Brexit – oh no! – Evening Post

What is all this about? We’ve had a referendum and the politicians are still arguing about it. Well, that’s all I can say, they are our servants and nothing more. If we don’t like what they are doing over Brexit then wait for the General Election and vote them out. You might decide not to vote at all, and I wouldn’t blame you. They’ve acted like a load of school children having a fight over a conker match.

It’s ridiculous. The Labour Party is just trying to have a General Election, and bugger the will of the people – what they want this for heaven knows,we’ll be in exactly the same political mess as we are in now!

Two thirds of politicians are stay in merchants and the rest are fighting for an out, out and out again. Where is the compromise? Where is a grown up debate? Nowhere, that’s where. Anyway, I’ve had enough of the political argument, I’ve stopped watching Newsnight and Politics Live. Repetition and sangfroid deliberation by all concerned. It’s an utter nonsense.

Just get it done!

The politicians have already got rid of our Prime Minister, what else are they going to do? The whole political class needs a shake up call and the way to do it, sorry for repeating myself, is get them out. All of them, apart from those who acted with maturity over the whole damn mess.

Trust in politics? I used to have a generous view on this. Now? Not anymore. We have a Parliament that’s on the brink of collapsing. And whose fault is this? Yes, you’ve got it – Parliament. It makes you wonder about a benign dictatorship doesn’t it? Anything, apart from the shambles we’re in – well, a dictatorship is pushing it, but you get my point. I don’t fancy going back to the days of Mussolini and Stalin!

Politicians pull your fingers out, otherwise you may not have job to go back to following a general election. Everyone is going on about ‘the time has passed’. Well, you had better watch out for time passing. We all want to give you the sack, then you can argue about Universal Credit then – on second thoughts, Company directorships are all the rage nowadays for politicians!

We’ve all had enough of Brexit negotiations. We’ve all had enough of the toing and froing from Brussels. We’ve all had enough of the reporters and ‘expert’ commentators. Just do the job and let us all get on with our lives!

I’ll say this for the last time- they are our servants, sack them!!!

PS The Welsh referendum only got in by a whisker, 50.30% for to 49.70% against, that’s out of 50.22% turnout. I don’t hear anyone raising their voices about that!

The Welsh Nationalist Trolls

They are quiet at the moment, aren’t they? The nationalist trolls, that is. Normally they’re out in force whenever I write something that they see as anti-Welsh – which is just about everything!

No lies, no surplus of exaggeration? God in heaven, I must be winning the argument! But what is going on in Social Media heaven knows, I don’t go near it.

Welsh Assembly?

I’ve been thinking, oh oh this will set the Welsh language activists off! The Brexit referendum  has caused a great deal of chicanery in Parliament. Well, this is fine albeit that our SERVANTS, the Parliamentarians, are seeking to confound the will of the people, so why haven’t we heard anything of the Welsh Assembly referendum???

They got in by a whisker, less than 1%.

It’s time people started to demonstrate about this.

 

Welsh Language

There are some people who have an extreme view on the implication of the Welsh Language. I for one know about its history etc. I have no desire to ‘ban’ the language or attempt to erase it.  We live in a multi-racial society and different languages are par for the course. Speak Welsh, learn it, sing it or whatever.

I have a problem with using tax-payers money to promote the Welsh language. It costs millions for the Welsh administration to enforce their will on the general population of Wales.This is devolution for you.

S4C, Radio Cymru etc have all announced figures that show that the language is in decline. Fact. 80% of people living in Wales speak and write in English. Fact. The annihilation of English medium primary schools – no one says anything about the democratic principle of choice do they?  Fact. Is the language dying? You the people must decide this, the internet after all, is the biggest threat to the language surviving and being used by 2050 –  the proposed one third of the population of Wales speaking Welsh by the Welsh administrations policy. This is a nonsense but the Welsh Assembly (Labour in particular) is rather good at hyped up hypothetical nuance and I should know, I’ve interviewed enough of them.

Have your say but please do not come out with ridiculous facts – it reminds me of one Labour Assembly minister whom I interviewed, coming out with the fact he was not interested in broadcasting figures (S4C, Radio Cymru etc).

Well, well………….! 

A Car Accident? – Evening Post

As of late I’ve been thinking about the argument I had with a car engine. I was outside my house and suffered serious leg and brain injuries. I was in hospital for couple of months and most of this time I was unconscious for 6 weeks, to be precise. It was touch and go whether I would get through or not. 

The driver of the offending vehicle was Brogan Griffiths 19 (he took off from the accident). He and his pals thought I was wing mirror, funny that as the front of the car had a bloody big dent in it, where my body had been hit – this possibly could have been drugs, booze or both, nothing could be proved as he wasn’t arrested for a day or so after the incident. Well, you decide? He was disqualified from driving for two years at Llanelli magistrates’. He also received a 20-week sentence in a young offender’s institution suspended for two years, was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and pay £455.

