Warning: very, very long post follows. Bring sandwiches - and a tent.
"The time has come...to talk of many things".
In deference to the arbitrary sequence of numbers we use to tally off our limited days in the world, it is time for that one piece in the year which the reader does not particularly want to read, and its author does not especially want to auth.
And yet, the sense of our approaching the end of something - even though we will be, in the normal run of things, no different on one-one as we were on thirty-one-twelve - compels anyone with a consciousness to look back, to take stock, to describe and - possibly - to prescribe; what was done, what will be done, what should be done. And 2011 should not be allowed to escape this measurement, if only as a sort of existential punishment for what it allowed to occur on its watch.
I will start with myself, if only because it's readily at hand.
Anyone reading through this site over the past twelve months will probably gather that I have had a shit year on the whole. Certainly more ordurious than any before it that I can remember.
It is, however, necessary to at least attempt to put it in some sort of context and comparison, even if only as some sort of balm for the psychic wounds caused by the passage of 2011.
Note: If much of the following seems disjointed, then that's because it was written that way. More than once in the last two or three days I have started putting this piece together, only to have to - at times literally - walk away from it. It is still unsettling to me to trawl through the detritus of my own self in search of something which might make some sort of sense to anyone, myself included.
I have a friend. Our relationship is conducted entirely via e-mail, due to her being four thousand miles away. This is the second stage of our friendship, as we first started communicating with each other via that antedeluvian method of pen and paper way back in the early 1980s. We then lost touch with each other, mostly because neither of us could remember whose turn it was to write and to have sent two letters in a row without a response to the first one would have appeared to demonstrate impatience or pushiness, and hence was a no-no. The hiatus in our correspondence continued until about eight years ago when - by a combination of modern technology and a chance remark online - we ended up with each other's e-mail addresses. The correspondence since then has been somewhat intermittent - one or two exchanges a year - but worthwhile all the same.
I mention her because she seems to fall into that category of unfortunate people to whom one could refer as 'mayhem magnets'. This means that when I e-mail her at the end of every year bemoaning my own misfortunes, it transpires that she has had a lousier year than I have. This year has been no exception, although for obvious reasons I won't go into detail. I just wish I didn't have to keep relying on her calamities for a sense of perspective on my own problems.
So, that old phrase "count your blessings" comes into play. Soppy, sentimental mush as it is, here are mine from 2011:
My family are all still in good nick (with the prospect of a new member of it next year),
I still have my job, such as it is and despite the difficulties and annoyance certain people brought to it during the year (and prior to it),
The coming of the National Eisteddfod to the area during the summer did something to revivify my sense of cultural identity, if only in the short term,
I became a moderator for the very splendid 45cat website, where we are inundated with entries for our worldwide database of 7" vinyl singles,
I had another piece published on the Transdiffusion website (my ninth in about five years),
Erm...I'm still here.
And yet, for all that the above might be valid reasons for a certain degree of satisfaction, I still don't feel that they balance out the down side of the year.
Regular readers will recall that I started the year getting over a strange virus-like condition which had rendered me bed-bound through the whole of Christmas. I was also still in the middle of a battle with no less than three layers of management at work over their persistent refusal to accept certain important legal and employment rights which I had. These two sets of circumstances were, I see in retrospect, almost certainly related; the latter creating the conditions for the former.
What the latter definitely also fed into - and what the former may also have had something to do with - was what started to overcome me in January. It is difficult even at this remove to write cogently or coherently about how a completely external event - namely, the imprisonment of Edward Woollard - should have triggered such a reaction in my own psyche; one which, indeed, continues in some form to this day. All that can be said with any degree of accuracy is that whatever feelings of inferiority, powerlessness or inadequacy which were doubtless already present covertly in my mind became overt in an act of transferrance. If he were to find out about this, he would doubtless feel very uneasy about it, as if he had been got at by a dybbuk. Luckily for him, he almost certainly doesn't know; and besides which, he has more pressing and real matters to concern himself with.
One thing I have been determined to do from the outset, however, is to not hide any of this. If I have not actually embraced my current status, I am at least willing to be seen holding hands with it in public. And so I say without any hesitation: I suffer from mental illness. This, of course, makes most people uncomfortable. The stigma attached to such conditions is so deeply rooted in our society - a hangover, in my view, from the days of the dominance of religious thinking whereby those who were in some way or another unconventional in their behaviour were deemed to be possessed by demons (if you doubt this, consider that many so-called 'primitive' societies have tended to respect or revere their loonies. Much like the United States today, in fact, although without electing them to office quite as often) - that even reference to them is still considered 'not quite right'. Let's make it as plain as we can. Psychiatric disturbance is an illness. Like all other illnesses, it has biological, biochemical or organic roots. It merely affects that particular organ rather than any other.
This is not the general view, however, and ignorance - wilful or otherwise - is not only disobliging to those of us who suffer from such conditions, it can be actively perilous, especially when that ignorance is to be found in people who hold great power over our lives. Such as the infamous case of Joe Paraskeva, handed a sentence of indeterminate incarceration in a prison for committing a fairly minor criminal act whilst in the throes of a major bi-polar trauma. This at the hands of a judge who discarded all evidence presented to him which didn't suit his prejudices.
But then, in that, that particular judge was not alone. Which brings me to wider matters in this happy land of the Untied Condom of Great Austeria.
For 2011 has been The Year Of The Feral Overclass, the year in which those who hold positions of dominance in our land - be it polticial, economic, social or cultural - have shown not only their increasing sociopathy, but their near-psychopathic determination to hang on to that dominance in whatever way they think they can get away with.
