The WAG needs Carl

I've never been to Merthyr Tydfil. I've only heard about it, and nothing good. When people here say "Merthyr," they say it with a tone of defeat -- as if they are remembering the pain and frustration of being punched really hard in the stomach.

In my head, Merthyr is associated mostly with its name. Welsh for "martyr," I envision life there as a process of slow and constant suffering. The once heart of Wales gouged by the deception of industrial promise; and a moral tale of what happens when you refuse to let go of the past. Merthyr, in my head is what Wales was. Or, rather, it is what What Wales Was has become. It is that unhappy cocktail of failed dreams, and ambition deficiency. In my head, the sun never shines in Merthyr.

That's almost certainly not true. I know a girl from Merthyr and she is, in fact, an incredibly warm and genuine person; the quintessential big-chested friendly Welsh woman who complains about the price of bread.

But, even she will lilt her voice just so slightly when speaking of her hometown -- as if speaking of a relative who was fortunate enough to pass away before the police could press charges over his collection of child porn.

Then, on the train tannoy (FTYPAH: "public-address system") this morning came the cheerful song of a proper Welsh valleys accent:

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome aboard the Arriva Trains Wales service to Merthyr Tydfil! Our next stop will be Cathays; please alight here for Cardiff University. Please have your tickets ready for the automatic ticket barriers. Those of you staying on past Cathays, again, welcome aboard! My name is Carl; I'll be taking care of you this morning, all the way up through Pontypridd and up to Merthyr! I'll be passing through the train shortly, so please have your tickets ready. OK, see you in a bit!"

Carl made Merthyr sound like a magical place. Pontypridd and Merthyr! Wow! He made them sound like places you'd want to go to. More than that, places you'd be a fool not to go to. What's that? You've never been to Merthyr? My dear boy, do you but hate life? Do you detest puppies and pretty girls and freedom? What man with even the weakest grasp on sanity would refute Merthyr Tydfil?

I wanted to stay on. I wanted to have a chat with Carl. Who can concentrate on learning Irish when Merthyr awaits? Just the enthusiasm that Carl put into saying the name was enough to make me think: "I am going to take a day trip to Merthyr in the summer. I will read up on it and go see this place with all its history. It will be great!"

Imagine how the Merthyr-bound passenger must have felt: "Hey! I'm going there! Carl's talking about me!"

Clearly, Carl needs to be employed by the Welsh Assembly Government. His happy voice should be piped into all the trains in Wales, making us all feel that the places we are going are special and important; making us eager to visit those places that are just down the road.

The Ghostly Ice Cream Van

I have fallen out of habit of directing to my columns, but I am still writing them. Here's my latest one, which I am sort of pleased with simply because of the imagery, e.g., "dairy-treat-bearing land shark."

To that end, I'm pretty sure that Bomb Pops to the Malevolent is a good name for a band.

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.

Displaying an unsettling abundance of useless knowledge

In barber shop Wednesday, with Red Dragon FM playing in the background:

Woman Cutting My Hair: This is tha' ... wha's 'er name? Lil Kim, innit? The one wha' died, i'n she?
Me: It's Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez. But you're right that she died. In a car crash.
WCMH: Tha's the one. Only, she died in a plane crash, though.
Me: No, it was a car crash. Aaliyah died in a plane crash.
WCMH: Oh, tha's right, love. You're good at this stuff. You should go on one 'em shows on the telly, like.
Me: A quiz show on the tragic deaths of celebrities. Not sure how that would go over.
WCMH: Ha, don' make me laugh, love. Got a razor in me han'.

OK, that's more like it...

As if to make up for the intelligent kids of last week, standing outside the humanities building Tuesday was a bloke with one of those Chinese yo-yos that are the staple of a music festival, renaissance faire, cannabis legalization rally, or any other event where long hair and a goatee are the look de riguer.

This bloke was relatively clean cut, though, wearing the internationally recognised uniform of the English major. I'm not really sure what an English major is called in the UK; they don't tend to use the word "major" when referring to university courses of study. But you probably know the look: sport coat or velvet jacket, T-shirt or untucked frumpy dress shirt, corduroy trousers and trainers (FTYPAH: "sneakers"). Often the look is accentuated with an oversized scarf worn in such a way as to not actually be all that warm.

