In Which Reality Bites Fantasy And The Premiership etc Have To Wait For A Match At Ton Pentre FC

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well let's set the scene. I'm in the bath. I've explained before how I'm a fan of a good soak and won't bore you with it again. Listening to a season preview of the Guardian Football weekly podcast. Of the three football podcasts I listen to this is my favourite. In my comfortable relaxed state am jolted by a sentence from the show.

"Defoe is injured".

Defoe? Jermain Defoe? The Jermain Defoe that's on my fantasy football team? Clearly have to change the starting eleven.

So I get out of the bath,dry and go onto the Daily Telegraph fantasy football website.....but for some reason my team wasn't there. Was confused but was in a rush so I decided to create the team again. Exactly the same as before except that Berahino of West Bromwich replaces Defoe. So the team is set up and ready to go when.....the Telegraph Fantasy League website crashes.

I try,try again but it's down. Too late to do anything before the first match begins my fantasy team dies in this initial week.

Whose fault was it? Well I suspect did something wrong initially but then it was compounded by the website crashing. And of course the biggest irony is that not only did Defoe actually play against Manchester City he scored as well.

I had to go to Bridgend Town today. Was in a bit of a rush but went into the other Polish deli there for a look around. Because of my lack of time really couldn't make a considered decision so got these.

I shopped Polish

These barring the packaging are probably about as Polish as I am but that's not the point. The point is that in these post Brexit dark ages we should support the Polish shop against those racists happy to denigrate those Poles who have moved and have set up lives/businesses here. Next time I'm going to Bridgend Town I'll ask on Twitter to recommend some Polish food (meats,cheeses etc) to give them a try.

And one more thing on Bridgend Town. Noticed this building.

Does Have A Certain Style

Twitter tells me it's a church. It does seem worth investigating in the future though I'm not sure when.

Wife/daughter had no real plans for Saturday. As they hadn't I had.Penybont FC were playing at Ton Pentre at the first match of the new season for this, the second tier of Welsh League football. I was going to spend the afternoon in the Valleys. You remember I had a day out in there in May to wallow in the views. Yesterday though it was going to be mainly football.

One quick digression though. As was going out I noticed this.

That bird is big

Had thought that I knew where the Ton Pentre ground was but I'd overshot and what turned out to be an empty ground was in the nearby village of Pentre. To digress for a moment Pentre I was told later was once a longer name than that. It makes sense to me. Pentre in Welsh means village so essentially this is a village called village.

So got back to Ton Pentre to ask where the football ground was. It turned out that I was not that far away.

View number 1

So followed the instructions to the most well hidden ground I know. Essentially park in a nearby street.

View number 2

Across another street.

View Number 3

Cross a bridge.

Bridge

View from the bridge.

With added finger

Turn right by the industrial estate.

Industrial Estate Action

And here you are. Still doesn't give you any idea of what's inside.

Ton Pentre FC

It cost £5 to get in. This included a programme which though more cheaply produced (hence the price) is far more readable than anything else I've seen in this league. It included an application to be a part owner of the club for an annual fee of £10. Must admit it's tempting and will think about this,but I won't decide for a while yet. Working next Saturday and the following week will be driving to Essex (which I'll explain then).

So then I've properly entered the ground. This is the view that awaits.

Quietly stunning

Thing about a Welsh League football game is this. If the match has it's dull moments you can always wallow in the views. This is from the other side of the pitch.

Yes I know

Before I forget let me claim now to be the first man to read an H E Bates novel during the interval at a Ton Pentre FC game. Already I've made history in this club.

The proof

The sole seated stand is in the centre - To the left is the clubhouse

You know football is often described as a game of two halves. Well this was a game of two quarters and a half. The first quarter belonged to Ton Pentre. They started the match attacking the Penybont FC half and were rewarded with a goal in just 8 mins, a perfectly placed header by the number 10.

Relatively soon after the number 9 despite falling down during his run into the box scored another. Two-nil then and it looked bad for Penybont FC

Ton Pentre have a manager and his assistant. I'm assuming that the guy wearing the baseball cap Pulis style is the manager. But it was his sidekick who did most of the shouting in the first half.