So it is that a government devoid of any genuine mandate can seek to impose policies which not only benefit primarily or solely a narrow sectional interest - that of their own class and those who fund their causes - but which actively discriminate, with varying degrees of indifference or callousness, against those who have been deemed to be least able - or least likely - to fight back, or against those individuals or groups whom it would be thought easiest to demonise.
And lo, it came to pass that a deliberate campaign of abuse and vituperation channelled through their friends in the corpulent media has enabled the social atrocity of the Work Capability Assessment - run by a company with no experience in the field, and employing people ill-qualified to make the decisions a fair society should demand of them - to continue unabated, cheered on by think-tankers, grubby newspaper columnists and the mass of 'right-minded' people (as found in the comments pages of the press). That not only has a substantial proportion of the decisions handed down by the fake 'expertise' of ATOS (for it is they) been overturned - although not without a convoluted and draining appeal process - without the perpetrators suffering any financial loss, but that large numbers of those who undergo the assessment process simply withdraw from the benefit system altogether (not because they are fraudulent claimants, just that they simply can't face any more); that all this goes on - even to the point of the terminally ill being told to 'take up their beds and work', and to a government minister publicly wishing to force people undergoing debilitating chemotherapy to seek employment - without much sense of general outrage is due more than anything else to the deliberate targeting of the long-term ill and the disabled by using the "my brother-in-law told me down the pub last night" tactic of smear. Thus it is that the tiny minority who do abuse the system are waved in the face of the cash-straitened public as if they - the abusers - were the norm rather than the exception. Once you have demonised that category, even out of all proportion to any real harm they may be doing, it makes it far easier to spread the insinuation to cover everyone in the more general group of genuine claimants. Such a process of rendering them as somehow 'other' makes it far easier to do things to that far larger group which might generate general anger were you to do so from, as it were, a standing start. It is a tactic as old as the earliest pogrom you can think of, and it still works, as a soi-disant Prime Minister who cut his teeth shilling on behalf of a purveyor of garbage television would know very well.
That such a campaign has succeeded to a worryingly large degree not only in turning some categories of claimant against others, but also in a clear rise in the number of cases of public verbal and physical abuse of the chronically ill and disabled is indicative of the deeply malinformed nature of the public and of the ease with which people can be made to fight one another like rats in a sack whilst those who own the sack throw same in the canal and walk away relieved of a burden which - should they possess such a thing as a conscience - they might otherwise find vaguely troubling.
In all this, it is worth bearing one thing in mind; it may not be you today, but it could very well be you tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. If you do not defend those on the shitty end of this particular stick now, it is merely a matter of time before that stick is thrust at you. And, as Niemöller told us only too clearly, by then it will be too late.
Despite the general appearance of the current régime that running a drunken orgy in a brothel with a bar in it would be a fatal test of their organisational ability, those comprising our governmental structures are quite clearly embarked on a campaign which is nakedly ideological. The aim - far more even than in the days of their great teacher the Thatcher-being - is firstly to render all public provision of the services necessary for us validly to claim that we live in a developed, civilised and humane society increasingly unattractive by gradually - or not so gradually - strangling their financial resources; and then, using the understandable public dissatisfaction with that bare-bones provision, utilising that unease to justify handing over whatever may be left of those services to private corporations or to what has become known, euphemistically, as the 'third sector', i.e. charities. In this way, our health service - not the envy of the world, but at least a model which others have sought to copy - has its budget reduced, and those running it are 'encouraged' to treat more and more private-sector queue-jumpers. Similarly the schools and colleges, having been urged to become more like businesses - something which the suits running many colleges and universities needed little encouragement to do, inflating as that process does their own sense of power, importance and bank balance - are being handed over to just about any group, be they simply the middle-class Pushies or any assortment of religious nuts, in order to seek to mould children into tomorrow's dynamic, thrusting executive class or next year's mindless spouters of superstition. Social services, probation services, prisons; nothing is deemed to be beyond the reach of the Cash Converter mentality of a governing clique for whom nothing is held of any utility unless a price tag can be attached to it. Especially if that price tag is attractive to the very individuals or groups which fund your own pet political projects.
We are clearly being pushed back to a model of provision of services which is not merely pre-1945, but pre-1919 as well. For clearly it would be impudent and impious to expect the go-getting classes to have to share 'their' benefits with the lesser breeds outwith The Elect. So access to what there is left of decent service provision will increasingly be confined to those with the wherewithal, with those not so well favoured with the Pushy gene, or from the 'wrong' sort of background, being forced to rely on the cheap and not-so-cheerful resources provided by your local Lady Bountifuls; where such provision exists, of course, and dependent on whether your poverty is Deserving or Undeserving (faked religiosity might help to secure assistance as well). Thus a multi-tiered system - with much of the customary bollo about 'choice' and 'flexibility', natch - is being developed all around us, whereby the very best of nineteenth-century Christianity will be the underpinning ethos, namely, viz. and to whit, "To those who have it shall be given, and those who have not, it shall be taken away.".
And should you wish to express your strongest disapproval of what is being done to you, ostensibly in the name of 'helping' you, you are faced with two equally unattractive alternatives: either peaceful, 'legitimate' protest of the "we'll march from A to B blowing whistles and handing out flyers" variety; or more direct or imaginative methods which involve causing actual inconvenience or even consternation to those who set themselves over us.
