Poet's Page
music and opinion from Wales' wandering poet.
Siarad Gwmraeg? A page for Welsh patriots
Bit late -- but you try finding a decent Saint Davids Day videoon youtube!!!!
Pro-PS Protesters vs McDonald's on St. Mary Street, Cardiff
Self Build Wales
What is the Self Build Wales scheme?
Established by the Welsh Government and delivered by
the Self Build Wales team, the scheme aims to remove
the barriers and uncertainty that prevent people in
Wales from building their own homes.
In doing so, underdeveloped or underused land will be transformed into suitable plots for new self-build and custom-build homes.
If you have your own land, or have found land you'd like
to build on, Self Build Wales can fund 100% of the build
costs, as well as providing funding towards
purchasing land, or readying land
for development.
For more information on how each of the routes
into the scheme work, please go to:
https://selfbuild.wales/
Aaaah ! What a song above!
Watch it on Youtube, and find in the comments a wonderful explanation... of this song's deeper levels of meaning.
The Harder We Work The Easier it gets!
The head of Wales' largest pro indy group
YesCymru, Gwern Gwynfil, did not mince
words - when it came to the challenge
the independence movement faces.
"There is much more work to be done if we are to persuade
our fellow citizens to buy into our vision for a free and
independent Wales. We are facing a cost of living
crisis --- that has been engineered in the
crumbling halls of Westminster.''
"As a movement, we at YesCymru need to show there is a real alternative -- and demonstrate how independence would give us the tools we need -- to improve living standards in Wales and lift our people out of poverty.''
''For Welsh independence to be taken seriously, we need to
offer a compelling vision of this brighter future for Wales.
Indy supporters must unite with one voice, we must
speak clearly, we must convince all of our
communities that independence is the
only way that Wales will break free
of the cycle of poverty and under-
achievement to which we have
been consigned by centuries
of Westminster rule
and domination."
"There is no insurance policy --- Westminster does not care for
Wales or the people who live here, there is no comfort in the
blanket thrown over Wales by London - it merely stifles us
and stops us growing, investing and innovating. Let all of
us who are supporters of independence stand together,
make our presence felt across Wales and shine a light,
both on the failures of the Union and on the hope and
potential --- that independence represents.”
Thousands protest for Welsh
independence -from UK
(Al Mayadeen English)
October 1st, at 10:38pm
Sources reported on Saturday, that thousands
marched on the streets of Cardiff in support
of Welsh independence from the UK.
Demonstrators began to march at noon on Saturday
in the capital of Wales, Cardiff ... local sources
reported. The protesters carried flags and
banners that read "Independence".
Among the protesters was actor Julian Lewis Jones,
who plays Boremund Baratheon, in the hit HBO
series "House of the Dragon", according to
the Wales Online news portal.
Last July, a similar protest of 8,000 demonstrators
took place in the city of Wrexham, in the north
of Wales.
Source: Agencies
_________________________________________________
Aberystwyth Uni nursing degree
to encourage Welsh speakers
by Craig Duggan
BBC Wales news
September 4th, 10:29pm
Caryl James: "It would have been impossible for me
to travel to a course in Swansea or anywhere else"
Students enrolled on a new nursing degree course
have welcomed the opportunity to learn close
to home.
On Monday, Aberystwyth University in Ceredigion
welcomes 53 students to the new course which
is partly in Welsh.
Health support worker Caryl James, from nearby Bow
Street, said, as a single mother, studying for a degree
course away from home was never an option.
"Getting a place on the course is amazing. I was really
chuffed. I cried when I heard I had a place," she said.
Ms James, who also works as a phlebotomist alongside
nurses at Bronglais Hospital in the town, said
qualifying as a nurse had always been
an ambition.
"But being a single mother, it would have been
impossible for me to travel to a course in
Swansea or anywhere else, so having
the chance to do the course
in Aberystwyth makes
everything easier,"
she said.
"It feels like I'm stepping into
somebody else's life."
Fellow fresher Anna Stevens, from Penrhyncoch,
said studying for such a degree would have
been impossible while she had been an
unpaid carer for her disabled son.
But, since Philip became an adult, she has
received funding to enable carers to look
after him.
"This is more than just a new chapter for
me. I feel like it's a new life," she said.
"It's just surreal to have the opportunity to
do this, and it's on my doorstep, which
is amazing."
Ms Stevens, who also has a daughter in secondary
school, said becoming a nurse would be a way of
repaying the community that has helped her.
