In Which Promises Are Kept,Books Are Bought/Borrowed,In Praise Of Libraries And West Ham United

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well.

Well as promised in an earlier post I've joined Plaid Cymru. I did it on Wednesday by phone as I've an instinctive dislike of buying anything online that involves the use of my bank account (I go for those cards where you put money into the thing so that if anything was hacked only the money it would be the only thing in danger).

Anyway the process was surprisingly quick. The documents will come in the post in a few weeks because of recent demand for membership and there we go. My direct involvement in politics begins.

Actually things will move even faster in the next few weeks because of the elections for the National Assembly for Wales in May. My intention is to help them in canvassing for votes. Not this week mind you, because as it's the Easter break "Dad Duties" take priority.

At long last as well I've finished Football Dynamo by Marc Bennetts after quite a break as explained in my previous post. So let me say now the second half of the book was just as good as the first. I'd recommend it to you if  you can get a copy (published in 2008). It's the best book about football in a foreign country that I've ever read.

Yesterday I went to Porthcawl and part of the reason was to get a new Penguin paperback for my collection. Going through the charity shops in the town I eventually went to the Porthcawl Animal Welfare Society shop, staffed by ladies that you could easily imagine keeping colonies of cats in their homes.  It does have the largest number of books in the area and a great number of that were Penguins.

I had intended to get a battered copy of Anthony Burgess' book A Clockwork Orange. I've read a number of his books (including that of Enderby the poet and a novel about Napoleon which explained to me as a teenager the euphemism of the number 69) but not his most famous book.

However once my eyes focused on this book, being that of the previous pre ISBN numbering system then there could only be one choice.

1933 - The White Mile - Alan MooreHead

This is a book about the opening of the Nile to the world. Full it appears of many major historical giants. It does appear to be an interesting read....and it just cost me 30p.

I also needed to get a new book from the library. The football tome  I picked was this.

Bobby Moore - Matt Dickinson

The reason why I picked this book was more than just the obvious. As I've said before I'm from the East End of London and West Ham, being the closest team where I was born, is the team I support. Other than family and friends it's the thing I have missed the most in moving to South Wales. When they've come to South Wales I try to get the see them. Given that I live here I aim for the more convenient not-stuck-in-a-corner home seats. Of course what that means is that these games are watched by me with all the vocal emotion of a monk with a vow of silence as just one utterance will make those people surrounding me know that I'm not Welsh so that I'm not supporting Cardiff/Swansea/Newport.

Short trips across the border have been made to Bristol just to see my first love again. I remember over a decade ago going to Bristol Rovers to watch a pre season friendly. Ian Wright was playing for us and he scored. Afterwards he did that classic Wright thing of raising his arms as if to say "I'm Ian Wright. I've scored. Give me a hug."(He eventually joined the list of the ex Arsenal players who came to West Ham when their best days had long since gone. The only exception -probably- to this being the Welshman John Hartson)

Anyway Bobby Moore was the first West Ham captain in my lifetime and though this word is often thrown about nowadays like confetti he was a legend. I am looking forward to reading this, probably with large spoonfuls of nostalgia.

A quick word about libraries. I think you can guess now that I am a fan of and use libraries a lot. They a station for knowledge and imagination. With every closure of a library however this slowly dies. I heard the librarian yesterday say that in the Rhondda Cynon Taff area they have in the past few years closed fourteen libraries. Fourteen!!! You wonder how these councillors can look at themselves in the mirror. They're probably comforting themselves with their expenses.

This has thankfully not happened in Bridgend yet. Mind you there was a "public consultation" by the council last year as to what services people thought should be cut. I laughed at this. For it was like asking how they wished to be tortured,water or electricity.

Until the next time...

Of Books Read And To Be Read. And Why I'm Learning Welsh Again

Hello there. Trust you are well.

When chatting to you about the books in my first post I'd forgotten in fact that I was reading three books at the same time. As all these books have now been read reckon I should start with the book I hadn't mentioned which is.....

Danny Baker - Going Off Alarming

Took this with me when visiting my mother on the Mother's Day weekend. On the London Underground it took me from Grosvenor Road to Epping and from Epping to Victoria by chuckle. I've a soft spot for these autobiographies, particularly for its first volume Going To Sea In A Sieve. It evoked a London of my youth as the mayor seems to make the present day capital a land for for Russian Oligarchs to live in. Even if his is South of the Border and mine is of the East.

Of course Iris Murdoch could not be more different from Danny Baker and that it appears includes my reaction to this Penguin Paperback.