In the first version, the unattractiveness comes from the safe and certain knowledge that it will achieve about 0.5 per cent of fuck all. Even if you are able to claim from first-hand encounters that the public is on your side, that vast majority of said public who sit at a distance from your demonstration can be safely deluded into thinking otherwise with slanted reporting from those self-same media outlets to which I referred before - the 'embedded reporters' of the land's Establishment - who, whilst they may claim to record events impartially, can always be relied upon to use just the right words to give a clear indication to anyone capable of independent thought precisely what their position is. So, in the same way that union ballots for action can be described as lacking in legitimacy by reference to the turnout figures (conveniently failing to mention that no government has held power in London on a majority even of the votes cast since the days of the concocted 'National' government of Stanley Baldwin in 1931), so too can the general public be regularly reassured that these people shambling down Oxford Street or wherever are of no consequence because they are 'militants' or 'anarchists' or 'trust fund ingrates', and may therefore safely be disregarded, even if they are, in fact, the teachers, nurses or support workers upon whom a humane society has to depend. This enables those who rule totally to ignore what is going on, even if it's marching past their office windows.
In the second alternative, the lack of allure is due entirely to the awareness of what the consequences are likely to be for you personally and/or your family, not just now but for years or decades to come. Because if the Overclass has had an avatar or tutelary spirit in 2011, it has been in the form of an arrogant, elderly, upper-middle-class dolt dressed up like a very worn stuffed toy. Yes, that form of wildlife known as the Greater Wigged Bastard has thrived this year as it has not for some considerable time. 'Judicial Activism' - that great bugbear of the Right when members of the judiciary occasionally exhibit any tendency to hold the powerful to the same rules as the rest of us - has abounded. And yet that same Right has been silent as they witnessed case after case where offences which would have merited little more than a caution had they occurred on a typical pissed-up Friday night in any city or town in The Sacred Realm were punished by custodial sentences which varied from the eyebrow-raising to the eye-watering. Throw a fire extinguisher off a roof and not hit anyone, and it's thirty-two months in HMYOI Feltham for you, my lad. Sit on a car bonnet and try to poke the future king's floozy with a stick, and it's sixteen months in the jug. Throw a thin placard stick in the general direction of a cop after you've spent hours being kettled, shoved and manhandled by his colleagues, and it's a twelvemonth in chokey.
These were egregious enough abuses of power, but they were small fare indeed compared to what followed what is euphemistically called the 'unrest' of early August.
(A brief word on that while we're here; apart from the obviously damnable cases where actual people were actually harmed, my one knock against the rioters - other than uncertainty as to the real motives of some of them - was that they were dumb enough to take a dump in their own nests. One piece of advice to anyone tempted to try it in the future: if you're going to, then first of all march on the wealthiest part of your city - Kensington and Chelsea, say - and do it there. That's where The Man resides, and you'll have far greater impact there than you will by trashing the kebab house down your street or the local discount shoe outlet).
That another shooting of another young non-white man (quite possibly unarmed) was going to spark trouble is, of course, a given. That what happened in a particularly disadvantaged part of north London should produce its echoes elsewhere in that city and in others should not surprise anyone other than the disingenuous. Despite the official version, this was not mindless copycatting: people away from the original conflict saw or otherwise found out about it, felt that same anger and resentment arise in themselves, and decided to follow suit.
The fallout was eminently predictable, but went far further than anyone other than the irremediably cynical would have predicted. The faux shock of politicians was foreseeable enough; that, after all, is what they're there for. What took things to a whole new - and, to my mind, dangerous - level was the direct attempts at interference in judicial decision-making. By this, I don't simply mean that people (if one may call them that) such as Cameron and May stated quite openly that they wanted everyone - but everyone - who was involved, however peripherally, in the évènements to be thrown in prison regardless of the facts of each case; but also that what amounted to an instruction (although officially described as 'advice') went out to the whole of the judiciary effectively freeing them from the necessity of adhering to long-established sentencing guidelines and giving them carte blanche to do more or less as they pleased within the limits of the letter of the law.
The result of this was just as predictable; Crown Court judges and that curious breed of halflings called 'District Judges' (previously known as 'Stipendiary Magistrates' - a more accurate indication of their status) started handing out custodial sentences like a determined pervert handing out sweeties. Sentences of many months for such heinous crimes against humanity such as taking two bottles of water from a supermarket which had been looted by other people quite some time before; sentences of in excess of one to two years for such undermining of the public morals as tossing a spent toy smoke-bomb into the gutter; and, most egregiously, most disturbingly, most frighteningly, sentences of three to four years for posting something on a website - a length of sentence usually reserved for kidnappers, serious sex offenders and killer motorists.
And all this in the name of 'protecting the public', 'making an example', 'sending a message', and all the other footling cant which tends to issue from the lips of the comfortably untouchable when dealing with those they consider beneath them.
There's an old saying, usually attributed to Bismarck, that the two things you should never watch being made are sausages and laws. In 2011, observing how laws are administered has been an equally queasy experience. In the same way that the police have become - in no small measure by their own willing acquiesence - essentially a paramilitary force for those who hold power, so too the English judiciary (although regarded still in some quarters in the same way that they were portrayed by Beachcomber and A P Herbert decades ago, as packages of eccentricity, irascibility and unworldliness) now seem to have allowed themselves - again, with a troubling degree of overt willingness - to become the shock troops of the overclass.
And again, as with the first category of action I referred to all those paragraphs ago, the emetic extremism of the Bench can be spun to the public by politicians, pundits and reporters alike as being exactly what was needed to keep the more discomfiting elements in society firmly in their places; the firm smack of discipline (or, conceivably, vice versa), being 'tough', 'cracking down'; all these can be presented to the easily misleadable as being absolutely essential to stop all decent, hard-working, law-abiding, cliché-ridden folk from being murdered in their beds every night of the year.