I have been listening to the various debates on the ongoing matter of causing serious injury or death by dangerous driving. What happens to those who leave the scene without even a by your leave etc.

There are extremely lengthy prison sentences given out. But what did this driver get? Precisely nothing. Two years of inconvenience and a by your leave punishment. The injuries to my good self cost more than a £455. I am still suffering from the brain surgery and have a permanent limp, this will be permanent.

The police (they didn’t even tell my wife when the hearing was taking place),the magistrates and all involved, are a disgrace to the honourable system of law and order.

As far as I am concerned, they can all go and sing!

Wales is in the dog house – Evening Post

Wales is a country in decline – it always has been, since the industry declined. I am thinking here of what Marcus Stead, a journalist, has recently written. He writes, ‘Wales is becoming a downright hostile place for more than 80% of those who don’t speak the Welsh language. We are treated as second class citizens and it intensifies with every year that passes.’ Well, I would add since Devolution, not to raise too fine a point on it. I was against it then and I am against it now.

The point is, unless you are able to speak the language, the public sector is closed to you. Well, where are they going to get all the people from? Wales is a tiny principality in Britain – 3 million odd to be precise. Not all the denizens of Wales are Welsh speaking, far from it. Most use English as their first language. Well, this is a dire comment on the Welsh administrations call for a third of the populace to be fluent in the language by 2050. This is a total joke. Laughable in fact. The Welsh medium primary schools are amusing in their Welsh language propagation – most pupils who eventually leave don’t know any Welsh at all, apart from numbers and colours. As pointed out in a Newsnight interview I did.

With Brexit now on the horizon what else is the Welsh administration going to do? I suppose they could burden the tax payer with selling sea salt and lava bread, but what else is there? The Severn Bridge coming down is a good step, but Wales needs far more than this. Its needs to open up its borders, it needs to have a global economy. It needs to recruit from outside, otherwise Wales will continue to take backward steps into oblivion.

Welsh Universities have gone downhill in recent years, it needs to bolster up its education and keep talent in Wales. Not let it leave in droves. I can talk, I was one of those who left Wales for 35 years. No opportunities and no career ladders to climb. Who would want to work in the public sector? I didn’t that was sure.

Wales is a charming place to live. Let us not throw it away for the sake of a nationalist agenda. Because you can be certain of one thing, at the moment we are chucking it into the dustbin of a ‘failed state’.   

Jeremy Corbyn – whatever next!- Evening Post

‘The UK referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) may have had as much to do with people’s distrust of international organisations as it did fear of immigration.’

Here you have it, according to the University of Kent. Brexit is all about who you trust on immigration. So, let’s leave it there shall we? I’ve had enough of Brexit per se. Well, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is in a bit of a spot, MP’s leaving right, left and centre. And he’s carrying on as if nothing has happened. What have I been saying about politics?

Now, I was walking around Carmarthen the other day. What’s he doing walking about this town for? Swansea Jacks should stick to Swansea for heaven’s sake! Anyway, I was struck by the cosmopolitan aura of the place. Shops selling all in sundry and superstores waiting to bite the consumer on the backside. All fair game in this day and age. There were coffee shops selling beans of all description and stalls selling you bankrupt stock all at reduced prices.

It was a maze of sell or die amusement.

I couldn’t help but compare it to Swansea City’s pitiful example of a concrete wasteland stuck on the edge of a sharpened knife. Beauty and the unbearable beast that no one can tell me where it has come from – well the War might have had something to do with but who knows? The parking is something out of a horror story and the one-way system makes you wonder if you are going potty!

Swansea is a mess.

Why doesn’t the Council do something about it? Don’t tell me – it’s skint. It always has been. For the past 60 years it has been short of funds and I’m well past that age now. Get your act together and do something. Make Swansea City an attraction, a place to be. Get tourists in to view the delights of a Welsh landscape. Well, fat chance of that but one can at least try!

Swansea City needs a rejuvenation of spirit, a need to go on. Let’s try and make it work, at least in something other than a concrete block or a bland shop front.

It can work, you know. Creativity with a blissful soul is the answer to my prayers – I’m getting all American now, so forgive me!

Kidwelly – Carmarthenshire News

Kid-welly is an old town named after a Welsh cowboy – well, if you believe that you will believe anything! I can’t see a Welsh cowboy running around in a pair of Wellies shooting up cow thieves in in order to maintain his nationalistic independence but there we are.

No really and jokes aside, Kidwelly is a small town in Carmarthenshire, population about 3500. It has some history attached to it, the earliest written form of the name, ‘Cetgueli’, is recorded by the monk, Nennius, writing in the 9th century. One theory of the name is that it comes from the joining of two river beds, Gwendraeth Fawr and Gwendraeth Fach, wherein Cydweli (the Welsh version) lies. The town itself is ancient, established by written records at around the twelfth century. As for its history, it has a castle built in around 1106 and a Norman parish church, both a delight to the eyes and something that attracts tourists into the area – I can’t say that this fills me with joy, it means that there is nowhere to park the car anywhere!

