Níl a fhios agam

Sport is an emotional opiate. Watching it on television is, at least.

Occasionally, watching sport produces intense emotional highs -- memory-searing moments that stay with us all our lives. The moment that Wales won the Six Nations, and the whole of the Maltsers Arms seemed to be in midair in an explosion of celebration, the way I could feel the whole city screaming, that's a moment I won't forget. But those moments are rare.

Generally, to watch sport on television means a few happy hours of emotional detachment that you simply can't get from watching, say, a film. This is why men prefer watching sport. We can sit there comfortable in the knowledge that at no point will there be some cute and quirky female character who we will fall in love with, only to watch her die or make some ass-hat life decision. At no point will we have to wrestle with moral issues. At no point will we have to watch a fella kiss another fella and pretend it doesn't make us uncomfortable.

Watching 11 blokes run around with 11 other blokes, all of them occasionally pretending to be injured and struggling to kick a ball into an area the size of a small bus, requires nothing of a man. This is why I am already looking forward to watching Tuesday's Champions League match. I am worn out, yo.

What's wearing me out is the fact that exams are fast approaching and I am wholly unprepared. Each night I toss and turn with the fear that I am lying in bed doing nothing -- Nothing, damn me! Sleep?! What is that about?! Laziness! Sloth! I should be up and studying! -- as my own academic version the Battle of Karánsebes (a) lies in wait.

The first exam facing me, and the one I'm fearing most, is my spoken Irish exam on 7 May. I think I could only be more unprepared for this exam if I had never actually set foot in any of the lectures. Indeed, if that were the case my impending failure might be a little more honourable. As is, I've never missed a lecture but have somehow managed to not learn a thing.

So I am now in the mode of desperately trying to teach myself Irish. Famously, I pulled this trick with Welsh, but in that case I had a little more than three weeks to learn everything. Indeed, it wasn't until six years into The Welsh Experience that anyone tested me on it.

And the online resources for teaching oneself Welsh are surprisingly better than those available to Irish learners. So far, the two best Irish sites I've found are those offered by non-Irish entities: the BBC and Des Bishop. Neither offer a great deal, and the BBC's site (logically) teaches the Ulster dialect, which isn't what I'm being tested on.

For those of you playing along at home, the concept of dialect in a minority language is a bit different than anything in our experience. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that American English is, in itself, a dialect. And within the American English dialect rarely are the differences in pronunciation, grammar, etc. so varied that one person genuinely struggles to understand another. Yes, those of us who grew up in Texas or the South can immediately think of people we have met, or are related to, who are somewhat unintelligible. But in truth that person doesn't speak all that differently.

Indeed, the differences between all English speakers are not so great. More or less, the widest gap one can really come up with is that between the English spoken by Alexyss K. Tylor and the English spoken by Billy Connolly.

But the gap can be much greater in a minority language, to the extent that people from Cork, where my Irish teacher is from, will claim to not even comprehend an Ulster speaker.

So, I don't know Irish, the Irish I'm attempting to learn is the wrong kind, and my exam is two and a half weeks away. Liverpool v. Chelsea -- I can't wait.

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(a) Funniest. Military. Blunder. Ever. Well, as funny as 10,000 dead guys can be.

You know, it's none of your business who is maith liom

Here's a strange but generally true fact about Americans: We don't like it when you ask us who we're voting for.

"That can't possibly be true," you're saying. Americans post signs in their front yards, they slap bumper stickers on their cars, they wear T-shirts and badges and hats with the name of their chosen candidate gaudily emblazoned on them. They spend hour after hour after hour consuming incessant political coverage and writing MISPELED ALL CAPZ RANTING on internet message boards.

But, see, no one's asking them to do that.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Americans like to think that we are somehow above the political fray. So it is traditionally bad form to ask an American point blank who he or she will vote for. You are asking him or her to pick sides. You are asking him or her to no longer be an American but a certain kind of American. It's part of that "all men are created equal" thing. Our sentimental attachment to ideology. Our ridiculous beliefhope that we can actually live up to the stuff we promised ourselves 232 years ago.

