Bumbling second-class conditions are the new hotness

"Like much of America these days, the airline industry feels tired, worn down, and old.

That is surprising in a country that often likes to think of itself as the best.

Arguably, it once was, but the airline industry - like the health system, like schools, roads - you name it, feels like it is just creaking along and leaving its passengers ever more frustrated."

Yeah, we are that lame.

The other day, Geraint listed his Facebook status as: "Geraint doesn't live in Chicago." Thus prompting this Wall conversation:

ME: "I don't live in Chicago, either. But I used to work there... in an old department store..."
GERAINT: "But you don't work there anymore?"
ME: "No, not since a woman came in and asked for a hammer."
GERAINT: "A hammer from the store?"
ME: "Indeed. A hammer she wanted. My tool she got."

For those of you playing along at home, uhm, this whole exchange isn't really worth explaining. But it strikes me as particularly funny. Perhaps because it's a conversation that played out over three days.

I wonder if there is anyone reading this who might have also worked at that same department store. I wonder if they still work there; or if not, why?

Footie

Portsmouth and Cardiff are in the FA Cup final. Anthony, if you are reading this you'll want to read up on these teams because this is the match you will be watching when you and Maggie come to visit. Travelling several thousand miles only to find yourself watching soccer in a pub may seem a bit silly, but this is non-negotiable.

You will be supporting Cardiff City. This is equally non-negotiable. I'm not necessarily happy about it, but supporting the home team is a matter of health and safety in this country. In the United States, it is a cheeky thing to sit in a bar in one team's town and support the other team, but this isn't the United States; people here don't think it's funny to do that. They will hurt you on principle.

For those of you playing along at home, there's this game called soccer, which is really popular over here. They like soccer so much that their leagues and divisions mesh into an incongruous mess that forces the soccer season to be approximately 78 months long.

In America we are used to having ESPN tell us which teams are good, but here they expect you to actually watch loads of matches and figure this stuff out for yourself. I can't be arsed to do that. An easy cheat is to look at who is playing in the semi-final and final matches of three major competitions: the Champions League, the FA Cup and (to a lesser extent) the UEFA Cup.

Diehard soccer fans will split hairs with me on this statement, but that is because all diehard soccer fans are bound by the International Code of Diehard Football Supporters to disagree with anything anyone else says about the game. Bylaw 234 of the code also specifically states that anything an American says about the game should automatically be questioned, even when we make inarguable points like, "Soccer is played with a ball."

Anyway, the FA Cup is kind of big. In Britain (i.e., in competitions that take place solely within Britain), it is the biggest sporting event of the year. And now the two teams representing the cities that tie me emotionally to this country are set to take on one another on May 17.

I was wearing my old Portsmouth jersey as I sat in front of the television Saturday. I kept turning around and stupidly grinning at Rachel when strains of "Play up Pompey" could be heard over the BBC announcers.

"See?!" I wanted to say. "They really do that! Just like I said they do!"

Rachel wasn't bothered, and went upstairs to read. Mentally it appears West Brom did the same thing, defeated by Portsmouth's magical ability not to outplay them but simply bore them into complacency. But as Cardiff's Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink would remark the next day: "It's not how you do it, but that you do it."

Indeed, Cardiff adopted a similar strategy Sunday of playing slightly better than Barnsley, scoring a goal early and then just sort of running about for an hour. Or, at least, that's one interpretation. It really depends on who you were listening to how the match played out.

The Cardiff-Barnsley match wasn't on television, so I followed via the wireless (FTYPAH: "radio"). I started out listening to Five Live's coverage, featuring Alan "I hate David Beckham for no good reason" Green (a). The match was so boring to him that he started commenting on things outside the play, such as what he and the other announcer would be eating during halftime. At some point he looked across the broadcasters booth and spotted a fellow announcer, Malcolm, who was "doing commentary for the Cardiff crowd."

"My goodness, he's really worked himself up, hasn't he?" observed Green.

"I think he's speaking Welsh," said Green's co-announcer.

"Is he? Well, if you speak Welsh, you might want to switch over to listen to Malcolm, because he's clearly watching a match different to the one I'm watching."

So I switched over, and indeed, it was a different match. The same teams were playing, but in this competition Cardiff were not a mid-level Championship team and Barnsley were not close to relegation (b). Instead it was The Greatest Story Ever Told. Cardiff were Cúchulainn (c) against the English horde.

For amusement, I found myself switching back and forth between Five Live and Radio Cymru.

FIVE LIVE: "I'll be honest, with the exception of that goal by Ledley, the standard of play today has been really poor."

RADIO CYMRU: "Crushed in Watford (d), whipped in Toulouse (e), Swansea and Wrexham humiliated and heartbroken, this has been The Most Black Weekend for Wales. But now our Capitol City carries the hopes of a nation. After 81 years (f), Cardiff -- Wales -- are just 10 agonizing minutes from their chance to fight Portsmouth! Their chance -- our chance -- to defeat the English and take from them their cup!"

FIVE LIVE: "...Barnsley have really only had one flash of inspiration in this whole match. Anyway, we have been given by the producers an enormous tin of biscuits, which I can't imagine anyone could possibly consume in a single sitting..."

RADIO CYMRU: "Rise up! Rise up! Now is the time! Fe godwn ni eto! (g) Wales' moment of glory is at hand! We will defeat them! Providence is on our side! The Capitol City ushers in Cymru's Golden Age!"

