Estelle shorts and Jesus sandals looking like a pyromaniac staring intensely at the hypnotic flames .
“ I bet you a tenner... that pine tree will be a goner by 9.00pm !” he said to his Station Commander George O’Dowd.
“I haven’t had any overtime since those mysterious grass fires started in my garden last year!...lucky I found my own well to pump the water!” continued Frank.
The blaze continued well as the mattress and ‘Donkey Guy’ erupted.
“ Boy George ...can you smell money ....?” asked Frank sniffing the air.
“ Okay .....two hours tops and try not to burn the hose pipe again.!” replied O’Dowd.
“ And shut that bloody tender door....you might wear sandals in the Autumn ...but I don’t want another back-draft.!”
The helicopter buzzed back and forth over the usual Cilsanws common drop off point , but there was no sign of life.
Finally, a small flicker of a cigarette lighter was moved back and fore ... by and like a rocker with an afro in a Van Halen concert and the donkey derby was on again.
The ‘Mule Train’ was sent down the quite lanes from Cilsanws passing the aptly named ‘Drovers Arms’ and onto the viaduct before being tipped over the edge into the soft landing area in the garden of Mr Bigg’s mansion.
“ Jesus...!” said Tit-Che as another donkey narrowly missed him landing with a squelch, in the marshy area around the stable in the garden, he was working in.
“ Tell them there is no room at the inn!” laughed Charlie watching Tit-che dodging the incoming Ass-steroids.
“ I’ve heard of frogs and locusts but you don’t want a kick of one of them things!” said Tit-Che.
“ Hurry up with those signs Tommy ....I gotta feeling the ‘heat’ ain’t far behind!”
With that there was a giant explosion from the Common high above Cefn .
Mr Bigg stood on his door-step and just as he put his key in the lock...the explosion ripped through the air.
“ Good fireworks this year in Cyfarthfa Park!” he exclaimed...” There goes the tarmac budget again!”
As both he and his wife climbed the stairs, loosening his Colombian neck-tie, he noticed that his bedroom door was open and that his ‘Peruvian’ mattress was gone...and in its place was a donkey’s head and some stolen used ‘Evans outsize’ knickers were in its place.
“ What have you been doing while I was out....Muffin the Mule is one thing , but muffin the mule in garters is a criminal offence.!” said his wife.
“ Criminal offence...that’s music to my ears announced Drug Tzar Nicholas Shepherd!” appearing on the landing behind the pair.
“ Take some photos lads...!” he announced waving a search warrant.
“ What evidence have you got!” asked Mr Bigg rising up to his full height of 4 foot 10 realising that the mattress and all the donkeys had gone from the house.
As the pair walked out through the patio doors , Mr Bigg’s jaw dropped when he spotted his garden had undergone a transformation , while had been in the wedding.
In the centre, there was a giant igloo surrounded on all sides by a bumper crop of cannabis, coca plants and magic mushrooms.
Thinking on his feet, Mr Bigg said ...cannabis plants have grown wild in this country before 1957 ...and besides it is for my own personal use....the magic mushrooms ...too are primitive LSD but are natural products.....
“ Okay ....Mr Bigg explain why you have an six foot igloo and a door so small only you could fit in made entirely of crack cocaine..... !”
“ I’m an Eskimo...!” was all he could stutter by way of reply.
“ Well you are ‘Inuit’ up to your neck!.....besides..... who did your garden...?”
As he read the graffiti sprayed signs......Charlie, Tommy and Tit-che (Marsh)
“ Ground Force?”
******************************************************************
High up on the Cilsanws common, the explosion was the result of another ‘Ground Force ‘ battling with an ‘Air Force’.
The non-nonsense Drugs Tzar Nicholas Shepherd had a zero tolerance attitude when it came to drugs. He wanted to ‘can’ it completely...and put the perpetrators in the ‘can’.
‘Coke Zero’ was the mission code-name , after he had ordered the helicopter to be shot down by a surface to air missile imported from the Afghanistan Taliban.
Noting that the helicopter was registered to a local Doctor in Cefn they decided to take it down.
Dr U. G. Baron was clearly a pseudonym of Mr Bigg.
As soon as the crosshairs on the missile launcher caught the track of the helicopter, the pilot and his remaining cargo was toast.
In the face of adversity, there was no way in the world that Bob Boner could keep his chopper up and the huge explosion glowed red like a Merthyr Blast Furnace in the night sky.
“ And we have a special message from the boys in blue from Tregaron!” .. announced Derek Brockway live on BBC ‘weatherman talking’ .....” apparently Julie has had an Operation which has been a great success ...and wish her a ‘speedy recovery’....
“Finally, before I tell you about that Fete & Gala in the Woodwork Department of Penydre Comprehensive school, this Friday with loads of fairy cakes ...I love fairies don’t you.... there is a special message sent in by e-mail from Nicholas of South Wales....Red Sky at night...Shepherd’s delight.....Drug Dealers chopper on fire...Nos Da!”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/
Link above to BBC Radio 4 Web Site Programme
Melvin Bragg did a radio programme. The link is above on the BBC Radio 4 Web Site
It's about Owain Glyndwr who proclaimed himself Prince of Wales and who is buried secretly in Herefordshire - the position of his grave is passed on to the next generation on the death bed. It's somewhere over in the Golden Valley that leads to Hay on Wye. They mention how the Mortimer Marcher Lord of Hereford and Mid Wales sided with him and how the Welsh were finally recognised through his decedents the Tudors. How Owain used the historian Geoffrey of Monmouths Books to try to unite others - who refers to the British being the decedents of the people of Troy.
Owain Glyndwr tried basically to unseat the Norman Marcher rulers in Wales and thus the Norman King Henry of England wanting himself the rule Wales & the West Midlands with Mortimer ruling the South East England.
Many thanks to AmeriCymru reader Owen Evans for the above message and heads up.
Dydd Miwsig Cymru Playlist - Cyn Mynd Mas - Prinks, Welsh Playlist Cymraeg
Check back tomorrow for a new playlist. You will need a Spotify account to play this content.
Dydd Miwsig Cymru is on February 8th this year. Here on AmeriCymru we are not waiting for the big day. As part of our campaign to support this event and make it the biggest online musical happening of 2019 we will be posting a new playlist every day between now and the 8th. Listen to our today's playlist above. Feel free to re post and share.
Above all...spread the word!!!
Lets give these artists and musicians the recognition they deserve. Show your friends (and the world) what a wealth of extraordinary musical talent we have in Wales. There are ideas, suggestions and playlists on the official Dydd Miwsig Cymru site to help you out.
Prefer to make your own YouTube playlist? It's easy! There are full instructions here:- Make Playlist
Want to embed your playlist on your site or blog? Again....no problem! Go here for full instructions:- Embed Playlist
Whatever you decide to do between now and the 8th; whether you participate or simply sample the wealth of musical delights on offer....enjoy/mwynhewch! 
...
"The North wind did blow and Merthyr had snow and what did poor Farrah do next?” sang Dean ‘Belle’ End as he sat on the vandal proof metal bench alongside the Merthyr Railway Station.
The sound caused Farrah to turn around sharply, exposing his nether regions to the bleak March air.
His coat, made entirely of Bar towels ,acquired from the many pubs he had visited on his personal tour of the Rugby Six Nation Countries and beyond, offered little protection from the elements.
His roman sandals acquired from a trip to Rome in 2009 , were further evidence of his total disregard for Valleys weather- a historical reason why the Celts were never completely conquered by our Italian cousins and the ex- army man Major Farrah- Fawcett was living proof of our resilience .
Just before his toes turned blue, his four-legged companion ‘Buster’ the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, dashed over and instinctively became a canine foot-warmer.
His human companions stood ‘Rhymney Brewery Hobby Horse’ bottle at the ready, awaiting the arrival of the Valley Line Train from Cardiff.
“ Has Buster’s diarrhoea problem cleared up yet?” asked Dean laughing hysterically.
Farrah looked down at his toes, but refused to answer , discreetly trying to wipe his toes on a dock-leaf....as discreetly as a 20 stone man in sandals and a five-foot bar towel garb could be.
“I thought the Welsh Assembly were doubling the number of trains to Merthyr “ asked his companion Dean.
“They did start but the trains kept getting pinched!” answered his mate Jon Van Dole.
“ Rumour has it ...the Gurnos boys were stealing the wheels as they left the station......one train was found in the sidings up on bricks...apparently the scrap dealers pay well for the scrap metal.. that’s why there are no road signs left showing Merthyr Tydfil anymore !” he continued.
“ I thought Merthyr Tydfil closed when Hoovers shut down and they moved everyone to the coast like the Tories wanted to do in the 1960’s...!” offered Farrah.
“ The next train is due at 10.03am....” interrupted Garry ‘Windows’ Snary looking up from his lap-top computer.
“ Trust you Garry ...NERD....who else would bring a laptop computer to a Wales v England Six Nations match?” asked Jon Van Dole as the Arriva Valley Lines trains pulled into the station at exactly 10.03am.
“ Warren Gatland....Shaun Edwards......do I need to go on...!” offered Snary
“ But they are working...!” replied Jon limply.
“ We all rely on different ‘hard drives’....the Welsh Pack , me and of course you!” laughed Garry.
“There’s no need to mention my erectile dysfunction....I had a complete blood transfusion.... I had to....my blood count was lower than Dean’s IQ...!” countered Jon as he was about to board the train.
“Mind that gap between the platform and the train Jon !” threatened Dean in retaliation ...or I might just squeeze your Ox-Head in there!”
As they selected their seating on the train, Farrah sat next to Garry and whispered in his mobile ear piece...” That was a bit below the belt...about Jon’s difficulties in the trouser department....only his missus, Dean and I know about that ?”
“ Correction ...said Garry clicking his mouse....you, me , Dean & his missus and everybody who visits his ‘face-book page’ from today on....call it ‘revenge of the nerds’ if you want!”
