Blogs

Amazon UK needs a lesson in Welsh Geography!


By mona everett, 2010-12-10
LOL! Someone should let Amazon UK know where Holyhead is and what the Menai Straits are for! I just ordered a gift for a friend in Holyhead (definitely Anglesey, NOT Gwynedd) and got this message from Amazon UK before they would process my order. I stuck to my guns and had it sent to the proper county! (I've x'd out the personal info.)
Verify your delivery addressmona everett, there's a problem with the address provided - we've marked our suggestions in red below. Please choose which version of the address you want to use, or click Edit next to the address you want to change.
Select an address from these alternatives:
Original address:Gxx Lxxx, xxx Lxxx Road, Holyhead, Anglesey, LL65 2RB, United Kingdom

Suggested Address:Gxx Lxxx, xxx Loxxx Road, HOLYHEAD, Gwynedd , LL65 2RB, United Kingdom
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New Album "Lilium"


By Siobhan Owen, 2010-12-10

My new album "Lilium" is now available to purchase online from my website at www.siobhanowen.com

My Previous albums "Celestial Echoes" and "Purely Celtic" also still available. (See website for details)

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From Philanthropy Today:

December 9, 2010, 11:54 am

Britains top arts official announced on Wednesday a five-year, $120-million government fund to match private gifts to cultural organizations, Bloomberg writes.

The move comes as Britains government starts a review of its policies on promoting philanthropy with a goal of encouraging the countrys wealthy to give away 10 percent of their assets.

Jeremy Hunt, Britains culture secretary, said the funds goal was not to substitute for sweeping cuts in government arts grants or to import a U.S. model wholesale into the U.K. But, he added, Surely we must ask ourselves what we can learn from America, where per-capita cultural giving is six times that of Britain.

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HOLIDAY EATING TIPS


By mona everett, 2010-12-10

A Public Service Announcement (pay attention)

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare.. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It will soon be Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat. 4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog. (Actually, all that circling and carrying sounds suspiciously like exercise.)
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again. 8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, please, have some standards! 10. One final tip: Wear sweatpants/loose fitting clothing. If you are leaving the party and you can walk without help from a construction forklift, "you haven't been paying attention, people!" Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body (no worries THERE!), but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate and wine/whisky/beer (or all 3) in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
Have a great holiday season!!

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NAFOW 2011 HOTEL INFO!


By mona everett, 2010-12-10


2011 North American Festival of Wales, including the 80th National Welsh Gymanfa Ganu
September 1st - 4th
Cleveland, Ohio
Stay at the Festival Headquarters
Crowne Plaza Hotel Cleveland City Centre
777 St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114

Reserve Your Accommodations now!
Take advantage of our special NAFOW room rates and amenities.
Single and double rates are $115.00 + tax per night;
Triples are $129.00 + tax/night;
Quads are $139.00 + tax/night.
All rooms are Non Smoking
Some wheelchair accessible rooms available.
Free in-room wi-fi for Festival goers
Reduced parking of $10/day (normally $18/day) when their rooms are reserved as above.
Extend your stay! These special room rates are offered from August 26th thru September 9th
(with check-out on Sept. 10th) as long as rooms are available.
Make your room reservations early.
To reserve on-line click here ; or call toll-free 1-877-208-2519
and mention Festival of Wales or use the code WNQ

Remember, when you choose to stay at the Festival hotel you will be in the middle of the
action and are helping the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu Association meet its
contractual obligation to fill the room block specially reserved for all festival attendees.

More info will be posted with regular updates at:
http://www.nafow.org


If you experience any difficulty making a room reservation, please contact
president@wngga.org for assistance.

Read more: http://americymru.ning.com/events/north-american-festival-of#ixzz17fFRRMgX

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A new law to promote the Welsh language has been unanimously passed by the Welsh Assembly.

The measure makes Welsh an official language in Wales, and obliges public bodies and some private companies to provide services in it. ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-11934239 )

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Yes, Our dogs celebrate all the holidays!


By mona everett, 2010-12-09

Please "like" our photo here: ! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1923311&id=1275731595# !/pages/Tabby-Jacks/174180668626 We might win something!

Thanks!

Also, note the 3rd dachshund has a solidly-Welsh name (that just happens to rhyme with the American pronounciation of "dachshund". :)

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

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T racing the history of Llanidloes Cricket Club over a forty-year period, The Daffodils who play in Whites is a book full of cricketing stories about the many and varied characters who graced the scene at this small-town club. The adventures of numerous players, such as Dessie, The Loony and Squareman have been recorded for posterity for future generations.

As the authors explain, This book will attempt to trace the development of a cricket club in a small mid Wales town, from its humble beginnings, playing on little more than a hay field into a thriving club with facilities good enough to play host to County Cricket Clubs and even test match standard players. Unlike typical cricket books, this one is very short on facts and figures instead it is more a tribute to the many and varied characters who lived and contributed to the sporting life of the town.

Indeed, there are very many amusing stories and anecdotes within the pages of this book, which will strike a chord with weekend-playing club cricketers up and down the land.

