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Hi to everyone over the Atlantic

Have just done something completely mad this weekend and we've bought a little narrowboat on the Welsh Canal near Abergavenny - the Canal is a 35 mile stretch of beautiful waterway from Brecon down to Pontypool and she is moored at a Farm with about 10 or so other boats. The canal is full of wildlife including a lot of sheep and lambs watching us and is absolutely idyllic.

Can't wait till a week's time when we take her out for our first 'cruise'!

Will let you know how it goes......

Has anyone in the States been along this canal at all?

From the Cardiff Girlie

The Boer has landed.The Zulu and Dutch farming stock have dared to set foot on God's own once again. I take this as akin to planting their flag on my front lawn. INVICTUS MY DERRIERRE.Back in the days when men were men and assegai were returned in the best possible manner - at the end of a bayonet - your Sarth African was a reasonable chap. As a friend of mine Lord Chelmsford once said "The only good Boer is a dead Zulu". But then that was in the days of Iswandlhana when we rused the entire Zulu nation into a trap. Only lost some 1200 men but showed them some stuff at Rorke's Drift where the Taff masquerading as soldiers did the English Empire proud.Once knew a gal from Natal called, oddly enough, Tierra del Veldt who could knock a man's balls out of the stadia she played to. Er! That's just not er cricket. Coming dear.QWT

BOND join Llangollen Eisteddfod to celebrate the new Pavilion roof with a 5000 balloon release and ticket give-away To celebrate the Llangollen Pavilions new roof, this Thursday, 10 th of June, the most popular and sexy string Quartet in the history of the Music industry BOND will be on the Llangollen festival field to release 5000 numbered balloons into the air for a free ticket give away. Anyone lucky enough to find a numbered bio-degradable balloon in their garden they can check if its a winning number on the festival's website www.llangollen2010.co.uk and claim free tickets for the evening concerts. Join us at 2pm - everyone is welcome! Royal International Pavilion, Abbey Road, Llangollen, Denbighshire. LL20 8SW

I am the co-administrator for an exciting Genetic Genealogy project called the Wales-Cymru DNA project.

We are tracking down the various types of Y-DNA (male) and mtDNA (female) DNA that existed in Wales.

How does this testing work?

We recruit men and women from all over the world who have traced their ancestry back to the country of Wales. For a man, he needs to have traced his direct paternal ancestor--that means his father's father's father (etc.) back to Wales.

Y-DNA is what makes a male a male. Every man who has sons passes his Y-DNA to them. "Markers" on the Y-DNA remain unchanged for many, many hundreds of years. This means that a Welsh man who lived in the 1200s would have the same Y-DNA as all his direct male descendants! This makes Y-DNA testing very useful for genealogy. So, a man who has traced his line back to Wales takes the Y-DNA test. It is very easy and just involves swabbing the inside of the cheek and mailing it in to the lab. The lab has no personal information about the man; just the kit number. The Y-DNA information is published on our Wales Cymru DNA site. Again, this is private; the person's address, phone, email, etc. are NOT published. The man is given his own personal page to track his DNA results as well as men who match up with him. If a man matches him, then that means that share the same direct paternal ancestor!

Both men and women can take the mtDNA test. A mother gives mtDNA to all her children. Her sons cannot pass along her mtDNA, but her daughters can pass it along. So, anyone testing their mtDNA would be testing their direct maternal line--their mother's mother's mother (etc.). We do not have that many people in our project who have traced their mtDNA back to Wales.

We have over 400 members in the project, but not all of them have traced their line back to Wales. In the early days of the project we allowed anyone to join. Now we only allow those who have actually traced their DNA ancestor back to Wales, or have a surname with a Welsh origin (such as Meredith).

We sort our project members by their DNA "haplogroup". Both Y-DNA and mtDNA can be grouped into something called haplogroups. Some groups are younger than others. They all descend from the oldest haplogroup that came out of Africa. For the purposes of our project, we are interested in which haplogroups dominate in Wales, and which are rare. Each haplogroup has its own origin. For example, the G haplogroup is rare in Wales, and may have been brought in by the Roman soldiers. The R haplogroup is very common, and was probably brought in by the Celtic people. The I haplogroup is fairly common, and may have been the original haplogroup in Wales before the Celts came!

We would love to have more people join our important research project. Please take a look at our website (be sure to click on each tab), and ask me if you have any questions!

