| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 06-Jan-2005, 02:07 AM |
Replies: 47
Views: 4,727
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It's on Amazon  |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #101420 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 05-Jan-2005, 04:19 PM |
Replies: 47
Views: 4,727
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I have my 1948 edition with me now, it was a gift from Lloyd George's brother William George, on the Centenary of Loyd George's birth 17th January 1968. It inspired me later in life when I became the script editor on a Russian animation of the story of Culwch & Olwen, produced by Soyuzmulifilm Studios Moscow, and was screened at the Cannes film festival in 1988.
The Mabinogion was the staple diet of of young Welsh children, the stories being as familiar as Grimms fairy tales to us. |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #101312 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 27-Oct-2004, 12:11 AM |
Replies: 3
Views: 1,053
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If you're from Cumbria, you were a celt already 
Aberystwyth's an interesting town isn't it |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #90789 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 21-Mar-2004, 01:47 PM |
Replies: 2
Views: 1,220
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Best Irish team I've seen for years.
However I am concerned about this recent introduction of "The Soldiers Song" (Amhrán na bhFiann) as one of the two National Anthems they play for Ireland these days. Nobody (not even the team) was singing it, yet when they started "Ireland Ireland", the whole of Landsdown Park came to life, isn't it time to bury the "Republican" myth and get back to the hearts of the people of Ireland |
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Forum: Ireland · Post Preview: #49003 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 21-Mar-2004, 01:39 PM |
Replies: 9
Views: 1,627
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We didn't do too badly though 31 - 21
(Allez les Bleus next weekend) |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #49000 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 21-Mar-2004, 01:34 PM |
Replies: 2
Views: 442
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0 - 31 Oh dear!, By my reckoning that puts Scotland below Italy in the 6 Nations |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #48999 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 18-Mar-2004, 02:31 PM |
Replies: 18
Views: 2,078
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New York Times
Sorry, I must rain on your St. Patrick's Day parade
by Dominic Gates
Today on St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll avoid conversation with strangers. I’ll try hard to keep my Irish eyes smiling by gritting my teeth and nodding at comments on my “lovely” accent.
I’ll give my usual brusque affirmation in reply to the daily telephone question, “Are you from Ireland?”
Yes, I am from Ireland, but I’ll have to bite my tongue to stop myself from berating some naïve American with how I hate your damned ignorant, fake and racist St. Patrick’s Day.
A secretary once asked me, “Could you hang around the office all day and just talk?”
Usually I’m content with this easy power to please. It is always women who comment on the accent, so it’s a light-hearted boost to my male ego.
But I’ll not be playing the game on St. Patrick’s Day, darlin’. I refuse to be boyish, roguish and charmin’. Ah shure, you know where you can stuff your paddy whackery.
Does that seem a little over the top? Let me calm down, and try to explain why your lovable holiday is so appalling.
First realized that your charming images of Ireland, replete with Aran sweaters and tweeds, are 50 or 60 years out of date, based on Hollywood romanticizations like John Ford’s “The Quiet Man”.
That’s the 1952 movie where Irish American John Wayne returns to live in his ancestral village, woos the fiery redhead Maureen O’Hara, wins her over and proves his mettle to the menfolk by beating her stingy brother, McLaglen, in a brawl that is such fun every man in the village joins in. Both the argumentative courtship and the brawl are good naturedly comic, of course, just like the Irish.
O’Hara falls in love with Wayne, and McLaglen buys him a drink after their day-long fight. Shure, and how could you not love the passion of the Irish?
Let’s stay with images a while. Part of the pervasive iconography of American St. Patrick’s Day is a variation on the University of Notre Dame’s mascot – the “Fightin’ Irish” figure.
You’ll see it everywhere on the 17th of March, from Hallmark stores to T-shirts to street banners: a diminutive man with buckles on his shiny shoes and another on his billycock hat, his snub nose, heavy brow, and mustacheless beard accentuating a simian quality to his features: he has a pugnacious scowl on his face, his fists are clenched.
That image goes further back than Hollywood; its source is English anti-Irish bigotry from the 19th century.