OK, well, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit. But the point is, in Welsh it was a much more exciting match. As the clock ticked toward 90 minutes, Radio Cymru's announcer became more and more rapturous. He was at times incoherent. My favourite moment came when the match's four minutes of added play were announced.

"Pedair munud! O, bobl bach! Pedair munud o artaith!" he screamed ("Four minutes! Oh, Jesus Joseph and Mary! (h) Four minutes of torture!").

Cardiff, the city that so many Welsh speakers are keen to disinherit, is now in the good books. This morning on Radio Cymru, First Minister Rhodri Morgan stated that a Cardiff City win would be more important than the Welsh rugby team's recent capturing of the Six Nations Grand Slam title. And other people were eager to suggest that Cardiff's prominence would be a boon for the Welsh language, despite the fact that Cardiff City can't spell its name in Welsh.

The next few weeks should be interesting as we get closer and closer to the actual match. I will be working on suppressing any natural desire to cheer for Portsmouth. I am resigned to jump on the Cardiff City bandwagon. Indeed, today I plan to buy a Cardiff City scarf. If you're going to superficially cheer a team simply because you don't want to get beat up by its supporters, you might as well do so in style.

-----

(a) I used to listen to England matches online when I lived in the United States, and one thing that struck me was Green's strange contempt for Beckham. Occasionally he would just blurt out, apropos of nothing: "And David Beckham has done nothing!"

(b) A beauty of the British system is that if your team is shit, it gets dropped to a lower division. Imagine if, after sucking it up for a year, the Miami Dolphins were dropped down play against college teams.

(c) Cúchulainn is a Celtic folk hero: A king who once fought off an entire army on his own.

(d) Welsh rugby team Ospreys were beaten 19-10 Sunday.

(e) Welsh rugby team Cardiff Blues were beaten 41-17 Sunday.

(f) Cardiff won the FA Cup in 1927.

(g) "We shall rise again." It is the motto of the comically inept Free Wales Army, a 1960s Welsh republican movement that was headed by a man authorities described as having "a mental age of about 12 years."

(h) That's a figurative translation. Literally, "bobl bach" means "little people." It is usually shouted in moments of frustration. I have always assumed it to have a folklore connection, cursing fairies (little people) for things going wrong.

Holding on for Reading Week

About a week ago, Cardiff experienced a series of days that were brilliantly sunny and unseasonably temperate. People flooded from their dreary brick confines to just sort of linger in the spring-like warmth. In this country, it takes at least a week to get anything done (I am still waiting for my student loan cheque to be converted to pounds sterling -- I endorsed it on 11 January), but people respond to good weather instantly. As soon as the pavements (FTYPAH: sidewalks) are dry they are milling about, with at least a handful of the chavs doing their best to pretend that they are, in fact, in Magaluf -- stomping around in shorts and T-shirts. It speaks to the priorities of the British peoples, I think:
- Good weather = important.
- Getting things done in a timely fashion = not so important.

Anyway, I was sitting outside the humanities building last week, sipping a cup of overpriced tea, when I noticed a group of students who had found a choice spot in the sun and were lazily drawing on the pavement with chalk. Then, in eavesdropping I heard one of the guys mention pi. I looked at the chalk drawings and realised that they were equations. These students weren't drawing pictures of doggies or cars or breasts, as I would have done, they were in the midst of high-minded discussion. In their free time, on a brilliant spring-like day, they were doing equations.

"Holy shit," I thought. "It's like I'm on a proper university campus."

It was almost as crazy as when Llŷr and Steffan started working on poetry in the pub. This thing of intelligent people actually being intelligent and doing intelligent things not because they are being tested or building toward some mind-numbing career but because they simply enjoy using their brains -- that's weird, dude. It's foreign. It's kind of scary. It's yet another sign that I am totally out of my depth here.

By now the weather has gotten cold again and the forecast calls for a big front of depressing and crappy to move in as the week wears on. It helps in terms of concentrating on the lectures that I am trying to assimilate, but I still feel woefully behind. I am only four weeks into the spring semester and drowning.

And that's why I haven't blogged in a week.

How The Super Bowl Looks Abroad

My latest column is out. If you read my blogging of the Super Bowl, the themes will be familiar but they are better fleshed out.

My favourite part is the observation that: "rugby... is what football used to be before being taken over by figure skaters. American football is so laden with rules and technicality that is at times more performance than sport. Yes, I realize you need to be fit to run really fast and catch a ball, but is it a real test of mental and physical capacity when you're allowed to stop every 15 seconds and do the Charleston?"

I can only sing short phrases

Primrose Hill is not in Greenwich.

For those of you who playing along at home, Primrose Hill is, shockingly, in Primrose Hill -- in Regent's Park, specifically, a fair walk north of the river and on London's western end. Greenwich is east of London's East End, hugging the southern bank of the Thames.

I have no idea how I screwed up these locations so badly. But it was to Greenwich that I dragged Jen Rodvold in my pursuit to stand where Iolo "Reality Spoils A Good Tale" Morgannwg stood in 1792 and held the first Gorsedd. Fortunately, the adventure turned out to be worthwhile.

Jen is a friend of mine from high school. It seems the older I get, the more friends I have from high school. Thank you, Facebook. Thank you, maddening nature of aging. As we get older and spin further and further away, we find that we really appreciate the people who were there 15 years ago.

