People always ask me what I miss most about Britain. Without hesitation: PUBS and decent beer. Oh and summer festivals.
My local in Brynsadler, whenever I visited my folks, used to be The Ivor Arms, my old man would be down there without fail at 12 midday every Sunday, he was going there for nigh on 30 year, but now apparently it's "Y Draenog" posh pub /restaurant and the old man refuses to go in, don't know why, never been there meself.
My last abode in Wales was Abercwmboi, infamously known for it's Phernicite (bugger me if I can find that word in the diksh, phurni? ferni? pherni? furni?), which would spew out sulphur laden yellow smoke in the process of cleaning up our coal so that it wouldn't pollute, sweet eh? In Abercwmboi was Y Cap Goch which was decent enough, but just up the road in Cwmaman was / is the Temple Bar which looked like yer old Granny's front living room, infact I'm pretty sure it WAS yer old Granny's front living room 'cept with a bar and a few pumps of good real ale. The old dear there was about 80 something and served yer pint with a trembling hand that spilled half of it before you'd get your mits on, but no-one had the heart to protest. There were two waddling fat dogs that the old dear used to constantly feed chocolate to, hence waddling and fat.
Oh, must dash, something's just come up (OOOOEEERR!)
In the wet, it's just about as wet as it can get
I feel like I'm back home in the Land of My Fathers (and Mothers and Brothers and Sisters) again - it's been raining for over a week!
Now it's raining cats and dogs
and I can't stand croaking frogs
oh Brother it's wet!
(I got fungus growing on me dungarees,
got fungus on me dungas and there's water on me knees,
it's a mad crazy country in the wet!)
That's one of Rolf Harris's not mine as a matter of fact.
The house is also not mine. Not Rolf Harris's either. Someone's house in Oxford, England.
Welsh OR British, NOT English
A point I would like to make regarding National Identity and as a comment on THIS BLOG, or more specifically the sub-heading, top right, "Welsh not British".
As soon as I utter a syllable in Portuguese, my Gringo accent announces, "Yes, I'm not from here, go ahead, ask me all the usual questions, 'Where are you from?What are you doing here?Do you like Brazil?What football team do you support?'". I'm delighted when people respond with, "Wales is in Britain isn't it?" and Pissed Off if someone says "Wales is in England isn't it?". So I patiently explain and say, you can call me Welsh or British, BUT NOT ENGLISH!!
Okay, why British or Welsh? The name Britain is derived from the Romano-Greek "Pretanni", which Russel Crowe and Kirk Douglas (oh no sorry, he wasn't Greek, he was Spartan I believe) pronounced as "Britannia", denoting the peoples there at the time (erm...at the time of the Romans you know, and maybe a little before... i.e. The Greeks). Sooooo, who were the people there at the time? And who were the English? It's a long story but basically the Romans were refering to the inhabitants of the land BEFORE the Angles, Saxons (Saesneg) and Jutes came and and formed ENGLAND (= ANGLE LAND) . These inhabitants (though not the original natives of the land) went on to become the Welsh and Cornish (I think they all turned into Pixies). So you see you can call me Welsh or British.
Oh yeah, all this happened about a thousand six hundred years ago.
Odds Bonkin's if it's not IOM TT time again. 20 something year ago 'twas since I were there. Must've been 85 or 87 or both, I did go twice in fact. First time I fell in with a bunch of Jolly Irish Bikers and they dragged me into their hotel and forced large quantities of Bushy's down my throat. Next morn, early, they were hammering on my door wanting to go see the racing. Our form of transport? A VW kombi, no seats in the back, where I got stuck, and was soon vomming out the side door much to the chagrin of the bikes following us. Had Kawasaki Z1100R at the time and I wandered around the circuit on it a few times when not drunk.
Second time I fell in with a bunch of Jolly Danish Bikers, THEY dragged me to their campsite and forced large quantities of Bushy's down my throat. Spent the week drunk and looking at girls' tits in wet t-shirt competitions. This time round I had a Kawasaki ZL1000 Eliminator. I met Dumpy from Dumpy's Rusty Nuts and Someone Famous from The Groundhogs but I was too drunk to know it was someone famous.
Well Shiver me Timberlakes, Justin (who he?), it's been many a moon since the last News from a Welshman in Brazil. May has passed without great incident, the Annual Barbie was, once again a Huge Success. Amongst other distinguished guests, in attendance this year, fewer by number, the German Fella, Ian and his Good Lady and, Arriving Late in Time to Save a Drowning Witch, Sergio, the Musical Porteño, we embraced but refrained from kissing. Highlight of the evening was a superb (though I must add, very drunken) rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, particularly striking, the GALILEO galileo GALILEO galileo GALILEO figaro magnifico co co co. and on a personal note, I rather liked also the scaramouche scaramouche, will you do the fandango. Very impressive indeed. Thunder Bolts and Lightening, etc., etc.
