Saturday, June 09, 2007
  08/06/07 – THEATRE REVIEW
“Who’s coat is that jacket”, grand theatre, Swansea

Well I went there to watch a bumptious play full of fun and frivolity (I hadn’t read any literature about the show) so I was quite taken aback with the dark commentary on family life. That is not to say that I was disappointed in a lot of cases it hit close to home, and it was particularly ironic since I’ve got an interview in Bristol for an accountancy position (which I found out about, just before the play). Notably it was close to home for more people as there were people talking about da-ja-vou at the interval.

There were however some inaccuracies in the performance that niggled me.

1) The play was set in 2002, however, they were talking about the scarlets, ospreys, and blues, which were established in 2003, so quite prophetic for these characters to be talking about them. I must say though that the fact that this is only in the programme, which were bought by very few it is not damaging to the play.

2) Additionally, the characters were talking about having to achieve 20 UCAS points to get into university, however in 2001 the UCAS points system changed and 20 points now equates to one E at AS level. A full list can be found here http://www.ucas.com/candq/tariff/tariff_sep06.doc Again I must say because of the demographic of the audience this is not going to be a widely noticed mistake.

I liked the play, and its very attractive technical girl I’ll add, and I especially liked the ending with the title line finally being used to subtly indicate the final relationship between two of the characters.

In whole it was well worked, the second act (the bit after the interval) could have been longer, but with excellent acting throughout and magnificently simple, yet affective, make-up. It is well worth going to see.

TaffiaDon@Gmail.com
  10:12 PM 2 comments links to this post
Saturday, June 02, 2007
  02/06/07- THE WELSH LANGUAGE IS BEING OVER PROMOTED DISCUSS…
Well this was to topic, of an opinion and comment piece on BBC news online (link bellow), their problem was that they couldn’t find anyone to oppose this motion. Well here goes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6655109.stm

The Welsh language, is the bulwark of Welsh culture, and moreover, Welsh nationhood, I propose that without the Welsh language Wales would be seen and more importantly would probably consider itself to be an area of England, and not have retained its distinctive culture. When England invaded Wales, they imposed their system of government and cultural norms, and swiftly began amalgamating the two nations.

“Edward spent most of the two years after the conquest in Wales, which was still neither incorporated into England nor governed by the English parliament. The king lacked the power to abolish the Marcher Lordships. In fact, he added to their number as a reward for the Lords’ help in conquering Wales. The whole of Wales was not dissimilar to one great March of which large parts were in the possessions of the king himself. It was not a part of England but largely a separate possession of the English crown and governed by royal statute. Commotes remained under the administration of sheriffs, whose offices were filled, like all important posts, by Englishmen, Welsh criminal law was abolished but Welsh civil law remained. Welshmen were never to be tried under Welsh criminal or civil law and never in the Welsh language. Every Welsh person could be excluded from the eighty towns in Wales as foreigners.
The Steep rise in taxes caused great distress, especially among the taeogion (villeins), whose taxes were increased by six hundred per cent and more. Edward said that this was necessary to pay the tremendous cost of the war and the immense castle-building programmes in the post-war years and after the dangerously powerful Welsh revolt twelve years later. Dr John Davies says that Edward’s activities in Wales cost him more than ten times his regular annual income, and that his massive Welsh-incurred debt vitiated his hope of subjugating the Scots.
James of St. George, the great architect who designed some of the castles, maintained, says Dr Davies, that the king’s hold on Wales could not be secured without the most elaborate fortifications, for ‘Welshmen are Welshmen’, The huge and costly castles underline Gerald the Welshman’s dictum about the Welsh a century before: ‘Their mind is wholly on the defence of their country and its freedom.’ Although the castles are badges of subjugation they are also a tribute to the Welsh determination to live in freedom.
A bigger anglicising influence than the castles themselves were the towns which developed around them, each one an alien colony in which Welsh people were forbidden to live or to trade. As a poet sang at that time:

Lle bu’r Brython Saeson sydd
A’r boen ar Gymru beunydd.

Where once were Britons, English now
give the Welsh daily pain.

Planting scores of urban English colonies all over Wales furthered Edward’s policy, if the historian Tout is right in saying that the king’s real policy was to make Welshmen Englishmen as soon as possible.”

Gwynfor Evans, “The Fight For Welsh Freedom”, (Y Lolfa, 2006) Pages 72 – 74

The Welsh language acted as a bulwark for Welsh culture, with in it cultural tendencies were entrenched and imbedded, it is the survival of the language that has prevented Wales being lost to a county of England, and has allowed Welsh culture to re-emerge through it.

For people in the South of Wales, patriotism is seen as supporting Wales in the sporting arena and rather than a political philosophy, and therefore the association between the language and the nation is lost permitting allegations that it is being over promoted.