Anyway, 14 years and 4,032 miles from the Mall of America Hooters where I had seen her last, Jen is now living with a bloke named Dave in a closet in London's east end and earning an MBA. This past weekend I travelled out for a visit.

There is something about me and London. In past visits to the Big Smoke, the people I've stayed with have found themselves distracted from my witty banter and enjoyable company by a particularly vicious stomach bug. The first time I stayed with friends in London Jenny was hit; Chris was the victim the next time I was in town. This time, Dave was on the receiving end. He was up early and often on Saturday morning and not particularly in the mood to go tracking down the origins of historical events that mean nothing to him. So Jen and I set out on our own.

We eventually found ourselves standing on the hill that houses the Royal Observatory, looking out across London and beyond to northern hills on one of those stunningly clear late afternoons that always seem to settle the soul. Dusk started in and turned the whole thing into a sort of moving painting. Silver/blue sky sharpened the shining lines of the Docklands buildings and then to the west lit up with yellow/pink/orange/red sunset that burned to an intense all-sky red as Jen and I walked through the park a bit more.

Atop a hill we had pretty much to ourselves, Jen stopped to call Dave and I stood and looked out and felt for the second time in a month this strong strange feeling that I struggle to put a name to. Connection? A root? The last time I felt it was when the child bride and one of the Claires and I sang out into the Irish night on New Year's Day. It is a feeling of no longer yearning to be elsewhere. It is a feeling, slight and surreal, of being at home.

It punched at my heart and I thought of that scene in "The Gathering Storm" when Churchill looks out across the English countryside and becomes resolved in never giving up. The place, the land is a natural physical representation of his soul. Its spirit reaches up through his feet and connects him to every soul that ever worked or fought or loved in that place. I imagine that for him, the connection he felt ribboned across England, the posh places in particular.

What I feel isn't as strong. It is a single strand, and one that wraps a larger area. It is a feeling that doesn't make a damned bit of sense. Ireland and Wales and London -- these places can't collectively be called "home" unless you are a Victorian imperialist. It is a connection that is absolutely ridiculous. For me especially.

But there it was, kicking at me and making me think that I am finally taking tiny steps toward feeling that this place, whatever "this place" means, can be my home. That is a terrifying possibility in a way. I am here on visa. Pieces of paper can take it all away from me.

The sky had turned infinite dark cobalt, fast becoming night, and Jen and I walked down toward the shops and pubs and restaurants of Greenwich. We crossed under the laser light that marks the Prime Meridian. A tiny green line that tears out over the park and across the night. A tiny invisible strand that connects all of us and how we live our lives.

I turned to Jen, attempted to say something profound and failed completely. Much as I've done here.

'In hindsight, James -- Not the best course of action'

One of the things that always made me a bad journalist was my admiration for police officers. I think they're cool. Yes, I realise the football cards they gave me as a child were just a propaganda ploy, but it was a propaganda ploy that worked.

For our friends in the Home Nations, when I was a boy, in both Houston and Bloomington, if you went up and talked to a police officer they would give you baseball cards or (NFL) football cards. I still have a few of those cards stored away, including Kirby Puckett and Nolan Ryan cards that could now probably get me enough cash for a nice dinner.

These days I tend to like police officers for all sorts of reasons: because they are underpaid and deal with all the people that I don't want to have to deal with, and because they have an understated sort of wit that always makes me smile.

The headline to this post comes from a conversation I had today with a police constable from Fairwater station. The quote was his response to my telling him that I had not run away from the woman who was waving a 3-foot katana sword at me.

In journalism, we call that "burying the lede." Not till the fourth paragraph have I gotten around to the fact that a crazy woman came at me with a sword today. See, most people would have started this post with something like: "As I was coming home this afternoon, a woman walking down the road with an axe and a sword started screaming at me. She then took several swipes at me with said sword, before wandering off down the street, complaining about Jews."

I didn't write it that way because members of my family read this blog and I don't want them going into a full-on panic. They are already sceptical of my picking up and relocating to this din of socialism.

Anyway, the crazy lady:

First off, why is it that crazy people always have a hang up about Jews? It's so cliché. Just once, I want to see a crazy person ranting about the Bago-bago people of Papua New Guinea. This woman wasn't, though. She was walking down the middle of the road, waving her Samurai sword in the air, a Lord-of-the-Rings-style double-headed axe slung over her shoulder.

"You Jew boys think you can terrorise children and innocent animals but we'll see how you like it when someone's got a sword in their hand," she was screaming.

Not being Jewish, or having terrorised any children or innocent animals recently, I looked around to see who she was screaming at.

"Wha?" I said.

Now this is where that whole thing of first appearances sometimes being deceptive comes into play. The woman, probably in her early- to mid-40s, didn't look all that threatening to me. Save the sword and axe, of course. She looked to me like someone's mom, and in my head I instantly built a scenario in which a few of the local chavs had bullied her child and she had decided to overreact.

"You need to put those down, love," I said to her. "You're only going to get yourself into trouble."

"Fuck off!" she screamed, walking toward me and waving the sword. "Go on! Go into your house! Go hide!"

"And you backed off, did you?" the police constable asked later as I told the story to him.

"No. I stood my ground," I said.

And that's when he came out with the line about my failing to choose the best course of action.