This is video of a bloke doing Chinese yo-yo tricks. English Major wasn't nearly that good, although he had mastered the around-the-leg trick seen 14 seconds in. Perhaps the chap in the video is an English grad student.

English Major was stood just outside the main entrance of the humanities building, sort of half-performing for the steady stream of students moving to and from their late-afternoon classes. His being there struck as a statement on what a degree in English is actually worth. Doing a bit of Chinese yo-yo was a CV-enhancing activity.

As someone earning a degree in Welsh, I appropriately stood just to his right, quietly sipping my tea and wearing a look of disdain as I thought: "Typical arrogant bastard -- showin' off like tha'."

I'm afraid this bagel is burning my flesh

I was born in Texas. You might have picked that up. And in Texas, from the moment we take that first earthly breath it is drilled into us that our state is the best place, with the best people, ever. Indeed, the indoctrination may begin sooner -- it is not at all hard for me to imagine a cowboy standing and screaming Lone Star patriotism at my mother's stomach. That famous scene in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" is factually based.

I'm more mature now, I've seen a little of the world; I realise that Texas is not actually better than every place else. There are some places that, in their own sort of way, are as good as Texas -- for example, Minnesota and Wales.

But having said that, it's important to remember that no place is better than Texas. Any persons having the audacity to claim otherwise are not only intolerably arrogant but an insult to intelligent people everywhere. This fact is at the heart of why I do not like New York City (a).

Natives of that city haven't a fucking clue about the rest of America. They don't even know where we are -- a New Yorker once looked blankly at me when I told her I was from Minnesota and said: "That's down near Idaho, isn't it?"

No. No it is not. Neither Idaho nor Minnesota are "down" from a New York perspective, and they are only near each other in the way that they are not near China. How massive is the distance that encompasses Minnesota and Idaho? How many millions of square acres does it contain? It is a fucking great huge chunk of the country and she doesn't have a clue about it.

Yet New Yorkers bill themselves as being all you need to know about America; everything that is America lies within the five boroughs and any venture beyond is academic.

My mind fires when I think about NYC and all the things I don't like about it. The deep insult to my Texas core is too much for me to handle, I suppose.

I was thinking about all this stuff on the train Wednesday, mumbling angrily to myself like a mad man as I bounced toward Cardiff Central station. I was thinking about it because I was going to be interviewed for Welsh-language television and was psyching myself up to take a stand.

I was being interviewed for politics programme "CF99" about the Super Tuesday results. The interview was to be held in Cardiff's New York Deli (b). I was OK with that. Although I have always refused to go there because if its name, I realised that it made sense to do an interview about U.S. politics in a place that had lots of U.S. flags. Admittedly, when the producer had told me where he wanted to do the interview I had blurted out, in English, "I'm not from New York," but that's not what was eating at me.

What I was mulling on the train ride into town was his suggestion that he would film me eating a bagel and drinking a Coca-Cola.

Now, generally, I want to be an easy interview. They pay you to do interviews in this country and I would be happy to build a reputation as someone to turn to when the Average American opinion is desired. I am eager to please -- how else would I have once found myself wearing a baseball cap ('cause it looks American, see) and sitting in a tree (never understood that bit) reading a Welsh dictionary for the sake of a South Wales Echo photographer? (c)

But a bagel and a Coke. No. I couldn't do it.

First off, would you do that sort of thing to anyone else? If you were interviewing someone about Irish politics, would you give them props of Guinness and a potato? But even that I could get beyond. You know, I'm American but I'm speaking Welsh. My accent when speaking Welsh doesn't really betray my being from the United States, so, you know, it's nice to have visual clues. Otherwise I'm just some bloke.

And the Coca-Cola I could handle. It's an international beverage. In my head I associate it as much with soccer as anything else.

The bagel, though...

Just thinking about it, I could feel my soul dying. I don't have a great deal of shame. I will lower myself to all sorts of things. I am no man of high principle. But I will not be filmed in a New-York-themed deli eating a quintessentially New York foodstuff.

Thankfully, the issue never came up.

When I got to the deli, the producer bought me a cup of tea and set up for the interview. No Coke. No bagel.