This is completely to miss - indeed, wilfully to do so - the after-effects of the actions of professional and semi-professional members of the judiciary. I have, as a result of this past year's stories and the interest (which some would call 'morbid', but which I call at worst 'pathological' in the strict and literal sense of the term), become very interested in judicial and penal policy in this country and elsewhere. I cannot in all conscience say that what I have found out gives me any feelings other than that of despair. Having gone on about it often enough during the year, I will confine myself here to one aspect of current policy alone.
If we are to operate within the boundaries of what a rational person would consider to be civilised values, one of the prerequisites is a judicial and penal system which is both measured and fair. Leaving aside the unfairness by which, all too often, the justice you get may depend heavily on how much you can afford to pay for it (another aspect of what I wrote of earlier, especially with the ongoing curtailment of Legal Aid), surely it would be considered reasonable that for alleged breaches of the law, the proper forum for determination of guilt or innocence is a properly-constituted court; that the correct procedure for convicting someone is after a fairly-conducted trial; and that the only valid punishment is that reached by the presiding officer within boundaries set by law, reason and balance.
Nowadays, however, that is not what happens. All too often, the sentence of the court is merely the first stage of a system of officially-sanctioned disadvantage which can - and all too frequently does - not merely actively prevent any real possibility of rehabilitation of the offender, but sets them up for an entire lifetime of under-attainment.
Take the case of one of the Facebook 'rioters'. He will be in prison for at least two years. When he comes out, he will be jobless and almost certainly homeless as well. Finding somewhere to live will be difficult for him, and expensive for the rest of us, as he will almost certainly end up in sub-standard accomodation for which a private landlord will be charging us whatever he can get away with. Employment - at least of the lawful kind - will be at best a remote possibility thanks to his having to declare his conviction on all applications for the rest of his life. The Criminal Records Bureau will do for the rest of his prospects. And so, his chances of making a productive and useful life for himself - should he wish to do so - will either be made very difficult or completely stymied at every turn. And this is for someone in his mid-twenties, remember. So, would it really be any surprise to know that the re-offending rate in this country is between fifty and seventy-five per cent within two years of conviction? Or that - if a recent report is to be believed - about a third of Jobseeker's Allowance claimants have criminal convictions?
Not that it matters to the 'right-thinking', of course. Point out to them that it costs between £35k and £70k to keep one person in prison for one year and they won't turn a hair; they'll simply blame the cost on plasma-screen TVs in cells, or ping-pong tables, rather than on the number of prisons which have to be maintained and the number of screws who have to be employed to run them. As with the disabled, categorise a group as somehow 'other' - even other than human - and you can stop bothering your silly little head about them and get back to watching the celebrity chefs. So long as it's not you or yours - this time.
This isn't about being soft on, or nice towards, crims; it's about the sort of society we want to live in. Unfortunately, most people - or, at least, those who shout the loudest - seem not to wish to recognise this, preferring instead to think with their lower intestines rather than the organ nature provides for the purpose. This may be all very satsifying to the emotions and to the prejudices; but ultimately it is not only unhelpful but counter-productive.
But hell, I've gone on too much about this, haven't I? Let's turn to the rest of the world.
But then, both here and there it has been a bad year for democracy, hasn't it?
I can hear you scratching your head from here. "How", you say, "can it be a bad year for democracy? I mean, we've had that Arab Strap thingy, haven't we? You know, where people from the Maghreb to the Gulf stood proud and erect in order to bring down the pricks who ruled them?"
Well, let's see what happened.
Tunisia: yes, dictator and his family overthrown, but the country is now run by an Islamist party intent on privatising the shit out of the country's economy.
Egypt: dictator nominally overthrown, yet replaced by a military régime just as intent on crushing dissent as its predecessor.
Bahrain? Protests in the street against a sectarian autocracy, crushed by paramilitaries supplied by those nice, freedom-loving Saudis (q.v.), and long terms of imprisonment for doctors and nurses who treated the wounded. Exactly 'our' kind of government!
And the ongoing outrages against civilisation known as Saudia Arabia and Israel continue to act with total impunity. Dissidents may be beheaded, adulteresses stoned, children shot down in the streets, land colonised and boats (even ones carrying US citizens) stormed in open-seas piracy, but so long as the oil keeps flowing, and so long as the dollars flood through AIPAC to 'our' kind of candidates, then that's all for the best, isn't it?
And what, while we're on the subject, of The Land Of The Twee itself? I cannot be disillusioned with Obama, if only because I was never illusioned with him in the first place. He has combined the ethical weakness of Clinton with the slightly well-intentioned cowardice of Carter, but without the will-to-power of the former or the folksy, down-home charm of the latter. The President Of Change became the President Of No-Change in a length of time which was short even by the low standards of Democrat presidents; the military attacks on other countries, the suborning of governmental systems world-wide, the 'targeted assassinations' (with their concomitant 'collateral damage', natch), even the illegal wire-taps, interceptions, detentions and torture; all have continued unabated and unabashed from the Bush-Cheney era. The President Of Hope became the President Of Bob Hope (that is, long dead after an even longer period of decrepitude), whereby the poor continue to get poorer, the rich richer; where home repossessions are turning his country into trailer-park and soup-kitchen theme parks. And all because Obama - as correctly identified by Bill Maher - is so desperate for love from a Republican Party which has long since become the natural home for every crazy, batshit fundamentalist and fake-libertarian neo-liberal dogmatist from Wasila to Miami.