The assistant's calls did occasionally go to the bizarre. This was a conversation to the number 8 of his team.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Well done".

The number 8 had a look of a man who did not understand what was been said to him, He was not the only one.

The Dynamic Duo

In the second quarter things seemed to change. Rather like the friendly against the Newport AFC youth team Penybont seemed to get their act together when things seemed to be at their darkest. They scored in the twenty ninth minute (can't tell you who) though how the Penybont player was able receive a cross that went through various defenders and score despite a flapping oncoming keeper is a mystery. From a Ton Pentre view the goal was described by those around me as sloppy. That seemed the best description.

Nothing though sloppy about the second Penybont goal. A cross from the right and a straight volley by the Penybont number 8. It was pure skill.

Two all then and that is how it stayed until half time.

The second half was mainly Ton Pentre. They had chance after chance but were seemingly unable to score. They weren't helped by the match officials. Being young they seemed unable to count the correct distance of a wall in a free kick situation, the offside law or that a throw in is not taken at a spot preferred by the thrower. I blame the education system.

Must admit though have an older man's dislike for officials who are not only younger than you but also have the confidence to wear fashionable hairstyles. Though in this case the assistant referee's hair seems to have been cut using a garden implement.

Shawn by shears

With every wrong decision the Ton Pentre management were by degrees angrier. I heard from the manager what seemed like "forty grams of shocking"after one decision. Not sure you understand but it sounded good.

The next photo shows where I was watching the game from. The men coloured in motorway maintenance are the Penybont FC managerial team.

The brightly coloured dynamic duo

A draw was where this match seemed to be going until in the thirty fifth minute the Ton Pentre number 11 was able to out run a number of Penybont defenders and score. Three-Two to Ton Pentre which turned out to be the final score and. given their second dominance, deserved.

After the match was finished went to see some friends in the nearby village of Llwynypia. As I arrived they were about to take some garden rubbish to the local tip. They suggested that I relaxed in the bench they have in front of the house whilst they disposed of their stuff. This I did. A pleasant few moments reading the H E Bates book in front of this view.

Imagine seeing that in front of your house every day. Even if the building below is an ASDA

It was certainly pleasant. Would've been even more so if I liked the book. That though is for when I've finished it.

Had pleasant chat with tea and biscuits when they returned. Soon though it was time to go. Six pm. Time flies when you've had a good time

Thankyou Ton Pentre FC, Penybont FC and the Rhondda Valley.

It was fun

Until the next time.

How Plant Theft,A Motor and Bad Weather spoils The Wife's Birthday...and A Dead Pigeon and A Bad Curry Doesn't Help Either

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So it's approaching 1am on the Sunday morning. I had been doing the afternoon/evening shift on the Saturday and had nodded off in front of the TV after I had my dinner. The wife had come downstairs to wake me up...but not to have a row.

For whilst I was asleep my wife was wide awake watching three drunks, two women and a man, walk along our street. The man stopped in front of our house and proceeded to pick up a large plant in the garden.

As she explained to me one of the women said "Why are you taking that?" To which the answer was "I wanted it" as he carried what had been, ironically enough a birthday present from a friend last year along the street.

Only when they were out of view did she come down to wake me up and tell me of the events. Clearly fearing that I would confront the man once I'd taken off my glasses. She was clearly upset,and it was not a good start to her birthday.

When daylight finally appeared I went out and walked along the surrounding streets to see whether the pot could be found. Alas no. It had gone forever.

And as I was walking around the rain was fine. Fine in the sense not that it should be admired but that it was too weak to warrant the use of an umbrella but wet enough to be felt. As the morning continued though the rain much worse and heavier. My wife had hoped to spend the day in Tenby but the weather made it pointless. We were going to stay at home for her birthday.