Byron Hughes and Lyn Meredith are both former Welsh International footballers and retired schoolmasters. Both have been ever-present playing members of Llanidloes Cricket Club for four decades.

This book is published by Y Lolfa and priced at 6.95. It was launched at Llanidloes Football Club on Friday 3 December 2010.
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There has some awful news recently about the University of Wales Press, which is facing some detrimental cuts. Basically the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) has announced that no longer will it fund publication in the Welsh language or about Welsh culture. This policy seems at best, a mistake, and at worst, racist.

Here is what the scholar Kirsti Bohata says about it:

Without a viable source of funding for academic publishing in Wales, Welsh Studies that is scholarship about Wales and scholarship in the Welsh language will be in an untenable position. It will be unable to perform in the Research Evaluation Framework (REF) and unable to take its place on an international platform. In order to understand its culture, interrogate its past and build a meaningful future, Wales needs its researchers and teachers. Without a means to circulate research, scholarship and teaching will fade and die.

Welsh scholars, however, have set up a facebook group with information to protest against the cuts. Here is what it advises:

WRITE TO HEFCW AND THE WELSH ASSEMBLY
The key issues involved in this issue are outlined below and we hope that as many people as possible will call for a reversal of HEFCWs decision.
We suggest that you write to the following (contact details are given at the end of this document).
Mr Roger Thomas, Chair of HEFCW Council
Professor Philip Gummett, Chief Executive of HEFCW
Leighton Andrews, Minister for Children, Education and Lifelong Learning in the Welsh Assembly Government
Your constituency AM
Your list AM
Your MP
A list of Council Members of HEFCW is given in a separate doc, do write to any you know personally.

We suggest that your letters to HEFCW ask that the full Council be shown your correspondence.

The group also lists issues of importance that you might find useful in writing your letter.

1. The grant money that used to go straight to the press will now be in the hands of university bureaucrats
The HEFCW Publications Grant has funded about 15 titles a year since 1999. It served (in HEFCWs own words) to boost research in Wales; to boost the standing of higher education and of higher education institutions in Wales; to fulfil the Councils objectives in relation to Welsh language and culture, particularly in relation to scholarship in these areas (from Criteria for the use of the HEFCW Grant). From now on, however, HEFCW proposes that these funds will be distributed to individual universities, which can then allocate funding for such publications if they consider that publication of the kind hitherto supported by the HEFCW Publication Fund is an academic priority for them (from HEFCW letter to UWP).

2. Why the new funding structure won't work
In the short term, with the REF just around the corner, individual universities might allocate some funds towards Welsh publications. However, there seems little chance that this will be sustained. In the longer term, this money (which is not ringfenced) is likely to be used for other purposes. Welsh scholarship will be seriously damaged as a consequence.
The new funding system replaces the block grant paid directly to UWP with a piecemeal system. This will leave UWP with considerably reduced editorial control, as it will increasingly have to make decisions based on funding attached to titles rather than on their intrinsic quality. This will undermine the planning and sustainability of key series.
Funds may not be allocated to the universities which are producing the best Welsh scholarship in any one year. Moreover, significant work in the field by scholars not based at Welsh universities will not be funded.

This is not to mention the fact that - shock horror - universities outside of Wales might have scholars who are writing about Welsh literature or even working in the Welsh language.

3. Why the withdrawal of direct grants to UWP is a disaster for Welsh scholarship
Welsh scholarship both work in the Welsh language and work about Wales will have no specialist University Press. As a result, very little scholarly research on Welsh subjects will be published.
Younger scholars, those based outside Wales and others not directly employed by universities wishing to invest in REF publications will not be able to publish crucial research.
A lack of research publications will be seen as a sign of academic weakness and will undermine scholarship in a diverse range of Welsh studies.

4. Why can't UWP publish academic titles without a grant?
It is not economically viable. HEFCW recognises this under the new system when it suggests that individual Universities can provide publishing subsidies from the redistributed funds.

5. Why can't academics publish elsewhere?
Publishers outside Wales tend to lack the interest or necessary expertise in Wales-related fields. As such, they are unlikely to accept Welsh-language material or books primarily exploring the history and culture of Wales.
These were the conditions which prompted the creation of the HEFCW grant in 1999 and the situation has not improved.

Contact Details

Mr Roger Thomas, Chair of HEFCW Council
Professor Philip Gummett, Chief Executive of HEFCW
Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
Linden Court, Ilex Close
Llanishen,
Cardiff, CF14 5DZ

Leighton Andrews AM,
National Assembly for Wales
Cardiff
CF99 1NA
Email: leighton.andrews@wales.gov.uk

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Americymru: Hi Noelle and welcome to AmeriCymru :) Care to tell our members and readers something about your musical background ?

Noelle: There was always music going on in our house and family. All three of my brothers are musicians (one of whom, Daniel Hughes, is an internationally-known choral conductor, and whose choir, The Choral Project, took 2nd place in the Mixed Choir competition at the 58th annual International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales). Also, my father sang and played the cornet and both of my mother's parents were musicians.