Decide that you are going to make a point and stand up and say that this state of affairs cannot continue, and what happens? Oh, you can pitch your tent in a public space, wave amusing placards and talk as much as you like. You'll be tolerated for a few days, but then your mayor and police chiefs (under the guidance and co-ordination of the Department of Fatherland Security) will - as if the First Amendment had never been invented - use crimes (usually concocted) and misapplied health and safety concerns to justify your being beaten, tasered, pepper-sprayed, held for the maximum permitted time without charge, then dragged into court to be processed by a judge who is from the same class as the people you have been protesting against, who will rubber-stamp the demands of the prosecutors from the same stratum of power and throw you into the anal-rape factory of the private prison system for a disproporionate length of time.
And if you see evidence that your country's government has committed - or is complicit in the commission of - crimes against humanity, and you furnish the evidence to the world, then the people of your land will not laud you as a beacon for freedom; no, they will insist that you be held in solitary confinement and in conditions which amount to cruel and degrading treatment under federal and international law for nearly a year, until even the US Marines feel some lingering sense of shame in the face of public awareness of what they are doing. But they will then seek to put you on trial for breaches of that old stand-by of the tyrant, 'national security', with a minimum demand that you spend the rest of your natural life in a military prison.
Such has been the fate of Bradley Manning, whose pre-trial hearing took place only after a year and a half's imprisonment, and whose inevitable court martial will, alas, be followed by the inevitable conviction and official vengeance. After all, that nice Mr Obama says that Manning is guilty, so he must be - after all, even Republicans are not disagreeing with President No-Balls on this one!
Not that we can afford to be too sniffy here in Europe, because it is on our own continent where the most worrying events have taken place in recent weeks. Here - where we have clear and vivid living memories, east and west, of a time when there was tyranny abroad - we have seen democratically-elected governments (however inept or bent they may have been) in Athens and Rome replaced by soi disant technocracies headed by figures who were acceptable to the international financial system. Italy's experiment in democracy has thereby come to an end after scarcely sixty years, and Greece's after little more than a generation.
Even in those countries whose people still retain - at least nominally - control over who ostensibly governs them, the same anti-democratic forces can be seen at work. No government in Europe - with the possible exception of Iceland, which in the global scale of things is seen not to matter very much - can be allowed to hold office unless it adheres rigidly to the requirements of casino capitalism. Deficits can only be run to defend currency speculators; public money can only be spent on measures which prop up banks whose incompetence or criminality have made them otherwise liable for the consequences of their actions; taxes can only be levied on those without the wit or wherewithal to dodge them. In the name of an ideological conformity every bit as rigid in its way as the Juche of the Kim dynasty, all means must be directed to the upholding of the existing power structure; all means must be used in its defence, be those means legal, political, social, cultural or even religious (witness - as it were - the dithering of England's state church in the face of protestors camped outside its precious property; what would Jesus do? Apart from be arrested by the Met and sectioned by a judge who had dined well at the Inns Of Court that day, of course).
So at the turning of another year (and I can only echo the sentiments of the ever-admirable Philip Challinor) we find ourselves much where we were a twelvemonth ago, only more so.
Is there hope still for the year ahead? Well, there is no indication that economically things are going to improve. Quite the converse, as the politics of social sectarianism and hate have still not yet worked their way fully through the system to affect a large proportion of 'ordinary' people. Once they do, we may some day look back at 2011 as a time of comparative tranquility.
One thing is for sure; we will not lack for bread-and-circus distractions. Not only do we have the amusing prospect of the Olympic corporate conference and cheatfest, but yet another Royal Occasion, that of Sixty Glorious Years Of The New Elizabethan Age, which must be good news for manufacturers of tat from Haerbin to Haikou.
As for the rest of it, well, what then? Will the various forms of protest which have manifested themselves in 2011 endure into 2012 or beyond? I most sincerely hope so, but I have my doubts. For one thing, we have in our various lands publics with very short attention spans; unless there is some sort of escalation of what we have seen in recent months, then people's interest will start to waver. But any sort of escalation could be neutralised by one of two counter-actions by the holders of power (or, more likely, by both in combination): firstly, a ramping up of the propaganda battle, in which the embedded corporate media (despite them having been seriously discredited in the past year) will be used even more determinedly to channel - with various degrees of obliquity - the Official Authorised Version of what is going on, and of what is permitted to be done, said or even thought; and, secondly, the full weight of the security, enforcement and penal apparatus being used to chill, squash and punish any manifestation of discontent which looks as though it may succeed in changing hearts and minds where and how it matters.
Not that, in the main, this will be done with any great degree of overtness. Those who rule us are corrupt, venal and ruthless; but they are not generally stupid. They will know what they can get away with, and how. They have the techniques and the nous to play the general masses' emotions like a fish on a line. They have succeeded in doing this to a remarkable degree of success so far, and we should not depend on them doing any worse in the year ahead - the standard occasional mis-step or mis-speak notwithstanding. The enemy is clever, and those of us who seek a society which is fair, equitable, just and civilised must be at least as clever in our own direction.
If we can do this, by whatever means, then we may be in a better position at the end of next year than we are now. But the odds - like the power structures against which we fight - are firmly against us. But that is no reason not to fight. There is too much at stake to lay up our colours in the temples of despair.
So that I don't end the year on a note of gloomy malediction, allow me to conclude by nominating my Man Of The Year.
(Just to make it clear to the Sisterhood: I'm using the word 'Man' here in its generic sense).
All such awards have their inbuilt biases, of course, but this is my blog so what the hell.
I could have followed the herd and named Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian whose public suicide was the trigger for the Arab Spring. But he's dead and what he died for has not necessarily come to pass.
I could have chosen someone like Scott Olsen, the ex-US Marine who was shot in the head by a cop in Oakland, leading to brain injury and speech impairment. But he was just one of many who faced the wrath of out-of-control police around the world this year.