Iris Murdoch - The Italian Girl

One thing I will make every effort to do is not to go into great detail about the books I'm reading because I don't want to spoil it for people who want to read it in the future. So let me say this. It was a disappointment having been a fan of The Sea,The Sea. What it was was arty twaddle, For a relatively thin book it was full of unbelievable characters with unbelievable traumas in an unbelievably short space of time. The most I'll say about it is that it was readable...but that was it.

I didn't have high expectations of Neil Warnock's ghost written book The Gaffer. But that didn't matter because this is best described as amiable. Essentially it was billed as an entertaining slice of a manager's life and judged on that basis you did feel cheated. If I had to choose between the Warnock book and the Murdoch one then The Gaffer wins. But both would lose when brought up against either of Danny Baker's autobiographies.

So there are new Penguins and Football books to buy. But I won't be able to do that until later this week so I went to the shelves of the great unread and picked two books. 

This was the first one....

Paul Theroux - The Pillars Of Hercules

As the cover says this is a chronicle of his travels  along the Mediterranean around 1994. I personally find travel books more interesting when read years after the actual trip. The phrase "the test of time" seemingly suited to it. My favourite travel books don't just capture a place but also a mood. That said I must be honest and say that I've never read any of his books in the genre before or indeed any of his novels. Not because of a personal dislike but simply as there as there are so many books and so little time that I've never got round to reading one until now.

Mind you I have read a couple of short story collections with an American consulate official as a central character. They were alright but nothing more (and obviously they did not inspire me to actively get seek out others in his canon). I do remember that the best word to describe these books was "professional" but writing to a reader I'd argue needs to be more than that.

I hadn't actively sought out another football book amongst the shelves of the great unread but it just turned out that this was the book came to my sight next.

Football Dynamo - Marc Bennetts

As (again) the cover explains book (this edition 2008) is about Russia and football written by a British journalist living there. One of my favourite type of books in this genre is one that mixes personal experience with general history. It probably explains why for example my favourite about boxing is In The Red Corner by John Duncan, about the relationship between Cuba and the sport.

Anyway it is I can tell you a fascinating read. How do I know this already? Because I've already started reading it years ago and am halfway through. It was bought many years ago. Remember beginning to read it but then another book demanded my attention beforehand for reasons I can't recall and so it was put back on the shelf (with the bookmark still on the point I left it) to be forgotten. If there was a moment you can go "ahhh" at a book it's now. Not now though (so you can cheer).

Now to completely change the subject I've recently decided to resuscitate learning Welsh. Now before chatting about the present an explanation as to the circumstances as to why I'd learnt the language in the first place is called for. Because it came about by accident.

Many years ago and before we had our daughter my wife had a job which required her to work on Wednesday evenings. At the time I felt at a loose end and decided to attend evening classes on that day. So looked at what was available. I'd wanted car maintenance as my stock move with any problem in that regard is to panic and call the breakdown people/go to a garage. But there were no lessons on that day. There were though lessons in Welsh for beginners.....so it began.

I always say that in a parallel universe there is a version of me proficient in car maintenance. Of course in another parallel universe there is another super me who can speak Welsh and  know his way around a car.

Anyway slowly but surely I started learning yr iaith Cymraeg.Getting to a stage where I passed the equivalent exam in O Level and had only just failed to do the same in the higher level. I found myself regularly watching the Welsh language TV channel S4C and the radio station Radio Cymru and practised the language socially in such occasions as coffee mornings.

However when I lost my job and found it difficult to get a new one I slowly became depressed and found it hard to concentrate on other things including Welsh. I performed disastrously in my second attempt in the exam at the higher level. My heart was not in it so just walked away.

So I was in a sort of linguistic limbo. Nowhere near fluent but a thousand times better than "the cat sat on the mat"

Now I have work, and slowly my mojo is coming back. So I'm returning dysgu Cymraeg. What I know in learning Welsh the first time is that experiences are introduced to you which are absent if you only speak English even if you're living in the country. My wife is from Cardiff and I know that in some respects I know more about this country than she does because I can to an extent speak the language.

What I also know is this. Whatever personal circumstances derailed me from learning Welsh I have always believed that the language has to survive. Because if Welsh was lost then there will be a piece of Wales that would be lost with it.

Perhaps I'm an old romantic...but there you go

I find that I can listen to general programmes on Radio Cymru and watch those on S4C and be able to catch the gist of what's going on which is encouraging. In another time I'll chat about these channels but you're spared today.

So the beginner's books are taken out. The old papers are dusted off and ymlaen.

The mutations are once again to be tackled (and I don't mean the X Men).

Welsh Language Action

I'll chat about how it's going on in future posts.

Until the next time.