The English Victorian satirical magazine “Punch” specialized in savage “humorous” cartoons that created an infamous Irish stereotype, on documented in the 1870s by Perry Curtis in “Apes & Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature”, and more recently by the eminent Irish historian Roy Foster in “Paddy and Mr. Punch”.
Punch derided the Irish as stupid, feckless, drunken and lazy; the apelike cartoon image portrayed the Irishman as subhuman.
It is almost incredible that this racist image could survive, but one only has to look at a few of those Victorian cartoons to recognize that the “Fightin’ Irish” figure is nothing but a shallow Disneyland version of Punch’s subhuman.
You’ll have to excuse my killjoy failure to be charmed by the caricature. It may have lost its meaning to you, but I know where it came from.
Try promoting African Americans as thick, ugly, violent alcoholics, quick to anger, not very bright, but good for a song or a story, great entertainers in their place – try that, and let’s see how charming they find it.
How can it be that in today’s politically correct America this racism is not merely tolerated, but celebrated as good clean fun? The unfortunate truth is that many Irish Americans are as ignorant as anyone else about the realities of Ireland.
Though my blood boils at the perverse holiday stereotypes, Irish Americans join in with gusto. St. Patrick’s Day is their special day. What else can they do? How about trying to learn about the real Ireland? Find out why the shamrock is a national Irish symbol, and the four-leaf clover is not.
Discover that, happily, no one in Ireland wears bowler hats, except the Protestant Orangemen of Northern Ireland celebrating the Twelfth of July.
For a flavor of modern Dublin, try reading Roddy Doyle. Rent the movie version of his book, “The Commitments”. Notice the absence of Aran sweaters and tweed jackets.
Educate yourself about politics, too. There is a complicated political peace process going on in Belfast; try to discard the old knee-jerk, anti-Brit reactions and make sense of it, including the fears of unionists.
Listen to Van Morrison playing with the Chieftains, and note that he is a Belfast Protestant.
Find out about the enormous Scotch-Irish contribution to the making of America, and include that in your picture of Irishness.
Go visit Ireland, Belfast as well as Dublin; avoid stage-Irish tourist traps like Killarney.
Read Swift, Shaw, Wilde and Yeats. Read Seamus Heaney and John McGahern. Read Joyce.
Or ignore my railing. Step out on St. Patrick’s night, wearing something green, and enjoy your ignorance. Get drunk and hit somebody; but kiss then afterwards, sing a sentimental song and buy another round of green drinks.
Keep the stereotype alive. But realize it has damn little to do with Ireland.
Sorry to open your eyes; but shure, raining on the parade is a St. Patrick’s Day tradition, too.
~
Dominic Gates is a Seattle writer who emigrated from County Tyrone in Norther Ireland. Copyright The New York Times.
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Forum: Ireland · Post Preview: #48478 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 18-Mar-2004, 02:00 PM |
Replies: 11
Views: 2,857
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Please God spare me from Microsoft AOL and CNN.
Thank you! Thank you! microsoft for your condescention, I'm now as happy as a Sunni in Basra! |
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Forum: Gaelic Languages · Post Preview: #48474 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 18-Mar-2004, 12:18 PM |
Replies: 11
Views: 2,857
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If you take a look at the language options in the Google home page you'll find they've been doing Welsh Language menus for some time (and many other minority language including "Frisian", the original language of the the North of the Netherlands, which is now acknowledged as the basis for the English language).
WOW YAY (sic) as you say, for Google |
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Forum: Gaelic Languages · Post Preview: #48453 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 16-Mar-2004, 02:50 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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Hi again Randy, It has always been the Spanish Socialist party policy since Aznar's agreement to join B&B, to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq unless the "US led Coalition" turn the responsibility for Iraq over to the international community in the form of the UN. Nothing changed after the bombs in Madrid, just the peoples minds.
Lets face it, there is a great doubt in Europe that Halliburton, sorry, the US government, is capable of running a country properly! |
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #47606 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 16-Mar-2004, 01:43 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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There are probably 60 billion people in the world who have never heard of Rush Limbarff. I only know of him because I met him once at a media conference.