Maybe the deli doesn't have bagels. Maybe he picked up from my "I'm not from New York" outburst that I wouldn't be keen. Maybe he thought better of it. I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he had, in fact, been taking the piss -- Welsh people have their own experience with being put into silly boxes.

We went through the interview and, with the exception of my stumbling in trying to pronounce "dychymyg," I was pretty happy with it. Although, when it aired, my words were at times difficult to hear because someone had confusingly chosen to add a sound bed of "America" from "West Side Story."

Being associated with Puerto Ricans -- Yeah, I'm fine with that.

(a) Or, to a lesser extent, California.

(b) My aversion to all things NYC aside, it actually looked like an OK place and the woman who ran it seemed really nice, so I will go to the trouble to tell you that it can be found in High Street Arcade.

(c) Thankfully, that picture, and the story that went with it, never ran.

'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.

Overheard in Cardiff city centre

SON: "I'm not being funny, Dad, but when you're shagging your girlfriend, answering the phone isn't really on your mind, like."
FATHER: "Yeah, you've got a point."

But if we weren't wet, we wouldn't need to dry out in pubs

OK, lovers of stereotypes, what do we know about Britain?
- People here have funny accents.
- Everyone has bad teeth.
- They all drink warm beer.
- It rains a lot.

Well, the first two aren't all that true, unless by "Britain" what you really mean is "Barry." Interestingly, those two stereotypes could also be used to describe the American South.

The third one is only partially true, and less likely to be true in areas where the first two are true. Go round to Ricky Hatton's local and odds are they're all drinking cold pints of Carling.

But the thing about the rain -- that's true. Granted, there are long stretches of lovely weather, but it does rain with a certain frequency not seen in, say, San Diego, California. Yet, bafflingly, the person-to-rain-jacket ratio there appears to be about the same as here.

For reasons totally unclear to me, hardly anyone in this country owns wet-weather gear. Or, if they do, they refuse to wear it. Britons sometimes possess a certain stroppy teenager element to their behaviour -- I am convinced that there are so many atheists in this country not because they've all sat down and tried to reason out their standing in the universe, but simply because church isn't cool. Church. Cringe. Church is mingin'. (a)

In Minnesota, it's not rare to see some idiot teenager standing around in 10-below weather wearing little more than a hooded sweatshirt ("hoodie jumper," for our friends in the Home Nations), but these people either freeze to death or gain a bit of sense by they time they reach their early 20s.

Similarly, it's not shocking to see the Bishop of Llandaff students trudging around in the rain looking as if they've just been pulled from the Taff (b). But the adults are wandering about doing pretty much the same thing.

It has been raining for most of the past week in Yr Hen Ddinas, in that way that always reminds me of nautical films. I live three miles from the coast, but the weather makes me feel as if I am at sea. The wind whistles and thumps and roars against the house, and sheets of spitting rain splatter against the windows. So, I wrap up in my Marmot rain jacket before venturing outside, which means I don't have to spend the whole day feeling as if I commuted via one of those amusement park splash rides.

At the train platform this morning I was one of only two people who had thought to dress for the weather. Everyone else was out there in their office attire, getting soaked. There were a handful of women who at least were attempting to defend themselves with umbrellas, but for the most part everyone stood around looking miserable. What the hell is wrong with these people? Buy a rain jacket, you fools!

(a) That teen-speak is blatantly copied from Catrin Dafydd's Random Deaths and Custard.

(b) Check me out; rocking the blog with the ultra-local references.

Brazen be fucked

I've mentioned before that Welsh-language television has a bad habit of being not very good. Media is a challenge for a minority language.

While modern media can help to promulgate the ancient tongue, it can also savagely expose a limited talent pool. Only a few of any population are going to be legitimately talented. If the population is 750,000 (a) that few are very few. Sometimes one has to wonder if a programme is on the air simply because there are people speaking Welsh in it.

Another problem for a minority language like Welsh, or Irish, etcetera, is the fact that viewers will compare whatever they see in the language to the stuff they see in English. And they subconsciously expect it to be as good or better. It's not really fair to compare something on S4C to a programme with an audience that is some 15 times larger than the whole Welsh speaking population, but people do. That's life.