Of course even if there had been boiling sun there might have been a problem. For I'd taken the car for it's annual service on Saturday and discovered that it needed new brake pads and tyres. Most worryingly of all though apparently there was a slight oil leak it needed an oil sump as the current one was corroding, the part for which the garage did not have immediately. There were no problems driving the car now, but for issues I'll explain at the time I need to make two journeys to Essex next month. So although I'd spent a lot of money to get my car sorted out yesterday I could not take the risk of doing nothing so more will be spent when the garage gets the part.

Point is that it made my wife and I nervous about long journeys in the car so we would have probably have taken a smaller journey. All very academic anyway.

So the only person who went out of the house today was me as I needed for nothing more than symbolic reasons to buy a birthday cake from the supermarket. As I drove though a pigeon, seemingly ignoring the sixth sense from which it's species seems to have in avoiding getting into the clutches of small children who want to catch them, lost all senses as it drove straight under the wheel of my car. I could see as I was driving away feathers blowing in the wind.

Last time I posted it was flying ants, now a pigeon. At this rate I'll be reaching the level of American dentist.

As a quick side issue the supermarket sold some Polish goods. So I bought some. On the principle that I refuse to be a little Englander.

I've Shopped Polish

The icing on this depressing cake of a birthday wasn't so much the cake, which the wife described as stale even though it's expiry date was the middle of August, but the takeaway curry I'd got from a place we'd used and liked in the past. The sauce was more water than anything else, the chips were this side of just warmed up and the rice was bland. After that my stomach was best described as delicate for two hours after that.

So it was not a great birthday for my wife let's see if tomorrow turn out to be any better.

Until the next time.

in Which I Take French Lessons, The First Viewing Of The House And Buying Presents

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yes,yes I know. I've resuscitated my old Welsh textbooks, starting to learn Polish and now on a Monday learning French?

Well.....yes.

But racist crime has got worse even since I last posted about it. I read an article that a car was attacked because it had French number plates. As I have said before the dark ages have begun.

So decided to add two more languages to the list. Picked because I've a petit knowledge of either. French which is of a sub O level standard and Italian of whose remote vocabulary gleaned almost organically. They've been taken off the remote bookshelves of my mind, the dust blown off and so Je vais.

And gradually my intention is to be more French than French, Polish than the Polish etc. It seems to me that if I want to listen to Verdi rather than Elgar then I should without nobody questioning my choice because it's not British, and more specifically English.

Because that is the insular society we are potentially facing now. Particularly if the Labour party keeps looking at its navel and then begins to cut itself open. Leaving Britain at the mercy of the right wing. In the meantime the cleverest politician in the Conservative party Theresa May has about to become Prime Minister simply by staying relatively quiet as her opponents blunder their way out of the race.

I have a timetable for learning these languages.....oh yes I do.

Monday/Tuesday: French
Wednesday/Thursday: Polish
Friday/Saturday: Welsh
Sunday: Italian

So I start watching online the French drama Spin on the Channel 4 strand Walter Presents. The same strand that showed the Polish series The Border I mentioned in an earlier post. Watched the first series before but now am on it again to listen as well as see. Actually it's French title is Les Hommes De L'Ombre or Shadow Men, Things sound better in French or Italian than they do in English. For example there is a Ligue 1 football team, I can't remember which, that is sponsored by Mutuelle Du Soleil which even the most ardent Brexiteer must admit sounds better than Sun Mutual.

The book I'm starting with is Teach Yourself French by Gaelle Graham. A woman who is not only a teacher and linguist but works for a trade union and is a commentator for French radio about English education (!!). Clearly a lady who takes multitasking to the next level.She's from Brittany originally though with talents like that perhaps she's Britainiche,

More French chat tomorrow.

So the first viewing of the house. I was in the car parked at the opposite side of the road like a private eye having given the estate agent the keys. It was early afternoon so no danger of schoolkids invading the street.

I saw a couple, late twenties/early thirties being led into the house. There they stayed for about forty minutes. In between gazing at my front door I started reading Michael Palin's diaries. The length of time made me feel rather nervous,not sure with excitement or fear. Surely I thought they must be interested?