Buster, bright as a button, sat at his masters feet awaiting the arrival of the train conductor.
As soon as he sensed the presence of the ticket collector, like most Merthyr people, he bounded off the train and re-entered in the carriage behind the conductor, who was too busy checking tickets.
As he crawled on his belly below the carriage seats, he waited for the conductor to check his Master’s ticket and step off the train to blow his whistle.
The plan usually worked , but today Buster had forgotten about his incontinence problem and a trail of shite led the conductor back to the poor unsuspecting dog.
As the train shuffled away from the station the conductor’s nose told him there was a problem.
“ Oi Fred Flintstone.... you in the (visible) beer overcoat....the one with the shit in his toe nails....you can’t bring that dog on here and let him shit everywhere!” bellowed the conductor.
“ It’s not my dog...and he didn’t shit on your train....!” bellowed Farrah indignantly.
“I saw Flintstone doing it ...announced Dean enjoying watching Farrah squirm...... he shat on your seat and it probably fell off !”
Farrah gave Dean a black look.
“ Thanks for the solidarity mate!” declared Farrah.
Buster sat on his hind legs....left paw pointing and trying to blame Jonny for the mess.
“ It’s my dog....!” said Garry rolling his head and eyes in Stevie Wonder fashion....he’s my guide dog!”
“ If he’s your guide dog...show me his ‘doggy id’ ?” asked the conductor.
“ Thought you’d never ask....!” replied Garry printing his fake doggy id badge from his internet site via his lap-top.
Garry thrust the paper towards the bent-over conductor punching him hard on the jaw.
“Sorry... I followed the sound of the voice!” replied Garry.
Rubbing his bruised mandible, the Conductor backed away muttering that he would keep an eye on him.
“ Take a lap-top to a game indeed!” laughed Garry with Buster triumphantly drooling, knowing they had both got one over on Jonny.
“ Look at him...!” announced Dean, also drooling from the corner of his mouth on his third bottle of Rhymney Brewery Bevan’s Bitter....’Buster - the great train slobber’
From Merthyr station until Pontypridd Station Garry didn’t lift his head up from his keyboard .
He then suddenly smiled and pressed the send key.
“ What are you so happy about...you got the same look on your face Buster has when he tries to shag the neighbours’ Chihuahua!” announced Farrah putting down the remains of a six pack- a one pack.
At the mere mention of the word Chihuahua , Buster became amorous and chose to demonstrate on Jon Van Dole’s leg.
As Jon tried shaking him off his new velvet corduroy trousers, Buster seemed to enjoy the experience all the more.
“Jon...he can keep it up longer than you!” teased Dean
Randomly, half-cut Dean , fatally mentioned that he had tried to mount his cat once but had to cello-tape its mouth to stop it exploding.
Farrah continued to press Garry as to why he was smiling like Dean’s Cheshire cat (Pre-cellotape).
“ I just sent a computer virus to H M Land Registry Wales Office called ‘the Weakest Link’....it works by way of their intended chain matrix system and as soon as the first solicitor tries to use it , a Red Dragon logo of Anne Robinson pops up wipes out any mortgages registered against the house and turns the owners name into Meibion Glyndwr!”
“ I knew you were into that Free Wales Army bit and lived in Sospan land , but didn’t realise how revolutionary you were.... surely they will trace you and catch you!”
“ Not really...I have linked it up to the face-book page of Jon Van Dole...they won’t have any difficulty getting it up......I’ve linked it into a web-page I’ve created called Dean ‘Belle’ End’s animal bestiality page ....with a bit of luck they should arrest him too !”
“ You ‘re a real good pal and user friendly!” laughed Farrah.
As the train reached Taff’s Well, the light seemed to change on the train ...the clouds that were overhead parted and a beam of sunlight directly from God appeared , as they emerged from the Taff Valley, feeling an overcoat warmer.
A corona of yellow seemed to draw the eyes of the Merthyr boys to a broken train seat .
“ Boys...it is the Holy Grail...!” announced Dean reverently ....”the ultimate Rugby relic...!” as he approached the damaged seat.
Looking down at the love heart drawn in fake orange leg tan on the back of the leather he whispered.
“ GH Loves CC”!!!!!
“ Do you know what that means?” declared Dean.
“ Wot are you banging on about ...some Rail seat with a punch-mark through the back !” said Garry petulantly.
“ Not just any punch-mark.....we are in the compartment wrecked by Gavin Henson and his muppet show earlier this year!” said Dean on his knees and kissing the badge on his Osprey shirt.
“ That’s the only bird he will kiss today!” laughed Farrah
As Dean videoed it on his mobile phone , Garry shook his head at the behaviour of his friend.
“ East is East and West ain’t Best and never the twain shall meet !” declared Garry going back to his lap-top.
As the train arrived in Cardiff Queen Street , the gang of four and their five legged canine friend left the train and started down the Victorian steps of the station.
“ Tickets please !” shouted the announcer, as the Rugby crowds began to surge towards the barrier.
Buster seeing his opportunity slid under the metal barrier like Joe Di Maggio sliding to his home run base....shooting straight out the train station door and into the back of the Big Issue sellers obligatory dog ... called ‘ Lady Scrounger’.
Scrounger taking on the characteristics of her own master , barked at Buster the equivalent of ‘What are you looking at ?” in street doggy language.
Once through the barrier, Garry made a beeline for the newspaper kiosk, buying a number of items of confectionary.
“ Six Mars Bars and three Cadbury Wispas....you work , rest and play hard.... !” laughed the new slim-line Jon Van Dole , fresh from another blood transfusion .
As Dean passed the entrance he noticed the street dog had transformed back into cute dog Lady, and the spaniel was standing on her hind-legs begging for money.
Dean always had time for animals...but her owner was to make a fatal mistake.
In the noise of the traffic, the words “ Big Issue!” and the resulting meth’s spittle landing on his Swansea/ Ospreys shirt, was interpreted as an act of war.
The drunken Dean merely replied ‘ Bless you” and punched the Street Vendor clean over two lanes of cheering stationary traffic.
The cheers turned to boos, as Dean then dropped-kicked the dog over the two sets of traffic lights... clapping his hands and shouting there’s only One Gavin Henson......
His companions were horrified but not as much as that of Warren, a Paul’s Savoury Products driver, whose Van windscreen killed the dog outright.
Looking round, he suddenly recovered and slung it in the back for a Vietnamese Restaurant owner he knew in Canton.
“ I need me a drink to calm me down...take me to the Queens Vaults ....besides I thought that tramp had Mexican Swine flu....I could smell the chilli on his breath!” said Dean trying to justify his behaviour, as he headed up Queen Street.
The Four looked quite a sight , as they ambled towards the Pub.
Farrah clad in his multi-coloured Beer mat dress, Dean in his spittle covered Ospreys shirt, Jon Van Dole in his orange Holland football shirt and Garry Snary, two pockets full of mars bars and a lap-top computer covering his head from the sudden rain shower.
By the time they reached the pub door , Farrah’s coat had absorbed two pints of water making him weigh more than 9 stone.
Buster skipped along merrily sniffing anything that moved... and so did Dean.
“ My round lads” announced Farrah reaching the bar through a throng of Rugby fans.
The ‘ Beer- Cave-Man’ attire worked a charm, as the bar maids rushed to serve him ahead of others already waiting patiently.
“ Oi...I was before you...!” protested an English Rugby fan wearing a Fez.
“ You ...Tommy Cooper head!” shouted Dean....”one question ...wot Country is Cardiff in?”
“ Wales of course...you peasant!” relied the Saracen fan.
“ Well, we live here in the wet climate and subsidise your water bills....now be quiet now like a good boy or I will shove your Chariot up your arse!” snarled Dean returning to a different ‘Big Issue-mode’.
“ There’s no place for racism in sport!” announced a ‘number 10’ size Englishman next to the Fez wearer downing his pint in one.
“ Never been to an Wales V England before then mate? “ asked Jon Van Dole.
“ No...you speak the Queen’s English ....sorry I thought you were Dutch..... !” answered the surprised Danny Cipriani..
“ If you haven’t been to the Millenium Stadium and Wales V England in any sport, at any level, you haven’t seen racism in sport.....!” laughed Jon Van Dole.
“ Shit...thanks for reminding me ...I’ve been out clubbing all night and I’m playing in two hours!” said Cipriani, grabbing his England Track suit top and diving between the legs of a ‘scrum’ of ‘five’ people entering the main door as only a Fly-half can.
“ See....pontificated Dean to the Fez-wearing Saracen Cockney , Hamed Sackey O’Toole....you English ....aren’t real English at all....your all French....!”
“ How do you work that out .....?” snarled O’Toole , at the mere prospect of being linked to the continent.
“ We Welsh are the real English....us Celts see ....were driven back by your Italian Romans to Wales and Ireland.... and you lot are just descendants of the Normans see...French barons who came here....William the Conqueror....you lot are just a mongrel breed of Vikings, Saxons and FRENCH!” slurred Dean enjoying the rant.
“ .....and with a name like yours you can add Sand-Nigger, Coon and Gippo to the Micks....mix get it !”
As the last insult hit him , even though the Saracen knew he was outnumbered 50-1 , he took aim and caught Dean flush on the snout.
A small trickle of blood appeared below his nose.
It didn’t help that Garry had just taken up the microphone and began to sing his version of Garry-oke.
He enlisted the support of the a handsome young man with black caterpillar eye-brows.
Garry sang to the mixed bar of supporters, his version of the song ‘she’ll be coming round the mountain’.
“ I would rather wear a turban than a rose....I would rather wear a turban than a rose... I would rather wear a turban....rather wear a turban ...rather wear a turban than a rose ....English bast....”
Just as he was finishing the song, he was punched full force by the leader of the Leicester Tigers supporters ‘who had finally got his hair off’ .
Garry ‘ sailed across the bar and landed in a heap near the ladies toilets, becoming a ‘Prop Idol’ in more ways than one.