Some, having read this site throughout the year, might even have expected me to select Edward Woollard; but he did a very stupid and dangerous thing which - although the punishment he has faced was undeniably extreme (and he still doesn't appear to have been released) - nonetheless deserved the sanction of law.
Instead, I have chosen Damon Fowler as my Man Of The Year. To recap, Damon Fowler is a young man from a town called Bastrop in north-eastern Louisiana. Back in the spring, as his high-school graduation ceremony drew nigh, he discovered that there were plans to include a Christian prayer as part of the ceremony. This is a 'tradition' at the school, which no-one had previously challenged, despite the fact that it was a clear violation of the US Constitution's provisions on the separation of State and religion.
When he e-mailed his school's principal to point this out, and to ask that - in the light of settled law on the matter - the prayer be withdrawn, the school - having consulted its attorney - realised that he was right and, with some reluctance, pulled the prayer, replacing it with what was termed a 'moment for reflection'.
Once news of this got out, the reaction against Damon Fowler was swift and thoroughly nasty. The school's officials used the tame local media to smear him; the local 'just plain folks' swarmed all over the comments columns of the local hack-rag to cheer on the shower of shit being thrown at him; his class-'mates' began a campaign of scorn, mockery, verbal abuse and threats of physical violence; and, most shamefully, his mother and step-father - members of a particularly weird Christian sect - took away his internet access and his mobile phone so that he couldn't keep in touch with - and seek support from - his elder brother, a fellow atheist who lived hundreds of miles away from him.
More was to follow. The evening before Graduation Day, Bastrop High held something called 'Class Night', which seems to be a combination of prize-giving ceremony and dry-run for the following day's ceremonials.
One student, who had been assigned to deliver a speech of welcome, but who had also been advised that giving out a prayer was a legal and constitutional no-no, nonetheless got up and recited one; one which went on for a good three minutes. At the end of this unlawful display of epic bad manners, almost all of those present in the audience cheered and applauded loudly.
The graduation ceremony duly took place on the Friday evening. Damon Fowler - who could have been forgiven for staying away, given the threats to his safety - showed his courage by insisting on being present. As with the previous evening, one of the graduating class stood up and prayed, and the school must have known in advance that she was going to do it. The 'moment for reflection' lasted all of four seconds before it was totally undermined by group-think. More sinisterly, the school's principal had made a public statement earlier in the day saying that they were having to engage additional security officers because of a perceived threat from all those nasty, godless scum who had contacted the school to protest at its illegal behaviour and its treatment of Damon Fowler. More deviously still, the school had attempted to rearrange the order in which the students went up on stage to receive their diplomas, so as to ensure that Fowler was the last one up and, therefore, an easier target for further abuse from the herd (the school was dissuaded from following through on this after a strongly-worded complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation). And, to add one final insult, the ceremony included a special award to the teacher who had waded into print earlier in the week to slag off Fowler in the hack-rag I mentioned before.
In the days following such a celebration of inbred redneck ignorance, Fowler made it known that he was moving to Texas to stay with his brother (if Texas is liberal by comparison, what does that make Bastrop? Discuss). Not that he had much choice by then, as his mother and step-father had slung all of his belongings out onto the front porch, prior to skipping town for what they claimed was a vacation.
Throughout all this upheaval and trauma, Damon Fowler exhibited courage, determination, dignity and integrity. Far more so than those who claim to be 'Christian', but whose knowledge of the ideas of Jesus is not so much 'selective' as 'non-existent'. Given all that he lost - if losing your place in a society as full of hate as Bastrop, La. seems to be can be counted in the 'Loss' column - he has proven himself more worthy of admiration that any self-proclaimed 'righteous' person. For that reason, over twelve hundred people - mostly atheists and other freethinkers - contributed to a fund to help Damon through college, thus once again disproving the notion that you can't be altruistic if you don't believe in either a hairy, bearded sky-thunderer or a cosmic saffron-clad muffin.
For his fortitude and his determination to adhere to what his human reason and conscience guided him to do, therefore, Damon Fowler is my Man Of The Year.
********
I'm aware at the end of all this that it must have been a long and difficult read. May I comfort you with the thought that it was long and difficult to write as well? And that, in reflecting a long and difficult year, it was positively isomorphic with the year it was describing?
No? Oh well. Bugger you then, dear. Happy New Year.
While you're waiting for me to finish my customary end-of-year piece (assuming I do manage to finish it), why not pass the time by cheerfully jeering at an illiterate?
One doesn't usually expect very much from the jokes in Christmas crackers, although I wish I'd had the experience of one person who found this in his one year:
Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Banana.
This evening, however, I found a wonderfully groanful one which I felt like sharing with you:
Well that five years went by in a twinkling, didn't it?
For 'twas five years (and one week) ago that I bade a not-too-fond goodbye to television, at least as far as having a set in the house was concerned.
I wasn't entirely sure at the time whether I would (or could) stick at it for long. After all, television is supposed to be the centrepiece of our cultural lives these days; its raves are our raves, its obsessions our obsessions, its priorities our priorities. It shapes (and is shaped by) the public mind (usually as promoted in those veritable Watchtowers of probity and civilised values, our newspapers).
So there I was on November 30 2006, willingly and wilfully cutting myself off from the society in which I lived. What hope could there be for me when I was so sedulously insulating myself from the mass of my fellow citizens? Surely I would go mad with the isolation?