"I realise you don't have police trainin', and all, but, really... When that sort of thing happens, James, you want to give a person a bit of space," he said.

But, as I told him, I thought the sword was fake. Who just walks down the road with a sword and an axe? At 3 o'clock in the afternoon? In Cardiff?

Then she swung the blade within about a foot of my head and I saw the glint of metal. She swung it back up along my right side and the internal is-it-real-or-fake debate was settled with a second good look at the blade.

"What about that axe?" asked a member of the crisis management team inside my head.

I noted that it was in her left hand and slack at her side, not in a position to strike, so decided to table that question and refocus on the sword. Due to my lack of police trainin' I had allowed her to get within arm's length of me. The internal crisis management team decided at this point that turning and running was no longer a good option. It would have meant taking my eyes off her and opening myself up for unseen attack.

"OK. Establish dominance," I thought.

This is the kind of ridiculous shit that goes through my head. There is a Henry Rollins monologue in which he talks about how Los Angeles police are taught to stand and speak in such a way that subliminally communicates to people the officer is dominant. Rollins spends about 30 minutes taking the piss out of the LAPD for doing this, but I forgot that bit. I straightened up, trying to draw attention to my height/size advantage over the woman.

I stepped in toward her, reasoning that the closer I was, the harder it would be to get a good swing. I positioned my body so that if she did swing at me, I could take the blade in my ribs, step in, grab the handle and kick her away. Brilliant. I've seen shit like that in a thousand action films. No problem. Chuck Norris is ages older than me and he could pull it off easy.

"Put that down and sort yourself out," I said. "I'm calling the police."

Anyone who has ever seen me do anything physical knows that had I been required to act, I would have completely fucked up my planned Chris Mighty Protector of Radyr Way move. But the crazy lady bought it. She backed off, waving the sword at me more as if it were a wet stick than a deadly weapon.

"Call the police! Call the prime minister! Jew boy!" she screamed and started off down the road.

I had never before called the police for anything. The emergency number in the UK is 999 and if you dial it on my mobile phone big red letters flash on the screen: "YOU ARE DIALLING EMERGENCY!"

It's as if it is saying: "You are so fucked if this isn't serious."

I felt nervous and terrified when I heard the dispatcher answer. Speaking to an actual police-type person -- making an actual 999 call -- made me more jumpy than the sword-and-axe wielding nutjob I was now following through my neighbourhood.

"Hi, there's a woman walking down the middle of the road screaming and waving a sword. She also has an axe. But I don't know if the axe is real," I said.

"A sword?" the dispatcher said, a little more calmly than I was expecting.

"Yeah. Like a ninja sword."

"A real sword?"

"Yeah, she swung at me. I got a good look at it. I'm pretty sure it's real. Like I say, I'm not sure about the axe, though."

"Do you know this woman?"

"No."

"Why was she swingin' a sword at you?"

"I forgot to ask."

I followed the crazy lady to her house, then stepped out of sight and ended my call with the dispatcher. I walked to my house and then back, not really knowing the correct procedure for dealing with mêlée-weapon-laden neighbours. Standing again at the intersection to the close ("cul-de-sac," for those of you playing along at home) where the woman lives, a police car came tearing up and I pointed out the house.

In the United States police would have come with sirens a-blarin' and probably shoved me out of the way. In this case it was two affable blokes in an SUV ("jeep" for our friends in the Home Nations).

"Which house is it, mate?"

"That one there, with the dog in front."

"Right. From the States are you?"

"Yeah."

"What part?"

"Minnesota."

"Hmm, never been there. She's got a sword, has she? A real sword?"

"Yeah she swung it at me. She's got an axe, too. Not sure if that's real."

"Do you know her?"

"No."

"Why's she swingin' a sword at you?"

The officers stepped out and suddenly seemed a little less approachable. They were the type of solid blokes they build in these parts -- not huge, but clearly not the sort whose mother you'd want to insult.

Police officers in this country have to deal with a lot of shit without the benefit of the tools U.S. officers would use, so they learn to carry themselves with an admirable confidence. It's all they've got in some cases. These two chaps had it, but they also had side arms. I instinctively decided to move across the road from them.

"I'll just head home, shall I?" I asked.

"Na, mate. Hang on there a bit. We'll probably need to talk to you."

From the back of the SUV, one of the officers produced an MP5 and dropped in a clip. The other officer loaded an MP7, strapped it to his side and then picked up what appeared to be a tear gas launcher or baton round gun.

"Jesus Joseph and Mary," I thought. "This poor woman is fucked."

Another SUV came tearing up and out popped two more dudes, geared up and wearing helmets. They tossed a helmet to the bloke with the tear gas launcher thing. I love that he hadn't been all that arsed about the helmet. Something about that action stood out and drew attention to how differently things were being handled than they would be in the United States. Still no one was yelling at me to get away. They weren't acting in a military manner. Even though they were armed to the teeth, you got a real sense that they had absolutely no interest in actually using the weapons.

Then another police car, and then another -- this with a dog in the back that sounded to have been one of Cerbrus' litter. Thankfully it was never produced. Then another police car and another and another. And soon the police constable that would eventually speak to me had set up an "inner cordon" and an "outer cordon."

"It's the police, love," I heard an armed officer shout. He was standing directly in front of the house, in the street, the MP5 held steady. Next to him, three other armed officers and, strangely, the dog handler who had no weapon but one of those dog-catcher lasso-on-a-pole things.