I could probably guarantee that no one who died last week knew of him or his opinions so I think you could take your insular US media arguments over to another forum.
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #47587 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 16-Mar-2004, 01:33 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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| QUOTE (Randy @ Mar 16 2004, 07:58 PM) | Why don't the Spanish blam the terrorist and not the government. Good or bad they did not bring bombs to train stations.
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Randy, that's the whole point of this discussion, Aznar's government LIED to the people that's why there was a turning against the PP. The Spanish people blamed their government for not being straight with them, they (Aznar's government) continued to blame ETA hoping to get past the closing time of the polling stations, the people saw through that and made their DEMOCRATIC choice
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #47585 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 15-Mar-2004, 03:34 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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A contemptible reply sir, beneath the values of this board, and a blatant demonstration of your ignorance of socialist values. |
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #47331 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 12-Mar-2004, 03:10 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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Thanks for that link, Herrerano, the BBC had also dismissed the Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades's claim. They seem to claim responsibility for everything!.
But what if ETA succeed in pointing the finger towards "The Arab Resistance" (The language used by Batasuna). It would totally undermine the PP in Sundays election. |
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #46774 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 12-Mar-2004, 02:40 PM |
Replies: 27
Views: 411
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Allowing for that fact that 99.9% of our Celtic Basque cousins deplore yesterdays bombing, isn't it strange that the same French made Explosives were used that have always been identified with ETA attacks, the method of attack were backpacks filled with explosives and timers, not suicide bombers, That ETA has targeted the railway system on many occasions. That last week, ETA was prevented from using 500Kg of the same explosive in a terrosrist attck. It all seems to indicate ETA.
So why now, is there a swing to extreme Muslim terrorism as the source? A stolen van was found near the railway station with 7 detonators and an audio cassette of quotations from the Quoran.
Just taking one step away, how convenient for José Maria Aznar if ETA were found to be responsible, it would mean a landslide victory for the PP. However in the "double bluff" ETA could have indeed carried out the attack, but by planting Islamic indicators as clues, this would turn the country against Aznars Party because he was seen to support the US war against Iraq.
Black and White it ain't but I would welcome any observations |
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Forum: Politics & Current Events · Post Preview: #46768 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 12-Mar-2004, 02:20 PM |
Replies: 14
Views: 456
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I'm going back to my nice little Welsh forum now, it's too scary here!!!!! |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #46761 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 12-Mar-2004, 03:11 AM |
Replies: 14
Views: 456
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I'll take you both on !!!
(......er, you are girls aren't you?) |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #46638 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 11-Mar-2004, 01:35 PM |
Replies: 14
Views: 456
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The BBC offered me a job there once, I asked if there was Danger Money |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #46482 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 11-Mar-2004, 03:09 AM |
Replies: 14
Views: 456
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After a decade or so of the "Glasgow -Miles Better" marketing campaign, Glasgow is repositioning itself with a new slogan "Glasgow - Scotland with Style".
Oh how I laughed  |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #46333 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 10-Mar-2004, 04:45 PM |
Replies: 12
Views: 414
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C'mon Catriona, that was an appalling review you quoted, the guy couldn't even spell faeces!!. Trainspotting was one of the funniest yet challenging films I've seen since "Pulp Fiction".
By the way, on the subject of the best in Scottish Television Rab C Nesbitt beats all! |
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Forum: Scotland · Post Preview: #46281 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 07-Mar-2004, 02:24 PM |
Replies: 3
Views: 813
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Les Rouges fought to the final 10 second opportunity in an attempt to even the score in this thrilling match. But Welsh pride remains intact, having played a magnificent game, their narrow defeat ensures that the French will win the championship rather than the English!!!!. Gallic Nations raise a glass that the English, though having beaten their inbred southern hemisphere cousins to win the world cup, are now highly unlikely to take the 6 Nations.
God Bless the Irish for the gift they gave us yesterday 
(Translation available when I calm down a bit!!! ) |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #45573 |
| Welsh Guy |
Posted on: 07-Mar-2004, 02:14 PM |
Replies: 13
Views: 882
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And a nice Panad I suppose ! |
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Forum: Wales · Post Preview: #45571 |
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