"'Sopranos' ger y lli" ("Sopranos by the sea") is how the new programme "Y Pris" bills itself, even going so far as to use music by Alabama 3 (b) in its title sequence. My general feeling is that it's incredibly stupid to deliberately draw that comparison because: 1) People will be hyper-critical, looking to prove you wrong; 2) It makes the show sound unoriginal; 3) "Y Pris" isn't really all that much like "The Sopranos."

One could just as easily describe "Y Pris" as: "Twin Town without as many characters that you wish would die." Indeed, "Y Pris" even features "Twin Town" actors (c). Or you could describe the show as being simply: "Pretty much every stylish British crime/drug film you've seen, in a language you don't understand -- just pretend Begbie is talking."

Whatever it is, it's actually pretty good.

S4C is banking quite a bit on its success, advertising on bus shelters and billboards and the like. They are hoping to create a crossover programme that will appeal enough to English speakers that they'll sit and watch it with subtitles. The channel had a similar publicity blitz for the programme "Caerdydd," which looked like it should have been good but, in fact, wasn't.

Because "Caerdydd" was such a disappointment (the acting was alright, and it was visually well done, but the storyline was insufferable and directionless. And it seemed to have fuck all to do with Cardiff), I've been sceptical about "Y Pris," not actually watching an episode until the second week. I was impressed enough that I tuned in again this week. At the end of this week's episode I found myself thinking: "You know, this is, surprisingly, not shit."

It's even good enough that it could be aired in the United States. Obviously, it would be on some ultra-obscure satellite channel, at 2 a.m., on something like IFC, but it is actually worth watching even if you have no interest in Welsh.

It is worth watching enough, that I will encourage you to watch the programme online. The episodes are only 36 minutes long and broadcast in good quality. You should see the subtitles in Windows Media Player. If not, click the "Play" tab, and go down to "Lyrics, Captions and Subtitles."

One of my favourite scenes so far is actually one done in English, about four and a half minutes into the third episode.

(a) That's the number of Welsh speakers worldwide, according to Wikipedia. I am too lazy to go dig up more official stats.

(b) The title sequence for "The Sopranos" uses Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning."

(c) The characters Bryn and Fatty from this clip.

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.

Cheesecake 97

I think I've mentioned before that one of the more amusing elements of British university-campus fashion is their strange love of random Americana on T-shirts and sweatshirts ("hooded jumpers," for international viewers). For example, I often see faux-worn-out clothing promoting Minnesota kayaking clubs or non-existent Wisconsin colleges.

Thus far my favourite of these had been the shirt that simply said: "CENTERFIELDER." But today I saw one even better: a girl wearing a sweatshirt that said:

CHEESECAKE
97

I want to believe that it was an ironic shirt, that someone somewhere spotted this ridiculous trend and decided to take it to its ridiculous extreme. But it's so hard to tell sometimes.

Thank you, Barclays, for your vigilance against Chris Cope doppelgangers

Actual experience at Llandaff branch of Barclays:

ME: (Handing over cheque, deposit slip and bank card) Hello, good afternoon. I just need to deposit this cheque.
BANK TELLER: OK... (Types in numbers on keyboard) Oh, but this cheque says "Chris Cope."
ME: Yes...
BANK TELLER: Well the account is for "JC Cope."
ME: Right. (Quickly assessing that explaining the whole shortened-middle-name thing will be too much for this woman) "Chris" is my middle name.
BANK TELLER: But the account says "JC Cope."
ME: I know it does. And the "C" in "JC" stands for "Chris," as in "Chris Cope," as in the person standing in front of you.
BANK TELLER: But it's different from what I have on the screen, you see?
ME: You don't think my parents named me "JC," do you?
BANK TELLER: (Pausing for thought) Well. No.
ME: The "J" and the "C" stand for things. In this case, they stand for "James" and "Chris."
BANK TELLER: But a cheque is supposed to have the name of the account holder on it.
ME: But there isn't anyone named "JC Cope." Or, if there is, he's going to be upset that I have his cash point card, know his PIN and have been receiving his bank statements. And what a fool I've been for putting money into his account for the last year and a half. Why is it that no one has ever brought this up with me before?
BANK TELLER: (Flustered and wanting me to go away) I couldn't say. I've accepted it this time, but I was simply letting you know.
ME: (Making the rare decision not to carry on being a smartass) OK, fine. Thank you very much for your time.