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/WalesDNA/default.aspx

Susan

The Welsh-Argentine Duo consists of Welsh guitarist Adam Khan and Argentine guitarist Luis Orias Diz. The duo first met in Portugal in the mid nineties while taking master classes with Cuban composer guitarist Leo Brouwer. It was not until 2006 when the opportunity arose to record Brouwers complete works for guitar duo for Argentine record label Pairecords that they decided to work together as a duo. Argentina and Wales have strong links and this has become the centre point for the duos activities; there are large Welsh colonies in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina formed by Welsh immigrants in the late 1800s who were looking to find a place to keep their language and traditions alive. To this day Welsh is spoken in many areas of Patagonia . The duo is exploring the musical heritage of both countries and performs works from the folk traditions as well as pieces by living composers from Wales and Argentina. New Album Voyage To Patagonia out now! Tour Dates 14 July : Emmannuel United Reform Church, Trumpington st. Cambridge 1pm. 15 July: Ewenni Priory,Nr Bridgend, Wales , 7.30 pm 16 July: All Saints, Weston-Super Mare, 7:45 pm 17 July: Swansea latin american society. 7.30pm 22 July: THE KING OF HEARTS, FYE BRIDGE ST, NORWICH, 7. 30 pm. TEL.01603766129 23 July: Salem Chapel Arts Centre, Hay on Wye, 7.30 pm 24 July: Y Tabernacal Arts Centre, Machynlleth, Wales 7.30pm 27 July: Burnetts Hill Chapel, lawrenney, Pembrokeshire. 7.30pm 29 July: Galeri, Caernafon, North Wales, 2pm 30 July: Ystradgynlais Miners Welfare Hall, Upper Swansea Valley, 7.30pm 1 August: Libresso (Kln-Germany) 6 August: National Eisteddfod Show Ground, Ebbw Vale, Main Stage at 11am & 4 pm (Wales) Find more music like this on Americymru

...the winner of our 'Onward And Upwards' giveaway competition is Les H of Monmouth, South Wales, UK who will be receiving his CD shortly. If you didn't win this time round why not try our new competitions? Win a signed copy of Harrison Solow's superb 'Felicity And Barbara Pym'....go HERE Win a copy of 'Always The Love of Someone' by Huw Lawrence go.... HERE Both books are reviewed on the competition pages. Pob Lwc/Best of Luck

This book is a delight to read though perhaps somewhat harder to review since It defies easy classification. The work is epistolary in form, though the epistles in this case are digital since we are presented with a series of emails written by an advisor to her student. The student has an assignment on English writer Barbara Pym to complete and she is not entirely happy about it. She complains that 'nothing happens' in Pym's novels, a common charge brought against a wide range of authors by novice literature students. I have heard this complaint advanced against Jane Austen, M.R. James and a host of others in my own classroom experience, indeed against anyone who does not include the Hollywood triptych of 'bonk, car chase and gunfight' in their narratives. In the course of explaining what does happen in Barbara Pym's novels her tutor, Mallory Cooper illuminates an entire era of British social history and references a wealth of literary sources and resources which cumulatively bring the author , her world and her novels vividly into focus. If Barbara Pym was not formerly on my 'to read' list then she is now. Of course the book is much more than an explication of Barbara Pym. It attempts to answer the question:- "Why read literature?" and offers conclusions which are the fruits of Ms Solow's (soon to be Dr. Solow) many decades of literary study and experience as a practicing writer. All in all this is a book for anyone who cares about literature and wants to advance their knowledge of it. It provides , perhaps surprisingly for a work which is so very scholarly in tone and content, a thoroughly engaging and engrossing reading experience. An unreservedly recommended title from a masterful writer. Buy 'Felicity And Barbara Pym' HERE Read our interview with Harrison Solow HERE Win A Signed Copy of 'Felicity And Barbara Pym' Here at Americymru we like to give things away! This month we are offering an autographed copy of ''Felicity And Barbara Pym' . All you have to do is answer the three following questions and email your answers to :- americymrucontest@gmail.com The deadline for entries is August 1st 2010 and the lucky winner will be announced on the site on July 2nd. Please remember that we will only accept one entry per email address and duplicate submissions will be disqualified. So........fire up the Wikipedia and answer these questions to win the prize:- 1. In which English town was Barbara Pym born? 2. In which international Institute in London did Pym work for several years? 3. Barbara Pym's first novel in 1950 was titled 'Some Tame ......." ( Fill in the blank )? Pob lwc/Best of luck Comment on Harrison's AmeriCymru page HERE. Review by Ceri Shaw Email

