The Blue Book of Shame

Stalkers

2009-09-25T21:56:00.004+01:00

Staggering out of Camden Town’s Electric Ballroom early on Tuesday morning when the Stereophonics aftershow party kicked out, I found myself in Kentish Town Road, disoriented as a result of being pissed and because the door I had entered by was around the corner in Camden High Street.

So I went about 100 yards in the wrong direction, found the tube had long since stopped for the night, slewed around and careered back towards Kentish Town, from where I could still get an overground train home.

The streets were by then deserted apart from minicabs ferrying clubbers from the West End to North London bedsits for a few hours kip before work, so the group of 20 to 30 women in front of me was incongruous, even to an inebriate.

They weren’t behaving like a hen party. They didn’t appear to be drunk, they weren’t throwing up, flashing their thong elastic, falling over in the gutter or mauling coppers, as they would be if this were St Mary’s Street or Wind Street at that time of the morning. They all faced the same way, meek, standing stock still with rapt expressions, apparently venerating someone of relatively small stature whose face I therefore couldn’t see.

Through gaps in the crowd, I recognised a T-shirt and so I knew who it was.

“Hey, Javier!” I yelled.
“Hey, Martin!” yelled back Javier Weyler, the Stereophonics’ drummer, from the far side of the crowd.

The bodies suddenly parted so it seemed appropriate to greet each other like the dearest of long lost friends, even though we’d wished each other goodnight at the party not 5 minutes earlier.

I am 6’ 6” and Javier is, well, a lot shorter than that, so I had to stoop low to slap him on the back. The women all leaned forward, hanging on every word that passed between us. They were respectful, not in the least bit pushy or threatening, but they gave off a vibe I found unsettling.

“This is weird, Javier,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“No, no,” he replied. “It’s cool.” He didn’t seem at all perturbed.

I scanned their faces. They had the same intense look of... love; you’d have to name it that, adoration, verging on obsession maybe, not directed towards me, obviously, but to the little Argentinean man in front of me. I’ve never seen anything like it. I must have looked confused.

“We’re his stalkers,” offered a tall blond, just like that, taking her eyes off Javier for the briefest moment.
“Stalkers?”
“Yes.”
“All of you?”
“Yes.”
“Ohhhhhh,” I said. “Hello stalkers, I’m Martin.” I gave them a fluttery little wave.
“Hello,” they chorused, most of them giving a fluttery wave back.

“This is weird, Javier,” I whispered.
“But it is cool,” he replied firmly. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay. Well... I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Okay, Martin. Thanks for coming down. Good to see you.”
"Bye."
"Bye."
"You'll be alright then."
"Yes. Don't worry."

Conscious of the maxim that to burn a thousand matches only takes one match, I removed myself from the space between Javier and his stalkers and slouched off. I felt like a man ought to feel when he’s just found a baby bear abandoned in the forest and I was a bit spooked by it to be honest with you.

So I resumed my unsteady trudge northward to the station. Looking back over my shoulder, I felt relieved to see that they showed no interest in my departure whatsoever. Rather him than me, I thought.

Welsh Icons

2009-09-04T15:59:00.004+01:00

The nice folks at www.welshicons.org.uk, a website where Welshness abounds, recently asked me to discuss my own personal Welsh icons for their blog. The following is a reproduction of the resulting article:

I can recall my father stopping the car during a holiday in Dorset when I was about 10 years old to point out the spot where T. E. Lawrence died in a motorcycle accident. An extraordinarily complex man, Lawrence was lauded as a hero for his leadership of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire but was condemned by some as a charlatan and a sadist. Having blazed his way to glory in the Arabian Desert, he sought anonymity in the RAF under a succession of assumed names. I wouldn’t have known he was born in Tremadog were it not for Welsh Icons.

Peter O’Toole’s performance in Lawrence of Arabia, my favourite film, was the best of an exceptional career. But if I were forced to remake it, I’d cast Rhys Ifans in the part without a moment’s hesitation. He may have been involved in a few stinkers, such as Rancid Aluminium, The 51^st State (Formula 51 in the USA) and the Boat That Rocked (Pirate Radio in the USA) but given a character with as complex a personality as his own, such as Peter Cook in Not Only But Also, or Bernard in A Number, or Jed in Enduring Love and Rhys is revealed to be one of the finest actors of his generation.

For some reason, Welsh Icons makes a point of “not condoning the actions of the Free Wales Army” before giving the ‘Byddin’ a detailed listing in the Welsh Info section. Yet the Famous Welsh section is incomplete without an entry for its Commandant, Julian Cayo Evans.

You don’t have to be a nationalist – I’m a ‘rationalist’ myself - to appreciate that the legend surrounding Cayo almost matches that of Owain Glyndwr, another Welsh rebel who was brought down by the English establishment.

The F.W.A. was not a terrorist organisation; its handful of volunteers openly wore paramilitary uniform and rather than terrorise the populace, with the exception of the policemen and politicians it made look inept, it simply exploited the media’s propensity to sensationalism to try to subvert the establishment. No matter how outlandish an F.W.A. claim - from the thousands of trained volunteers waiting in the hills for the signal to attack to the arms cache supplied by the I.R.A. to the pack of kamikaze dogs trained to let off bombs under tanks – Fleet Street journalists gleefully reported it all as if it were fact. Lazy journalists – let’s accept that many don’t have time to check the facts - repeat the same stuff today.

The F.W.A. lost, obviously, at great personal cost to Cayo, his co-commandant, Dennis Coslett, co-conspirator Keith Griffiths and their families. The Labour government of the day used the Public Order Act, the equivalent of today’s anti-terrorism laws, to get them out of the way so that the establishment could bolster its dominion over the Welsh people by Investing Charles as Prince of Wales in Caernarfon. The same journalists who had courted the F.W.A. to boost their own careers and sell their newspapers were the key witnesses for the Crown.

Cayo was educated at Millfield public school where Robert Bolt, the great English playwright who wrote the screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia, taught him English and History. A complex character, not unlike Lawrence, Cayo was more comfortable in the company of gypsy horse traders and working men than with people of his own socio-economic class. And whilst many of his contemporaries were strumming guitars in rock bands, Cayo preferred to play Irish rebel songs on the accordion.

Rhys Ifans would tell you I’m talking bollocks. We recently had a beery debate about the place the F.W.A. occupies in Welsh history and the role it played in Plaid Cymru becoming part of the establishment, which Rhys concluded by pointing a grubby fingernail at Rhys Mwyn across the table shouting, “He’s done more for Wales than the Free Wales Army ever did.

The extraordinary contribution Rhys Mwyn has made to Welsh music ought to be more widely acknowledged. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he played bass with Anhrefn, the seminal Welsh language punk band championed by the late great John Peel. The band toured Europe constantly with a manifesto to take Welsh language rock music as far as it would go.

During the 1980s, Rhys also ran Recordiau Anhrefn, releasing early recordings by Cyrff, Datblygu, Llwybr Llaethog (the band name I most like to say out loud, repeatedly, to the point of being annoying), Fflaps, Tynal Tywyll and others. He worked freelance with Dafydd Iwan at Crai, where he signed Catatonia, a band he also managed for a while.