Give us three minutes in a conversation and we will happily place ourselves in countless little defining boxes, but ask us who we're voting for and it makes us uncomfortable.

Our friends in the Home Nations, though, tend not to get this. People keep asking me who I plan to vote for. That information is readily available in this journal, on my Facebook profile, and in the way I will say things like: "I like candidates who want to set actual carbon emissions targets, rather than being sort of vague and asking people to take a totally ridiculous and non-binding pledge to reduce global warming, or simply ignoring the issue entirely." But I don't feel comfortable sharing that information with someone who asks. Yes, I'm being duplicitous. I don't care.

With around 9.5 months to go before the election, and a good seven months before I actually know who I will vote for (I know who I want to vote for now, but the outcomes of the summer conventions may change my options) I am already having to deal with the trick of constantly answering a question that is to me uncomfortable.

Generally, I am choosing to give people a tedious explanation of American etiquette rather than uttering a three-syllable surname. But Monday I found myself forced to answer the question, under the strangest of circumstances: an Irish exam.

Actually, the exam managed to squeeze in two questions that I find uncomfortable.
The second question is one that asks my opinion of George W. Bush. I'm probably in a minority on this one, but I am of some ancient mentality that the U.S. president deserves some level of automatic respect. Plus he's a fellow Texan. And I tend to mentally separate the seemingly likeable man and his insanely stupid policies. So when faced with the question: "What do you think of George W. Bush?" I usually try to answer with something along the lines of: "Well, he is the fairly elected president of the United States. And whatever I might feel for the individual, I respect the system he represents."

But I don't know how to say these things in Irish. So, when I heard Bushy's name wrapped in a string of soft consonants I knew the question that was being asked but not how to answer it.

"Well..." I sighed.

Then I realised that failure to answer the question would convey not a desire to maintain a facade of political ambiguity, but a lack of language comprehension. And I thought about the fact that my Irish teacher had said that if the examiners strayed from the set list of questions we were given to study, it was a sign things were going well and the examiners were trying to convince themselves to give the highest mark. With this kicking I my brain I forced myself to spit out an embarrassingly simple answer:

"Ní mhaith liom George Bush" (I do not like George Bush)

"Damn it," I thought. "I've sold my integrity for a high mark. I have no shame. I hate this. I just want to get out of here."

But then the other examiner, my Irish teacher, hit me with one last question. I was already in the mode of mentally shutting down, so I understood only two words. The question sounded like this: "Lafafa fahahafaha Clinton nó faha wahafa Obama?"

I answered the question, thanked the examiners and then left the room knowing that I had simultaneously passed a course and let my country down.

It goes to 11

It's a simple fact that some peoples are naturally cooler than others. Black people for example: on the whole, blacks (and especially in the United States) are so cool that it is almost a super power. They can make anything cool. Remember that fashion of pushing up one's trouser leg for no particular reason? That was ridiculous. In a strictly controlled environment, jacking up the leg of your trousers is a sign that you haven't figured out how to wear clothes.

But black people made it cool.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen black guys wearing silly hats and managing to pull it off. I'll think to myself: "Hey, I like silly hats. I wish I could wear a hat like that." But I know I can't -- not unless I want to get punched in the face.

That's life. I like to think that karma is somehow involved -- blacks have had to spend hundreds of years getting the short end of the stick (uhm, that's putting it mildly), so God gives them extra cool. Yes, I realise I've just mixed Buddhism and Christianity, but you get my point.

In race terms, white people rank pretty low in coolness. Within that group, of course, there are sub-groups and some white people are just naturally cooler than others. In the subsection of the British Islands, then, I think we can agree that the Irish are at the top, with the Welsh, unfortunately, left to take up the slack.

I'm sorry. I know my Welsh friends won't be happy to hear that, but it's true. The Welsh are a likeable and admirable people in all sorts of ways, but coolness isn't one of those ways. A country that posits Meic Stevens as a musical genius is not cool. End of discussion.