Austin Healey stood up to his full height of 5 feet 6 , a fair match for Stereo-phonics front man Kelly Jones, who grabbed the karaoke mike and swing it at the head of the ‘Leicester Lip’.
The impact sent Austin Healey’s hair implants flying down the Queens Vaults main bar , scattering glasses as it finally stopping in an inch of dust and a disused ashtray.
“ Look Dusty Hare....!” laughed Dean picking up the wig and wiping his bloody trickle.
Kelly Jones swung the microphone up by the lead and caught it , in true Hollywood /Cwmaman style and continued to sing....” As long as we beat the English ...we don’t care.!”
Dean turned up his collar in Malcolm Price fashion ...as he flatterned O’Toole and began to slug his way across the bar, packed with celebrity showbiz friends of Stuart Cable.
Anything that didn’t have the three feathers or a Welsh rugby shirt was fair game.
One minute Robbie Williams was discussing a possible come-back concert with his old pop band at the Cardiff International Arena... the next he was on the floor nursing some bruises.
“ Take That!” declared Dean mid rampage.
As Robbie slid down the wall of the pub next to Garry, he was in fact seeing ‘Angels’ instead.
“ It’s My...llenium (Stadium )...!” roared Dean- like King Kong - beating his chest.
As the rest of Take That leapt on Dean....he was cheered on by Robbie Williams....
“Hit Barlow first!” he declared.....then Liam Gallagher!”
In the melee that followed , Dean was forcefully ejected by a combination of the heavyweight bouncers and Ruth ‘Nessa’ Jones who was trying to find out ‘what’s occurring’.
“ Not you again......you were fighting with Mike Phillips & Andy Powell last time!” they shouted as Dean , Garry , his laptop and the others including the Stereophonics were thrown into the street to the delight of the waiting Buster.
“It’s your fault Farrah !” declared Dean....”it’s that bloody coat of yours, it attracts trouble....!” declared Dean still holding Healey’s hair.
“ Got a quarantine licence for that?” replied Farrah.
“ Well done Dean where can I go now...the other pubs are packed and I need to down- load some old data files.....?” announced Garry nervously.
“ Wot?” asked Jon .
“ I need a dump.... a kak....!” he replied.
“ That’s another reason why I wear this coat... said Farrah...getting up from the window-cill of the Italian restaurant leaving a steaming turd behind....and why I like Caroline Street so much !” he said scooping up a handful of discarded chip papers and removing the clinkers.
“ Are you using that hair?” he asked Dean.
Wiping out more klingons than the new Star Trek film he slung the hairpiece contemptibly at the bouncers.
Looking back at the window-sill, Jon declared I thought ‘only dogs did that!’
Buster shot him a look of disgust.
“ Well the only place I can think of, that will be quiet at this time of day ....is the toilet behind the Hayes Buttie Bar, near St Davids Hall...besides we can go to the last pub in Cardiff Dean isn’t barred from –Walkabout in St Mary Street.!” ....offered Jon .
“ What... that’s bandit Country!” laughed Dean in an effeminate voice....” I’ll come with you to hold your hand....
As the three friends texted Farrah the details of their detour, he agreed to meet them at ‘Walkabout Creek’ –which co-incidentally was the venue the Stereophonics planned to visit .
Heading down the Victorian steps and passed the railings to the subterranean toilet they all had a sense of unease , as they began to point Percy at the Porcelain.
“ Do you get the feeling...we are being watched?” asked Jon nervously.
“ I am always being watched .....boasted Dean. doing Grouch Marx impressions whilst siphoning his python, before bending over.....most people think I should be in a circus...Monty Python’s flying circus, (he said charming his one eyed- trouser snake) , besides you are safe, I can’t see anyone here with a magnifying glass....!”
“ I’ve told you ....after a blood transfusion ....it takes time to get up a stream!” proffered John.
“ This pineapple chunk I found in the urinal is blinding...I’ll meet you at the buttie bar upstairs...but I’m only waiting 15 minutes! ” laughed Dean
Garry sat in the cubicle and had double locked the door.... he wasn’t that homophobic he just had other more important things on his mind.
Lowering his trousers and underpants , the ex-prop remembered his routine.
Pause... Touch... Engage.
As he sat on the throne with a sense of unease , he waited for nature to take its course.
The cubicle walls all around were wiped clean, apart from a recent addition of an Neanderthal cave-painting in haemorrhoid brown.
Normally, he enjoyed reading the graffiti on the toilet walls...but this crap-trap was largely free except for writing at the cubicle top and just above a narrow hole in the partition wall at waist height.
The hole had been partially filled by the remainder of the toilet paper.
Garry checked his watch and realised it was now of never.
Like all rugby men, he inspected his latest ‘drop out’ and noted that it stood out of the water like the Statue of Liberty..
He took a photo-shot on his mobile camera phone and sent the beauty by e-mail to Jon Van Dole’s facebook page under ‘New blog’,
As usual some evil sod had left a single sheet on the Council-issue sandpaper...would this be enough....he was a little worried by the lack of paper available but decided to go ‘commando’ anyway, as that was the real purpose of his mission.
As he set up his lap-top, he retrieved the internet page on how to make home-made bombs from plastic explosives and household chemicals.
He began whittling away at the inside of the chocolate bars and inserting the plastic explosives in the Mars and Wispas.
Just as he finished the last one , he dropped the chocolate bar which slid on the tiled floor , underneath the metal toilet roll holder.
As he bent over, butt naked, he failed to notice that the toilet paper plug had been removed and a famous face with a leather hat and goatee beard took advantage of Garry’s precarious predicament.
“ Talk about a Careless Wispa!” announced a George Michael look-a-like rubbing his hands in the adjacent cubicle, as the comeback of Wham was complete as he he stuck his phallus through the toilet wall.
Garry wished he had read the graffiti warnings at the top of the cubicle ‘watch out for queers’ and further down ‘told you so’.
Oblivious to the impending assault , Jon stood innocently trying to think of ice cold waterfalls to get him started.
“ Garry are you still logging on in there?....if there’s no paper left in the stall...I can change two fivers for a tenner”
Garry jumped at the sudden intrusion of flesh , eyes widening alarmingly .
In response, he rammed a fuse down the jap’s eye of his assailant.
‘George’ recoiled limply and sang sadly ....” Last Christmas, I gave you my arse, but the very next day you gave it away” sitting down on the toilet seat dejectedly.
********************************************************************
Dean stood eating his bacon egg and tomato roll at the top of the steps as a 17 year old youth passed him in a Cardiff City base-ball cap and ‘Diesel’ top.
Dean was suspicious too of his two sidekicks aged 9 and 15 who were joking laughing and acting like a pair of gangsters keeping a lookout.
He rubbed the remains of the greasy bacon and tomato roll on his trousers in anticipation of trouble.
Jon stood to attention at the sound of footsteps approaching.
He was very conscious of the fact he had spent over ten minutes waiting for his engine to start.
Jon was intimidated when the youth broke the old age male convention , standing immediately next to him at the empty urinal.
He tried to look away and whistle politely, but could not help but look down at his ‘old boy’ to see if the stream had started.
“ What do you know...finally !” sighed Jon as he startled with a trickle which led to a bladder emptying full Niagara discharge.
“ Give us all your money...or your slug gets it!” declared the Ely youth Robin Hoodie.
It was only then that Jon realised the touch of the cold steel pen-knife blade had started his down pour.
Jon nervously handed over his wallet...dropping it in the urinal tray in fright.
Dripping with urine , snot, pubic hair and attached by chewing gum to the only pineapple chunk that Dean had missed, the youth bent over in disgust, carefully watching the petrified Jon all the while.
Getting his own back on someone else bending over, Garry emerged from the cubicle door with lap-top raised and smacked the youth over the head rendering him unconscious.
“ Talk about a hard-drive capability!” laughed Garry....” Can you see why I take a lap-top to the game now!”
Jon had to admit defeat on that one.
As the two friends climbed the stairs together, they were spotted by the two other gang members.
Dean stepped in , as the two scumbags realising their punk friend was in trouble,drew their illegal blades reclaimed from a knife amnesty bin in Roath Park.
Dean lifted the ‘Waterstones’ book shop sign, smote the pair , sending them tumbling down the steps passed Jon and Garry....” Now that’s what you call a good hardback!” laughed Dean triumphantly.
As they trio headed towards Walkabout, they discussed the antics of the juvenile gang.
“ I overheard those wasters talking about their ‘nob racket’.... give us all your money or I’ll cut it off.....!” said Dean angrily.
“ What man wouldn’t hand over their wallet!” agreed Garry.
“ The big one reckoned he had made nearly two grand ....whilst the 15 year old ...I heard his street name of Shiv Shover....nearly £1,500.00!” continued Dean.
“ What about the little one- the 9 year-old ...what about him... how much did he make ?” asked Jon .
“ About £10.00 ...apparently....but he did have two pockets full of cocks!” laughed Dean.
Jon ashen-faced , just gulped and thanked his lucky stars it had been the older boy.
That George Michael look-a-like will put them to good use...thought Garry.
Garry had visions of the pop star trapped in the toilet trying to convince the gang that he hadn’t let ‘the son go down on me’.
********************************************************************
Farrah , however, was stood at ‘a different corner’ - that of the Australian theme bar ‘Walkabout’ in St Mary Street.
His coat of many beer towels in multi-colours, was a benefit not just for being spotted on the BBC Cameras, but also when waiting to be served at a crowded match-day bar.
He was also a babe magnet in this garb, as the woman wanted to check to see if his ‘bod’ was as good as his Boddingtons.
A walking beer sponsor’s dream , the man’s outfit was made out of three parts Strongbow, two parts Boddingtons, Allbright, Worthington Best together with many foreign beers from his tours with the British Lions to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Around his collar , he bore the emblem of Cigarette manufacturer Rothmans.
It was no surprise that the man’s body was also ‘King-size’.
Henry the Eighth to be precise , carefully crafted and sculpted after years of weightlifting pint glasses to his lips.