Now I must admit that I am slightly bitter when it come to language, I would be angry but its not worth my energy to be so, that even though I went to school (in England) less than 100 metres from the Welsh border, I was taught French and German, neither country I have ever visited, and was not given the opportunity to learn the language of the country less than 100 metres from the school, a country which we used to go to when we had a free period (in the sixth form when we were allowed out), a choice that was based on the fact that, I don’t know why the opportunity wasn’t given to me / us, there were teachers who spoke Welsh but there was no funding for this much more applicable and employable language on ideological grounds (I assume) if it was an economic decision not to learn Welsh then they would have taught us Chinese Mandarin, or which ever language is prolific in India rather than French and German.

Anyway, returning to the point, Welsh language has for hundreds of years been ignored and persecuted, people were prevented from speaking the language in schools for fear of being caned, and for a sizable time of Wales’ time within Britain, the language was prohibited from being taught, but now that it is increasingly being taught – with a steady increase in Welsh medium schools, throughout Wales with Monmouthshire planning to open its first, shows that the Welsh language is finally regaining its rightful position as an equal language to English within Wales.

So how exactly do people feel that this language is being over promoted?

"This corner of the British isles has fallen under the influence of a relatively few sub-racists who are more than willing to sell Wales down the river in exchange for increasing their own power base,"

Many argued that they would prefer to see the government spend more on the health service and less on the bureaucracy of operating in two languages.

"Even the asylum seekers' welcome pack is now available in Welsh,"

Others grumbled about what they perceive as poorer career prospects for those who don't speak Welsh.

These are some of them which are mentioned in the article, I still can’t figure out the sub-racist comment, how can you justify that comment? How can retaining your own culture be seen as a racist trait? It is a bemusing argument, and it’s notable that this supposedly patriotic Welsh wo/man says “this corner of the British isles”, are they complaining about the Welsh language or the existence of the Welsh nation? Moreover, they are complaining that the Welsh language is used to create divisions, and then they are complaining that they are trying to use the language to integrate asylum seekers and other migrants into the country.

As for the other comment that money is being spent on a bilingual bureaucracy, that is money not just on bureaucracy, its promoting culture. I remember hearing stories when the government changed the licensing hours (24 hour drinking) that the national government (Westminster) sent out all the forms, and when the Welsh speaking landlords asked for a Welsh version of the form – it didn’t exist. If we do not have this bilingualism in Wales, the Welsh language will truly become obsolete as the Westminster government has no inclination to preserve this language, they will promote other minority languages primarily those of immigrant communities, and provide literature in those languages but not in Welsh or any other native minority languages, demonstrated by the fact that the Manx language now has no native speakers. That Scottish and Irish languages have been almost eradicated from these lands, and the Cornish language is struggling to survive. Also demonstrated by the BBC who have a fair few options for language on their news online site, but if you click on the welsh one, it doesn’t translate the page, it moves to you a new page where the Welsh language is ghettoised and removed from the mainstream. (I must remember to check what happens when you click the other languages – you can check too by visiting news.bbc.co.uk)

It’s an anomalous argument really, if we are wasting money preserving Welsh in a British context, surely we are wasting money on a European scale, or even a global scale by using English, Chinese Mandarin is (I believe) the most prolific language, we should scrap all others and just use this one. Additionally, why stop there, if we create a single European super-state we can eradicate the cost that 25 national governments and numerous sub-national governments entail, I wonder how many people who are complaining about the ‘waste of resources’ on the Welsh language would be a proponent of this idea. Moreover, You could argue that a global government would be the most cost affective, just think how much money you could save if you took that course of action.

And the final grumble: poorer career prospects for those who don't speak Welsh. Surely this is an indication of how used this language is, and how relevant it is in Wales, so how this is an argument that the Welsh language is being over promoted is beyond me, businesses are economical, they will not do something unless there is a potential in profit in doing it. This is an odd argument all round, you invest in yourself, and you go through school and university to give you skills and abilities to employ in the work force, so if you think that a lack of a particular skill is a bar to gaining employment you take action, but apparently when that bar is the Welsh language you run off to the BBC and complain that the Welsh language is being over promoted, there are plenty of Welsh language courses about, so if you need that skill invest in yourself and enrol on a course.

My final point is the fact that Wales is not the only country to be bilingual, most countries around the world are: Belgium, Switzerland (trilingual), Quebec province of Canada, Many regions of Spain (Basque, Catalonia the most notable) the majority of African countries (multilingual), Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia (all four have large Russian speaking populations in addition to the native languages) and yet, seemingly, it is only a problem in Wales, I guess that the English have succeeded in anglicising the Welsh since the subjugation has become so entrenched we no long require the English to instigate it.
  10:03 PM 4 comments links to this post