Since I'm also not cool, this is something that has never really bothered me. But now I'm learning Gaeilge (Irish) and the coolness of the guy teaching the course is off-putting. I'm not saying he could walk into the classroom sporting an Afro pick, but he at least has a Coolness Factor of 11, which is to say that he is cooler than the 11 of us taking his course.

This makes it difficult for us to learn his language because when we try to repeat what he says to us, it comes out all wrong and we feel stupid and totally lame for trying to mimic him. Then we go all quiet and think: "Oh cripes, I hope he doesn't eviscerate me with his notorious Irish wit. They're famous for that, these wily Irish. They can think of funny, brilliant and cutting things to say really quickly."

Well, at least, I think that. I don't know why the rest of the class is mumbling.

Aesthetically pleasing, or, in other words, fly

If, like me, you feel obligated to watch every television programme featuring a poncy British guy yammering on about whatever subject it is that he thinks is so delightfully interesting it deserves an hour of your attention, you know that the modern Olympics aren't quite the Olympics as they used to be. In the good ol' days, of course, the chaps ran around naked and killed each other. Ah, good times.

Somewhat similarly, the Eisteddfod dreamed up by Iolo "Forgery is Fun" Morgannwg isn't exactly the same sort of thing that was going on back in the 12th century. It is an opium-induced Edwardian romantic vision of Welsh culture. That's an element that I wish they would play up a little more: "Welcome to Eisteddfod: kooky pseudo-druidism from the mind of a nutjob."

Of course, dreamed-up cultural traditions are perfectly fine with me. Made-up stuff provides the foundation of American culture. Thanksgiving was dreamed up to sell cookbooks. I simply bring it up because romanticism is the thing that struck me most about my second Eisteddfod experience.

For those of you playing along at home, an eisteddfod (roughly pronounced: "ay-STETH-vode") is a cultural event/series of competitions that encompasses pretty much anything you've got time for: singing, literature, dancing, arts, crafts, etc. It's a bit like a county fair, minus the baking competition and those kitschy endearing elements that British filmmakers like to feature when trying to demonstrate that all Americans are slack-jawed yokels. There is no eisteddfod leek-eating contest (and more's the pity for that, I say).

The eisteddfodau (more than one eisteddfod) are based on a tradition of poets strutting their stuff for one another, which took place as late as the 12th century and as early as some time that I failed to note when I had a lecture on Eisteddfod several months ago. These events are held all throughout Wales, all throughout the year and they are generally about as exciting as you would expect a bunch of people gathered in a church hall reading poetry to be. Actually, it's more fun than that, thanks to sock-rocking elements like cerdd dant and côr llefaru.

Cerdd dant is a competition that in its essence involves singing to harp accompaniment. But for wacky fun, every competitor has to sing the same song. Or, at least, the same words. I think they are allowed to make up a different tune if they are so inclined, but to be honest I've never been able to sit through a cerdd dant competition long enough to say one way or the other. Here's a clip of a bloke who won £150 for his performance.

The utterly baffling côr llefaru, meanwhile is something that our man Iolo almost certainly would have seen in his opium fits. Like some kind of low-tech Lydia Lunch spoken word performance*, it involves several people reciting poetry in dramatic unison. You should probably be sitting down to watch this clip (although, it's worth it for the hottie flutist).

Easily the most hilarious competitions, though, are those for dancing. They are funny in a surreal way -- the whole thing of performing what should be life-affirming folk dance on a vast, empty stage before an utterly silent audience. It's like attempting to do Def Comedy Jam on Sunday morning at an old folk's home.

Once a year, there is a national Eisteddfod (note the big "E"), the big-money eisteddfod. This is the thing that all the Welsh Bob Dylan wannabes** sing about. Last week's Eisteddfod events pulled just shy of 155,000 visitors, which is about half of what St. Paul's Grand Old Day pulls in a single day, or 1.5 million people short of Minnesota State Fair attendance. But don't let the numbers fool you; Eisteddfod is televised live across the country and the focus of all conversation for the week before, during and after the actual affair.

Well, the focus of conversation in Welsh-speaking circles, at least. The bus driver who took me from Chester to Mold (where Eisteddfod was held this year) had no idea it was going on.