I wanted to ask her how she would expect me to prove who I am if the bank really only accepts cheques payable to "JC Cope." My passport, my U.S. driver's license, and my UK driver's license -- the most official proofs of identity I have -- all state my name in full. If "JC Cope" is the only thing the bank accepts, they have made it impossible for me to ever prove to be that person.

Also, since I was the one with all the account information, she must have assumed me to be the infamous JC Cope and was suggesting I had masterminded the theft of a cheque written to Chris Cope -- that cheque having been written by Rachel Cope. Obviously, she was trying to prevent some sort of ridiculous Eastenders-style family fracas. As it stands, the cheque has been deposited and Chris Cope will now be unable to pay his £90 gambling debt to Javier Carlos Cope. Bwahahaha.

(It all reminds me of Henry Cho's story of JB Stuart [50 seconds into the video])

I'm a winner

I'm not Welsh-American (i.e., someone born in the United States of Welsh heritage) or even Welsh American (i.e., an American citizen born in Wales), but somehow I've taken the prize for best Welsh-American Blog according to the Welsh Blog Awards.

You'll note that this is the first time the Welsh Blog Awards have been mentioned here. This is because I have a problem with the concept of blog awards. I think they are ridiculous, but I'm not 100-percent sure why. I think it partially has something to do with the personal nature of blogs, or, at least my blog. I just write a bunch of nonsense that comes to my head, which more or less reflects how I feel at the particular time of writing. If you like it, rock on. If you don't like it, I guess that's OK, too. But if you like me/my blog simply because someone else does, you're an ass.

Having said that, though, my self-righteousness crumbles if I am the recipient of such ridiculous praise. I am even willing to ignore the fact that I have won a prize for which I am blatantly unqualified. Accolades are accolades, bitches, and I am a shallow man. I'll take what I can get. If I had won a prize for being the Best Black Vegan One-Legged Veteran Blogger Living In Mandan, ND, I'd be displaying the graphic for that, as well.

My Welsh blog took the prize for Best Welsh-Learner Blog.

Annie, meanwhile, won the prizes for Best Blog, Best Personal Blog, Best Humour Blog (I came in second in that one) and Best-Looking Blog. To my knowledge neither of us gets any sort of actual prize beyond the right to feel special about ourselves for a year.

The tragedy and glory of men

I've mentioned before that the Welsh love poetry. I've had a few people try to disprove me by pointing out that they don't like poetry, but that is simply because another thing that is true of the Welsh is that they are naturally contrary.

The fondness for verse was again on display this week. Where else but Wales would they have a television programme that mixes poetry and rugby?

On Tuesday, BBC 2 aired a programme called "Rugby: Poetry in Motion." Featuring poems by Phil Carradice, Gillian Clarke, Kathryn Gray, Paul Henry and Owen Sheers, it was little more than half an hour of slow-motion shots of rugby players set to dreamy voiceover.

What's strange is that it worked. It shouldn't have. When someone refers to the fullback position as "midwife and curator," and suggests that it is an allegory for Western culture, that should cause you to throw things at the TV. But I sat there watching and writing down phrases and thinking: "Ooh, I wish I had come up with that line."

The poems focused on the various field positions, the team, and the game as a whole, making it all sound as if rugby were a part of the eternal struggle. Having played rugby, I suppose that in a simplistic and ridiculous way, there is truth to that -- a lot of my personal philosophy derives from my short time of having my ass kicked on a weekly basis.

So far, I can only find two of the poems online: Sheers' "Flankers" and Gray's "Prop," which I think may be incomplete from what I remember of the broadcast. Neither of the poems have my favourite lines, one of which I used for the headline of this post.

I also like:
- The poem referring to the time in which a player stares into the sky waiting to receive a kick as "the dazzling light between birth and death."
- The poem that described the scrum as "the mud and bone." Seriously, how bad-ass is that?

But easily, the best was the poem that started with the line: "I felled a tree with my bare hands."

Fuck yeah.