"This feels like my opportunity to give back, to give
Welsh medium college call by Merthyr principal John O'Shea
The principal of Merthyr Tydfil College called for a Welsh language college to be established in the region.
John O'Shea said it could help the Welsh Government's drive to have a million Welsh speakers by 2050 if more post-16 education opportunities in Welsh were available and adult courses.
Ministers announced their plans & a consultation --- at 2016's National Eisteddfod in Abergavenny.
"We need to start thinking of different ideas," said Mr O'Shea.
"We have Welsh medium schools but we're not getting that breakthrough in take up of the language."
The 2011 census reported a drop in the number of Welsh speakers from 582,000 in 2001 to 562,000, about one in five of the population.
Mr O'Shea said: "If we don't have parity for the Welsh language, then the chances of the Welsh language developing and growing, are reduced."
He claims vocational courses or A levels for pupils aged 16 and over, who want to study through the medium of Welsh aren't as varied, if compared to the range of subjects available to students who study through the medium of English.
He added: "In the first case, we would need to find a site in the middle of south east Wales where you could bring all of the Welsh-speaking staff together and all the Welsh speaking-students together in a tertiary college --- because, at the moment, there aren't enough numbers to set up a number of these colleges.
"As it succeeds then, of course, you could diversify and have more colleges in more local locations."
Iestyn Davies, the chief executive of Colleges Wales, which represents further education colleges, welcomed the idea.
He said reaching the Welsh-speakers target would be a challenge and different options should be considered.
In a statement, the Welsh Government said:
"We want everyone to have the opportunity to learn through the medium of Welsh from early years, to higher education and this should be an integral part of the general provision instead of something separate.
"The million speakers consultation is an opportunity for everyone to have their say on the future of what could be claimed the best asset of the country.
"We are confident that this will enable the language to develop in a proactive and balanced way."
__________________________________________
The BBC’s portrayal of Wales and the Welsh
On November 2nd, 2016, the Welsh Assembly’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, scrutinised the Director General of the BBC.
Angela Graham singles out the issue of portrayal.
His State Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
This month the Director General of the BBC appeared before the Assembly’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee. The night before, the University of South Wales described his BBC role in terms so imperial, that Milton’s deity came to mind.
At this conferral of an honorary doctorate on Lord Tony Hall we were reminded of the Corporation’s magnitude and complexity. To be at its head must require an uncommon set of talents underpinned with relentless determination.
Was this, then, why, at the next day’s scrutiny session with the AMs, I had the impression of repeated collisions as the progress of the BBC ship was impeded... by reefs of objections in Welsh waters?
Lord Hall ‘gets’ Welsh concerns, he so frequently reassures us, that it may irritate him to find that dissatisfactions and concernsremain. Surely by now we should all have got happily on board?
No. The AMs are right to press him hard on the implications for Wales of the BBC’s decisions on funding, governance & portrayal. Precisely because the BBC enterprise is so complex, Wales must help the DG see through its eyes.
What can seem crystal clear from afar may look murky at home. Portrayal – how Wales and its people appear & are depicted in BBC media − is a case in point.
Lord Hall referred to quarterly meetings, begun a few months ago, between Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content, and the Directors of the Nations and Regions at which the BBC’s ‘portrayal objectives’ are analysed. He promised a report & data which would allow an examination of the justification for, and effectiveness of, one element or another. The portrayal objectives are not public knowledge. Their existence is a welcome sign of how far up the agenda portrayal has moved, but why keep them away from scrutiny?
And how frank will the report be? Lord Hall appeared to give with one hand and take away with the other. Yes, there will be information but ‘we need to find it in a way that makes sense for us and sense for you too…’
Rhodri Talfan Davies, Director, BBC Cymru Wales added, ‘And just to be clear on that, in terms of our reporting, the key thing is to tell you about the programmes and the series that are being delivered. It’s not so much the data – the real test is what’s on screen. I think what we can do routinely is to actually publish what it is that is portraying Wales on screen – rather than the metrics on volumes and hours…’
‘We might…’ Bethan Jenkins responded drily, ‘be interested in both.’
Lee Waters immediately pushed further on criteria for portrayal and its relation to production by noting Lord Hall’s citation of the BBC One series Ordinary Lies as an example of portrayal of Wales. Claiming that the series ‘could be set anywhere’, Lee Waters asserted that Belfast-set, Belfast-made series, The Fall is ‘not about Northern Ireland. So how are we going to get that portrayal – rather than just the production, which is very welcome − how are we going to make sure that portrayal happens?’