Rhys eventually settled into management and making records through the resurrected Recordiau Anhrefn, mentoring and releasing a raft of outstanding artists from his Caernarfon stronghold. His ‘Outstanding Contribution to Welsh Music Award’ was recognised in the Radio Cymru Awards in 2002 and the Welsh Music Awards in 2003. I’m told his autobiography, Cam o’r Tywyllwch, published by Y Lolfa, is worth a read.

One of Recordiau Anhrefn’s more esoteric offerings is an album of accordion music and speech (in English) entitled The Marching Songs of The Free Wales Army by Julian Cayo Evans. It’s a fascinating record and worth a listen.

My writing partner, Paul Durden, is something of a Welsh Icon, having penned Twin Town, the biggest-grossing Welsh movie of all time especially on DVD (from which format he receives no royalties). Paul was the inspiration for Alexei Sayle’s Welsh former miner and aspiring scriptwriter character in The Strike, The Comic Strip’s satire of a Hollywood studio creating a warped, sensationalist account of a real British historical event, in this case the miner’s strike, in which Peter Richardson plays Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill and Jennifer Saunders plays Meryl Streep playing Mrs Scargill.

Thing is, does Paul qualify as a Welsh Icon? He’s lived most of his life in Wales, fair enough, but he’s actually from Salford. So far as I know, he doesn’t have so much as a Welsh grandparent. We’re currently working on a movie about the Free Wales Army.

From the Welsh Products section I’d choose Welsh water. Yes, I know it rains a lot, but in the longer term I think that might prove to be of great economic benefit to Wales in a way that it isn’t today.

The drowning of the Tryweryn valley in the 1960s to supply Welsh water to Liverpool displaced an entire community and provided the spark that led to the formation of the F.W.A. and to Plaid Cymru gaining its first toehold at Westminster with the election of Gwynfor Evans as MP for Carmarthen.

Liverpool decided to go for an Act of Parliament to build its dam so that it could compulsorily purchase the land and evict the inhabitants without having to consult anyone in Wales. Every Welsh MP either voted against the Act or abstained from voting – probably the only time in history when they all agreed on something - but the overwhelming majority of English MPs carried it.

The Red Dragonhood grew out of the anger I felt when I tried to understand who I was and where I came from. The history of Wales since Owain Glyndwr is less than glorious, the landscape being one of the few consolations. My T-shirt designs make use of Welsh iconography to make statements about what it means to me to be Welsh. But most of the traditional icons prove to be based on myth or English political propaganda.

A couple of years ago, to make a point about how such myths are created, I concocted a hoax suggesting Jimi Hendrix might have recorded a version of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau in the week before he died. The media bought it. The story went around the world like wildfire. Within a week, Google searches were returning 190,000 pages on the subject and a friend called me from Nepal to tell me the story was on the back page of the Himalayan Times.

On St. David’s Day that year, the BBC Newsnight invited me onto Newsnight to reveal the fact that my mate John Ellis, the guitarist with The Vibrators and The Stranglers, a London by – I wrote the guitar chords down for him and he did the rest - had really recorded it. I never said it was Hendrix. People wanted it to be Hendrix.

I knew the BBC would reduce my eloquent speech about Welsh iconography to a matter of moments so I wore a T-shirt with a very large Prince of Wales’ Feathers on the front on which I had replaced the German motto ‘Ich Dien’ with the well known Welsh phrase ‘Twll Dîn Pob Sais’ (down with the English). 250 Welsh speakers complained! Paxo had to apologise the following evening, even though he clearly thought it was funny.

A few weeks later, an Essex sign writer who had a commission to produce a new sign for The Feathers pub in Westminster, did a Google image search for ‘Three Feathers’ and found my design. My version is clearer and easier to reproduce than Charles’s so he used mine. The sign was up for three days before a passing Welshman told them what it really said. Which supports the point I was originally trying to make.

Above all poets there is John Donne. I like the work of Dylan Thomas but, given the way I feel about Wales and my Welshness, my favourite Welsh poet is R. S. Thomas. He was frequently hard on his countrymen but his poetry expresses the Welsh condition brutally and beautifully with true compassion and understanding.

Much of Thomas’s work raises a question that is fundamental to the human condition: What is life for? Is it simply to consume more and more, diverting our consciousness with ever more elaborate entertainments and gadgetry, or is there a greater purpose?

I may have spent most of my life away from Wales but my heart belongs to the land of song. I can barely hold a note but I can belt out Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau with the best of them. There can be no national anthem that is more beautiful. It always makes me cry.

On a related subject, I like the Stereophonics song As Long As We Beat the English, not because I think it’s a battle him as many seem to believe, but because it sums up the lack of ambition in Wales, something I am pledged to rectify with my commitment to Newid. I urge everyone who reads this to do the same.

Welsh food? I love Gower salt marsh lamb and laverbread with cockles and bacon. I love samphire from Ashton’s in Cardiff Market and Joe’s ice cream from Swansea and Gorwydd cheese from Llanddewi Brefi. My nain used to make wonderful Bara Brieth but I like Welsh Cakes better. Mind you, I’ve never found Welsh Cakes in Wales that are the equal of those I get at home, cooked by my half-Finnish, half-Pakistani, London-girl other half.

Heddwch!

A Chip Off The Old Block

2008-06-12T16:47:00.001+01:00

My 4 year-old came home from school wearing the gold sash that her teacher awards each week to one of the children in her class. The award can be for any achievement or outstanding contribution so that each child might benefit from wearing the esteem-enhancing sash at least once during the school year. But my daughter has won the sash twice this year already so I made a big fuss of her when she bounded into my room to show it off.
“By the way”, I said after the ‘well-dones’ had done their stuff, “what did you get it for?”
“Literacy”, she said confidently and precisely.
“You’re a chip off the old block”, I told her, brimming with fatherly pride. She clambered up on my chair for a congratulatory hug. The sash momentarily seemed like an affirmation of my own meagre talent and it was the perfect salve for the anxiety I’d been feeling about a new project.
“..and for sitting on the mat good”, she then added for extra measure, having had time to consider the sum of her achievements.
“For sitting on the mat good, eh? That’s my girl.”

It’s time for Wales to enter the Eurovision Song Contest

2007-05-24T13:04:00.000+01:00

Although it’s now more than a week after the event, the hoo-hah over alleged block voting in the Eurovision Song Contest refuses to die down. The Guardian just published a poll carried out amongst its readers showing that 53% of those who expressed an opinion believe the UK should withdraw from the contest. We’re talking about the Guardian here, not the News of the World.

Intent on showing just how hip they are to the zeitgeist (or rather how much credence they give to the opinions of rabid, opportunistic, self-righteous tabloid editors) some of the Westminster politicians who didn’t make it through the undignified scrum to have their pictures taken with the family of Madeleine McCann, tried instead to show how much they felt the electorate’s pain by venting indignation at the unfairness of the Eurovision voting system.

Four MPs – I’m not going to draw attention to these parliamentary nonentities by naming them - even tabled an early day motion calling on the House to recognise that the Eurovision Song Contest is “a joke, as countries vote largely on narrow nationalistic grounds for neighbour countries rather than on the quality of the song; and that such narrow voting is harmful to the relationship between the peoples of Europe”. They went on to demand that the BBC “insist on changes or quit”.