Anyway, that’s Kidwelly for you apart from the Industrial Revolution when brickworks and tinworks were the order of the day.

How did I end up here, you might well ask? Pure chance it must be said, I was working in Birmingham (having spent a large part of my adult life in England) and getting divorced, so I bought a property in Wales and ended up in Kidwelly.

It was a good choice as it turned out.

Gone is the crammed crush of London and cheerio to the mighty swathes of people that hold power in the cities. The life in rural Wales is far gentler, more bespoke to my writing inclinations. Kidwelly is a comfortable place to live. The people are kind and welcoming, it’s certainly a place to be, if one can call it that.

As age creeps up on me and my eyesight tries to catch everything, I cannot thank of a more salubrious place to die. At night the streets are quiet and during the day light hours there is an awakening of activity. The chemist run at full tilt and the coffee shops take the pro-found yells of tea and biscuits. Walking my dog along the estuary gives me a moment to reflect and think of things that may or may not happen. It’s a cherished second of individual thought.

So all I can say, is that the town holds something, it might be the peace, it might be a quiet deliberation but all in all it’s a pleasant way to end the journey of a lifetime.

Bernard Shaw and Nationalism – Evening Post

Bernard Shaw wrote many years ago, ‘As the advance of Socialism from doctrine and theory to practice extend the activities and powers of the State it extends also the opportunities for corruption and the mass of the plunder.’ Well, he could be right on this (he could be also right in his polemic that Swift threw off the mark of a king in his name of Yahoos for men!) This is a Socialist doctrine no doubt but a nationalist one. He wrote in sincere favour of a right or left dictatorship – a hint of indecision here? Stalin and Mussolini were his favourites.

I am reminded of the fact that Russia has fallen foul of the Communist agenda and that many other Socialist States are falling too – China is an exception, but what do you do about execution and hold your tongue whatever you do? Nothing, that’s what.

Nationalisation is on the political books at the moment. Marxist and Trotskyist delusion is all the rage, at least if you are far left Labour. It has been tried many times in the past and the result? Non- profit making and strikes. Remember the 1970’s? All about inflation running at 30% and the UK going to the IMF for a loan. Makes you wonder what all this Brexit is all about doesn’t it. This is the nature of politics, doom and gloom for everybody.

They should have taken a hard look at nationalisation. The railways, the car industry etc etc It was all a right mess. As I say, doom and gloom for everybody

We now have a Jeremy Corbyn – a reincarnation of Michael Foot. He is all about nationalisation and the State owning everything. No harm in this but is it not a little old fashioned? A tired reincarnation of something that has been around for the past 100 years? Globalisation is the front man for the politics of the left – and right come to that. But is there anything we can do? We are able to stop it in its tracks (that would mean bankruptcy for all) or control it. The latter would seem to be an outright winner, depending on you point of view of course.

It all comes down to a vote, and when this happens on General Election day, look out. We shall, as the politicians say, ‘ Wait and see.’

Kidwelly

Kid-welly is an old town named after a Welsh cowboy – well, if you believe that you will believe anything! I can’t see a Welsh cowboy running around in a pair of Wellies shooting up cow thieves in in order to maintain his nationalistic independence but there we are.

No really and jokes aside, Kidwelly is a small town in Carmarthenshire, population about 3500. It has some history attached to it, the earliest written form of the name, ‘Cetgueli’, is recorded by the monk, Nennius, writing in the 9th century. One theory of the name is that it comes from the joining of two river beds, Gwendraeth Fawr and Gwendraeth Fach, wherein Cydweli (the Welsh version) lies. The town itself is ancient, established by written records at around the twelfth century. As for its history, it has a castle built in around 1106 and a Norman parish church, both a delight to the eyes and something that attracts tourists into the area – I can’t say that this fills me with joy, it means that there is nowhere to park the car anywhere!

Anyway, that’s Kidwelly for you apart from the Industrial Revolution when brickworks and tinworks were the order of the day.

How did I end up here, you might well ask? Pure chance it must be said, I was working in Birmingham (having spent a large part of my adult life in England) and getting divorced, so I bought a property in Wales and ended up in Kidwelly.

It was a good choice as it turned out.

Gone is the crammed crush of London and cheerio to the mighty swathes of people that hold power in the cities. The life in rural Wales is far gentler, more bespoke to my writing inclinations. Kidwelly is a comfortable place to live. The people are kind and welcoming, it’s certainly a place to be, if one can call it that.

As age creeps up on me and my eyesight tries to catch everything, I cannot thank of a more salubrious place to die. At night the streets are quiet and during the day light hours there is an awakening of activity. The chemist run at full tilt and the coffee shops take the pro-found yells of tea and biscuits. Walking my dog along the estuary gives me a moment to reflect and think of things that may or may not happen. It’s a cherished second of individual thought.

So all I can say, is that the town holds something, it might be the peace, it might be a quiet deliberation but all in all it’s a pleasant way to end the journey of a lifetime.