Oh and after wiping the froth of the beers he had ‘Green-sleeves too!”
As he looked at the selection of beer pumps, he announced loudly in a ‘Convict Oz accent’ “ Fosters - the Amber Nectar- ‘Oztralia’s favourite beer brewed in ....Scotland” announced Farrah, to anyone that would listen...including the young barman waiting to serve him.
Standing next to the bar, he used his favourite trick to gain free beer.
As Stereophonic front man Kelly Jones, ordered and paid for a round for every able person in Cwmaman, Farrah took advantage of the procession of pints being passed over the heads of the queue of people , waiting for beer and an autograph.
Farrah , empty pint glass in hand, merely waited for Jones to look away, before dipping his sleeve in the recently poured pint glasses and sopping up the beer .
He then squeezed his sleeve out into his own glass.
Kelly Jones assumed it was just short measures and muttered something about ‘a bartender and a thief’.
When Kelly was presented with the bill for £387.30 for 150 pints Farrah, being the son of a mathematics teacher, he interrupted Kelly and told him he was being overcharged by some £87.30.
The bar-tender was not amused and told Farrah to mind his own business.
Farrah told Kelly he was ‘Just looking’ and the UWIC student-barman became so flustered with the reworking of the computerised till, that he broke off the pump handle on the Worthy Best, sending a jet of cream-flow into the air.
Mysteriously, all the beer towels had disappeared from the bar, leaving a ‘free reign’ (or free rain) for Farrah to mop up the spillage at the bar.
“ See...working behind the bar ...it’s all about ‘Performance and Cocktails...’ continued Farrah.....and I can tell you a few !”.
“ Performances?” asked Kelly.
“ Cock tales!” replied Farrah.
Kelly smiled ....caterpillar eyebrows on rest-mode... he was used to freeloaders but this guy seemed to have ‘more life than a Tramps Vest’ and looked a real card.
Weighing 2 stone heavier, dripping with Worthington, he followed Kelly back to his table and joined in with the rest of the band , as if he had known them all his life.
In the hope of a REAL pint, he spoke to Stuart Cable, mentioning that his father once drove through Cwmaman and that they were practically related .
Buster too , took a real shine to Stuart Cable , humping his leg with Cable too frightened to tell him off.
“ Is it true that your mother is called Mabel Cable?....asked Farrah not believing it.
“ Yes!” came the reply.
“ and your father was called Clark....you ride in a Cable car and watch Cable TV!...in fact my tour mates are busy laying some cable as we speak!” continued Farrah.
“ Not my sister I hope ....but otherwise all true..!”.said Stuart, playing along, tapping the table like a real drummer.
“And Kelly ...your old man was called Duster...and my dog is called Buster...although Stuart ...I see you’ve already made his acquaintance....your dad was a singer in the clubs around Merthyr!” said Farrah
Farrah looked at the pint count which kept going up every-time he mentioned somebody from Cwmaman.
“ Well boys ...my name’s Richard ...and I’m an alcoholic...!” he announced raising his beer glass to toast the success of the band
“ Here’s to Cwmaman....’you gotta go there to come back’ laughed Farrah enjoying the attention.
As Farrah knocked back his eighth free pint...he decided he better go.
“ Your round Richard...!”asked the quiet unassuming member of the trio Richard Jones
“ Yes ...I think my shape is down to the beer I drink .... oh MY round ...’Maybe tomorrow’.....he sung ...as he waved to his regular mates as he spotted Dean pushing his way violently through the crowd.
“ Is this table taken... boys...?” he asked a group of heavyweight people clad in fake Welsh Rugby shirts from Rheola market.
“ Do you mind ....we’re Aberdare Ladies Rugby team....!” came the reply
“ Well sod off then ....it will take your herd.... two hours to waddle through this crowd and get to the match !” snarled Dean.
The ladies drank their Stella down...gave Dean a black look...but they knew what he said was true....they left cracking the pavement stones in St Mary Street as they went.
“ Dean ....I see you haven’t lost your touch with the ladies.!” chuckled Garry placing his lap-top on the table.
“ Nor you Farrah...!” said Jon nodding at the young Aborigine woman making her way towards the table.
“ Derek....Derek Brockway...is that really you?” asked the girl.
Farrah tried to hide behind his collection of cloudy pints...created from squeezing out his beer towel coat.
“ He’s not Derek...he’s Richard... luv!” offered Jon.
The girl continued to greet Farrah in an Aborigine love- dance ritual to the delight of the crowd in Walkabout.
As the girl reached him and kissed him passionately, he and his friends denied vehemently that he was not called Derek but that it must be a case of mistaken identity.
“ You are Derek....we met on the Lions Tour of Australia in Melbourne ...you had a Welsh Kilt on with a Paul Hogan hat....you told me you were Cockodile Dundee...!” continued the antipodean stranger....its me ..... your Sheila ....Sheila Sweales!”.
“ I’m not Derek ....!” protested Farrah , as the girl slid down his soaking beer-coat and under the table frightening the life out of Buster the dog.
“ Its dream time again!” declared the young Aborigine disappearing under the table.
“ Honestly....he’s NOT Derek Brockway....!” laughed Garry.
With the girl under his table and her head close the Worthington Best bit, Farrah changed his tune.
“ Shut –up....!” said Farrah....hoping that his Worthy best might become cream flow.
At this point, the arrival of the girl was spotted by Dean and he was delighted when he felt a strange movement in his general crotch area.
Unknown to Dean, it was Buster the dog licking the remainder of the Bacon & Tomato sandwich from his jeans.
“ I remember you were big down under ....but... ....what’s this about Cardiff City losing 6-0 to Preston North End and missing out on promotion to the Premiership.!” moaned the stranger.
“ How did you know about that ?” Farrah asked somewhat surprised that it was being brought up at that particular moment.
“ Oh I read it on the South Wales Echo chip paper stuck to your back pages!” came the reply.
“ At least City are not going down this year...concentrate on the South End !” ...hinted Farrah trying to change the subject.
“ DEREK BROCKWAY!!!” interrupted Garry... “Couldn’t you have picked a more manly false Rugby Tour name?”
Buster, sensing that there was meat and two vegemite below the surface of the fabric, bit down hard on Dean’s jeans.
In anger and severe pain, the incredible bulk, grabbed the table edge with both hands.
The sight of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier jaw clamped to his Lee Cooper’s, gave Dean a shock.
“ Now that’s what I call a High Tackle!” remarked local comic genius Boyd Clack to new boy Rhod Gilbert sat on the adjoining table, who was lost for words without his script.
“ That’s the end of his ‘High Hopes!” replied Gilbert five minutes later.
“ I thought it was you....!” said Dean to the girl , who hurriedly dropped what she was doing as Dean turned the table over in rage.
“ Hi Skippy....see you still have that animal fetish.....that poor Kangaroo in Melbourne hasn’t hopped the same since....!” said the young aborigine.
“ How low can you Dean ... for a jump?” asked Jon twitching his nose and holding his hand to this chest aping a roo.
“ A Koala! “ said Garry holding his lap-top defensively waited for Dean’s red mist to descend.
“ If its warm , furry and can move...it’s fair game in my book!” declared Dean unashamedly.
“ Hey Eucalyptus breath ....have you seen my koala possum!” said Garry legging it out of the door like Tre-forrest Gump.
As Sheila headed towards the ‘Sheila’s dunny’ to powder her ‘wombat’, the two remaining ‘Bruces’ legged it towards the door, Farrah snatching a pint off the Cwmaman table , drinking it down in one and singing ‘Have a nice Day!”
As Farrah turned the corner of West-Gate Street just in the nick of time, a boomerang flew passed his beer-coat...two seconds sooner and things wouldn’t have been ‘Allbright!”
***************************************************************
“ Getting into the old Arms Park ground never used to be this difficult!” moaned Jon who was busting for another slash .
“ Go in the bloke in front’s other parka- jacket pocket....I just did!” said Dean.
“ Don’t tell me it was warm, furry and moving.....!” said Farrah....” I am getting a pattern emerging here...!” he continued.
Suddenly the crowd standing around Farrah parted and the Millennium concourse had a giant wet circle shadow on the ground.
“ Told you ...I too was getting a pattern!” he murmered.
Buster looked around anxiously through the legs of the Rugby Crowd and decided he was not going to get through these turnstiles today.
Spotting the English Mascot John Bull, resplendent in his top hat and patriotic waistcoat, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, jaw freshly unclamped , walked in harmony behind him through the open gates and in with the English Rugby Team.
“ Look at Buster....bloody turncoat!” shouted Jon.
Jon thought his imagination had got the better of him , when the dog lifted his tail and showed him that he could not possibly have worms.
“ This security has gone all hi-tech ! “ moaned Jon holding onto a full bladder for 10 full minutes.
“ Yes ...announced Dean .......my company , Bigger Telephones- did all the work...it is top of the range, I even did all the Wi Fi and Electrical Information systems in the stands myself....that’s why it is called the BT Stand!” he boasted.
“ That’s why you are called Dean BT ...I thought BT was short for Bacon & Tomato .....or Bitten Testicles..... .or ....Buggerer of Tabby cats... !” came the suggested offerings from his friends.
“ Or Big Tosser !” said Austin Healey standing next to Dean.
“ Didn’t see you down there !” said Dean , as he launched the Leicester lip off the approach-way and into the Cardiff Blues Car-Park with his hair landing in a heap in Westgate Street.
“ They even got Iris recognition on the turnstiles now !” offered Garry .
“ How do you know that ? “ asked Dean suspiciously.
“ Any potential terrorist could download plans of the Millenium Stadium from the internet to his lap-top !” laughed Garry nervously.
“ Nice one....Osama bin Lloyden!” chuckled Jon.
“ I thought security made less fuss when they let the half-cast Welsh singer, Iris Williams through the gate....!”
“ That’s cos she was ....’So beautiful’ joked Farrah.