A big HURRAH for Mrs Jean Richards and an almighty HISSABOO for the Australian stadium officials. Mrs Jean, may Belenus bless her, was chucked out of the stadium during a Wales / Australia test match (rugby, me little fried noodles, not creqwuet) for leaving her seat and dancing with a Wallabee. When I went to see Wales/Argentina a few years ago (with Sergio the Musical Porteño, see above) in Good Airs, I was sorely tempted to dance with a puma but thought better of me actions and settled for Shouting a Lot and quaffing vast quantities of Guinness in The Druid Inn that night with few hundred other Welsh fans. Very memorable (actually, can't remember much of it at all).
They told me Brazil was a tropical country! Bloody Freezing today! 3 degrees C, brass bloody monkeys etc. Problem is, the hardy Gaúchos don't bother with central heating when they build houses and flats, they still think it's a tropical country.
From being abjectly poor in Jan and Feb, I find myself with Loadsadosh right now in the middle of the year, I've bought me a TV and DVD and spend weekends watching Hollywood's Latest Crap, mind to Jelly? Well not really, I'm being selective. Any suggestions for Welsh Films? Probably impossible to get in the rental shops here however.
And as a preventative of Mind to Jelly, I'm reading the best in Portuguese / Brazilian literature. I have a list of books, novels, plays, poetry and theoretical stuff, to read up for the Master's degree selection test in October. Eça de Queroz is highly recommendable, not sure if there are any English translations available. Also on the list is Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, which is a good thing as I can read Ham in English and I read Oed about a zillion times when I was researching for my final paper. With those two on the list guaranteed one of the questions will be "What's the difference between Shakespearian Tragedy and Greek Tragedy?". I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW! Please Miss, ask me!
JIGGERY POKERY and HUMBUG !
Those Capitalist Pigish Monopolizing capitalist pigs! Just because I didn't pay my bill from February they doggon cut me off from internet.
Okay they had every right to I suppose. But what pissed me off was when I DID pay, they said it would take "up to 72 hours to get re-connected" so I waited. After 72 hours had passed, no signal on my modem, so I phoned THEN they said they'd have to send the technician round to reconnect me. So THAT took another 2 days before I could be at home for a guy (two guys as it turned out) to come round and click on their home page, enter a code and get reconnected. Weird thing was, even the guys that came round were baffled as to WHY they had to come round.
UPDATING (seeing as I've been off air for a few days)
The Evan Evans show was...erm. interesting. Didn't see many Welsh people there. In fact didn't see ANY Welsh people there. And the band didn't even have Y Ddraig Goch.
What struck me were two things: Black t-shirts: not unusual, had a vast collection of black t-shirts meesel way back when. YOUNG people: kids infact. Girls, teenage girls. Loads of 'em. Mobile phones: in my day we held up ciggy lighters, this bunch held up mobile phones. Not to look beautiful, thousands of waving faint blue lights around the stadium. Nah, it was just to film and take photos.
Okay that's THREE things.
Does "pigish" have one g or two?
Welsh Rock Band : Evan Evans
In the 80s I went to a lot of rock shows, I'm a veteran of Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock, don't do it so much nowadays though mainly because GOOD bands don't come round too often to PoA. My step daughter is a great fan of Evan Evans, she says, must be a new Welsh rock band methinks. Evan Evans are HERE in PoA tonight, and coz she's only 13 and Must be Accompanied by Adult, I'm going! Should I take along my Y Ddaig Goch flag?
I'm not crazy about sport.
Playing; for fun, I used to a long time ago and I would now if I had the time and / or oportunity, I mean to meet up with a bunch of people once or twice a week to have a kick around or whack a volleyball back and forth, then go for a few beers afterwards, but when it gets competitive, play against other teams from the neighbourhood for some kind of championship or whatnot, nah. Watching; only rugby. However, 1. I don't have a tv. and 2. if I did have, can never get rugby on any channel here anyway, 'cept for some satellite channel maybe then it would cost me megabucks. If I did watch any sport I would probably nevereverever watch CRICKET.
ANYWAY, despite all of the above, I was quite surprised and pleased to hear that Ireland have won the cricket world cup, no doubt beating giants (from what I gather) such as India, Pakistan, Australia, West Indies and ...erm Wales?
Well done Ireland!
I have a student who I suppose by his fellow school persons, would be called a "nerd". Compulsory piano lessons, zitty, skinny and thick glasses. In the first class I thought he would be a pain in the arse as he answered almost every question with "depends", I couldn't draw him out, he seemed uninterested in learning English, especially as it was an obligatory class - his folks make him, like the piano. In an initial interview his dad was present and answered all the questions for him, when I directed a question at the boy, the dad jumped in with an answer.
In the class without the parental influence, however, get him talking about history and the kid's away! He's one smart dude and now one of my fave students. He told me today that the battle of Agincourt wasn't won by the Welsh Longbow men at all, well it was but they apparently waded in with farm implements when the French were all a-Higgledy Piggledy in the mud and advancing into a bottleneck. He reads Bernard Cornwell and knows the entire history of Star Wars from BEFORE Episode I to AFTER Episode VI. I give him "research" homework, a word, name of something or person and he finds out as much as possible through internet, reads up then tells me all about it next class. Last week it was Edward I, this week it's Owain Glyndwr. Nerds are great dudes!