This begs any number of questions, but prominent among them must be whether these people ought not to have something better to do and what moral authority gives them the right to accuse anyone else of ‘narrow voting’? I’ll deal with the ‘quality of the song’ issue shortly.

Even our own fluent Estonian speaker, Lembit Öpik, the Montgomeryshire MP who should know better given his personal interest in Eastern European pop (through a relationship with the Romanian pop-person – I choose my words carefully - Gabriella Irimia of The Cheeky Girls), added fuel to the fire by pontificating on the subject on Have I Got News For You.

It’s extraordinary how politicians can reduce an item of lightweight entertainment - more lightweight even than Deal or No Deal – to the depths of baseness by trumpeting the simplistic, cynical conclusion that ‘Johnny Foreigner’ must somehow be cheating when all the evidence is actually to the contrary.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to grasp what went on with the voting but, fortunately for my premise, Dr Alan Howard of Reading University has been studying Eurovision voting patterns for the last 10 years. His pre-contest survey of 1,000 Eurovision fans in 34 countries correctly predicted that the Serbian entry would win, not for political reasons but because respondents simply preferred the song. His analysis of voting patterns showed that, “The results do indicate some neighbourly voting between countries in Scandinavia, the Baltic, the Balkans, and (of course) Greece and Cyprus, but nowhere nearly enough to significantly skew the outcome of annual contests.”

To confirm Dr Howard’s findings, Derek Gatherer, a man who for no good reason has spent years studying Eurovision voting patterns, maintained that, “less than a third of the total votes for the winning entry were ones which seemed to have been influenced by block voting. It does make it rather harder for [the UK] to win, but that's not to suggest that all the votes are necessarily given out according to these local alliances.”

On the night, the winning song from Serbia received votes from 37 of the 42 voting countries, including votes from every Western European participant except the UK. It should be remembered that Serbia is effectively a pariah state in Europe because of its role in the Yugoslav wars and the fact that it still shelters alleged war criminals. Likewise, Russia in third place gained votes from 39 countries despite the animosity still felt by its former Soviet satellites. Yet it is apparent that each of these countries did receive proportionately higher votes from their neighbours. Why?

Let’s explore ‘neighbourly voting’ in simple terms for the benefit of the politicians and newspaper editors who plainly don’t have much of a grasp of European geography or recent history. What is it that the former Yugoslav republics, the so-called ‘Balkan bloc’, including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Slovenia still have in common, given that their inhabitants were brutally slaughtering each other over their differences not so long ago? Do you imagine they’ve forgiven and forgotten the ethnic cleansing already? No, it’s that they all either speak Serbo-Croatian or, in the cases of Macedonia and Slovenia, they understand it reasonably well.

What connects Greece and Cyprus? What do Russia and Estonia have in common considering they are virtually at war over the removal by Estonia of a Red Army war memorial? The answer is language.

Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s leading daily newspaper, under a headline that read, “The Cold War is dead, long live the Eurovision culture-wars”, had the following to say about British attitudes: “What tends to be forgotten in all this griping is that the UK (five previous trophies, but 23rd in 2007) and Ireland (seven trophies and last this year) are guilty of a reverse variant of the football fans’ cardinal sin of ‘only singing when you are winning’”.

“[The British] were never heard complaining very loudly about the perceived injustice of the years when everyone had to perform in their own language, when someone trying to peddle a song in Portuguese or Finnish or Serbo-Croat had a tough fight on his or her hands against the might of Bad English, the lingua franca of the European continent. It is no great surprise that Portugal has never won Eurovision, or that it took Finland 45 years, a song in English, and a lot of latex and fireworks to pull the trick off.”

“In those halcyon language-restricted days from 1966-1973 and from 1977-1999, the UK and Ireland racked up most of the dozen wins they have between them, and it is a moot point whether the songs were so great - Boom Bang-a-Bang, anyone? - or whether instead they were simply ‘more accessible’ by virtue of the familiar language in which they were delivered.”

Helsingin Sanomat also had the following to say about British television coverage of this year’s event, which was hosted by Finland: “That old curmudgeon Sir Terry Wogan, beloved of British Eurovision cynics for his annual sarky remarks about the individual competitors and the contest on the BBC, weighed in even more heavily than usual with the ‘It's all fixed anyway’, ‘Baltic blocks, Balkan blocks, and Russian blocks’, and ‘They hate us, you know’ routine. Is it any wonder the British always seem to send the most rank and vile acts these days - nobody with any talent would stick their neck out to be ritually executed by Wogan?”

The Finns were particularly perplexed by Wogan’s accusation of a Finnish-Icelandic block. What do Finland and Iceland have in common? Language? No. Geography? No. In fact, Helsinki is in the East while Reykjavik is in the West, three time zones apart. The only thing Finland and Iceland have in common, according to Transparency International, is that they are equally the least corrupt countries in the world. Could it be that Wogan is just an ignorant, arrogant bigot who has been corrupted by years of trading in acerbic cynicism? And what does the fact that he’s popular say about us?

Another BBC DJ, Paul Gambaccini, told Radio 4's Today programme he thought about half of the voting was for political reasons. He said, "Britain's votes plummeted with the invasion of Iraq and have stayed in the basement with the occupation”.

Oh really? It has nothing to do with the UK entries being shit then? I admit I’m expressing my personal taste here and that other peoples’ will be different – that’s one of the lovely things about music and, indeed, about people - but by any acknowledged musical and lyrical standard, Flying the Flag was risible.

Actually, the song was so far removed from being amusing that the only appropriate responses were to vomit and make absolutely certain it didn’t get a single point. I was very disappointed when Malta and Ireland (both former British colonies) refused to play the game because it meant the message from the rest of Europe was not delivered strongly enough. Flying the Flag deserved the humiliation of null-points.

Personally, I would have felt embarrassed had it not been for the Finnish presenter referring to Scooch as the ‘English’ entry. Thereafter, I felt smug in the knowledge that millions of Europeans would understand the truth of it.

Who in their right minds would enter a musical pastiche of Euro-pap from 20 years ago and then lace it with camp sexual innuendo unless they were totally taking the piss? I wonder what the line, “Would you like something to suck on for landing sir?” delivered by an over-the-top caricature of a guy flight attendant, might mean to the average Byelorussian.

Have Britons really sunk to such low depths of despondency that they’re determined to show the rest of Europe two fingers, or has the outcome more to do with the BNP marshalling its members so that their prejudices now dominate any BBC phone-in, poll or chat room?

It should be easy to win the Eurovision Song Contest. All you need is a less than half-decent song, delivered with absolute sincerity. That simple formula was what won last year for Lordi, a Finnish heavy metal monster band, and this year for Marija Serifovic, a low-key Serbian singer of worthy ballads. (I must confess that I didn’t watch the contest before it became controversial.)

The Finnish and Serbian winning entries couldn’t be more like chalk and cheese stylistically, which proves my point because 90% of the entries seem to be attempts to guess the prevailing musical taste of the Continent (and a big chunk of the next continent). This approach is doomed to failure when you consider the differences in taste just between Britain and its neighbours, France, Belgium and Holland.