As they entered the booth...unbeknown to the crowd ,....security were secretly flashed messages about the person entering....a red light with the security clearance flashed up in the control room.
As Jon , Garry, Farrah and Dean filed in....the red light flashed up the following security messages.....No threat....definitely no concealed weapon....Fat Bastard likes Mars Bars.... Harmless Welsh Rugby Nutter.... and Cat-shagger.
As the four amigos headed for their place in the old North Stand, they drank in the rich atmosphere of their surroundings.
For the first time ever in Rugby , following reports of disturbances with the English Rugby fans earlier that day ...the WRU had decided to segregate the Saesneg from the Cymru.
Having refused to climb the six flights of stairs with his friends to ‘his Llanelli RFC prime seat’ , Garry was disappointed at his ticket. He knew their status with the WRU was declining...they only beat the All Blacks once and that was years ago....but having to climb up the North face of the Eiger, was a little ‘over the top’ . No wonder they are called Scarlets, he thought looking at the stadium position as the undigested Mars Bars and digested Mars Bars started to take their toll.
Even though he was breathing easier from getting through the Security, he was worried about his task in hand.
As he was a child of the sixties, he was born with rebel blood and wanted revenge for his Countrymen’s years of exploitation by the English Ironmasters in Merthyr Tydfil and their ‘Truck shop’ policies.
Seeing the Flag of St George displayed so openly at the Stadium, he remembered his vow to the people of Wales, in his oath when he joined the Free Wales Army.
He lit the fuses on the Mars Bars and during the cacophony of noise following the singing of the English National Anthem of ‘God Save our Gracious Queen’ he threw them at the English End,placing his fingers in his years waiting for the explosion.
The game kicked off and the first collision between Ryan Jones and Martin Corry could be heard loudly like a massive explosion.
When he reopened his eyes Garry , was horrified to find Buster the dog sitting at his feet with the plastic explosive mars bars intact , covered in slobber but still lit, blissfully wagging his tail in the game of fetch..
The second explosion ripped out the heart of the stadium.
Austin Healey had seen Tom Cruise ‘ War of the Worlds but didn’t expect that kind of ‘Mars Attacks’ as the blast for the third time that day separated his short Cruise-like body from his re-grown hair.
As the North Stand collapsed in a cloud of dust , it blocked out the sun sending parts of Tiger Bay into complete darkness.
The staff at the Brains brewery, who had mistakenly booked a hospitality box in the Cardiff Arms Park for the Six Nations game, suddenly cheered loudly, as they now had an uninterrupted view of the Millennium pitch.
The cheer was matched only from the WRU elite box, as they saw the stand that had been the subject of so much acrimony, between the Cardiff Rugby club and the WRU, suddenly disappear.
The cheer was short lived though and the subsequent aftershock of the stand collapsing sent a tremor through the unstable grass pallets causing a Mexican wave on the pitch never seen before.
Forward thinking Merthyr boys, Adam Jones and Robert Sidoli couldn’t work it out and tackled the rising grass pallets assuming that the English props were ‘boring in’ as usual.
The retractable roof mechanism kept buzzing and whirring as the computer controlled device , didn’t know if the roof should be covered or uncovered.
As Dwayne Pype ‘Brains employee of the month’ stood up in his hospitality box, he announced in a broad Cardiff accent...” Talk about painting it DARRRK , in Cardiff Arms PARRRK with a MARRS BARR!”
“ Actually, the correct saying is Brains DARRRRK in Cardiff Arms Parrrk!” claimed Pip O’Thalimus, Brains advertising executive, tasting a copyright infringement.
In the former North Stand, Jon Van Dole and Dean , both black-faced and hair sticking up at all angles , looked round for their missing pals.
“ It’s Garry’s round and he’s disappeared !” moaned Jon.
Stereophonic Richard Jones looked at his front man and laughed.
There were advantages to be out of the spotlight.
“ I bet your glad I got this celebrity debenture box now!”
Kelly Jones sat in shock minus he eyebrows burned off in the back-draft.
Shaking his head he turned to Tom Jones and said “ Mama told me not to come!....did you drop one of your sex-bombs?”
“ Look at you Kel... said Tom ....you look different somehow...like you v’e been on tour with Dowlais RFC! ”
Stuart Cable had also been affected by the blast as he had a dog collar in his normal nest of curly hair.
“ Have we changed labels...asked Richard Jones...from V2 VVR to ‘Buster’ Records?”
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No sooner had the smoke cleared, than the O’Sullivan Security Guards (Pant Division) were on them handcuffing Jon and Dean and dragging them away.
“ You wouldn’t do this if I was black!” shouted Dean.
Jon looked at the charcoal complexion on his friend and just laughed.
They had been through some hair-raising experiences but this was the biggest blast they had ever had.
As they were led to the Black Maria, they noticed the England Team Coach still ablaze..
“ Look ....a Chariot on Fire !” said Dean taking a slug from a Police baton for his trouble.
As they opened the door of the Police van, they could see that there was a ferocious Police Alsatian licking his lips, awaiting their arrival.
“ Do not put him in there with the dog....its not safe!” ordered Sergeant Grunt pointing at Dean.
“ For him or the dog!” laughed Jon in-between truncheon blows.
The Police also were bringing a handcuffed bald Austin Healey.
“ I bet you are behind this somehow!” snarled Healey at Dean.
“ What were you arrested for?” asked Jon.
“When the explosion happened my implants flew towards the Royal Box... landing on Prince William’s lap....talk about Hair to the throne....I am being charged with
‘un-common assault ‘ and attempted ‘Hair’ ssasination!”
“ That friend of your’s ...he was a sleeper!” declared Healey.
“ No wonder he never stayed awake for the last round!” said Jon struggling to stand up under the level of baton abuse.
High above the Millennium Stadium, Garry sat at the bottom of a series of white steps just above the clouds.
Buster sat (minus his collar) on his feet with him.
“ Are you going to get off my shoes or what?” asked Garry to the dog.
“ Yes...as soon as you say sorry for blowing us up!” replied the dog in perfect English.
“ Buster .......you can talk...!” said Garry somewhat surprised.
“ Talk....I have a higher IQ than all of you ....but on the Earthly Realm dogs
are n’t allowed to talk.
“ What Realm are we in now then?” asked Garry
“ We’ll judging by the piped music by Led Zeppelin....I think it is safe to assume we are on the Stairway to Heaven!” he replied.
“ We better get moving because there is a ‘Hell’ of a queue going down those red stairs” continued Garry.
As they approached the Pearly gates, Garry was worried about his chances of getting passed St Peter.
He had already turned away Charlton ‘Moses’ Heston and James Earl Jones.
“ Big Issue Sir...asked the Heavenly Street seller, until recently sat outside the Queen Street Train Station.
“ No change mate !“reply Garry which was for once true.
“ Don’t I know you?” asked the salesman.
“ No , No...No !” said Garry thrice hearing a cock crow in the background.
Watching Jade Goodie leaving the white path and heading South he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance.
“ I thought she was a certainty according to the media....but she has been voted out already!” moaned a worried looking Garry.
“ Buster Farrah - Evans....you say......declared St Peter...we’ve been expecting you...Disney’s Lady from Lady & the Tramp has some spaghetti waiting for you!”
“ See ...boasted Buster ...”told you ‘All dogs go to Heaven’ as he cocked his leg at the entrance.
“ Next!” shouted St Peter looking down at a tiny list in white and a massive list in red.
“ Garry Snary!”
After a few minutes checking St Peter announced he wasn’t on either list.
“ I better check with the Boss!”
Pressing the holy intercom...he summoned God in person.
“ Gotta Garry Snary here ...not on either list...any suggestions?” asked St Paul.
The black female voice of God could be heard checking with Mohammed, Allah and Eric Cantona before a booming voice decreed “ Have you tried under Suicide Bombers?”
“ Ah yes...thank you...you have been allocated to Virgin HQ!” said St Peter.
“ Which way....?” asked Garry feeling lost without Buster.
“ Follow the cloud layer, passed Purgatory over there and it will be sign-posted ‘Forum’ from there.
As Garry shuffled off his mortal coil , he headed towards the sign post.
“ Virgin HQ ...sounds promising...technically I am a suicide bomber ...the first Martyr of the Free Wales Army...!” he mused.
As he reached the white Vesta, at the Forum, he was on arrival offered Red Bull and Angel cake, to build up his strength for the eternity ahead.
He was shown into the Honeymoon suite by a little golden cherub.
The cherub insisted that it was a condition of the Heaven and Virgin flights, that he be tied to the white four poster water bed in case of ‘turbulence’.
He lay all four-limbs attached lightly by a silken scarf to each of the white marble String-fellow-esque bed-posts.
As he awaited , he wondered what Vestal Virgins would be sent to him.
A Pre- Vegas Britney Spears or perhaps a Disney nymphet like Smiley ‘Miley’ Cyrus, sweet sixteen and barely legal.
As each of the Vestal Virgins lowered their veils, Garry recoiled in horror.
Anne Widdicombe.... Susan Boyle from Britain’s Got Talent...Jo Brand and finally a bearded Richard Branson lookalike in drag.
“ Now that’s Virgin on the ridiculous!” screamed Garry as he was forcefully disrobed.
“ What did I do to be so punished...?” he asked God below.
“They are the ones being punished!” boomed Jah.
As Garry disappeared in a sea of white whales in search of Moby Dick , he suddenly realised he had joined a different Free Whales Army.
St David's of Wales Day Benefit Concert Celebrate the patron saint of Wales' day with the Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir and the Welsh Dragon Choir, as they sing traditional songs of Wales and other cultures. There will be music followed by dessert and a silent auction.
The concert is to raise funds for the Chamber Choir's trip to compete at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Wales in July 2019.
AmeriCymru: Hi Justin and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What can you tell us about the history of the Phoenix Choir?