During my teens I began a journal and I picked up a little guitar from a class I had taken during summer break from school. These journal musings later turned into songs.

I also sang in the church choir from age 11. There were two choir groups for kids, but I wanted to sing in the adult choir, because they sang better music! I asked my parents to speak with the director about that and the director was pleasantly surprised. They made a special robe for me to wear and I sang with that group for several years: first as a soprano, then, after a three-month bout of pneumonia, an alto.

Through the late 80's-early 00's, I performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in original music bands: Das Tango, a dance-music group, Taste No More, a folk trio with a strong political edge tinged with ironic humor, and World For Ransom, an alternative-folk band. I've seen a lot of bands come and go. I also saw the decline of the live music scene in San Francisco, which is really sad for me--but that's for another discussion!

I took some time off from music due to this last fact, though, as it started to feel like I was just spinning my wheels. I kept writing but I wasn't performing or working with anyone.

A couple of years ago, I was complaining to my brother Dan about how stifled I felt, creatively (I'm also a visual artist and graphic designer, but music is where it's really at for me) and he pretty much slapped me across the head because I wasn't doing music any more!

That was when I decided to record i am me/am i not?

Americymru: Who would you say are your musical influences?

Noelle: My musical influences are hard to track due to the fact that there was such a diversity of musical training in my house growing up. I listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell, Kansas, ELP and Yes when I first started writing, and I think that Kerry Livgren (of Kansas) as well as Jon Anderson (of Yes) and Joni Mitchell have heavily influenced me as a writer. I'm not sure if any of that shows up in my work these days.

More recently, I'm all over the map. I listen to ambient, bhangra, Tom Waits, a lot of indie stuff. The rule of thumb for me is that if it's on the radio I'm probably not going to like it!

Vocally, I'm really trying to stretch myself to become a better singer and I'm always experimenting with my songwriting to express a thought or a feeling. I try to match the emotion to the note and then hang it on the right word. Or visa versa. It depends on whether I have the note first or the word first. It depends on where my inspiration started.

I'm hoping that I've transcended my influences.

Americymru: Your song 'Deeper Understanding' is very haunting both musically and lyrically. Care to tell us a little about how it came to be written?

Noelle: 'Deeper Understanding' was a sketch of a chord progression from a jam session with a friend of mine who wanted to get a duo together. We were going to call ourselves The Mad Hamiltons and had all these ideas about how we would perform and such, but we only ever had one jam session to create any material.

The song is about unconditional love and how the pathway to understanding is true and abiding love; the total freedom of love. Agape.

A lot of my songs explore spiritual themes or emotional challenges, because writing has always been a kind of therapy for me. It's often the only way I can get these things, these thoughts or feelings out. To process them out of my body.

This kind of writing can be a double-edged sword, because it can make the song hard to sing. On i am me/am i not? I have a song called, 'No One Told Me', which is a song I wrote after my father died unexpectedly. For a long time I was unable to get through that song without breaking down in tears in some way. What makes it more challenging with that piece it that it's solo voce!

When I write, I tend to discard the first several vocal melodies I come up with, outright. I keep moving away, moving away, moving away. I almost never want to use the first and most obvious vocal melody or harmony when I'm writing something, because if I do that, I'll never push myself to be a better writer.





Americymru: What is your Welsh connection?


Noelle: My father's mother's family was from Wales. Although I've known this all my life, my father was quite distant from his Welsh-ness and his connection to his family. Since he's been gone, I've felt more strongly than ever to connect with my roots and embrace my heritage. I'm delighted to have found AmeriCymru and look forward to learning more about my past, my Welsh culture and connect with other Welsh people. I have a goal to learn to speak Welsh.

Americymru: Where can people purchase your work online?

Noelle: I am available through:

iTunes
( http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/noelle-hughes/id351444518 ),

Amazon
( http://www.amazon.com/Am-Me-Not/dp/B0038AMZRU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1289354232&sr=1-1 ) and

CD Baby ( http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/noellehughes ) as well as

Auryaun.com
( http://www.auryaun.com/sono )

Americymru: Whats next for Noelle Hughes?

Noelle: Plenty! As Auryaun (my stage character), I'm in the process of recording a follow up album that will feature new tracks and a rework of a couple of tracks from i am me/am i not?. I'm also in the process of storyboarding for music videos for 'Deeper Understanding' and a couple of other tracks, which will be filmed using a really unique method. I'll be posting those to my YouTube Channel when they are complete, so your readers will want to subscribe to me there so as not to miss that. http://www.youtube.com/user/auryaun

As Noelle Hughes, I've been rehearsing and recording with my fellow chanteuse, Billie Eyeball (of Taste No More and World For Ransom). We should be lining up some shows in the SF Bay Area soon, so look out for that!

Americymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Noelle: I'm offering all members and readers of AmeriCymru a free download of 'Deeper Understanding' when they sign up for my E-Team by going to my website at http://www.auryaun.com/AmeriCymru . Just as a special thank you!


Diolch


A Croeso! Did I do that right?

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