People attending Eisteddfod are probably happy to have it that way. It plays more into the sense of isolation that Welsh people often seek to create for themselves. And minimal numbers of English speakers assist in the romanticism of the event. It meant that in the instant village that was the caravan park one heard only Welsh. Hundreds of people, across acres of land, yammering away in y Gymraeg. It was Welshie utopia.

FTYPAH: "caravan" here means "camping trailer." Imagine my disappointment when I first figured that out. In all the times I had heard about people going caravanning, I had envisioned them bouncing about the British countryside like Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof."

In that vein, I had bundled my tent along with me to Mold and set up with a few friends on the periphery of the rows of caravans. Camping at festivals is an established British summer tradition -- pitching a tent in the mud and stomping around on two hours' sleep is part of the experience. Or, at least, that is the way that it is portrayed. In fact, what I found was that everyone had a tent that was at least three times the size of mine. Mari had a six-man tent all to herself. Rhodri and Elin's tent was so large and equipped with so many guy wires that it reminded me of the tent used by Hawkeye, Hunnicutt and Winchester in M*A*S*H. I kept asking them when they were going to set up the still (a reference that I think was lost on them).

People came equipped with full-size air mattresses, camping stoves, radios, televisions and countless other amenities. The field itself was equipped with proper working toilets, showers, a chippy (FTYPAH: "burger stand"), a convenience store and a bar. This is what I mean by "instant village;" it wasn't camping at all.

At dusk, smoke from barbecues would lift up against the sunset and hills, and from every corner you could hear the constant patter of Radio Cymru or families and friends all speaking in this ancient language. It reminded me of my first impression of Cymru Gymraeg (Welsh-speaking Wales) more than 10 years ago: that I had somehow stumbled into a different country within a different country. That's the romantic vision, the romantic hope of many Welsh speakers, I suppose. It's the thing that makes Eisteddfod worthwhile, which is also what makes it hard to appreciate.

Welsh-language culture is wrapped almost entirely in the language. It has traditional dance and music, but for whatever reason these elements are seemingly shunned within the culture. Its modern music is awful more often than not, and almost all other modern cultural aspects are indistinguishable from those found in England. This results in a culture that doesn't really have an entry level for appreciation. There is no bodhrán or tartan to Welsh culture.

On the most recent episode of "Mountain," Griff Rhys Jones was talking about a British attempt to wipe out Highland sentiment by killing a load of people. He noted that tartan (FTYPAH: "plaid") was at one time banned and people were cleared off their land and killed, and yet in modern times all these Highlandy things can be found pretty much anywhere on the British islands and they are easily recognized worldwide. He suggested that these things have become more widespread than they ever would have been if the British had simply left the Highlanders alone. He then darkly quipped: "Perhaps if there had been a few massacres in Wales, people would know who we are."

There's a certain truth to that. Whatever the reason, it's difficult for outsiders to really grasp the differentness of Welsh culture. If you are an English speaker or person from outside the British islands, there is little to pique your interest because the language is so tightly woven into the culture -- if you don't know the language, you are not likely to see what's so fucking special about this place.

All of this is at the heart of why I was so disappointed by my first Eisteddfod experience. Last year, when the child bride and I went to Eisteddfod in Swansea, I was hoping for a sort of cultural event/celebration that would in some way vindicate all the time and money and trouble of moving here. I wanted to be able to say to my wife: "Yes, I know that I have failed you as a husband by dragging you on some ridiculous dream, but look at what we get in return."

I had long had difficulty answering the question that I am so often asked -- "Why Welsh?" -- and hoped that Eisteddfod would finally provide that answer.

It didn't. Cripes almighty, it didn't. It was a bunch of rocks and white information booths. A third-rate county fair trying to win legitimacy by mimicking the "Ode to a Grecian Urn" scene in "Music Man"***.

But then this year, I was sitting around a barbecue with friends -- beer in hand, smoke rising into the summer sunset -- and it hit me. It hit me again the next day, when I was chatting with people who were spread out on the grass near a beer stand, listening to the caterwauling of yet another Dylan wannabe. The language stupid.