Well perhaps,or perhaps not. Apparently the couple loved the upstairs but not the downstairs, Too small for a family of two children apparently. That surprised me. Their ultimate view, according to the estate agent was a maybe. I'm going to assume a no unless proved otherwise.

Final proper thing I've done today is to go  with my daughter to buy proper birthday presents at Macarthur Glen (a retail outlet complex just outside Bridgend) for my mother, who's coming down this weekend.

Daughter picked a Yankee Candle and a fancy holder. Personally the popularity of scented candles is something that has just passed me by as I'm always on the slow lane to fashionable. I get them when the smells are simple, say orange or strawberry. But it's when they get all descriptive, for example I remember a Yankee Candle called Christmas Eve. Since when did Christmas Eve have a smell ?

I played it safe present wise. Bought a Marks and Spencer gift voucher......and this

I know you want one

It's a cheese grater. Probably the oddest looking cheese grater that you will ever see. And come the weekend it will be my mother's. It's Marks and Spencer also. And you wonder why they're in trouble.

Until the next time,

In Which I Talk To Two Polish Men And A Book Is Finished

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well my job, not fatcat wages, not glamorous and I'm not going to reveal it today. But it's a job. A job that I believe I've shown that I'm willing to do almost anything I can to help out. After all the way I believe things are going at the moment for Britain there will be areas of the "United Kingdom" (not so United anymore) that will become employment blackspots because of BREXIT.

(And as a quick aside it's irritating that those who wanted to leave call themselves "Brexiteers", believing themselves to be as swashbuckling as The Three Musketeers. Written as we all know by a French author.)

But anyway had to do the early shift at work this weekend which is the reason why I haven't been posting for a while. As going to bed and waking up early does leave a short term jet laggy effect on you when you return home. You find there is a moment after you've had your late lunch where you just nod off in front of the TV. There was no intention to. You just didn't have control.

So on Saturday at work I noticed two men, who seemed to be brothers, speaking in an East European accent. I thought I'd recognised the language and asked whether they were Polish.

They looked concerned. "Why are you asking?" questioned the older one.

"Well I just thought you were unlucky on Thursday".

Thursday : Poland lose out to Portugal on penalties after extra time and are knocked out of Euro 2016. Let me say now if there is one team I don't want to win the tournament it's Portugal. They just haven't done anything that makes them worthy champions.

Their faces brighten. Suddenly I realise that when asking whether they were Polish they'd expected xenophobic abuse. Instead I'm talking football.

This is what our society has started to become post Brexit.  

Let me stress again that I'm not saying that the bulk of people who voted leave are racists. But what it has done is to unleash a racism on Britain to an extent that I cannot recall ever happening before. So that an innocent question about a person's nationality invokes what could only be best described as fear.

But not for long.

"Yes Yes" the older man said. "And now I want Wales to win".

Friday: Wales beat Belgium 3-1. It was a match I saw the first half live and a recording of the second half early (4:30am!) Saturday morning. An astonishing match. That Wales won did not surprise me. That they beat the second ranked team in the world 3-1 did.

And of the three teams I wanted to do well it's Wales who are in the semi finals. Truly,truly astonishing. Well deserved mind you.

"I have lived in Wales for twelve years. Poland first Wales second".

He was talking about football. Couldn't argue with that. I feel the same way. You may live in a different country and be respectful of it and indeed in my case wish it to be independent but the football team you support is not the same as changing supermarket.

Both men extended their hands to me which I shook. "Your team did very well. I hope they beat Portugal now".

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was born in England (aka Football laughing stock).

Then they left. You know it's made me want to learn Polish even more now.

I've finished the biography of Thierry Henry by Phillippe Auclair. Personally my view of it reminded me about my view of Paris in that it was a slight disappointment. Not I stress that the French capital is a bad place. Far from it. But I'd been seduced by its image on books,films and TV. In reality although there were some obviously stunning sights and monuments it was also more like London than I'd expected (I will make the caveat that obviously I didn't see all of Paris - mainly the "touristy" bits).

