Unquiet Flows The Don Quixote And The Library Question To Rhondda Cynon Taff Labour Party

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well I've done it. Another classic has been crossed off  the literary bucket list. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes has been finished. Thank you. I know mental bouquets have been thrown by readers globally....well like to think so anyway.

To be honest though. Didn't like it. Starts interestingly enough. You're intrigued by the thought as to whether this is the oldest book you'll ever read where a complete nutter is the main character.

But as I read on. The thought occurred to me that what De Cervantes was doing was to getting everything he'd ever written and then proceeding to wedge it into this novel. You want sonnets? You get sonnets. You want short stories where Quixote is a peripheral figure? Here you go. You want a novel within a novel? You don't as you think it's pointless? Tough here's one I've made earlier.

And a quick aside about those stories I mentioned. A fair proportion of them seemed to be a variation on this formula. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl who is the most beautiful and virtuous in [insert Spanish region, town, village here]. Boy finds obstacles in his path to true love.

The effect of all this, well on my poor humble brain anyway, is that you feel mentally wading into treacle. Grimly trying to hang onto any thread in all of this to pull you through to something much more clearer. A book should not have this effect on you.

I suspect that in this mess of a novel there is a book that I would have liked screaming to get out. That is however only I in a parallel universe has enjoyed.

The next tome to emerge from the pile of the great ebook unread is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Another classic in that literary bucket list. Though as the Don has showed having classic status doesn't mean I'll like it.

And now another 140 character moment. When you're on Twitter you can get retweets from those you're following. I got such a tweet (actually more than one) yesterday from Rhondda Cynon Taff Labour party about its local manifesto. In it the local party promise investment in the following Children's play areas, 3G pitches, transport infrastructure, "Protect school budgets from Tory cuts" (Wait a minute isn't Welsh education controlled by the LABOUR controlled National Assembly and run with their agreement by a Lib Dem?), roads, "footways", childcare, free town centre wifi, town centre regeneration, increased graduate and apprenticeship posts and tackling dog fouling by employing more enforcement officers.

All very well. Though it gives the impression more of a wishlist than anything else and I can't help wondering why all these promises that have now been made just before the local election haven't been started earlier. After all if they the capacity to do this beforehand why not? Or is it one of those accounting tricks where you cut a budget until just before an election and then say "look at us we're putting extra money in" but this money is less than the amount cut years previously? In truth I don't know and it's for more knowledgeable people than me to discuss.

But the area I do know a little bit about,and the Twitter question I asked was "What about libraries?". In 2014 the Labour controlled council closed (as I understand it from google) fourteen yes FOURTEEN libraries. Depriving people of the joys of discovering books, community activities and for those poorer families free access to the internet.

And not just fourteen libraries, but fourteen communities as well would have suffered as a result of these closures. We're not talking here of somewhere like Cardiff or Swansea but of isolated places where the library is one of the focal points of the community. Now gone. And gone let's not forget from the action of a LABOUR council.

Let me tell you how bad a reputation this gave Rhondda Cynon Taff. I remember overhearing a conversation in Porthcawl library months ago where the librarian boasted that whatever problems the Bridgend libraries were having at least none of them had been closed . Trust me if there is a situation where Bridgend council can feel itself superior to its neighbours then something is very, very wrong.

I haven't yet received a response from my tweet. If I do I'll let you know.

Until the next time.