"Come on out. We don't want to hurt you" the MP5 officer shouted. Hearing him say it, you really felt he meant it.

"Is it an American thing, not getting out of the way of swords?" the PC was asking. "Do you know her? Why was she swingin' a sword at you?"

"She's crazy is my guess."

The PC looked at me with a slight frown, suggesting he didn't approve of my judgmental tone. Who was I to be calling people crazy?

"Yeah, well. Might have in infection. That happens sometimes. They go toxic. It unsettles them somehow. Not 'them' women,' you know, but 'them,' people. What's this sword look like?"

"Well... it looks like that sword, actually," I said, pointing to the tear gas officer, who was now carrying to his SUV the sword and the axe. The axe was real.

"Ah, that's good. Probably means we've sorted things out," the PC said. "Or at least got them stable."

"I didn't hear any shots fired. That's a good thing," I said.

"Yeah. We generally try to avoid that in this country."

As it turned out, the woman is crazy. Her neighbours have phoned the police on her before. She is receiving mental help, but it is on a voluntary basis. After threatening an officer with the sword she was Tasered and arrested under the Mental Health Act.

That information was provided to me by the PC, who called me an hour or so after the incident. It's another positive about the way things are done here. He didn't give names or unnecessary specifics, but showed the courtesy of letting me know what was going on in my neighbourhood. He told me that if I wanted, I could see the woman brought up on charges of assault, but suggested that it might not go far "'cause she's unfit, you see."

Later in the evening I also received a phone call from a superintendent, who asked if I had any questions about what had happened and thanked me for calling the police.

"You did the right thing calling us," he said. "That is exactly what you should have done. We really appreciate when members of the community cooperate with us like this."

I felt a little sad that he had to make that phone call. People in Britain seem to dislike the police force to such an extent that they often won't call to report things, simply because they themselves don't want to have to deal with police.

After the whole thing was done, I happened to be checking the internet to make sure that a katana was indeed the kind of blade I was threatened with. It turns out the swords have been used in some 80 attacks and five killings in recent years; they will be banned this April. Anyone breaching the ban will face six months in jail and a £5,000 fine.

Tossing My Brain Overboard

My latest column is out, complete with family-friendly edit. My editor (who loves the Longhorns, by the way) felt that I would be less likely to receive grumpy e-mails if he changed, "I was singularly focused on getting her to take off her shirt," to, "... singularly focused on getting her alone."

It defeats the point of the joke, which was to finish off a navel-gazing statement about my sub-conscious with a crass reference to sex, but almost certainly Adam is right. American news consumers are desperate to be offended and a reference to my fondness for certain parts of the female anatomy would give them too easy a target.

Amusingly, I had already self-censored an entire paragraph.

It is said that when Custer got his ass handed to him at Little Bighorn, some of his men went into such an idiotic panic that they simply fired straight into the air, unable to control their fear enough to aim at anything. I was going to point out that I respond to stress similarly, and likely would have run out of ammo before ever actually spotting a Lakota. But I scrapped the line because I could imagine someone getting so angry with my reference to a 131-year-old military blunder that they would write to me IN A FIT OF MISPELED CAPSLOCK HISTEREA.

The fear-the-reader nature of modern American news media means I can't really accumulate too many complaint letters. Managers in the fine company that hosts my column wouldn't have any problem dropping the thing if any of the complaints were to appear on their radar. So Adam is simply protecting my ass because I am too dumb to protect it on my own.

Although, obviously, he's not protecting my ass, because that, too, would be offensive -- both for its language and homosexual connotations. But it would be typical of the kind of thing we've come to expect from the liberal media: a Jew watching out for his sex-deviant European pal.

I don't like piggies

For those of you playing along at home, you're missing a load of amusing television in Britain at the moment. One of my favourite shows is "Coal House," if not simply because it features Rhodri Phillips, the most amusing child ever.

My catchphrase at the moment is, "I don't like piggies" (about 8 seconds in).

Yr hen ddinas

This city is only as old as the stories that are told about it.

I learned recently that Cardiff was established by the Romans 1,952 years ago. Nobody appears to have been keeping records before the Romans showed, so as far as we know Caerdydd (a) is the oldest city (b) in Wales.

You wouldn't really know that from walking around. On the surface, Cardiff often resembles St. Paul, Minn., with its relatively wide and tree-lined streets, architecture that tends not to date back more than 150 years and ample parking. It is a city that Welsh people, Welsh speakers in particular, are often eager to dismiss. This modern, always changing, historyless place; it's not the REAL Wales.

Of course, in fact, it is. Like the real Wales -- whatever the hell that's supposed to mean -- it's history is hidden.

European History courses in the United States would often be better named as courses in "Things The British Have Done," such is their focus. So, the facts and histories of this island are not too unfamiliar. Except when it comes to Wales. We learned nothing of Wales in the United States.

But then I learned the language of this place no one's heard of and it's slowly revealed a vast expanse of literature and history. It's like poking your head into the ground and discovering one of those enormous underground caverns that you could build an A380" in. It's an awareness that leaves me feeling a bit like Nada in "They Live," walking around knowing that all around me, practically coming up from the ground, and unseen to everyone else, is this different culture/history.

Cardiff is like that. Its soul is veiled.