Rather than lobby for a change in the voting system, why not lobby for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to enter separately from England? Then we’d have a British block. Judging by the quality of the entries for Can i Gymru this year and the fact that we’d be released from the hostility many Europeans feel towards England, the Land of Song ought to have a chance of winning.

I’ll leave the final point to Dr Howard of Reading University. “Eurovision is a fun contest and those who politicise it are missing the point." Quite.

Click here to visit The Red Dragonhood

Artistes Gallois Contre Sarkozy

2007-05-18T11:08:00.000+01:00

La femme de le nouvelle Premier ministre de la France est Gallois. Merde alors!

From the tiny Welsh village of Llanover near Abergavenny to the Palais Matignon (which is a lot more swish than No 10 Downing Street, I can tell you, and the 7ème arrondisement is handy for getting to the Musée d’Orsay and le Tour Eiffel before the queues start, which I never managed to do when I lived in the 15ème). Hasn't Penny Clarke done well for herself, butt?

The rest of us’ll just have to keep buying the lottery tickets.

Click here to visit The Red Dragonhood

A Welshman, five Irishmen, an American and a Scot

2007-04-30T23:34:00.000+01:00

I'm in a greasy yellow cab in New York with Jeremy McWilliams, the Grand Prix motorcycle racer, on our way to see Sean Lennon, whose gig will shortly prove to be worse than crap.

From Sean’s demeanour, I imagine his mother might have brought him up to believe that by merely addressing a microphone, magic would somehow tumble forth. It doesn’t, of course, and it didn’t, obviously. Although when he asked me at the after-show what I thought, I told him, as you might imagine, that it was great.

Genius, it seems, is not transmitted through the genes. When Marilyn Munro was introduced to Einstein she is reputed to have said, "Just think, with my looks and your brain, what a wonderful child we might produce." To which Einstein is reputed to have answered, " My dear, it would be just as likely to have my looks and your brain."

Anyway, the cab driver, his eyes addressing mine via the rear view mirror, says, "You in the music business?" to which I answer, "Yeah, kind of," although McWilliams contradicts me by blurting, "No, we're in motorcycle racing," which makes him feel more important than me (he being the star and me being just an oiler-of-wheels) but his response is going to mean less than nothing to a cab driver from Queens.

McWilliams yelps with pain as I put a powerful 'horse bite' on the muscle on the underside of his thigh. Unbelievably, he will blame his poor performance at the Japanese Grand Prix a few days hence on that, as he sees it, unprovoked attack.

To be honest, Jeremy’s answer is the true one at that moment, but I spent a lot of time in New York during an earlier career in the music business and I know to tell a yellow cab driver only what he expects to hear.

To prove the rule, the driver ignores McWilliams and persists with, “I know you, don’t I? You got a lovely voice. I’m sure I heard it in the movies.”
I think, “Oh really, a minute ago I was in the fucking music business.”
“Oh, thanks,” I say, hoping to end it there.
“Yeah, you sound just like that actor.”
“Which actor?”
“That Irish actor.”
“But I’m Welsh. Which Irish actor?”
“Hell, I don’t know his name. The Irish actor.”
“Peter O’Toole.”
“No!”
“Richard Harris.”
“No!”
“Gabriel Byrne.”
“No!”
“Albert Finney.” (He’s not Irish. I’m getting desperate.)
“No! No! No! You know, James Bond. 0-0-7.”
“Ah-ha, Pierce Brosnan!”
“NO! The original James Bond.”
“Er, Roger Moore?” (I’m guessing. Isn’t Moore an Irish name?)
"No!"
“Sean Connery?”
“Yeah! That’s the guy.”
“But he’s Scottish!”

The driver doesn’t hear my last pronouncement. He’s just delighted to put the wrong name to his wrong perception. Wales would mean less to him even than motorcycle racing.

McWilliams, meanwhile, is pissing himself laughing. He is Irish.

Click here to visit The Red Dragonhood

Some people call me the space cowboi

2007-04-25T16:44:00.000+01:00

The brilliant news is that I’ve made the Welsh Space Agency’s shortlist to become a Cymrunaut! How cool is that?

Unlike Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari and Charles Simonyi, the five intrepid 'space tourists' who have boldly been up before me, I don’t have to pay $20 million for the privilege of being fired into space and I don’t have to wait until Soyuz TMA-13 blasts off in 2008 either. Oh no, it’s only going to cost me a box of Chocolate Limes and two sticks of Lambert and Butler King Size.

Click here to dock with the Welsh Space Agency

Click here to check out The Red Dragonhood

And we were singing hymns and arias

2007-03-19T11:07:00.000+00:00

It may have been St. Patrick’s Day but by the time we reached capacity and the doors were locked, more than two hours before the kick-off in Cardiff, the majority of revellers at the Famous Three Kings in West Kensington were Welsh.

There were a few folk in green shirts, to be sure, but this most multi-cultural of London’s sports boozers is not really the place you’d go to meet Irish people, especially not on St. Pat’s in a city full of Irish theme pubs.

There were enough city boys in England shirts to put up a reasonable rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot at the point where England temporarily drew level but it was carried home to the tune of She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain and a lyric that told them where their chariot could be stuck; in a good-natured way, of course.

The Famous Three Kings receives literally thousands of satellite television channels. If there’s a sport being televised anywhere in the world it can be watched from North End Road. So a handful of Slovakian ice hockey fans were ensconced on the mezzanine, willing Bratislava to victory in their national cup final, and a few Pakistani fans stood glum-faced in one corner, transfixed with disbelief as Ireland knocked their mighty cricket team out of the World Cup.

But the party held by the Red Dragonhood overshadowed everything else that was going on in London on Saturday evening. Armed with lyric cards handed-out by Sing4Wales.com, we belted out Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau with a ferocity you’d rarely encounter at home.

The Brains Dark had run out by half time but the SA kept flowing until well into the next morning. We sang Calon Lân and Cwm Rhondda with tears rolling down our cheeks and, for me at least, it was emotional to meet the lovely folks who came along wearing our T-shirts.

Good people from all over Wales celebrated a memorable victory and partied into the night, embracing each other in brotherhood and sisterhood in a city far from home. And the English wonder why it’s so important to us?

Click here to check out The Red Dragonhood.

It’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than find a disabled parking space

2007-03-09T19:32:00.000+00:00

Disabled people in my area all seem to drive big, expensive German cars and SUVs; or perhaps I should say that the big, expensive German cars and SUVs all seem to display disabled parking permits.

I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression. I live in an ex-council house on a nice, friendly council estate, but it is surrounded by very expensive real estate and a big shopping centre. Council parking fines are fiendishly expensive. Cars often have to queue for, oh, minutes to park at the shopping centre.

Disabled parking permits are not personalised or restricted to specific vehicles, so the people who drive the big, expensive German cars and SUVs – the wives of city brokers and bankers mostly, with a smattering of diamond traders and businesspeople – buy the permits from the poor disabled people on the council estate. The black market price is a difficult-to-resist £600.