Five long years: five long years without the stimulation of 'entertainment' beamed in to me by people who were deeply concerned about my being cold and lonely; five years without my being persistently enthralled by the sight of people of varying but generally low degrees of verbal fluency kicking, hitting or throwing balls in various arenas around the world; half a decade of missing the intellectual spark from all those wonderful documentaries provided complete with the essential celebrity presenter and ubiquitous over-loud soundtrack; an entire one-fourteenth of my promised three-score-years-and-ten without being challenged out of my apathy by the sight of the world's momentous events being presented to me in thoroughly unskewed and pure terms by those figures whom the late Dennis Potter called "glorified bus conductors".
How in the name of Paxman could I possibly have survived such an ordeal without becoming an ignorant, misanthropic recluse; you know, like the ones you see reported every week in our free and principle-guarding press as having threatened a six-year-old with a Howitzer for having kicked a ball into his garden, prior to pissing on the passing vicar's wife's poodle and being accidentally shot by the police when they turned up a few hours later mob-handed with a small armoured personnel carrier parked on the pavement and facing the wrong way in clear contravention of standard guidelines and established case law? The ones you see being described by their former neighbours as the body parts are collected up as being "quiet", "a bit of loner" who "kept himself to himself"?
Well, I have survived, Gloria Gaynor in excelsis. Part of it may well be down to being a bit like that in any case, so that the transformation described above may well be one simply of degree rather than kind (although in my case, the six-year-old may instead be a dachshund). But mostly because the 'experiment' has - to my way of thinking at least - been an almost universal success.
Although to have said this in the early stages of my cathodus interruptus would have been deemed to be nearer bravado than anything else, I can now honestly say that in five years (and one week), I have not missed television at all.
(If H M Bateman were alive today, he would doubtless have executed one of his famous cartoons - "The Man Who Didn't Miss Celebrity-X-Factor-In-The-Jungle-On-Ice", perhaps).
No, the jury has reached its decision and has delivered its verdict: television is eminently missable.
So let me give you a brief overview of how things have been, from the standpoint of someone who has only seen television on rare visits to homes where the damn thing has been on (often in the background).
Whilst the first reaction of family, friends and colleagues was in the main a mild bemusement and an inability easily to imagine so wild a scenario, gradually they have come to accept my eccentricity - perhaps fearing that, if derided, it might be replaced by something even more worrisome, as described a few paragraphs ago. Indeed, in some quarters my ongoing tubelessness has engendered some kind of respect, if at times accompanied by a degree of joshing.
Amongst strangers to whom I have imparted my gospel of self-deprivation, there has been a hint - sometimes more so - of a raised eyebrow or two, but again I detected an undercurrent of respectful curiosity. In others, however, there has been a clear measure of surprise, even of suspicion at such non-standard behaviour.
That suspicion has been at its zenith (or rather, its nadir) in one particular location in the city of Bristol.
A word about TVLicensing plc: arseholes. Actually, I'll give you two words about them: arrogant arseholes. Three days after the Big Switch-Off, I wrote to that organisation - one which manages to combine in one place the sinister creepiness of the Stasi with the rhino-hide impenetrability of Readers Digest and the depressing persistence of a particularly stupid moth - to tell them that no equipment was being put to licensable use at Mental Towers, and that they should assume this would continue to be the case until such time as I informed them to the contrary.
I heard nothing from them for about six weeks. Then I received a letter claiming that they didn't understand what it was that I had told them. I sent a brief reply (not as brief as in the famous case of Arkell v. Pressdram, however tempted I might have been) enclosing a copy of my original missive.
Periodically since then I have been in receipt of a variety of communications ranging from a polite (computer-generated) enquiry, via a promise that one of their people would call to see me (none of them ever has, to date, although they have shoved their "We called but you were out" leaflets through my letterbox from time to time), all the way through to threats of legal action and the putting of my details into the hands of specialist investigators. I am not at all worried by any of this: I know that my position, legally speaking, is watertight, and part of me wishes that they would follow through (an appropriate term) and actually try bringing an action against me so that I could wipe the floor with them.
So, have I been under-entertained in the last five years? I don't think so. There are talents to amuse available at the click of a mouse out there which outshine anything I remember seeing on television in the latter years of my dependency.
Have I felt that the wide, wide world of sports was passing me by? Well, initially, I did; especially when my own technology failed to keep up with developments elsewhere. But then I upgraded and caught up a bit. However, Channel 5 stopped broadcasting baseball about three years ago, and I have gradually drifted away from the game, to the extent that I can now go whole months during the season without wanting to see what's going on between the lines. Baseball has joined other sports - even those to which I was once devoted - whose primary interests to me now are historical and/or statistical.
Have I become intellectually lazy and unchallenged because I don't get to see those fascinating products of television companies' occasional recollection that they are not just there to chase ratings like a whore in Chatham? No once more, if only because of the existence of the BBC iPlayer and its equivalents. Through it/them I have been able to see whatever it was which had piqued my interest. This holds true for 'entertainment' programmes as well, of course; QI still being - as I stated in my 2006 post - all but unmissable.
But there is - if there is one at all - The Rub. The only knock against my lack of daily awareness of what is on The Box is that I often miss things. Sometimes only after the event (and more than seven days after the event at that) do I find out about something I would like to have seen. I have missed parts of the last two series of QI, to take just one example, because I hadn't been aware that a new run had begun.
(As I hardly listen to any radio through the traditional means nowadays either, the same applies to Round Britain Quiz; I missed a full half of the last series and a good quarter of the one before that simply because I didn't keep up to date with the schedules).