I tried to imagine something similar being done in the United States; it would fail miserably. I suppose Quincy Troupe could pull it off*, but he'd be the only one and then he'd be dropped as soon as they found out he hadn't really played varsity in high school**. Troupe, by the way, is one of only three living American poets that I can name off the top of my head -- the other two being May Angelou and Henry Rollins. Unless you count Common, which you probably should, because he's the bloke who came up with "Doing all she can for her man and a baby/ Driving herself crazy like the astronaut lady."

For those of you in Wales who missed it, "Rugby: Poetry in Motion" airs again on BBC 2 Wales, Wednesday 12 September at 10 p.m.

*The camera work here makes me want to kill. Just close your eyes and listen to the poem.

** I doubt anyone will get that reference without a Google search.

It was better than Cats

It would appear that a major part of the writing process for me is spending several months telling people that I am going to write something, but not actually writing said thing.

Before I wrote The Way Forward (formerly known as Drinking Stories but still unpublished by any name), I spent about five months claiming that I was going to write it. In the case of my second book, that shit-talking interval has been reduced to four months and I am now in the process of very slowly crafting yet another story that no one will read.

I acknowledge the futility of such an act, but I still post myself in front of the computer every day, because that's my mental picture of what a writer should do. Much of the way I approach writing is wrapped in what I think I should do. That's a clear sign of a poseur, I know, but since that is indeed what I am I don't really know any other way to be. It's one of those logic puzzles: how does a poseur pretend to not be a poseur without looking like a poseur posing as a non-poseur?

So, I sit there in front of my laptop trying to look like a writer. If you were to set up a web camera in my study, perhaps I would indeed look like one. At almost any time of day you would see me sitting at the computer and you might think, "Gosh, there's a fellow who's dedicated to his craft," but on closer inspection you would see that I am more often than not checking Facebook.

"Do I have any new friends yet? No. How about now? Nope. OK, how about now?"

Yes, you can get e-mail alerts for such things, but what if there's a glitch? It's better to keep checking. Because, you know, the number of people I have listed on my Facebook is a direct indicator of my character. Your number of Facebook friends is directly related to how much Jesus loves you. Presently Jesus loves Al Franken a whole lot more than me, which is kind of unfair since Franken is Jewish. But Jews stick together, I guess.

Yesterday, though, I was actually writing my actual book and feeling quite pleased with myself, when I heard a little "tink-tink" noise just behind me. I turned around and saw a small orange and black cat just sitting there on the floor, staring at me.

"Hello, cat," I said. "What are you doing here?"

In typical cat fashion, it refused to answer. But I was able to guess that it had come in from the back garden. In these summer days I like to keep the door open to let the air in.

"I don't think Rachel would want you in the house," I told the cat, pointing to the stairs.

The cat acknowledged this and headed downstairs with me, where -- in true 1940s housewife style -- I put some cream in a bowl and set it outside in the garden. I'm sure proper cat owners will tell me that cats do not actually like cream, or that it is, in fact, bad for them. But this cat humoured me by licking it up and allowing me to pet it for a while.

"You're one of those damn cat diplomats," I realised.

Delegates from the cat community will occasionally try to persuade me to change my anti-cat stance. This tabby was very clearly trying to strike right to my core by showing up in my study.

Over the years, I have noticed that almost every author I like, and several that I at least respect, are cat people. Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, Kate Roberts -- all of them had cats and their appreciation of the fiendish creatures was often worked into their art. In Islands in the Stream, Hemingway spends a good five pages yammering on about his cat.

Since I am more a person who wishes to be seen as a writer than an actual writer, I have long worried that I would need to adopt a cat to fit the caricature of who I am trying to be. I have also long lamented that I am doing very little, if anything, toward developing lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver.

Indeed, if that cat shows up again with a pack of Camels and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, I will see right through its feline trickery.

But that's the thing, see. I haven't seen that cat since. After no more than two minutes of hanging out with me, the cat scampered off. That's the thing about cats -- they leave you. Which is at the heart of why I don't like them.

The purpose of having a pet, in my mind, is to have something around that will make you feel less lonely but doesn't have the ability to commandeer the TV remote. The purpose of a pet is right there in the name; it should sit there and be warm and pay attention to me and allow me to pet it. To that extent, I have never understood the point of keeping fish or birds. Pets should be mammals -- dogs, cats, bison, etc.