There are former Roman sites dotted all throughout the city, but few are identified as such. The most amusing one for me is the Roman fort that lies opposite the Cardiff Bay Retail Park (FTYPAH: "strip mall"). Turn one way, you see Ford Escorts queuing at the McDonald's drive-through, turn the other way and you see the work of people who laid the foundation of Western civilisation.

Cardiff has the largest concentration of castles of any city in the world. But you'll only find two of them in any tourist literature, with one of those being a castle that was torn down and reconstructed according to Victorian interpretation. The others are crumbling, or paved over by housing estates.

There used to be dozens of canals through the city. Hundreds of miles of railway. Roads have names that reflect a history hardly anyone knows. The original Welsh name for City Road is Heol y Plwca, which refers to the fact that when it marked the boundary of Cardiff it was where heretics were hanged.

In contrast, this city welcomed Britain's first Muslims. It rioted to keep the Irish out. Its history is rich but almost wholly unknown by its inhabitants.

I was thinking about all this last Tuesday as I sat eating my lunch in what used to be a church graveyard but in the last year has been converted into a lovely little square with benches and trees. There is a straight, neat row of old tombstones on one side of the square. Having lived here a year ago, I know that they didn't used to be so perfectly aligned like that. Presumably the subjects of the tombstones are still in their original spots -- beneath the workers and shoppers and tourists eating pasties and pork sandwiches.

There's something about this city. It's a hell of an interesting place if you can find someone who knows about it.

(a) "Caer" means "fort," and "dydd" means "day." Calling the place Day Fort doesn't seem to make sense, so the theory is that "dydd" is a bastardised version of either "Taf" (the river that runs through the heart of Cardiff) or of "Didius" (a Roman bloke who was governor of a nearby province).

(b) I'm using "city" in the philosophical sense here, obviously. As a city, Cardiff is only 102 years old. FTYPAH, the British are anal in their use of words like "city" and "village" and "town." The words are not as interchangeable as they are in the United States; you're only what the Queen says you are.

What you're missing

For those of you playing along at home, or even those of you on this side of the water with better things to do than watch television all day*, this is my favourite advert at the moment.

*In fairness, I'm watching rugby.

Rambling

I walked today from Barry to East Aberthaw and decided to turn the experience into an audio/visual blogging extravaganza. Well, perhaps "extravaganza" is a bit much. It's really no more than a slideshow with commentary.

I apologise for the quality of the audio in some of these clips. It's blustery on the coast. Adding to the poor quality is the fact that in most of the clips I was walking. My goal was to do things quickly and give it a sort of "instant" feel, but arguably this still could have been achieved while standing still and out of the wind.

The audio has the added factor of displaying my present hodgepodge accent. It's generally the old Minnesota-with-Texas-twang sound, but occasionally you pick up South Wales phrasing. It's most notable, I think, when I'm talking about mini-golf in the clip from Porthkerry Park.


The journey begins. I took the train from Sweet Home Radyr Way down to Barry. In the audio clip below, I misspell the Welsh name.


Angular waterway-thingy in Barry's The Knap area.


Lake in Barry's The Knap area.


This looks like a building site, but it is, in fact, a historical site. These are the remains of a Roman building that stood here in 45 AD. It's quintessential Britain that you have ancient sites sandwiched into everything else. Those are peoples' homes in the background. Just behind me was an ice cream shop. I was very obviously the only person interested in the site.


Above The Knap. The large body of water, of course, is the Bristol Channel. Off in the haze you can see Flatholm Island.

Audio from Barry:





The viaduct at Porthkerry Park.


Mini golf course in Porthkerry Park.

Audio from Porthkerry:



I don't know what a bulwark is, but this camp of theirs is mighty old.


In the haze, across the water, you can see England.


Phallic stone circle at Rhoose Point.


Giant compass made of rock. Impressively, the markings on the compass are in Welsh. In this picture you are looking to the dwyrain (east).


These stones were very clearly in a specific formation, but I couldn't make sense of it.


The golf course between life and death.

Audio from Rhoose Point:



According to a BBC cameraman I know, you can go down to the beach and see dinosaur footprints somewhere around here.




A ship heading out to sea.


Trailer park.

Audio from the trailer park:



That is a massive sign. Sadly, the sailboat hit it and sank. Two people died. Very sad.


Wetlands near East Aberthaw.


This is a family crabbing in the wetlands near East Aberthaw. I really wanted to take a picture of what they had caught, but I couldn't figure out a non-embarrassing way to say: "Can I take a picture of your crabs?"


Interesting-looking abandoned building.



Audio from the woods near East Aberthaw:





Even the garages are made of stone in East Aberthaw.


The Blue Anchor pub has been around since 1380.


A look at the inviting front side of The Blue Anchor, and its thatched roof.


Heaven.

Audio from The Blue Anchor:



And that's about it. I walked home the same way. I left my house at 10 a.m. and was back just before 6 p.m. If you ever come to visit me and want to see The Blue Anchor, I promise that we will just drive there.

The Ghost of the Ice Cream Van

My latest column is out. Actually, it's been out since Tuesday, but I wasn't near a computer to post it. Random line from the column: "In Britain it is more acceptable to kick an old lady in the shins than design straight roads that are easy to navigate."