Ceri: How did you get into acting and theater? Jonny: Basically I was in a band in the mid 90's called The Pocket Devils. We became quite well known on the live circuit especially in Wales where we did quite a bit of TV. There was a drama series starting in my home town of Merthyr Tydfil called 'Nuts and Bolts'. The casting director at ITV Wales had seen me in this band and approached me about auditioning for a part in the series (the Character was called 'Richey' and in a band you see?). Anyway many weeks and screen tests later I got the part. From there I got an agent and parts in other series. So, you could say there was a bit of luck! Ha. Ceri: You won a BAFTA Cymru, Gwyn Alf Williams Award in 2006 for your part in the making of documentary "The Aberfan Disaster". Care to tell us a bit about that experience? Jonny: Yes of course. The town where I come from, Merthyr Tydfil, has a small mining village just outside where tragically a Coal Tip fell onto the Primary School and surrounding streets in 1966. The 'disaster' was seen by millions world wide as over a hundred school children and local people were killed. My Father worked at one of the local Mines at the time and was one of the first on the scene to help with the rescue and clear up. Forty years later I was working at ITV Wales as an Assistant Producer in the Factual dept as well as acting. They said they were doing a documentary in conjunction with S4C and SKY about the disaster. They asked would I like to work on the program. Now being from Merthyr I was acutely aware of how sensitive the subject was and how poorly the people had been treated by the Coal Board and Government after the disaster so I said that I would only be involved if we could tell the truth about how appalling the disaster was for the people of the village both during and after. They not only agreed but wanted to go down that path too. So we did just that. We were pretty scathing of the Govt of the time but felt justified when the people of the village thanked us afterwards for telling the real story. That meant more than anything. That year it seemed Bafta Cymru also agreed and gave us the special 'Gwyn Alf Williams' award for program of Historical significance. Ceri: You've starred in a number of critically acclaimed films. Care to tell us a little about your roles in two of them:- "Little White Lies" and "Good Arrows"? Jonny: Little White Lies was about a family torn apart by racism. There is a lot of tension in the UK about immigration. Wrongly people seem to think it's a threat. The truth of the matter is that the UK would pretty much stop functioning without the work done by people from across the UK. LWL tells the dark tale of a Welsh lad who gets into right wing politics with tragic results. It was a difficult role to play but also important and the film carried a good anti racist message. Good Arrows was about a Darts player who has fallen on hard times. He also finds out his wife has been financially bleeding him dry. It's a comedy but also is a sad story about people's obsession with celebrity. Ceri: How did you come to be involved in A Bit of Tom Jones ? What do you think about the final film? Jonny: I was cast by the Director/Writer Peter Watkins Hughes. Years ago (On Nuts and Bolts) he told me Roger (my co star) that he would write a film for us one day..and he was as good as his word. It was as simple as that really. I think it's what it is. Just a funny film. A bit like a cross between Monty Python and the Carry on films in the UK. I just thought it was gonna be another film that went to DVD I didn't expect it to become a Box Office smash in the UK and win a Bafta Cymru for best film. That's a nice bonus obviously! Ceri: The response to the film has been very positive in Wales, how do you think it will do outside the country? Jonny: I think it'll be cool. They love Python in the States and Japan and it's of that ilk. You know, you cant make things for people's taste, I don't think anyway. That way you just end up chasing your tail. I think you make what you think is funny and then if someone liked it then fantastic, but trying to second guess is pointless. It may need subtitles in the US for my accent mind..;-) Ceri: You created and star in the internet series, "Svengali," which can be seen on youtube, what can you tell us about that? How did that come about and what are your plans for this? Jonny: It was an idea between me, Dean Cavanagh and Phil John. We just wanted to do something based on the music industry where (we believe) there is a lot of room for comedy, after all it's the only industry where bad behaviour is encouraged, and that's ripe for parody. We filmed some short Ep's and put them on the net and people loved it. We've been approached by some TV Production companies and Broadcasters who are interested but at the moment we are gonna keep making them as they are as we have complete control, which is great. The main character is Dixie and is based loosely on the manager of my old band The Pocket Devils. I also want to bring in his American partner Bobby Poe who I want Jack Black to play. I must get him the Ep's actually.. Ceri: What's next for your professionally? Jonny: A follow up to A bit of Tom Jones called Wales v's Uranus. We are pretty fed up that only the Americans get to take on Alien Invasions so we fancy having a pop ourselves... Filming later this year. I'm back on Shameless for Channel 4 again this summer. Ceri: On your MySpace page, you cite the following quote from Aneurin Bevan as your inspiration:- "You know what happens to people who stand in the middle of the road don't you? They get knocked down....". Is it the quotation or the man himself that inspires you? Jonny: Yes but more Nye himself really. Astonishing man who left an incedible legacy. We are very proud of our universal health care system in the UK, the fact that treats you equally, whether you are rich or poor. Nye was the founder of this and Welsh too. He was voted 'The Greatest' ever Welshman in newspaper polls in 2000. I have to say I agree with that too! Ceri: You are known to be a big Cardiff city supporter? What did you think of their performance this season? Jonny: It was a disapointing end to the season...but we have new backers now and I fancy we'll go that one better next year. It would be fantastic to get a Welsh club into the English Premiership as it has such a worldwide profile...I'm sure we will next year. Ceri: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru? Jonny: Just to say 'Hi and Diolch for asking me to be interviewed. There'll always be a welcome in the 'Old Country' for you all and I'd love to drop by to see you all sometime soon. Find more videos like this on Americymru Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