The point is that for me this book, written by a French Arsenal supporting football journalist living in Britain, promised more than I felt it delivered.

It's not bad and does have high points (such as Henry's famous handball incident against the Republic of Ireland and the parts about his early career). Like the Paris I saw though it's high landmarks do not hide that for the most part it's not all that different to other similar books.

I'll go to Porthcawl library tomorrow to find out what my next football book will be.

Until the next time.

In Which I Chat About Icelandic Football (though not much on THAT result), A Book Is Read And Updates On Football Cards and Polish Food

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I know this is chatting about this well and truly after the horse has bolted but I'd wanted to do the post about buying Polish food on Tuesday first because of the racist tensions the Brexit result has unleashed. I'm sure I'll be chatting about it again soon but for now football...and Iceland.

As mentioned before I was at work during the England/Iceland game so have only bothered to see the highlights but what really shocked me was not that Iceland won but how inept England were. Before the match I'd told someone at work that whilst I expected England to win it wouldn't have surprised me if they lost either. After all in pre qualifying Iceland came second in a group that included Turkey and the Netherlands and although England had the greatest humiliation they had also humiliated pre tournament dark horses Austria and embarrassed Portugal and Hungary in Euro 2016.

The point is the fact that Iceland played well should not have been a surprise because they have been playing like that for a long time now.

On Friday I'd watched a couple of club matches on the internet to take my mind off the Brexit gloom for a while. The one from the Irish Republic was a dull 0-0 affair (even though it was Shamrock Rovers/Cork City). The Icelandic game though also scoreless was a much livelier affair. I made a mental note to watch another game from this league when the opportunity presented itself. Remember it was before that.game and the chance came a day after that  game where I watched Fylkir FC play against those city slickers Viking Reykjavik

Let me say that I like Icelandic league football. It reminds me of the Welsh Leagues. Part time players, small grounds (no stands behind either goal here) but plenty of enthusiasm. No gloss more heart.

As the first half finished 0-0 the teams seemed about equal in ability to me so it was a shock to discover through google that in a 12 team league the home team were currently bottom with their opponents eighth. Given that they were bottom I was impressed with Fylkir so decided that they, the ones who played in a strip that could only be described as radioactive orange, were going to be the Icelandic team I would support.

So obviously when they win the league no one will describe me as a glory seeker.

In the second half contrary to everything you have been taught or read it was the Vikings who were being stormed  in their area time and time again until eventually Fylkir got the goal they truly deserved. That's how the game finished. My team won. The fightback starts here. You've read it here first... in English anyway.....I think.

I've finished the Marian Keyes novel The Other Side Of The Story. I won't bore you by repeating the superlatives I've been using to describe this. All I will say is that although it wasn't the best book I've read this year it came close.

Of course this means a new book from the Great Unread which is

Ali Smith - The Accidental

This was given out free with The Times Newspaper. Before you wonder whether I've further contributed to Rupert Murdoch's plan for world domination. It was bought in a charity shop for 50p.

The football stickers are progressing slowly. I've got now to a stage where I've more doubles in a packet than new stickers. Haven't yet had the opportunity to try and sort this out but will try to do soon. In the meantime here's the current standings. Remember there is a max of thirty three stickers per team.

Turkey: 18

Switzerland:16
France: 15
Russia: 15
Albania: 13
Spain: 13
Sweden: 13

Wales: 13

Czech Republic: 12
Northern Ireland : 12
Poland: 12
Republic of Ireland : 12
Ukraine: 12
Austria: 10
Hungary: 10
Iceland: 10
Slovakia: 10
Belgium: 9
England: 9
Germany: 9
Romania: 9
Italy: 8
Portugal: 8
Croatia: 6

Finally my wife looked a bit embarrassed when I walked in the house from work yesterday. It transpired that she tried the Jezyki biscuits I bought on Tuesday. She loves them. Seems like the Polish deli is going to be somewhere we'll regularly visit when in Bridgend Town from now on. I'm going to try them tomorrow afternoon (Friday) when I intend to spend an hour on the Get started in Polish book.