Lord Hall agreed The Fall is not about Northern Ireland but ‘it goes down very well’ there. Hardly a sophisticated response.
Comparisons between Wales and Northern Ireland require some scrutiny because Northern Ireland has had a great deal of attention from tv drama focused on its political conflict, so material that stresses that it has problems common to the rest of the UK is not unwelcome. Wales is in a different position. It has seen so little drama originating from its own specific circumstances that it must be very cautious about scripts – and a drama slate taken as a whole − which portray it as just like anywhere else, and nothing more.
Although seeing Welsh characters portrayed, hearing Welsh voices & seeing Welsh locations are legitimate and welcome types of portrayal, there should be, alongside these, an attempt to share the experiences and viewpoints of people in Wales, emerging from the country’s experience of itself. Lee Waters is right to be worried that the BBC may opt for material produced in and set in Wales, but not about Wales in the deeper sense. That would be to treat the country as little more than a set or location-shooting opportunity with novelty value. We have yet to reach a stage at which seeing Wales portrayed, incidentally or directly, in drama and other genres is unremarkable.
Lord Hall did move on to offer a ‘serious answer’, asserting that the BBC has done so well for Wales on hours and money that ‘we’ve even overshot the target’. Not pausing to explain that, he endorsed Rhodri Talfan Davies’s look-at-the-screen approach & added, ‘then I suspect we’ll have disputes about – or proper arguments, rather, debates about – whether Ordinary Lies is really about Wales or is about anywhere else, or whatever.’
This was not a helpful answer to Lee Waters’s reasonable point and seems to put the cart before the horse.
Lord Hall’s ‘whatever’ is revealing. Is it tiresome that Wales wants to be seen as being distinguishable from the rest of the UK? Many circumstances are indeed common to, and therefore filmable in, any British city and any village. It is easier to produce network drama that makes use of commonalities among the nations and regions of the UK than to work from the local and specific outwards, towards the universal.
The easier path can mean a tokenistic inclusion of a few regional identifiers and the loss of a distinctive lens through which universal circumstances are seen. The plots work but the depth of focus is shallow. We’ve all encountered drama which has been bled of local complexity --- leaving it eminently digestible but insipid and ersatz.
Hovering around Lord Hall is the ghost of an infamous perhaps apocryphal London commissioner’s response − ascribed to Alan Yentob − to a Nineties BBC Wales drama proposal, ‘It won’t be too Welsh, will it?’
The politicians must also be wary of any tendency to regard portrayal as something that applies only to drama. Portrayal happens across genres, as Lord Hall pointed out:- ‘Every network genre now has a portrayal objective.’ That is certainly something to keep an eye on and – pace those metrics – to quantify too. The BBC knows the value of the measurable and we are all capable of dealing with assessments of both quantity and quality. We would like both.
Angela Graham is Chair of the IWA's Media Policy Group.
Bilingual People Are Faster at Processing Information People who speak 2 languages may have brains that are more efficient at language processing and other tasks, new research suggests.
The new study suggests that bilingual people are more efficient at higher level brain functions such as... ignoring other irrelevant information.
The study's brain scans show that people who speak only one language, have to work harder to focus on a single word, according to a study published in 'Brain & Language' by the University of Illinois.
People who are bilingual are constantly activating both languages in their brain, choosing which to use & which to ignore.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
We all know that 'ir hen iaith' is in need of being used more, as well as taught.
Did ANYONE read Leighton Andrews' magnificent 2012 policy statement, in which spoken Welsh refresher courses were identified as needed for/by the age group 14 up?
You ALL read it? (it's just me then!)
Why isn't Welsh now spoken on our streets, after we've schooled so many thousands of youths in Welsh schools?
I've just discovered a tremendous blog, which discusses Wales in most facets - including how we're failing to help our youngsters on their language use:
This blog is an amazing panorama of Wales, the issues, and possibilities, and - if it also starts to address how we could make it PAY to speak Welsh in businesses and work
- it could be perfect!
NEW TO WELSH?
Here's a great starting point website if you'd like to learn Welsh online:
http://www.johnnyowen.com/learn_welsh.html
Grant O God your protection, and in protection strength, and in strength understanding and in understanding knowledge and in knowledge the knowledge of justice, and in the knowledge of justice the love of it, and in the love of it the love of all existences, and in the love of all existences the love of God and all goodness.