So often in Welsh-speaking situations there is an element of something -- defiance, academia, back-room dealing -- that runs through the experience. But in Eisteddfod, with everyone speaking the language simply because it is a language and language is how you tell your friends about funny things, the simple act of talking rubbish in the sun feels slightly otherworldly. It's romanticism, of course. In this world there is only one radio station, one TV station, no newspaper and the 1990s have yet to occur musically. But with the language clicking in my brain, I was finally able to see the appeal of Eisteddfod.

I don't like saying this, but I actually enjoyed it.

*Whoa, in the great game of obscurity baseball, I have just knocked one out of the park with that reference.

**For some inexplicable reason, one of the most-respected Welsh-language pop artists is a dude who blatantly stole his style from Bob Dylan ( here's proof). Even more confusing is that there are legions of younger performers who are blatantly stealing their style from him.

***I couldn't find that scene on You Tube, but I did find my favourite scene from the musical. His producing a marshmallow (7:25) is one of the greatest bits of random comedy ever. I also wish that I had had the guts to use "It's alright, I know everything and it doesn't make any difference," as an opening line when meeting a girl.

Fácil

I am amused by this story, about a BBC duo who plan to spend a fortnight travelling across the United States speaking only Spanish.

It reminds me a bit of the Popeth yn Gymraeg challenge of a few years ago, in which Ifor ap Glyn went around these parts using only Welsh. But the Spanish-in-the-USA challenge is considerably easier -- especially when you look at the BBC crew's route. I reckon that one could perform the same task following a route that hugs the U.S.-Canada border; running through places like San Antonio, El Paso, and Nogales will be a cakewalk.

I want the BBC to pay me to do really easy things. Send me to Ireland to discover whether I can find any people who drink Guinness. Lock me in a room with a naked Reese Witherspoon to discover whether I find her attractive.

Spanish speakers can follow their journey via a BBC blog.

Philosophy from grammar books

Spanish grammar fact that can be interpreted as a general statement: "Ideas are feminine."

Revision hell persists. Despite having at one time or another attended Moorhead State University (now Minnesota State University Moorhead -- it's always a sign of a quality institution when a university feels the need to re-brand), University of Portsmouth, University of Nevada Reno and Mesa College, this year is really the first time I have cared about the outcome of things.

So, this is my first real occurrence of revision stress. I don't have the experience of coping and knowing how much panic is reasonable. Obviously it's good to have a bit of a fire lit under oneself for these things. But at the moment I seem to be suffering pretty much every stress-induced ailment imaginable. If I were an old man at a supermarket, I would explain these ailments in detail. Suffice to say, I am a wreck.

Shit. How much time have I wasted writing this post?

Guapisimo

Continuing the Chris-is-too-lazy-to-post-anything-other-than-YouTube-videos theme, but with the twist of it being a video that I actually produced, I give you this. It's a video I made for my Spanish conversation course on how I use the Internet. If you don't speak Spanish, don't worry -- neither do I. It's potentially worth watching, though, just for the part when I shout "¡guapisimo!"

My apologies for the sound quality. Some day I will buy a cool microphone and all my videos will have really slick voiceovers.

For people like Beth, who can actually speak Spanish, I would be interested to know how close I've come to being understandable here.

Le bastards

Someone found my blog searching: "Epson CX4800 is stuck in French."

I can't quite explain why I think that is so funny. Epson are such fuck-ups, it's both amusing and not at all surprising that they would produce a bit of electronics that speaks only French.

I'm becoming one of those people

Please send help. Today I made a joke in which the punchline required knowledge of grammar. This is clearly the result of studying two languages and being all wannabe writer-like. Soon I will develop a Bill Bryson beard and become as tedious as Mark Twain*.

Perhaps related to this is the fact that lately I have been seriously considering purchasing a smoking pipe -- preferably similar to the one used by Bing Crosby in "White Christmas." The only thing preventing me from doing this is the fact that the child bride would have a fit.

My taking up smoking would almost certainly result in a sudden increase of Rachel "accidentally" hitting me in her sleep.

*Remember, kids: You don't have to actually be witty if you look like you should be witty.

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