Until the next time.

In Which I Shopped Polish

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well I won't say it was a spur of the moment thing, the thought actually occurring to me on Sunday but today I had the day off and needed to go to Bridgend Town to pay a bill at the bank. But after having done that a few doors along the same street there is a Polish delicatessen, (one of the two in the town) and for the first time ever I went inside.

There was a demonstration in support of the EU in Cardiff this evening which I couldn't attend. So decided that today I was going to make a smaller gesture. I was going to shop Polish.

I've said before that gestures are emotional. Buying a few goods from the local deli is not marching with other right minded people about the darkness that has begun to descend on the United Kingdom.As a tweet I saw quite rightly said. The vast majority of people who voted for Brexit are not racists. But they have unwittingly begun to unleash upon the nation people who use it as an excuse to commit racist acts.

So as well in my faltering way learning Polish I wanted to shop in a Polish delicatessen. As if to say, I have no problems with people emigrating to Britain. I will in my very little way support a business in a town which has declined and many shops have closed I would argue from the neglect of the Labour council and Welsh assembly (that is the Labour party that is disintegrating as we speak before our very eyes). I will not ignore.

And so I went in.

It was a small shop, but at first glance well stocked with various food and drink. The first question was of course what to get? Instantly I knew that certain things should automatically be crossed off even if they were in Polish as they were just versions of groceries you can get in Britain. So bottles of Pepsi and Lays crisps (ie Walkers in the UK) wouldn't be bought. And besides Pizza crisps? Oh no.

It had also an impressive fresh meat and a cheese selection. If this was the weekend I'd have been tempted to have given them a go. But it was a grey (soon to be very wet) Tuesday and I knew that if I'd had bought them today they wouldn't have been eaten until Saturday. So they were given a miss.

Eventually bought four items:

The Polish Shop

Taking each item from top left Deserowe seems to be a sort of biscuit sprinkled with sugar. Hopefully it's the sort you can dip into a hot drink. 

The magazine is one for toddlers. I'd thought that learning the language as I am it seemed like a good idea at the time to buy a magazine like this. However at £6.35 (!) I feel now that I might have made a mistake buying it in my enthusiasm. We shall see.

Goralaki  (by the way I don't know how to do the Polish accents on the computer yet) on the right is a chocolate wafer bar. The chocolate is one I've never tasted before but not only did I like it but so did my wife. Definitely buying this again.

Jezyki are milk coated chocolate biscuits with caramel, hazelnuts,raisins and rice crisps. I know this because I've googled it. I bought it because it said "classic" on the packaging in my hope that it's a classic Polish biscuit. Haven't tried it yet.

Leaving aside the magazine it cost me roughly two pound sixty six which was not unreasonable given that it had been sent from Poland.

Next time I'm in Bridgend Town will go into the other Polish deli. And from now on when I'm in the town will buy something from one of the two. 

A gesture. I know it is.But I'll not  walk away from the racism that this vote has brought.

I will not ignore.

Until the next time.

In Which I Begin Learning Polish.

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well it appears that working on the Monday afternoon/evening shift during Euro 2016 does have a silver lining after all being that I missed England's defeat by Iceland. Though as I understood things so did the English players.

Anyway the morning was spent doing a bit of the household chores,having a bath, getting ready for work but also for the first time spending half an hour going through the Get Started In Polish book I mentioned last week (which I forgot to mention is written by Joanna Michalak-Gray).

Earlier in the morning started to listen to Polish radio. Not expecting anything but curious. The station was PR1 Jedynka. What did I learn? Obviously vocabulary wise nothing other than "Brexit" though I think I caught "fascist" also. Conversation seemed to be at a slightly faster pace than normal ( except for the news when suddenly things seemed to go into hyper drive) but that's probably because I'm not yet used to hearing Polish spoken regularly.

After loud heavy metal music that I would have switched off in any language there was another discussion about Brexit. The only word I understood of course being Brexit.

Anyway to the half hour with the book. As it happened it was like the first day at school where certain rules are laid down and you're told where to go. Only in this case the author was saying what we should do to help us further.