Justin: The Portland Phoenix Choir is a new non-profit choral organization made up of two separate choirs - the auditioned Chamber Choir and the non-auditioned Choral Union. It's made up of students, faculty and community singers who used to perform as the Marylhurst University Choirs. Sadly, Marylhurst, where I served as Director of Choral Activities, unexpectedly closed last spring, leaving us all musically homeless. In a really touching gesture, the singers asked me if we could continue singing together - thus the Phoenix choirs were born, choosing as our name the well-known image of the mythical bird that resurrects itself from its own ashes. It's our Chamber Choir that is traveling to sing and compete in Wales this summer.
AmeriCymru: You will be performing at the Llangollen Festival in north Wales this year. Care to tell us more?
Justin: It's a huge honor even to be accepted to compete at the Llangollen Eisteddfod. It's know worldwide as one of the finest choral festivals on the planet, and this year they received over a hundred applications. We're competing in two categories against choirs from all over the world. The winning choir gets the title of Choir of the World and the Pavarotti Trophy (named after the famous singer), but in reality, we're just thrilled about the chance to hear so many exceptional groups from all over the world, as well as represent Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest and the United States on a highly visible global stage.
AmeriCymru: I guess transporting and accommodating a choir to an event like this is a massive logistical exercise. How are your plans proceeding thus far?
Justin: It's a logistical challenge, true - but it's a financial challenge above all. Since we're a non-profit that's literally six months old, and no longer have a university backing us up with their resources, raising the money to go is a tall order. Our singers are rich in musical talent but not so in financial resources. So we're looking for community partners interested in helping us represent the region and the world, as well as create ever stronger ties between Wales and the United States.
AmeriCymru: You have a fundraiser on March 1st here in Portland. Can you share the details?
Justin: Yes, we're very excited to collaborate with the Portland Dragon Choir, our city's fine Welsh chorus, on Friday March 1st. I'm sure I don't need to tell your readers that's St David's Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Wales. The music will feature Welsh favorites, storytelling, a silent auction, and our Chamber Choir singing the music we're taking to Llangollen. It's Friday, March 1st at St David's of Wales Church (of course!) in SE Portland, and tickets can be purchased online at wales.brownpapertickets.com.
AmeriCymru: How would you describe the choir's repertoire? Will you be performing any old Welsh choral favorites at Llangollen?
Justin: Our repertoire is quite eclectic; everything from sixteenth century polyphony, to challenging modern works, to African-American spirituals. En route to Llangollen, we're honored to be invited to sing two Evensong services at Christ Church in Oxford, so we're diving into that Anglican repertoire, too.
But we mainly want to celebrate Wales's incredible and beautiful choral singing tradition. We're currently learning "Calon Lan," so that we can be sure to please our Welsh audiences! We'll also be singing a Gymnafa Ganu in June at Bryn Seion Welsh Church, which looks like it will be terrific fun. Welsh is such a beautiful language, but quite difficult, so learning to sing it has been quite challenging!
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Justin: We cordially invite you to attend our St David's Day Benefit Concert on Friday March 1st, to celebrate Welsh-American friendship and the choral music, songs and storytelling of Wales, and help us get across the pond to represent America at the Llangollen Festival. More information can be found at wales.brownpapertickets.com or, if you use Facebook, here: https://www.facebook.com/events/313780339242497/
AmeriCymru spoke to author Peter Jordan about his new novel 'One Sprinkling Day'. The book, set in Wales, has been described as a novel of ideas and is currently available from Amazon - One Sprinkling Day
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Peter: Thank you for inviting me to. After finishing this book at long last I soon learned two things that surprised me. One was that in England the final judges in literary matters aren’t critics or professors or publishers, let alone writers, but literary agents. The other was that according to literary agents a novel is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, which you can tell them in a paragraph. I had, before this, read E.M. Forster’s words, ‘Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story’, which if you mistake the tone you might think were meant as an apology for novels in general or a justification of his own in particular. Really they were an ironic rebuke to any readers who felt that some of his contemporaries with no interest in story-telling had written better novels than he had. He may have been a friend of Virginia Woolf’s, we needn’t follow her in including him among the ‘modernists’. They themselves don’t seem so modern now, and they haven’t much in common, but none of them ever wrote a rattling good yarn. Neither did Forster, still a rattling yarn fits his idea of the novel, whereas their explorations of the inner life, their rendering of the actual quality of experience, their ‘non-linear’ kinds of construction (Proust’s ‘chessboard’ treatment of themes, for example), made Forster’s fiction seem old-fashioned.
Yet even to fiction much less conventional than his he could be responsive enough. It was his appreciation of The Leopard that got it its due even in Italy and in ‘the world of literature’, though we needn’t believe that all who hailed it then could really see any merit in it. I’m afraid that in a case like this or the earlier ‘Svevo affair’ many readers of the book only praise it because others are doing so.
Of course, novels that were hardly stories had been written before the modernists‘. (Already before Joyce, hadn’t even Firbank’s plots been pretty wispy?) I suppose most of the great novels that relate events (as Kidnapped does) rather than develop themes (as already Niels Lyhne does) were written in the 19th century, and one or two of them were by Flaubert, still Flaubert when he wrote most spontaneously produced Novembre, and ‘L’action y est nulle’. And it’s in an inner journey that all the interest of Loss and Gain lies, if Newman’s path to Rome does interest you. Going even further back, to the only work of fiction by the greatest English writer of the previous century, to Rasselas,—as Professor Hiller said, we don’t read Rasselas for the story. But no doubt it was from the turn of the 19th century on that the scope of fiction was seriously extended. So Jean Santeuil reveals the author’s hidden self, in Malte Laurids Brigge as in Hunger an alienated consciousness confronts a modern city, Giacomo Joyce like Niels Lyhne brings into fiction a strange poetic realism, The Last Summer offers a transcript of life,—but none of them tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. (Musil had begun to find his themes well before he began to write The Man Without Qualities, but Young Törless is a story of sorts, and whether or not The Man Without Qualities is a story, it only lacks an ending because Musil didn’t live to write one.) And although I have enjoyed Kidnapped more than all these books except Jean Santeuil, I don’t think it has enlarged my mind as they have.
In writing this novel of mine, however, I had no model. (I understand that after Joyce the plotless novel had a vogue, but I know Lawrence Durrell’s The Black Book and other examples only by name.) I was only concerned to find a form for what I had to say. So I hope I shan’t be blamed for not doing what I didn’t try to do, and I’m grateful to you for not asking me ‘what the story is’! I can though say that this is the story of a day, as the title indicates, and one kind of movement in the book is accordingly a forward movement from morning to night. But as life is being as well as doing, there is also an inward movement, through the main character’s memories and reflections.
Not that I have gone as far as Gissing did in Ryecroft, and thrown over action, plot, dialogue and even character-drawing. (Wasn’t an interest in character the mark of the novelist as Virginia Woolf saw it?) I didn’t set out to throw over any traditional elements. If One Sprinkling Day isn’t a novel of action neither is it merely a vehicle for ideas. The ideas are bound up with the characters (and it was the characters more than their ideas who interested the author). Thus ‘the choice of life’ (to borrow a phrase Johnson used for Rasselas’s original title) is variously illustrated by the inquirer’s new friend Sadie (a New Yorker abroad) and old friend Kay (a gay schoolmaster), by his host’s wife, daughter and stepson (an ambitious young historian), and chiefly by his father and his host himself (a former fugitive from Hitler’s Germany)—though in this way again the movement of the novel is not that of conventional narration but one of progressive disclosure, as these characters reveal themselves to the main character and so to the reader.
Although I had no theory of the novel, I did have an idea of what I was trying to write. Not a ‘guide for the perplexed’, which I was unqualified to write, but perhaps the vade-mecum Paul Crouch (the main character) had lacked—the book (as the publisher’s blurb was to say) he would have liked with him in the maze. So the readers I was hoping for were mostly ones who, like me, were unsatisfied with stories and wanted more food for thought than fiction generally supplies. But if at the same time I could provide a little light reading for readers with scientific and philosophical interests, I should be delighted.
Would the book be a novel? To say that Rasselas is an oriental apologue at least conveys some idea of it. To say that Rasselas (or Candide or Nightmare Abbey or On the Marble Cliffs) is not a novel only raises the question what a novel is. I thought the question unimportant (I have thought differently since: ‘What Is A Novel?’). What mattered to me was the idea of that ‘inquiry into some traditional perplexities’ (as I have called it elsewhere) pursued through the medium of literary fiction. As I wrote on, of course, it was borne in on me that if I wrote for twenty years I still shouldn’t have begun to treat these matters adequately. And yet when I somehow had got through it, I should have to go through it again, cutting all the way, until nothing unconnected with the fiction remained—which I did, so that now Paul Crouch’s inquiry takes up only eight chapters out of eighteen.
AmeriCymru: What is the Welsh background and context of the novel?
Peter: My connection with Wales dates from before I was born, and I owe it to my parents, if not to the Germans who bombed Somerset House when my parents were working there, so that they were evacuated to what was then Caernarvonshire, where they got married. That was still years before my birth, and meanwhile, after the war, they had moved back to London, but subsequently almost every summer they would return, taking me with them, to stay with the family they had been ‘billeted’ with.
Evidently the circumstances that had linked those Welsh and English lives were exceptional. And the following years were the last before the world was shrunk by cheap travel. But perhaps that western seaboard can still allure an English mind if it’s a young mind. For me what happened between my getting into a second-class railway-carriage as a ‘Passenger to Pendinas’ and getting out of it five hours later was a kind of magic, but not a mere conjuring-trick such as I might see at a children’s party—the evanishment or production or exchange of coloured silks or feather bouquets or doves or a giant snake. It was the exchange of one whole world for another—an exchange of bricks, soot, neon, petrol fumes, moving staircases, bronze horsemen, drinking-fountains and skysigns for sea, slate, gulls, granite, heather, anathoths, megaliths and cherryade.