A Word or Two on Celtic Peoples
Some of my Foreign Readers may have been led to believe that the persons in the photograph published in the previous post were in fact Welsh Men in Kilts. This is not so, point of fact is they are Cornish Men in Kilts at an annual "Tossing the Pixie" tournament held annually every, erm, year, in the wee Cornish town of Dunfermline, pronounced "Moussel".
Welsh Men do not drink Carlsberg (which is probably the best Lager in the World) and have much bigger sporrans.
Having only visited Britain twice in the past 15 years of living in Brazil, I haven't really got a sense of what's going on on the street (on on? I assure you, correct grammatically be it), from all accounts (well okay then, from the accounts of my old man and occasional e-mails from people) PC is going beyond the pale face with people being awarded thousands for "hurt feelings". An advantage of living here is still a kind of freedom to say what you will and, yes, to TOUCH PEOPLE! Brazilians are very touchy, not sensitive touchy, but touchy touchy, they like to touch. It's fun, try it. Or maybe not, in Britain you'd get done up for "sexual harassment" I guess. Of course there's touching and there's touching and sometimes that goes on too and appropriate action is taken. However, Brazilian girls (or guys for that matter) don't mind being touched casually on the shoulder, they don't scream RAPE! at an occasional informal friendly touch. And consequently guys aren't afraid of being accused just because of a touch, so things are much more relaxed in, perhaps, an office environment.
I hear in Iran they don't wear ties because it "contributes to the spread of western culture", so why do they bother with suits? Aren't suits culturally western? I don't have much poke with suits or ties anyway.
From one silly culture dictated by fools* (at great risk of calling down a jihad upon my turnip, now that would HURT) to another. A reporter from the bbc from a US aircraft carrier upon hearing the roar of a F somethingorother taking off, hears this from a crewmember: "Listen to that, that's the sound of FREEDOM!" OH PLEEEEEEASE! C'mon dongo! That's the sound of an asshole, sorry, an arsehole. Who DO these people think they are?
*I believe that the Iranian culture must be wonderfully rich, diverse and splendid indeed, with regards to arts, music, history and ...well CULTURE. But I cannot truck with stupid rules, LAWS even, that say, you cannot do such and such because it corrupts your mind or it's too "westernlike" whatever, what the fuck! So "a culture dictated by fools" here just refers to THAT aspect of the culture, an aspect that perhaps the people themselves find slightly irritating. Do we NOT eat Arabic food 'coz it's too "Easternlike"? Borrucks. (Do they have fish 'n' chip shops in Tehran?) Actually that's given me an idea..I'm calling all you Welshmen out there, at home and expats, to BOYCOTT fish 'n' chips 'coz it's too ENGLISHY! Boycott everything English as a matter of fact. What about clothes, aren't the clothes we wear very English? Let's go naked, or wear Welsh wooly tweedy things, don't we have a Welsh kilt? C'mon lads, get yer kilts on, just the thing for a hot summer's day to air yer ballocks.
Carsberg is, apparently, probably the best lager in the world.
That's it I think.
My life's getting back to normal (what normal life for me is though, I'm still not quite sure) after the recession I went through from January to March, my folks being here didn't help even though they paid a lot for outings etc. I still had to fork out for more than I usually do during this period. Galloping Shrumkin's! but I don't want to go through that again and I'm looking for counter measures for next year and I'll have to haul my ass together and get my Welsh Folks tales written in Portuguese, hopefully to get published and make quantrillions here. My major problem is not so much translating but conveying the humour, or perhaps the writing itself. The kind of thing that flows from me (and I'm not talking about after a night of Biriani and 8 pints of Old Farty Bum Best Ale) in English just does not flow from me in Portuguese, though writing in Portuguese is not difficult for me writing in Portuguese is. The above parenthesis is an example, that just does not come out of me naturally in Portuguese and thus it takes a lot longer to write.
Spent yesterday NOT eating fish as tradition and religion dictate, but eating, yes my fave, barbecued red meat, chicken hearts and pork ribs. Being of pagan ilk I refuse to follow the "Good Friday" society rule of having to eat fish, at least here in Brazil that be the case, somebody tell me, is it the same in Wales? "Good Friday", I shall from now on call, Not So Bad Friday, or Crap Friday or Amazingly Brilliant Friday, according to what happens on the day.
Amazingly Brilliant Friday yesterday, we took a day trip to "Grandpa Rangel's Enchanted Forest". Unfortunately Grandpa Rangel's Enchanted Lake had shrunk somewhat, apparently due to Global Warming according to Grandma Rangel, and we could only dip up t'knees in luke warm murky waters while I had been looking forward to a full body spullunge off Grandpa Rangel's Floating Peir. Not to be wet blanketted however, I placed a few pieces of dead animal over hot coals and quaffed flagons of Grandpa Rangel's Fine Ale. Point of fact was we were obliged to quaff Grandpa Rangel's Fine Ale ("NovoSchin", crap Brazilian lager) as Grandma Rangel wouldn't allow us to take our own in order for her to make large proffits from inflated bar prices. I did however manage to sneak in a few cans of FBA in the cool box and Grandma Rangel didn't notice.