Richard Massey for prime minister

Those of you playing along at home are missing out on my favourite television programme in a long time: "Last Man Standing." It airs on BBC Three and is a strange mix of reality television, travel show, and sports entertainment*. It features six blokes -- three American and three British -- travelling around the world and taking part in various tribal sports and tribal customs. They live with people of the village for a fortnight or so, working alongside them whilst training, and then they take part in a massive competition that often sees them getting schooled by tiny tribesmen.

So far they have wrestled in the Amazon, fought with sticks in South Africa, run a ridiculous race in Mexico (that one was a sham), participated in kick-fighting in India and wrestled in Mongolia. It is a shockingly addictive show and I find myself able to recite far more information about it than I should.

The other day, Facebook friend Helen and I suddenly went into stalker mode (as she pointed out: "Stalking is fun when you have a fellow stalker to share experiences with") and hunted down the Facebook profiles for all the show's contestants. Friend requests were promptly sent, but as yet have not been accepted. I am particularly hoping to be added to the list of friends for Brad Johnson (not to be confused with Brad Johnson) and wee Richard Massey.

Brad is a big black guy from Oklahoma who has more cool than the combined population of several Midwestern states**. A week ago, when all they guys were at a meal and suddenly informed that they were eating dog, Brad didn't even break pace. The camera then turned to him and he said: "I just ate some dog. Tastes decent."

So far Brad has won two events and was robbed in a third. In South Africa, the guys only had to participate in one stick fight; of those that won their fights, the tribal chief then determined a winner. The chief clearly based his decision on which fight was most interesting to watch, which ruled out Brad because his opponent had run away (I would have, too -- if this guy were coming at me with a stick, I'd be gone).

Richard, meanwhile, is the plucky Englishman who loses at everything but in a way that causes you to never remember that he's lost. I think it has something to do with the fact that he never really complains about anything. I have decided that if he accepts my friend request, I will get a T-shirt made that says: "Richard Massey is my Facebook friend. Bitch."

Is anyone else watching this show?

I think the highlight this week came when Rajko and Jason had to castrate sheep with their bare hands (uhm, not for sensitive viewers, that clip). Afterward they were served testicle soup and Jason provided the show's best quote: "We'll both stick a big fat testicle in our mouth at the same time."

*"Sports entertainment" is a term coined by professional wrestling. I don't think the outcomes of "Last Man Standing" are predetermined but it is like pro wrestling in that who wins isn't all that relevant.

**Not Minnesota, because they've got Prince.

And suddenly it gets busy

I have three different people asking me to write articles by the end of the week. I'm not complaining. I want to be a writer, and having people press me to write is certainly better than sitting around wishing I had an outlet.

My only problem is that I am unsure whether I will meet these deadlines. Because at the same time as I am supposed to be writing I am also immersed in my Welsh Cult Experience. A few days after I ungratefully accepted a position on a Welsh course for the month of July, I got a call from one of my professors informing me that I was, in fact, being offered a place on a higher-level course, Cwrs Meistroli.

I was much happier about accepting a place on this course, if not simply because it involves a weeklong trip to a secluded area of North Wales. So, I get to go on holiday and hopefully walk away with the ability to survive my degree. Brilliant. Another positive of the course was highlighted on the first day by one of my professors, who said* in Welsh: "Ooh, look Chris. Six girls in your course. That should make you happy."

The only drawback is that I have effectively sold my soul to Canolfan Dysgu Cymraeg. The course runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. There are also evening activities, trips to various locales, and the weeklong venture up north. And homework. I feel as if I have joined some kind of cult -- like I'm going through Scientology training and soon Rhys Ifans will be denouncing anyone in my family who doesn't love Wales, Welsh, and Welsh things.

So I am left with little time to focus on doing things like writing, or reading, or working out, or keeping the house clean. Thankfully, though, there is still time to watch "Last Man Standing," which is the best show ever.

The credits suggest that it was produced in part for Discovery Channel, so those of you playing along at home may get a chance to see it, but probably without the swearing and topless women. You may want to just fly to Britain to catch the rest of the series.

The idea is that they take a load of guys around the world and have them face all sorts of ridiculous indigenous challenges. The show's tagline is: "There's only one rule: Try not to die." Last week they were wrestling tribesmen in the Amazon, this week they were Zulu stick fighting. Next week they run 51 kilometres in high altitude. I am so addicted to this show.

Brad is my hero. He won last week and should have won this week, but was defeated by his own greatness. This week's winner was chosen by a Zulu war chief who based his decision on the quality of the contestants' fighting skill. Brad won his fight by basically storming in and scaring the shit out of his opponent, who gave up after three seconds. So there wasn't opportunity to display skill.

Crap. It's almost midnight and I've got homework to do.

*Because she may read my blog, I should point out that not only am I translating what my professor said, but paraphrasing it, as well. "That should make you happy," was said with body language.

Making a case for the queen

That is a look of disdain, bitches. Dick appears to be withering under her stare.

And people ask why I moved to Wales...

Actual unedited response to this week's column:

"I was going to state that you should be proud to be an American and a United States Citizen. I was going to state that you should proudly speak up about our presence in Iraq; even if you disagree with it, you should not espouse your feelings in a foreign country.

But then I saw a picture of you, and realized that you are no better than john murtha, harry reid, or nancy pelosi.

I am glad, however, that I will not be around in 20 years when you will all be praising Allah – there is nothing wrong with that, our country WAS based on religious freedom – or face slaughter at the hands of the militant islamists.