I have written about the real place in my review of Anne Forrest’s book My Whole World. In One Sprinkling Day it’s fictionalized as Pendinas, the small seaside place in Paul Crouch’s thoughts as the novel and the day begin, and again as they end, when it’s also recalled by his host, who had found a refuge there. In between, in the central chapters, Paul takes a walk which is at once a walk in a maze (the maze of thought about the problems he’s taken up with), a walk in the past (the region’s and his own), and of course an actual walk through a Welsh landscape.
Yn ystod taith gerdded sydd ar yr un pryd yn daith gerdded mewn tirlun, yn y gorffennol, ac yn y ddrysfa o feddwl am rai gwendidau [perplexities] traddodiadol, mae myfyrdodau'r protagonydd a hunan-bortreadau sgwrsio ei ffrindiau yn rhyngddynt â darnau am y rhanbarth hanes, hanes naturiol a nodweddion naturiol.
So besides supplying a lot of the material of the novel, the Welsh dimension unifies the whole.
AmeriCymru: You have said, of 'One Sprinkling Day', that ‘The author’s excuse for it is that the basic questions science and religion offer answers to aren’t asked only by scientists and theologians.’ Do you think that the majority of people either do or should think philosophically?
Peter: I think most of us ask these questions on occasion, though we may not think about them then for very long. Is this to think philosophically? I suppose they can be thought about in different ways. But aren’t there also different ideas of what philosophical thinking is? Traditionally philosophers were ‘seekers after truth’, weren’t they, trying to ‘interpret’ the world (if not to change it), to understand our relation to it, and to determine how we ought to behave towards each other. But at the time when Paul Crouch was beginning to ask the basic questions I referred to, most English philosophers, or the most influential ones, weren’t concerned to know whether this or that statement about the world or about human nature or anything else was true, but just what it meant. Paul Crouch in One Sprinkling Day hasn’t begun studying the subject formally yet, so I can only speak about my own experience here. And the philosopher I have in mind wasn’t a linguistic philosopher. Still he liked to define his terms and to use words precisely—“We have a job to do and our tools must be sharp.”
So for example he explained that in the statement ‘Man is essentially social’, the term ‘social’ was purely descriptive, comprising both ‘sociable’ and ‘anti-social’. Similarly, to say ‘Man is a rational animal’, or ‘the rational animal’, wasn’t to deny that he’s often (or even usually) irrational—here man was contrasted with the non-human animals, and they aren’t irrational but non-rational. Again, ‘moral’ in the phrase ‘moral philosophy’ hadn’t the usual meaning of ‘good’ or ‘right’ (when its opposite is ‘immoral’), but meant ‘belonging to the field of morals’ (its opposite being ‘non-moral’).
And this was all very precise, still those statements about ‘Man’ weren’t exact, since human beings, whom they were meant to define, aren’t all male. (An obvious fact which, in producing such high-sounding and exclusive phrases, philosophers and theologians, if they hadn’t lost sight of it, chose to ignore.) As for the commending words themselves and their opposites—‘good’/‘bad’, ‘worthy’/‘unworthy’, etc.,—we went on to consider what agathos meant in Homer, which was not what it meant for Plato or Aristotle, much less of course what ‘morally good’ meant for us, and we noted that kalos, another word for ‘good’ or ‘worthy’, also meant ‘beautiful’, just as aiskros meant both ‘unworthy’ and ‘ugly’, and in due course we learned what ‘good’ and the rest meant for Hume, Kant, Mill and Moore. And I’m sure that by this, Paul Crouch in my place would have wanted to know whether we should never discuss any situations in actual life, any moral choices of our own, whether we mightn’t try to solve some problems, or at least, by analysis, dissolve them,—whether we would ever do any philosophy. But I know that the answer if he had asked would have been that philosophy was just what our teacher had been doing in explicating these terms and referring them one to another. The philosopher’s job wasn’t to understand the world, and it wasn’t to preach or lay down the law, it was to clarify our thinking. We might in consequence think differently, we might then act differently, we might even change our lives, so philosophy might, indirectly, contribute to changing the world, still its true function wasn’t to solve problems but to put them before us.
In speaking of his own philosophy, our teacher was distinguishing it from the one then in fashion, the practical uselessness of which according to him its champions were actually proud of. They even disliked definitions, preferring merely to analyse moral terms as commonly used, however trivial the examples. Still, he might declare that rather than ‘pedantic concern with everyday language’, his field was the ‘questioning of accepted moral rules and values’, the ‘criticism of conventional moral codes’,—the criticisms his students heard were all of his colleagues. And not only of the English-speaking ones. He also criticized his fellow academics in West Germany, ‘well-off professors leading comfortable lives while holding forth about Care, Dread and Being-towards-death’. What would have surprised Paul Crouch, he even found fault with that other continental existentialist, the thinker called Mancy in One Sprinkling Day, for holding that we each have to re-invent our ethics in every action. Wasn’t he himself the inventor of a ‘Creative Ethics’, whose ‘open-mindedness’ permitted him to ‘re-think his principles in the light of his practical experience’? Paul would have thought the Frenchman’s ethics, as a godless sort of ‘situationism’ (or casuistry as it used to be called), must be congenial to him.
Not that it was (or is?) unusual for a philosopher to disapprove of other philosophers. After all, the principal German existentialist had dissociated his philosophy from Mancy’s even though, or just because, Mancy’s owed so much to it. In fact he had dissociated it, as a philosophy of Being, from every philosophy of Existence, including that of the other great German existentialist of the day, who however regarded him as a metaphysician, while likewise rejecting the name of existentialist if Mancy was one. All these thinkers agreed, though, that the current Anglo-American philosophy—the main English-language philosophy of the century—was ‘irrelevant’, because it wasn’t lived (it hardly could be), so that its practitioners’ lives were ‘inauthentic’. To a mere student of the subject, the view of philosophy as a process of analysis might seem to link all the thinkers who shared it in a tradition going back at least to that ‘Art of Thinking’ which Pascal had contributed to (and Pascal had been just as particular about defining terms and concepts as our teacher). But if the analysts on their side agreed in charging the existentialists with conceptual confusion and false profundity, that didn’t mean they were generally at one. The great philosopher called Stern in One Sprinkling Day, who defended philosophical analysis himself, definitely shared their opinion of existentialism, both French and German—‘pure nonsense, based intellectually on errors of syntax and emotionally on exasperation’. And the ‘positivists’ among them had his sympathy. But as to the kind who thought that what should be analysed was language itself and that the wish to make sense of the world was an outdated folly, he was as scathing about them as about the existentialists—philosophy if they were right being ‘at best a slight help to lexicographers, at worst an idle tea-table amusement’.
I think then that Paul Crouch would have recognized, on our teacher’s part, an attitude reflected in almost every philosophy book he had read, where other ways of thinking were qualified as mere philosophizing, or not philosophy at all, or nonsense, whereas the author’s way of thinking was true philosophizing, what philosophy consisted in, what it really was—though naturally the author’s critics, and even followers in some cases, had completely failed to understand it. And I don’t think Paul Crouch would have been surprised (it was the same with Stern and Mancy) that a philosopher so severe on other philosophers should be even more severe on theologians. For our ethicist, all the assertions of ‘speculative metaphysics’ about immortal souls, a creator God, etc., were unfounded, because ‘immortal souls, like God, can’t be observed, and no observable differences would follow from their presence as compared with their absence’.
The last claim at least, which had a positivist ring, I think would have struck Paul as begging the question. And he would surely have noticed another thing. To this philosopher, explicating terms, not to mention re-thinking basic principles, was a valuable activity, just so was analysing concepts to Stern and the logical positivists, and scrutinizing ‘modern English usage’ to the linguistic philosophers. Yet they all despised the ‘re-thinking’ now being done by Anglican theologians, representing it as a way of making doctrines cease to be obviously false by rendering them meaningless.
Paul Crouch learns about this re-thinking from a retired clergyman, Dr Sprange, and he also learns what Dr Sprange thinks of philosophy, just as he learns from a Hindu holy man, Swami Satyanand, what the Swami thinks of it. Because we must certainly ‘hear the other side’, as St Augustine said. But your question relates to the Great Debate Paul Crouch was interested in, not directly to Paul Crouch himself—the debate I alluded to in the words you quote. So perhaps I may also recall, as representing another point of view in it, another person I had to do with myself. This will help me both to give a balanced answer and to illustrate further the feature of the debate that I think the most noteworthy—which is that every one of those different ways of philosophizing and transcending is reckoned by everybody who goes in for it to be the only one legitimate and worthwhile.
Although of another communion, the monk I now have in mind took the same view of philosophy, or of ‘philosophizing’, as Dr Sprange did, considering it likely to cause special difficulty for a person seeking faith—“Not because faith is incompatible with a genuine philosophy, indeed faith is the fulfilment of philosophy, but because the philosopher’s mind won’t find it easy to make that worshipful submission to the infinitely superior mind of God which faith involves.” I had gone to his monastery when living in the English Midlands and trying to get on with the inquiry that would eventually issue in this book. I was also then going through a period so barren that without seeing myself as a pilgrim, I couldn’t help wishing for a guide. Is it ever better to travel than to arrive? That must depend on the destination (Stevenson only says it’s better to travel hopefully), and in this department of inquiry you can’t be sure there is any destination. Pascal had his Lord say (this being the realm of paradox) ‘Comfort yourself, you would not seek me if you had not found me’, but Pascal was a believer. Anyhow, over the years I consulted a number of spiritual experts, among them that Trappist monk. Who told me plainly he doubted whether my inquiry would ever bring me much nearer the truth, though he ‘suspected the difficulty and even futility of it might be the means of my being drawn to approach the question of faith in a simpler and more direct way’.