But a cat is a heart-breaker. It shows up and gives you a token amount of attention and then disappears to rub its fur all over your black shirts and make your house smell of its wee. Cats are bastards, dealing a kind of emotional crack to the weakest souls.

Here I am, wannabe writer, feeling a bit lonely in this faraway country where I still haven't mastered the language, and this cat shows up and makes me feel better. And then it pisses off, never to be seen again, making me feel even worse. Fucker. Little four-legged heart-wrenching demon.

Man, I hate cats.

*How many people get that headline?

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.

Whatever happened to that one guy?

One of the seminal novels of Welsh-language literature is Traed Mewn Cyffion, by Kate Roberts. The title literally translates to "Feet in Chains," but the book could just as easily be called "101 Things to Be Miserable About."

It is that kind of novel that so often appears on lists of classics, in that it is about miserably poor people living their miserably poor lives. These novels always annoy me and cause me to react like some sort of 1920s Tory, growling at the book: "What's wrong with you, man? Pull yourself together and make something of yourself, why don't you. What?"

To her credit, Kate Roberts tries to answer that question in the title and in a dialogue late in the book that was probably put there for stupid people like me that need things spelled out. In life we are bound to all kinds of things, we are chained to family and poverty and place and station and on and on. More often than not these bonds are mental, and more often than not the mental bonds are the hardest to break.

Oh, and World War I was a shit war.

Anyway, in the book, the character that stood out for me is one whose name I can't even remember at the moment. The eldest of the Gruffydd children, he basically gets written out of the story about halfway through. He is a sort of incidental character who spends all his time working or sleeping, thus demonstrating the exhausting monotony of working at a slate quarry. Then his character gets frustrated with life and demonstrates how hard it was to get people to join the union. Then he demonstrates that trying to get people to join the union was likely to get you the sack. Then he demonstrates that a lot of people moved down to South Wales to find work. Then he pretty much disappears. A few years later he is married and doing alright in the south and no more than a paragraph is spent on him.

The book carries on and everyone else is miserable and poor and can't ever seem to get a leg up and Sioned's a slag and Twm dies in the war and Owen spends several pages telling us how much life sucks and if we have anything in life we only have our family and war sucks the biggest suck that ever sucked because it kills your little brother and now you've got nothing and no one. So you might as well just sit there and smoke your pipe. And the book ends.

So the thing I found myself growling at the end was: "What about your older brother? Ay? He's still alive, what?"

But the older brother is out of sight, out of mind. Which is, I suppose, testament to Roberts' famed ability to capture real life. If you live far away from family, you quickly fade from the family picture. You become peripheral -- a family member by title only.

It's like this that the child bride has been feeling lately. She comes from a big family that revels in being a big family. When she calls to see how they are, she gets the sense that they are just fine. Without her. Not thinking about her. Not wondering how she is doing. Almost certainly they are wondering these things but they are difficult to convey over distance and phone calls that must conform to seven-hour time differences.

Meanwhile, I've been feeling lost in my own way. And I think a lot about George Berkeley who said that reality is simply God's perception. That's troubling since reportedly I am made in God's image and I have a shit memory. If God's memory is at all like mine, I am in woeful danger of ceasing to exist. I feel a terrible sense of needing to do something so as to be memorable, to make a mark, but not really feeling that I can or ever will. I feel fading.

Much like this post, the child bride and I feel as if we have lost the plot a little bit. There is homesickness and more and we're not really sure how to shake it. This is the drawback of setting off on far-away adventures, I suppose; sometimes you feel far away.

Thank you, Lord

Admittedly, I'm not truly Welsh, but I think I can speak for all the people here when I say: "Thank you, Lord, for Duncan Jones and his ability to make a tackle."

If we're honest, Wales is not going to beat France next week, which meant that this week was Wales' best chance of going into World Cup with at least one win after the record defeat to England. Without Duncan there to strip the ball from Durand, it would have been a draw and the Western Mail would be calling for a Nicolae Ceausescu-style removal of Gareth Jenkins from the coaching job.

The thing that baffles me is that the commentators were on about him having to compete for the No. 1 shirt. Who the hell are they watching? Duncan's got good hands, he's a forward that backs can't get past and when the players have to be lead by children onto the field he's the only one who actually talks to them. And, sometimes he cries when he sings the national anthem. Duncan is the shiznit.