A permit saves rich people from having to queue or walk more than 50 metres from the disabled parking places at the shopping centre. It also means they can park on a single yellow line without risking a fine.

Of course, a genuinely disabled driver hasn’t got a hope in hell of finding an empty disabled parking space.

I can handle the myriad examples of inhumanity that assault my senses every time I switch on the television, but the fact of rich people masquerading as disabled drivers in order to get a better parking spot is somehow profoundly depressing.

Click here to check out The Red Dragonhood

Some people have questioned my methods

2007-03-06T17:34:00.000+00:00

The journalist from the tabloid newspaper opened in a sombre, world-weary, slightly accusatory yet slightly sympathetic yet slightly uncomprehending tone, much as I imagine a veteran Catholic priest might adopt to encourage an habitual sinner to explain in the confessional his latest bout of mindless, damnation-inducing transgression. He was enquiring about an enigmatic story I wrote to suggest that Jimi Hendrix might have recorded Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, the Welsh National Anthem.
“Why’d you do it, Martin?”
“What?”
“Why’d you do it?”
“To get over a complicated message that would otherwise go unheard if I’d used conventional methods of communication.”
“Yes but why’d you do it?”
“I’m not sure you’re asking the right question here. Have you looked at my website?”
“Yeah.”
“So you understand where I’m coming from?”
“Er, yeah, I suppose”
“Alright then. I wanted to be provocative, obviously. I also wanted to entertain. I wanted Welsh people to think about their origins; to kindle pride in their Welshness. But at the same time I wanted to ask questions about why we need the kind of endorsement of our national identity implied by the premise of my story to feel good about ourselves. I wanted to make a point about the myths of Welshness, most of which have been handed down to us over the centuries by English propagandists and Welsh apologists. I wanted to create a Welsh myth of my own to show how easy it is to do. Ironically, Land of My Fathers is one of the few ‘Welsh’ things that is truly, authentically ours. In my opinion it’s the most beautiful national anthem in the world, and John Ellis’ solo guitar arrangement of it illustrated that fact perfectly, even if he wasn’t actually trying to impersonate Jimi Hendrix.”
“Right.”
He quoted me thus: “I did it for a bit of fun.”

Click here to read the original 'Jimi Hendrix Welsh National Anthem' story
Click here to read the Tich Gwilym story
Click here to send a free ecard featuring John Ellis' 'Hendrix' arrangement

"Taff time-waster"

2007-03-02T22:26:00.000+00:00

Several people have called me to ask why I didn’t nut Newsnight’s Steve Smith when he referred to me as a “Taff time-waster”. To be fair to Steve, we had poured a couple of pints of Brains Dark, a couple of pints of SA and a couple of large Penderyn chasers into him before we did the interview. That might also explain why Welsh BBC producer Meirion Jones failed to spot that I was wearing The Red Dragonhood Three Feathers T-shirt, which carries the feathers emblem - the personal property of Charles Windsor obviously - with the motto ‘Twll dîn pob sais’.

Click here to see The Red Dragonhood Three Feathers T-Shirt
Click here to see the BBC Wales News Item

The Red Dragonhood E-Cards

2007-02-09T21:54:00.000+00:00

We’ve just added a new e-cards mini-site where some of our most popular designs have been developed into e-cards. The sender can attach a version of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau by either Tich Gwilym (recorded live at the Royal Oak, Cardiff, in 1998), Madge Breese (recorded in 1899, the earliest recording made in the Welsh language), Jones the Bass (only the names have been changed, recorded round his house a couple of months ago) and the mysterious New Flames track from 1970, attributed by some to Jimi Hendrix.

Click on this link to go directly to The Red Dragonhood e-cards mini-site

'Hendrix Anthem' mystery unresolved

2007-01-29T22:20:00.000+00:00

The recording of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers), the Welsh National Anthem, which was embedded along with a story placing its moment of creation tantalisingly close to the death of American guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, has now been taken down the page.

Since the story broke in the Western Mail on December 30, our website has taken more than 35 million hits. The Guardian and the BBC both carried the story and it travelled around the world on the Internet, often passed on by the Welsh diaspora in countries as far apart as Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. It provoked considerable interest in the US after being aired on ABC News and in France after featuring on TF1, the main French television channel, and in Libération, the national daily newspaper.

The story was also featured on the BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme, which happens to have a Welsh producer who is also a Hendrix fan, on two consecutive evenings. It went on to generate an extraordinary amount of media coverage right around the globe and it provoked a heated debate as to whether Hendrix was actually responsible for the recording or not. (I now know a lot about pickup types and whammy bar techniques, thanks to all those who contributed!)

I was a little the worse for wear in a pub in St Mary’s Street, Cardiff, when I got an email from a friend of a friend who was visiting Kathmandu, Nepal, to tell me that the story was on the back page of the Himalayan Times. People in the pub must have thought I was mad when I jumped for joy. I later got an email from some people in the Solomon Islands to tell me they were playing air guitar to Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.

At the height of media interest, a Google search for “Jimi Hendrix Welsh National Anthem” produced 95,000 results, while a search in French for “Jimi Hendrix l’hymne Gallois” produced more than 10,000 results. These results represent the number of articles published on the Internet that contain a combination of the searched keywords.

It might be the case that Jimi Hendrix is now forever associated with the Welsh National Anthem, and one or two people have labelled this ‘cultural vandalism’. I can see their point. Nevertheless, I maintain it takes something like this to counter the English propaganda that has, over centuries, indoctrinated the Welsh with a lack of confidence in their own nationhood. You think I’m exaggerating? Look up the verb ‘welsh’ in the Oxford English Dictionary and compare what you find there with what was said by English racists on Big Brother.

If you live in another country, you’ll know that Wales is almost invisible to the rest of the world. It’s no wonder that CNN publishes a map showing only England, Scotland and Ireland, with Wales deemed a part of England, just like Yorkshire. Well, now a lot of people know a little bit more about Wales, even if it’s just that they can hum our national anthem.

So the story has run its course. We never found Viv Williams, the one person who might have shed more light on the veracity of the recording, but it would be wrong to say that we haven’t learnt anything new. In fact, we’ve found people we didn’t expect to find who revealed associations between Jimi Hendrix and Wales that we previously knew nothing about. These may be published, or may form the basis of a screenplay, once the facts have been checked.

IF NOT JIMI, THEN WHO?

On Wednesday, 3rd January 2007, the BBC showed archive footage of Welsh guitarist Tich Gwilym playing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau on Newsnight, fuelling speculation about the identity of the player, assuming it wasn't Jimi Hendrix.

Seeing this film gave us mixed emotions since Tich, whose real name was Robert Gilliam, was killed in a house fire in Cardiff in 2005. Yet it was wonderful seeing him play Land of My Fathers on television.

We may not know much, but we do know that our recording could not have been by Tich, even if the style of playing were similar, which it isn't.