The first suggestion was twenty-thirty minutes worth of lessons a day. For me for a whole gamut of reasons that's just impractical. My plan is to concentrate as much as I can two days a week then see how things are progressing.

Then I'm told I should listen to radio or television programmes. I got you there Joana. Radio has been blasting. TV? No such luck. Try as I may I haven't been able to watch anything in Polish as I've been blocked with words to say that they cannot show the content outside of Poland. A pity. Because as I think I've said before when I started learning Welsh watched programmes in that language intensely, particularly pre school and sports as I'd have some idea as to what was going on.

The other suggestion I want to mention is to follow blogs on people learning Polish. is to follow blogs about people doing this. I googled this only to discover that in the main it's linked to people flogging language lessons."Get your first lesson free!" or variations on this theme I noticed from those who for all I knew might have more in common with Warrington than Warsaw. All of them suggesting that Polish is the hardest language to learn and that I needed their help for a fee. For the moment not for me.

Many more suggestions. Most of them obvious then finally to some actual teaching and the biggest shock of all. The "audio" facility of this book is unavailable on my tablet,my kindle and even on my PC! For the moment I'm making do with what a word sounds like by going online. But it's not easy. What I've learnt is than pronouncing a Polish word as if it was in an English alphabet would cause even more laughter to a Pole than last night's England result.

The first word I've learnt? Przepraszam (Pronounced "Psheprashaam")which is Polish for excuse me.

Whilst I had lunch before going to work I watched the second episode of the Polish TV series The Border (with English subtitle)s. Think I've just noticed the Polish for the F word and the C word. I don't expect to be that fluent. At least not for the moment.

Until the next time.

My Day With Marian

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Before I chat about Saturday one quick postcript about yesterday's post. As I explained I'm not going to start learning Polish until Monday as it will be the first day I will have time to myself. Having said that this (Saturday) morning I stumbled on a Polish series on the foreign language on demand service of Channel 4.

The show is called The Border. It's about Polish border guards as they stop criminal gangs trying to bring illegal immigrants entering their country, That you must think is ironic in so many levels.

Saturday was a day I had to go to work in the afternoon/evening shift. Again I've been unlucky in the sense that for this tranche of games in Euro 2016 (Saturday,Sunday, Monday) the only day I'm not working is Sunday. Not only that but the teams I want to do well.England. Italy and Wales are/were not playing on that day. If there are such things as football gods they're mocking me right now.

Wales were playing to reach the quarter finals of the tournament against Northern Ireland. Earlier in the morning national rugby team had faced New Zealand. The rugby and the football teams were playing on the same day but again it was the football team that had most of the attention, indeed even more so than the beginning of the month as there was a chance of going into the quarter finals. Really unless the Welsh Rugby Union pulls its socks up the slow decline of the sport here will seep into the national game. Something no one would have believed possible even five years ago.

Whatever my failings as a husband in the DIY department I come into my own in being able to grab an internet stream of sporting occasions to watch from around the world and at 8:30am had got the rugby game ready for my wife to watch. Must admit from time to time I peaked at the laptop and it was pretty awful for the team in red. Seen from my admittedly unknowledgeable eyes it moved from men vs men to men vs boys to men vs infants. Even she could not watch it to the end. It was like having arsenic through your eyes.

So anyway to work. In the two previous games where I've been working whilst Wales have been playing the days were less busy but busier than I had expected. This time though it would be almost dead. Good thing I'd brought a book with me. Of the four on the go at the moment today it would be The Other Side Of The Story by Marian Keyes.

It would have been a long day had this book been dull. Thankfully the skills she has that I'd remembered from Sushi For Beginners were also on show here. The ability to be able to say deep things but in a humorous way, believable female characters that are not dependent on men but not at war with them either, living lives that you can as a reader get involved in.

I'd read 361 pages that day. In a lot of books that would have been occasion for a pat on the back and a look at the great unread to see what's next to go for. But not with a Marian Keyes book oh no. About two thirds of the way through.