At the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, the esoteric school set up near Fontainebleau in 1922, one of the wise sayings to be studied in the Study House was ‘Judge others by yourself and you will rarely be mistaken.’ (I heard another of those sayings once, at his flat in Kensington, from a man to whom the Christian doctrines were ‘empty formulas’, but who, having likewise swallowed a whole system of thought, didn’t lack ready-made answers of his own—only this one too, like the monk’s, wasn’t an answer to a question I had asked. I may add that to him as to all my experts, who saw themselves not as still seeking the truth but as having found it, the philosophizing of others was, in his master’s phrase, ‘pouring from the empty into the void.’) ‘Rarely mistaken’—the qualifying word was needed. If people who have made a lot of money judge poor people by themselves, they may well think them failures, though not everyone who is poor has tried to get rich or even wanted to. Because Dr Sprange valued faith, which he had, and which Paul Crouch had asked him about, he supposed Paul wanted faith. Not only that, because he himself asked things of God, he saw no reason why Paul shouldn’t ask faith or grace of Him. ‘Help thou my unbelief’ indeed, except that the man in the gospel said first (paradoxically enough), ‘Lord, I believe’. Paul didn’t want to believe by ignoring the facts against belief. And how can you settle any doubtful matter without looking into it? After listening to the abbot’s secretary, and much as I liked him, I felt as if I had been advised by Bishop Blougram. And had Paul actually asked a Being he didn’t believe in to help him believe in Him, he would have felt that his case gave Mancy’s term ‘bad faith’, which to him had meant nothing, a sense and an application.
Some people do say they wish they had faith, most of them I think fancying it gives comfort—as it may, though it may also give none even to the most devout (like Cowper, ‘snatch’d from all effectual aid’). But how in any case could a man of faith imagine inquiring about faith yet not desiring it if he hadn’t understood that for a person who doesn’t believe in God, God doesn’t exist? To Paul Crouch, who for his part couldn’t imagine a supreme being desiring his worshipful submission, to be told “Don’t close the door on God!” would certainly have seemed strange. For him to have called on God for help, to have acted as if he did believe in God, would have been a sham.
And yet his position wasn’t one of disbelief. In fact if an agnostic holds that whether God exists we neither know nor can know,—if the name means what Huxley seems to have meant by it in coining it, Paul wasn’t an agnostic. His position was one of unbelief. The old sceptical philosophers may have doubted whether real knowledge is possible, whether any facts can be certainly known, still to scepticize in the etymological sense is at least to ‘consider’ the facts, to ‘inquire’ into that possibility—to ‘seek’ after truth.
But not after ‘the truth‘, so such an inquiry can’t be futile as the monk had conceived it to be—not being an attempt to acquire faith—, and what he had said about it was no discouragement.
AmeriCymru: What's next for Peter Jordan? Any new works in the pipeline?
Peter: A book literary agents would think worth reading would be next for me, if I could think it worth writing.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Peter: I set One Sprinkling Day in Wales because to pay a debt to Wales was one of my aims in writing it. But I hope it will interest AmeriCymru readers for other reasons as well, and I’m much obliged to AmeriCymru for the opportunity to speak about it.
AmeriCymru: Hi Philip, and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. When did you first start writing? What inspired you to write the many tales of 'everyday' life in Merthyr that have entertained and amused many visitors to this site over the years?
Philip: A) It was around 1967 and my first writing was like the Egyptian hieroglyphics at Tutankhamun’s tomb- unfortunately it was my parent’s new wallpaper in indelible marker pen-it didn’t make any sense to anyone, but I was aged 3 and I am now 54 but I am still not making much sense.
B) The local newspaper – the Merthyr Express (the Depress)- in a backwoods Town (not backwards)- there is very little news worthy items for a reporter to produce- so I created aliases such as Lamby Davis Junior, Sue Ellen Eweing and Colt Seevers to liven up the letters page and parody the news items that were included. The first few got through but then they I was rumbled and my game was up. The local librarian, Carolyn Jacob spotted my ‘talent’ and asked me to write a story for a local book called ‘My Town’ in which professional writer Phil Caradice selected the story ‘Cliffhanger’ about Gerry Mander a disgraced MP, which I had to read out an extract in the Council Chamber- people were in stitches and the genie was out of the bottle . No matter how many times I wish he won’t go back in.
C) Inspiration is everywhere in the Valleys, Welsh people have a distinct black sense of humour- we can laugh at ourselves- something those across the bridge have extracted at birth-we have a we’ve lost until we have won-but once we have won- boy do we enjoy the moment!
AmeriCymru: A quote from one of your recent stories:- "In a recession there is only one growth industry and that is gambling and Merthyr Tydfil had been in recession for over 200 years now." Care to tell us a little more about Merthyr's recent history? Why do you think the town has fared so badly in economic and employment terms?
Philip: Alexander Cordell sums it up in one book title- ‘The Rape of the Fair Country’, Merthyr was exploited by the English Ironmasters and has been a ‘Rotten Borough’ ever since. It has been forgotten by successive Governments in Westminster – with the continual brain drain it has for the last 200 years been in perpetual recession and with capitalists preferring to take their factories and sweatshops to Asia and beyond- there is zero opportunity for the unskilled to find meaningful employment with the inevitable loss of the work ethic. Poor people chase the dream of becoming ‘scratch-card rich’ or idolise reality show ‘stars’ – it is so sad. Although conversely with the loss of heavy industry and the export of it’s unintentional by- product of pollution to China, there are echoes of Wales two Centuries ago- and a new question raises it’s head, How Green IS my Valley?
AmeriCymru: Do you write anything other than comedy? Are there any special difficulties when writing humorous stories? I guess it's essential to be funny at a bare minimum but how does the creative process differ?
Philip: A) Comedy is my bitch. I write for my own pleasure ( I laugh a lot of my own jokes) the purpose is a cathartic and once I have written the story and I have exorcised the demon of stress. Whilst my comedy shorts (not the Don Estelle ones) come and go, once I have written them they are forgotten. More recently (last 5 or so years) I write comedy football match reports on my local Non-League team, Merthyr Town, which I post on the Merthyr Town Fans Forum fortnightly, they rarely reflect the actual game but cheer people up. Opposing Teams have included my match reports in their programmes (the ultimate accolade) or retweet them to their fans- one match report was on a postponed match due to a frozen pitch but few people noticed such was their laughter.
B) Humour is very subjective- I would hate to offend any one person but I don’t agree with political correctness…for something to be funny it must be on the edge, celebrities put themselves in a position to be lampooned….but every celebrity that I have made laugh on Twitter which includes Ricky Gervais, Rob Schneider, Richard E Grant, Warwick Davis and the legendary Reg D Hunter are real good sports.
C) If I can make one person a day smile or forget their troubles then I have won. My readers in the past have complained that people think they are mad reading one of books poolside on holiday- for spontaneously bursting out in laughter- people have referred to my stories as ‘hilarious’ ‘hysterical’ , ‘zany’ and on occasion ‘pure genius’ and ‘criminal’ (Their words, not mine) - I have one even ruined one reader’s kitchen ceiling from her overweight husband reading a book in the bathtub, caused an injury off a sunbed and had a 90 year old Granny lock herself in the bedroom to finish a book in peace.
AmeriCymru: Where do you draw inspiration for the individual stories? Do they spring from overheard conversations, newspaper articles etc or are they simply inspired products of the authorial imagination?
Philip: Like my predecessor the late great Charles Dickens, I am a social commentator- I even pinched his pseudonym ‘Boz’ – he doesn’t need it as he is DEAD- just like Dickens I am a lawyer by profession- the same Dickensian characters exist today – albeit morphed into different people- inspiration comes from colourful characters- we all know them- in our minds eye, we see who we want to see in the leading role- the key is making the story almost believable – that it COULD happen – reading is the ultimate escapism and rich or poor can enjoy it in equal measures- I have been likened in style on more than occasion to Tom Sharpe (In Welsh-Dai Blunt?)- and of course a warped mind is essential.
AmeriCymru: Do you have any favorites amongst your stories or any that you are particularly proud of? If so , which ones.
Philip: The Ex-Files (My Boss gets caught dogging), Mass Murder (A Catholic Priest goes nuts), Chariots on Fire (Millenium Edition) – the only time you are allowed to be legally racist in Wales- the Wales v England Rugby Match-I particularly loved this one as BBC Comedian and genius Boyd Clack of High Hopes & Satellite City Fame did me the honour of reading it aloud in a local Rhymney Brewery public house- the Winchester- just like the beer and the tale he is pure class, - Big Top ( A local disabled child runs away to the circus) , A Knight at the Museum (Rolf Harris’ painting comes alive at Cyfarthfa Castle Art Gallery) and the ‘Raj Quartet’- four stories about the Royal Family – Harry’s Game (Set in Afghanistan) , Stuck Up – a Prince is Born at the Queen Camilla Hospital- The Royal Wee (HM stuck in a lift) and How Very Troll (Twitter gets a Royal Assent)- unlike Sir Rolf or Sir Jimi I am not likely to get a knighthood.
AmeriCymru: How many stories have you written in total and where can the connoisseur go to read them all?
Philip: Last Count 223 complete – one in its embryonic stages- they are only a limited edition- I produce five of each volume purely for close friends- the only places to go will be the Americymru Website and occasionally on the Merthyr Town Fc Fans Forum.
AmeriCymru: Do you have any publications currently available? Do you plan to publish in the future?
Philip: No- I had a free venture with a book called ‘The Hills have Dai’s’ a few years ago – on a ‘vanity’ publishing company based in Austria- it outsold Mein Kampf but it struggled a bit. I plan to publish Volume 45 called ‘Obese City’ for my friends in Wales and the ex-pats across the Pond. Past volumes have reached Italy, Australia and Canada and Rheola market, Neath Car Boot Sale- one day I hope to emulate JRR Hartley – I wonder if Fly Fishing is still an offence.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Philip: In Merthyr, our perceived life expectancy is shorter than Sierra Leone (Source: the Sun newspaper) , if a Tydfilian reaches 50 years of age we get a telegram from the Queen- so the message is don’t buy the Sun ….oh and that life’s too short not to laugh- and thanks to Ceri Shaw and Gaabi on Americymru, the World can now laugh with you.