So, for the benefit of the thousands of visitors who wanted a to make a comparison with the ‘Hendrix’ version, we’ve arranged with Tich Gwilym’s good friend and manager, Mike Monk, to make a recording available from our site. Simply click on the following link to hear it (or just copy the URL to your browser) http://www.thereddragonhood.com/pages/jimi.html

Having listened, you might wish to make a donation to the Tich Gwilym Foundation, a charity established in his memory, which helps to provide musical instruments and lessons for underprivileged kids in south Wales. There is a button on the page that allows you to do this directly via PayPal.

We have also arranged for Sain Records to reissue Geraint Jarman’s album Goreuon from 1991 for download on iTunes. The last track on the album features Tich playing a wonderful rendition of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.

Play it loud and with pride! Remember Tich Gwilym, a fine son of Wales.

Cymru am byth!

Click here to go to The Red Dragonhood

I'm a father once again!

2007-01-23T01:08:00.000+00:00

This time it happened without warning. Indeed, the first I knew of it was when Zarina brusquely marched into my workroom and dumped it on me. I was utterly flabbergasted, as you might imagine, but she dismissed my protestations, telling me not to be so selfish; she was off to see the Boyle Family and needed me to take a turn at feeding it, cleaning it and making sure it was happy.

On previous occasions I've had a full nine months to consider the awesome responsibility I'm taking on, more than ten months in one case. And each time I've been unable to come to terms with the reality before the fateful day has arrived. I'm just not grown up enough really, or responsible, and I'm too self-centred. But this time I just have to pitch in and get on with it.

I'm quite experienced now that I have three children, so the demands of fatherhood hold little mystery for me. Nevertheless, taking care of it proves very distracting while I'm trying to save the world, and not a little stressful. It eats, it sleeps, it plays, it shits; man, does it shit! It gets upset for no logical reason, it gets sick without warning, and it tries to fool you into feeding it nothing but hamburgers and ice cream and cake. (This particular ploy doesn't work on me, I must mention. I feed it on a diet of sushi and apples, a healthy option that doesn't seem to do much for its mood.)

As a general rule, my offspring tend to have combinations of Welsh, English, Finnish, and Pakistani names, those being the countries from which their genetic material is drawn. But this one has only a Japanese name; it's called Tamagotchi. I don't know if the craze is more widespread, but it's certainly the must-have toy amongst the classmates of my six year-old son.

He treats it much as he would the puppy he is pressuring me to buy. That's to say, having succumbed to peer group pressure and pressured his mother into acquiring it for him, he has shown no further interest in its welfare.

I do as I'm told (I know what's good for me) and dutifully see to its every whim while she is out chatting about art. I resist the temptation to take it for a swim in the sink… "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think about whether it might be waterproof." Despite my careful attentions though, it doesn't like me and it seems to be pining.

Fortunately, Zarina isn't out for more than a few hours and she's a natural with it. Within five minute of her return, it is no longer hungry and its levels of happiness are restored to normal.

Click here to check out The Red Dragonhood.

Tich Gwilym Playing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

2007-01-04T00:15:00.000+00:00

I’m not ashamed to tell you that the archive footage of Tich Gwilym playing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, aired by the BBC on Newsnight tonight, brought a lump to my throat. If they’d shown more than a few seconds of it, I’m sure I would have cried.

Some years ago, Sky Television invited me to a boxing match between Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno, which was rather bizarrely held outdoors in the old Arms Park in October. Cardiff was lashed by torrential rain for the whole day, but it broke just long enough for Lewis to beat the crap out of a hapless Bruno and the actual fight was over in no time.

It was a strange set-up, with the curious Welsh locals in the cheap seats in the upper tiers, miles from the ring, and the proper boxing fans, mostly London east enders, seated in the expensive seats down on the pitch. The mid-price lower stands were totally empty.

Before the kick-off (punch-off), they played Hen Wlad fy Nhadau and someone, I don’t remember who, led the singing. The upper stands erupted in song, while all around me – I was sat at ringside in the front row - was uncomprehending silence. At that moment, I just wanted to be up there with the boys in the stands.

Click here to check out The Red Dragonhood

Recording of Welsh National Anthem may be lost Jimi Hendrix masterpiece

2006-12-23T09:47:00.000+00:00

When record producer Dave Chapman acquired the old Crouch Hill recording studios in London’s Stroud Green in 1994, he came across an old tea chest full of eight-track analogue tapes dating from the 1960s and 70s.

For want of a machine old enough to play the tapes, the tea chest sat in Chapman’s attic until 1998 when he bought an old Ampex tape recorder at an auction of professional recording equipment. He began listening to the tapes whenever he had time and, over several years, he catalogued the contents. As you might expect, all of the recordings turned out to be unremarkable demo tapes by largely unknown bands.

Then, one evening in May 2004, finally nearing the bottom of the chest, Chapman was listening to a track by a band called the New Flames. The only clues to the identity of the work were the name of the band and the date of the recording, 10th September 1970, which were scrawled on the tin.

Having heard enough, Chapman was going to turn the recorder off but left the tape running while he went to the toilet. Since he was the only one in the building at the time, he left the control room door open. As the New Flames tune ended, he discovered that a wild and emotional arrangement of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, the Welsh National anthem, played on a guitar, had been tacked onto the end of the tape. Although Chapman was from Essex, the playing caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up, because it sounded like Jimi Hendrix.

In the Stapleton Hall Tavern, the pub next door to the studio, Chapman got talking to a local, Phil Goddard, a regular at the Stapleton since the 1960s. Goddard told him that the New Flames bass player, Vivian (Viv) Williams, originally from Crickhowell in south Wales, had lived for a while in a flat around the corner.

Chapman told Goddard about the tape and Goddard reckoned it was entirely possible that the recording was of Hendrix, since Williams had known Hendrix well. Williams had apparently auditioned for The Band of Gypsies, but didn’t get the gig.

Goddard went on to tell Chapman that one night shortly before Hendrix died, Williams had brought the American guitarist into the pub. The landlord provided a lock-in for his celebrity visitor and they drank into the early hours with a man fitting the description of Chas Chandler, Hendrix’s manager.

Hendrix played at a festival in Germany on 6th September and returned to London immediately afterwards. He jammed with Eric Burdon and War at Ronnie Scott’s on 16th September and was almost certainly in London when the New Flames recorded their track on 10th September. He died in his sleep at the Samarqand Hotel in London on 18th September 1970. He was 27 years old.

Dave Chapman died of a heart attack, aged 43, while skiing in Switzerland in February 2005, before he was able to find out more about the recording. He had, however, preserved it digitally and had made a copy for a Welsh friend he knew from the music industry, me.

Dave’s widow, Louise, very kindly gave me the track on the basis that, of his closest friends, I was the one who really appreciated it. I’ve embedded it in The Red Dragonhood website because the recording very much supports the free spirit of Wales and Welshness our brand embodies. Jimi was an American, of course, but this recording of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau is loaded with an emotion that only Welsh people will fully understand. He must have been able to appreciate the passion and beauty inherent in the tune.

If Hendrix really did make the recording, it would be a like finding a Turner sketch of Cardiff in the attic. The date would establish it as Jimi’s last ever recording. On the other hand, it might have been played by one of the New Flames to parody Hendrix. It certainly sounds like Hendrix.