Please believe me. It will come as long as people of your ilk, continue to massage the 20 percent of people that control the media."

If election coverage were military strength, the BBC would rule with an iron fist

I am sitting here watching election coverage on S4C. Normally at this point, I would have a quick "For those of you playing along at home" note. But voter apathy is rather high in Wales, so, for those of you not presently in my living room, Wales had Assembly elections on Thursday.

For those of you who read the South Wales Echo, Wales has a governmental body commonly known as the Assembly, or Y Cynulliad. It's kind of like Parliament except the opposition parties tend not to be as witty. The Assembly is housed in one of Cardiff Bay's myriad weird-looking buildings (FTYPAH: Cardiff Bay is an Easter basket of look-how-hard-I'm-trying architecture like the St. David's Hotel, the Millennium Centre, and the Assembly building).

The last time Wales held elections, only 38 percent of the voting population took part. This time around, the Assembly has more power (that makes it sound as if it is Haggar off Final Fight, gathering strength by kicking back a six-pack he's found on the subway), but that's not expected to have drawn a whole hell of a lot more people to the polling stations.

Despite this, BBC Cymru has deployed every camera it has to all corners of Wales so Dewi Llwyd can yell at several people at once. With the exception of Plaid Cymru, talking heads for political parties have a bad habit of putting forward boneheads with my level of Welsh. That is, the politicos can understand the question, but if placed under any pressure at all they crumble like Didier Drogba under questioning from the Mossad*. It's funny to watch. I'm sure Dewi's a swell fella, but there is no way in hell I would agree to talk to him on live television.

Along with cameras and reporters everywhere, BBC Cymru is also providing commentary from at least six pundits. It also has graphics that outdo most Sam Raimi films. But my favourite element is that they have dragged in two bloggers to keep tabs on the blogging-world reaction to the election. The thing is, I'm pretty sure there are no more than 90 Welsh-language bloggers. Of those, considerably less have discussed the election with any substance (I know I haven't). The two bloggers they've got in studio are probably the only two bloggers who really care -- effectively they're keeping tabs on themselves.

As I finish this entry, there is a man standing in some crazy blue-screen life-size Assembly chamber, he is standing on the edge of a hole in the floor that looks over the whole of Wales and he is narrowly avoiding being decapitated by walls of glass with charts on them.

And now there's a choir performing in the actual Assembly building.

All of this is being duplicated in English on BBC 1. Its scope makes election coverage in America look like a talent show at the South Dakota State Fair.

*FTYPAH: Drogba plays for Chelsea FC and seems to hit the deck pretty much any time someone in the stadium coughs; the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, is notorious for its less-than-friendly methods of extracting information.

Highly (un)likely

The other day the child bride's mother randomly asked during a phone call about terrorism. In simple terms, the child bride's mother doesn't fully trust the world outside U.S. borders and she occasionally needs reassurance that her favourite daughter is at least reasonably safe while her favourite daughter's no-good husband insists on living in socialist hotspots.

MOTHER-IN-LAW: "So, are you guys staying alert to any threats from terrorists?"
CHILD BRIDE: "Huh?"
ML: "I mean, aren't you concerned about terrorism?"
CB: "In Wales?!"
ML: "Oh, so you're pretty isolated out there, huh? You're kind of far away from it?"
CB: "Yes. Definitely, mother."

And the child bride is right. Partially insulated from the rest of the world by the great blanket of ignorance that is the South Wales Echo, we have heard nothing of terrorists* in these parts or, in fact, anywhere on this island, other than those who have been put in prison for life.

Other things we haven't heard about recently on this island: school shooters, workplace shooters, and shopping centre shooters**.

Hmm, perhaps we're not really the ones she should be worried about...

*That said, I just checked the Home Office website and apparently the current threat level in the UK is severe, meaning that "an attack is highly likely." That kind of warning could not be more useless. What does "highly likely" mean? What kind of "highly likely?" Sunshine is highly likely in Majorca, less so in my bedroom closet. Is an attack "highly likely if one is going about daily life in Cardiff;" or is it, "highly likely if one pokes an Islamic extremist with a pointed stick?"

**Great, I've jinxed it now. Some retard is going to let loose with air rifle in Aberdare town centre tomorrow and it'll be all my fault.

The superiority of British pop

I'm not sure how much longer they will be available, but I highly recommend listening* to all the songs here. There are 13 tracks from a live Amy Winehouse performance earlier this year in Amsterdam that serve to eliminate any doubt I may have had as to her musical skillz.

Not a pretty lady is Miss Winehouse, but she's got that voice. Seriously, where the hell does that sound come from? You've got this wilty little English-Jewish heroin addict and out comes a voice that threatens to bitch slap Aretha Franklin. And Aretha never sang, "What kind of fuckery is this? You made me miss the Slick Rick gig."

From all the things one reads about Winehouse, you've got to think she's not particularly long for this world. Unless she finds Jesus or some such thing, she'll likely end up dead in a hotel room in the next few years. But while she's alive, she's putting out some quality music.

It speaks to my observation that there seem to be more genuinely good pop music acts in Britain than in the United States. Remove Justin Timberlake from the equation and what have you got? Some guy named Bucky and a load of substandard R&B/hip-hop acts who have abandoned the English language ("Buy U a Drank"?! What kind of fuckery is that?).

*And just listen to them; don't download them, because downloading free music is bad.