Laura and I have decided on the final drawing for the Left Coast Eisteddfod Lovespoon and here it is!

We very much hope that you like what you see and that you will be inspired to donate to the cause! Remember - every dollar donated to the Left Coast Eisteddfod can translate to a chance to win this spoon!

This week we both wanted to write sections of the blog, so I am writing in regular font and Laura is in italic... a clear way to know who is saying what and sort of a symbolic way of summing up the main fund-raising purpose of this spoon! We do urge you to become involved with the Eisteddfod, either as a donor or as a participant in one of the many on-line and on-site competitions!

Both Laura and I have very much enjoyed the challenge of designing this year's spoon together and are now looking forward to figuring out how the hell the two of us will carve it! Given that we live several thousand kilometres away from each other, getting all this sorted out will be a bit of a feat! But right now, it is important to explain what this particular spoon is all about and so I'll turn things over to Laura! - Dave

When I talk with people about Welsh Lovespoons, I always emphasize that one of the most important things is the message it sends - the general "rule" is, its symbolism must be meaningful to both the giver and the recipient. So, while it's ideal to have a specific recipient in mind when we design a spoon, we don't always have that.

In the case of this Left Coast Eisteddfod spoon, we would assume the recipient will share an interest in Americymru's idea "for Americans (and others!) of Welsh descent to celebrate their heritage and deepen their knowledge of the rich fund of Welsh History, Folklore and Legend." Throughout the design process, we've been thinking of this, along with the theme of "two" and the aim to represent both carvers, and our cooperation.

Dave sent over a few last changes - some leaves to go with the daffodils, a correction from under to over in some of the weaving at the top, and an adjustment to the top of the knotwork to better match the taper of the spoon, and the angles of the vines above. When I look at the design now, I feel like we've accomplished exactly what we intended, and the design finally feels complete. I see Welsh and American heritage represented, I see parts that are very "Dave" and parts that are very "Laura", and, in the daffodils, I see a blend of both of us, and will see it even more when each of us carves one. And throughout the process, I know I really enjoyed the back-and-forth consideration and inspiration in the collaborative design process. And now there are the next steps!

We've already been discussing wood selection. We considered some maple Dave had, and some myrtle I had, but neither seemed quite right. Then, Dave suggested some birch he has.

I have never carved in birch, but Dave's description of it sounds like it is wonderful to carve! I believe the word that really sold me was "buttery" - which is one of the biggest things a carver ever wants in wood. It also looks like it has a lovely, glowing color to it, that would suit our design beautifully. I think we may have selected our wood! The next step, I suppose, will be transferring the design to the wood, in its proper scale. We have been thinking about 17" for the length of the spoon: a manageable size for drawing, and for shipping. And then, on to the cutting! How do two people cut out a design? do we really need to split that step? Hmmmm.... I wonder what Dave thinks! - Laura

Dave thinks the guy with the birch and the saw gets to do the cutting!
Laura thinks that's fabulous! I suspect Dave is far superior at sawing.

Below, I'll attach a series of the design pictures, as we thought it might be interesting to see the progression all in one place... With a darkened version of the final design at the end