I’ve been unable to discover anything more because every trail has gone cold. Jimi is dead, obviously. Chas Chandler died in 1996. Mike Ward, the owner of Crouch Hill Studios at the time the recording was made, died in 1998. Phil Goddard and Dave Chapman both died last year. My only chance is to find Viv Williams and I’m hoping someone in Wales might know his whereabouts. If you know where we can get in touch with him please let us know.

Click here to hear the ‘Lost Hendrix’ Welsh National Anthem Turn your speakers up LOUD!

Snubbed by lack of BBC Sports Personality invitation

2006-12-08T01:17:00.000+00:00

I went to bed last night feeling a tad aggrieved that the BBC doesn’t invite me to the Sports Personality of the Year Award anymore. It used to be an event I looked forward to, along with the Royal Television Society Awards, but invitations are no longer forthcoming.

There are mitigating circumstances, I suppose. I have closed my office since the last invitation came two years ago. I’ve disposed of my interests in sports television and changed my business entirely. I’ve also moved house and started going under the name I was born with instead of the professional name by which everybody knows me, save for my closest friends. Still, I’d like to think the BBC would try a bit harder to track me down.

Let me tell you, in case you’ve been invited this year for the first time, that it’s a reasonable night out but fraught with social dangers if you find it difficult being nice to egotistical bastards. Last time out, for example, I blotted my copybook somewhat by very loudly asking former-Superbike World Champion Carl Fogarty whether he got beaten up a lot. In my defence, I have to say that I’d never met such an arrogant, ignorant, boorish git and there are others I can name who will second my opinion. (I’d rather eat live bees than spend another evening in his company and I’m not going to say sorry, even if that is the reason I haven’t been invited this year.)

In complete contrast, another awards evening was rendered joyous by a diamond geezer from the same sport, the witty and erudite Steve Parrish, who made a hysterical double act with former-powerboat World Champion Steve Curtis.

But you’re in for a really great night – after which your ribs will probably hurt for a week from laughing – if you hook up with our own inestimable Jonathan Davies and feed him a few double sherbets.

Welsh porn stars

2006-12-05T01:29:00.000+00:00

I was taken aback to discover yesterday, courtesy of the Western Mail, that the “Welsh are [the] top buyers of online erotica”.

The article said, “40.5% of residents in Cardiff and Swansea dabbled with buying porn on the Internet”. Well, I thought, it’s plainly a lot more interesting around here than I’d imagined. Conversely, maybe everybody is ‘dabbling with porn’ because it’s not.

Residents of Cardiff and Swansea apparently have a greater penchant for erotica than Glaswegians (37.5%), “Geordies” (36.4%) and “Brummies” (36.4%), according to the article.

That means two out of every five people you pass on the street in Cardiff or Swansea are at it on the Internet. It doesn’t bear imagining in most cases, does it? But if you take away young children, the aged and those without access to the Internet, it means we’re all at it.

“Crikey!” I said to myself, “Cardiff is the city of love. I wouldn’t have imagined that, not even in my wildest fantasies”.

Then reality dawned. This story is a wild fantasy either made-up, taken out of context, embellished or simply printed unquestioningly by the Western Mail. Why the paper needs to print this rubbish I have no idea, but the statistics it quotes from a commercial source don’t stack up for a minute.

Shame really.

Click here to buy the Welsh porn lovers t-shirt

Happy birthday Ryan Giggs

2006-11-29T19:09:00.000+00:00

Contrary to popular belief, Ryan Giggs could not have chosen to play for the England football team. He played for the England Schools team because he was at school in England (all England schoolboys are eligible no matter what their nationality) but he was born in Cardiff of Welsh parents whose parents were Welsh.

To play a team sport other than rugby union at an international level for Wales is to wear a crown of thorns, but Ryan has shown the same undemonstrative dedication to Wales that he has shown to Manchester United.

While he is the most decorated Red Devils player ever, having won eight Premier League championships, one Champions League and four FA Cup titles, he will never win any silverware for his country. Yet against Brazil in September this year he was finally able to show that, even at 33 years old, he is still the equal of any player in the best team in the world.

Penblwydd hapus, Ryan.

An area the size of Wales

2006-11-28T19:30:00.000+00:00

A FEW years ago, in what now amounts to a previous life, I helped Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, promote the Rainforest Foundation, a charity they established in response to the violation of the rights of the Kayapo Indians in Brazilian Amazonia, and the wanton destruction of the rainforests in which they live.

While making a television commercial with John Hurt to publicise these issues, I noticed that the annual area of Amazonian deforestation was a round 20,000 square kilometres. Being a Welshman, I knew this to be an area the size of Wales and I casually mentioned the fact to John. "My God!", he said, "That big?"

I suddenly realised that if I equated the scale of the problem to an area that people were familiar with, the implications would be quickly grasped and succinctly understood. So, I rewrote the words, John read them with passion, the analogy from the commercial was widely reported in the media and the phrase stuck.

Now, the multi-talented Simon Kelk has developed a wonderful little website containing the 'Wales-o-meter', a set of conversion utilities for lengths, heights, areas, volumes and weights, enabling you to express a feature of interest in terms of something more familiar; in terms of the size of Wales, for instance.

Simon is also the man responsible for the 'Bus-o-matic', a utility that explains in pseudo-scientific terms why you wait ages for a bus and then two turn up at once, and the fabulous 'Cybertoilets', which might be the best thing on the web if Simon were to work with a good graphic designer.

Stinking of cigars and reeking of booze

2006-11-27T13:31:00.000+00:00

MR CHURCH and I spent the entire afternoon in Floridita, smoking cigars, drinking 7 year-old Havana Club and shooting the breeze. Well, I did the smoking, he did the talking and we both did the drinking.

Floridita is Terry Conran's cigar bar in London's Wardour Street, a place I frequent rather too often when I'm in London, especially as I can't really afford to smoke cigars at London prices. (My other half helpfully suggests I delete the last three words.) The London establishment is supposedly based on the bar of the same name in Havana where the Daiquiri was invented, and where a life-size statue of Ernest Hemingway perches in perpetuity on his favourite stool at the end of the bar.

It's a shame that taxes on cigars are so high here that they can only be enjoyed by the rich, because smoking a cigar is essentially an egalitarian pastime in Cuba and Central America.

To the initiated, cigars are subtle, sophisticated, artisan products to be savoured and quietly reflected over, especially with a related product of what the French call the terroir (the characteristics of geography that bestow individuality on an agricultural product), in this case Cuban rum. I like a full bodied flavour with spicy rich smoke and notes of pepper, nutmeg and coco, so Partegas Serie D No 4 are my thing - kind of the cigar equivalent of a four-shot espresso.

To the uninitiated, cigars stink like hell. Mr Church's training regime does not involve rolling pungent and aromatic smoke around his palate, but half a bottle of rum is apparently not a problem. Mrs Church is going to be on my case very soon because I sent him home stinking of cigars and reeking of booze. I am a very bad influence, it has to be admitted.

But all this reminds me to recommend you to the wonderful A. E. Lloyd & Son, with branches in the Wyndham Arcade in Cardiff and Terrace Road in Aberystwyth, without whose services I'd be forced to emigrate. They will happily ship cigars to anywhere in Wales and have as good a selection as Floridita, although I doubt they can claim Ernest Hemingway as an ex-customer.