As I've mentioned before. I believe she's an underrated writer who has lost male readers who would genuinely appreciate what she writes about if it wasn't for being put off by the chick lit covers of her books. Still this male reader was grateful that what could have been a dull working day was alleviated by this novel and after yesterday when a majority of a disunited kingdom voted to bring us into the dark ages she raised a smile to my face.

For that alone. Thankyou Marian Keyes.

Until the next time.

So The Dark Ages Begin......I'll start Learning Polish Now

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Woke up sometime between 5:30 - 6 in the morning. Outside was rather bright. Once I turned the TV on however I knew that the dark ages had come. For the result of the referendum was clear. Leave has won. Brexit begins.

A few hours later. Cameron comes out and says he will resign as Prime Minister in October to be spend more time with his money. For the moment at least, Britain. Britain is on the brink of being controlled by people some of whom at least seem to be a few jackboots short of a Sieg Heil.

Needless to say I'd voted Remain yesterday. But as I mentioned in my earlier post on the referendum a few weeks back I said that if the vote was to leave then immigration would be the reason. For as I said at the time nothing furthers the far right more than the perception of rampant unfettered swathes of people coming from "abroad" no matter how far from the reality that is..

Most who voted to leave the EU because of immigration are not racists . They are good people with genuine concerns fanned by Leave campaigners that the Remain side seemed unable to properly address. If there was one error of the group that wanted to stay, it was that.

It does not surprise me that the majority of people in Wales voted to leave. People have been fed propaganda of foreigners from Eastern Europe coming over to take British people's jobs, sponging on welfare / National Health Service and as Romania was part of it this "influx" sucking on people's blood during the night hours (Ok I lied about that but the atmosphere that developed through the referendum was so toxic you would not have been surprised if somebody mentioned it).

In Bridgend (that also had a majority of leave voters) there is a Polish community. People who have come and settled here, work hard,pay their taxes, opened and sustained  a couple of deli shops in Bridgend Town. (which for reasons I've explained in the past is no mean feat) integrated with the local community and yet now they I suspect feel venerable because of the picture painted (on a UK level) about them.

(Just to quickly go back to Wales. I've read a scenario which basically works like this. Scotland has a second referendum and goes independent. Wales sees Scotland become successful as an independent nation and becomes discontented as a right wing Conservative majority helped by an ineffective Labour opposition inflicts austerity on the nation as a result of an economic decline because of Brexit. This anger grows to such an extent that Wales votes for independence using the same arguments that Brexiters used in the referendum ("We want our country back" etc) and returns to the the EU. I can see that scenario panning out. Trouble is it will take many years and there'll be misery for the people during this period)

So then I live in a United Kingdom where the only certainty is uncertainty. A group of nations that is hardly united and a people not at ease with itself. "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse. It seems that life in Britain is going to be very interesting indeed.

So what will I do? For the moment there is nothing I can do other than support Plaid Cymru as best as I can. For in Wales there is potentially through independence a way out of the darkness as in Scotland who will clearly lead the way. In England though there seems to be no obvious path especially as the Labour party seems to have picked this moment to take the knives out for Jeremy Corbyn. Labour and Conservatives in disarray. Synchronised incompetence. Trouble is the Tories are the ones in power.

The only other thing is a gesture. No more than that but here we go......I'm going to start to learn Polish. Why? Well to be honest I'm not sure. Gestures are moments of feeling and not planning. Perhaps it's a way of saying that I too believe in the free movement of people, perhaps because I believe in the European ideal, perhaps it's just to a group who deserve as a people an apology. Though I suspect that as the years go on it will be they who will feel sorry for people in the UK who believed in the EU like me.

A gesture

Will start slowly this is just as you see an ebook for beginners. I'll work on it and will try it out once I feel I've a hold, however tenuous.

What with that and resuscitating learning Welsh, having four books on the go and of course football. All this whilst being husband and dad. Multitasking is not normally my thing (I'm a man) but I will seriously try here. Somehow I feel it's important.

Until the next time.