The ideal car for a young Welsh family

2006-11-24T10:05:00.000+00:00

MR THOMAS knows a thing or two about cars. He has to really, considering that he's the executive editor of one of the leading websites devoted to the subject.

It wasn't always so, but nowadays we tend to bow to his opinions regarding what car you really need for any given situation. After all, he has driven practically everything on the market.

However, when he recently tried to convince us that the new Jaguar XK convertible could be the ideal car for the well-heeled family man who is trying to recapture his youth, we were highly sceptical, to say the least.

I'm more into bicycles at the moment – a Jaguar XK wouldn't last five minutes in my street anyway – but even I know that sports cars and kids don't go together. The ensuing debate ultimately resulted in the arrival of the photograph you see reproduced above.

I accept that fresh air is supposed to be good for kids but, considering we're at the end of November, this is akin to those pictures we once saw of Conservative Agriculture Minister, John Gummer, trying to feed a hamburger to his four-year-old daughter during the BSE crisis.

Close inspection of the photograph (click on the image to enlarge in a new window) reveals that he has shoehorned two child safety seats into the back of this 2+2, so he wouldn't be breaking the law.

A word to the wise; never get into a bet with Mr Thomas. But you might want to check out the Jaguar XK convertible if you're a wealthy father who fancies a sports car rather than a people carrier.

Rhys Ifans' reputation precedes him

2006-11-23T14:09:00.000+00:00

A MATE from the valleys is selling his London flat to accommodate his growing family in something a bit more spacious. It's a lovely flat but one that's really only suitable for a couple without kids or a single person, and it's likely to appeal to someone with funky taste. Consequently, viewings have been a bit sparse.

My friend's mam was up from home, helping out his heavily pregnant wife, when a call came from the estate agent to say he had someone who was very keen to view and could he make an appointment for the following lunchtime? Since his wife and mam would be home, my friend readily agreed.

So, Mam spends all morning cleaning the place from top to bottom and at the appointed hour the doorbell rings. In walks Rhys Ifans.

I need to explain at this point that my mate and Rhys know each other quite well, but Rhys doesn't know he's viewing my mate's flat until he sees his wife. While they're both overcoming their embarrassment at meeting like this, my mate's mam comes in. She doesn't know Rhys at all but she knows who he is and she is clearly well aware of his reputation.

She takes one look at him and her face becomes a picture of anger and disappointment. She blurts out, "Oh God! I've spent all morning cleaning this place but if I'd known if was going to be you I wouldn't have bothered."

How wonderful is that?

Little Britain

2006-11-22T14:56:00.000+00:00

I LOVE Welsh humour, me. So imagine my joy when I passed a pink-painted Vauxhall Astra parked in the centre of Llanddewi Brefi recently. How neat is that, eh? (Shocking Pink is obviously not a standard Vauxhall colour.) Respect goes out to the owner of said vehicle.

Of course, if you're not a fan of the hit television comedy series Little Britain, this won't make any sense to you at all.

Speeding

2006-11-22T14:52:00.000+00:00

ON THE subject of cars, Gwent Police recently caught me speeding. So now I have to live with the shame of having three points on my driving licence, the endorsement having been scribbled by some minor court official. (I imagined the punishment would be inflicted by some cold-hearted machine.)

They got me with a camera van that was parked-up just inside the 50 mph section before you get to the Severn Bridge toll, the point at which you're most tired and concentrating least when driving back from London. I could query the accuracy of their claim that I was doing 72 mph but essentially it was a fair cop and I've taken the rap.

Nevertheless, I can't help feeling aggrieved because although I may have exceeded the speed limit once or twice before in my life, it's never been by that much and I've never actually been caught as such.

That is, except for that one time in Holland (the unfortunate incidents in South Africa and Brazil are best left undisturbed). I was attending an event in Assen and, rather than fly to Amsterdam with the tedious prospect of driving the traffic-jammed length of the country, I hit upon the brilliant idea of flying to Bremen in Germany and then driving across the open border on traffic-free roads.

At the time, I had a business relationship with Hertz in Germany and the big boss made a special point of looking after me. So, I booked and paid for a Category A car (Opel/Vauxhall Corsa or Ford Fiesta with no radio) and collected a fully-loaded Mercedes S55 AMG at Bremen Airport. You should have seen my self-congratulatory grin.

The journey across to Groningen was fast and uneventful on empty, largely unrestricted autobahnen, but as I swung South towards Assen I collected a tail. This was at the point in the journey where, as with the Severn Bridge toll in the drive between London and Cardiff, you're not really thinking straight.

Suddenly, a horrible, tinny, dark green Mitsubishi Lancer driven by a giant of a man who seems to fill both front seats, sits on my bumper and shapes up to pass. Adrenaline instantly charges through my tired body and I naturally decide to show him who's the boss around here.

For such a big beast, the S55 is one very fast car. Already doing 120 kph (70 mph), the back end dips as I stand on the throttle. The tyres grip the tarmac and we blur into hyperdrive. Eventually the S55 reaches its electronically restricted maximum speed and won't go any faster. Cars traveling in the same direction appear to be driving in reverse. Fast! The Mitsubishi is blown away, man. Totally erased from the rear view mirror...

...until 5 minutes later when I hit traffic as I turn off the motorway for Assen. As the Lancer arrives and screeches to a halt behind, an illuminated sign drops down in the front window saying 'POLICE STOP'. I jump out of the car, documents clasped in sweaty hand, and meet the police officer with a torrent of profuse and abject apology.

"You're not German then?" he asks in German, looking at the car licence plate.
"No, I'm Welsh", I answer in English, praying for a way out of the situation.
"You mean English?" he asks in English, looking at my UK driving licence.
"It's a little country with mountains and sheep..."
"What is the speed limit in Holland?" he asks without emotion.
"Oh, I don't know, I've come from Germany and the roads were unrestricted and I forgot and I wasn't thinking and I'm really, really sorry for all the trouble and the paperwork and..."
"Okay. What is the speed limit in... Wales?"
"Ah, I know that, 70 mph on motorways."
"Now, what's that in kilometers?"
"Er..."
"Come on!"
"Oh, it must be about 120 kph."
"Perfect! Quite right."
"Oh goodness! I must have been going much too fast."
"TWICE!" he screeches, making me jump. "Twice" he says again, holding up two fingers to emphasise his point. "In Holland we can shoot you for that".

I am a little disappointed by this exchange, to be honest, since the speedometer had been reading a touch over 280 kph (174 mph) and the S55 is apparently restricted to 175 mph. 40 kph (25 mph) is a big discrepancy.

All this time, people who know me have been arriving for the event and our conversation has been carried on to the accompaniment of car horns as others revel in my discomfort.

Finally he looks me in the eye and says, "If I catch you speeding again, you'll be in big trouble."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you", I splutter in relief, bidding him a fond farewell and wishing joyous blessings upon his house.

"Remember, we can easily tear up your driving licence", he says to make sure I've got the point.

As I breathlessly clamber back into the Merc, he shouts across, "By the way. If you'd been German instead of Welsh, it would have been different."