And have I become hideously uninformed and ignorant through not having daily or more frequent injections of those ubiquitous news programmes? Hardly. To find your news and comment online is to broaden your scope and understanding of the world rather than to narrow it. There, a click or two away, is coverage of - and comment upon - stories which BBC News and ITN (does ITN still exist? As Slartibartfast said, I'm a bit out of touch) either will not or cannot cover, either through geographical bias, or political (I use the word in its broadest sense here) imperatives, or simply through perceived irrelevance to its target audiences.
It's worth not getting too starry-eyed about this, of course. All media sources - like all writing of History, as my A-level tutor Eric Earnshaw would always assert - have their biases and prejudices. And it is always tempting merely to stick with media sources which confirm one's own prejudices and assumptions about the world or any given subsection thereof. Mea culpa, for I seldom venture into the wilds of the Regressive media, prefering instead a daily or more frequent tour of the websites of The Guardian, The Independent and, yes, BBC News, augmented by non-corporate sources such as Counterpunch and various Indymedia sites. From these, I know that the tacit assumptions made by the mainstream, corporate media are often wrong, that "what everybody thinks" and "what everyone knows" - the basic premises of the mainstream - are not what many people are thinking and runs contrary to what many people know from their own direct experience.
A healthy scepticism is therefore warranted, but I would aver that a healthy scepticism is nourished by not confining oneself to the lines constantly being pushed upon the public by major corporations (of the private and public variety), and getting a somewhat wider spectrum of views than those shown - or even permitted - by the more customary outlets.
And it is this element of 'push and pull' which is central to why I feel better informed and better entertained than I did five years ago. For with television, radio and the print media, you are confined to what those controlling those channels wish you to hear, see, feel or believe. Turning one's back on relying primarily on those sources engenders a sense of empowerment (even if such a sense is to some degree illusory), and gives one a sense of being able to make real choices, rather than the illusion of variation given by most 'traditional' means of disseminating culture (using that word, too, in its broadest sense).
And so, I choose to get my entertainment via humourous websites, YouTube and the like, rather than being reliant solely on what those in charge of, say, BBC Two deign to give me; I choose to be educated by interesting documentaries placed online in various places rather than being reliant solely on what the commissioning editors at something like Channel 4 think I should be educated by; and I choose to be informed by a wider range of online perspectives on politics, economics and ethics than is made available by news editors at the standard television and print outlets, all of whose agendas seem to have a large - if not total - overlap of givens as to what is deemed discussable or even possible, and so the very antithesis of the 'choice' which those who have had effective control over our lives and lands for a generation or more now insist that we actually have.
Used judiciously, of course. Many cannot do so (and I don't necessarily count myself as being not of their number), and so we have a fragmentation, an atomisation, of that thing we insist - the dominant socio-economic narrative notwithstanding - on calling 'society'. Whereas in Olden Tymes audiences of twenty million or more would habitually crowd round the goggle box (and so dominant has the internet become that I actually typed 'google' there first time up) to witness major ceremonials, or Morecambe and Wise (and Eddie Braben)'s latest seasonal offering - the great State and national occasions, in short - now the audience per programme is smaller and less committed than before, even for soaps and those "I'm A Wannabe Has-Been, Get Me On Screen Anyhow!" shows.
And, corporations being corporations - as slow as the dinosaurs themselves to react to changing conditions - the broadcasters and newspaper publishers, much like their equivalents in the recording and movie biz, have continued in the face of all reality to believe that their business models need only the most marginal of tinkering with rather than wholesale change. That and trying to shut out - even to criminalise - those who are rather sharper on their feet. And so, more is less when more and more hours of programming have to be funded from a revenue pot - be it licence fee or advertising - which has remained static or has actually declined.
But enough about such trivia; I'm sure you really want to know what effect five years without cathode-ray bombardment has had on me.
Well, I've saved at least £140 per year through not having to pay the licence fee, so that's an immediate plus there.
Has it made me smug and superior? I should say so. That's part of the fun, although I try to be as circumspect as possible about it, if only for reasons of self-preservation. Whilst I willingly confess to a tiny feeling of being left out when family, friends or colleagues talk about what they watched (or rather, I would say, what they saw - the passive as opposed to the active) the previous evening - "Did you see 'Corrie' last night?", they ask each other anxiously. "Did you see so-and-so on 'Celebrity', then?", they whisper, seeking affirmation from others for their own views of so-and-so's behaviour; despite that, I still have the feeling that the full, rich inner life is not really being lived in their homes.
Not that it necessarily is in mine, mind. For what have I done with all the time which I would otherwise have spent gazing with various degrees of attention across the room at a television set? Have I read any good books? Well, yes, but I only read books in bed anyway, much as I did before. Have I written any good books? Sadly, no, good or otherwise; I don't seem to have the attention span and commitment for that. Did I ever learn to play that acoustic guitar for pleasure and profit. Frayed knot; the poor instrument stands there still, mute and unstrummed, much as it has done for five years and more.
So what, you may wonder, was the whole bleedin' point of it? Well, as I said in 2006, it was partly to see if I could do it, partly to see what effect doing so would have on my life, and partly to see if I could put my limited time before the grave to better use.
And now, five years (and one week) on, I've demonstrated that I can do it, and choose to keep on doing it; that the effects on my life have been on the whole positive; and that although I have not written the Great Novel or the Great Anything Very Much, I feel more in touch with what is really going on in the world, more engaged with the issues - great and small - of our Age, and much less passive and far more assertive when it comes to those issues. Which can't, taken all in all, be bad.
And, of course, I've had the time and energy to keep you regularly 'educated, informed and entertained' - and not necessarily in the right order - with this 'ere website. For which I think you should be duly grateful, you surly serfs!
We now return you to your regular programmes...
Date: 04/12/11
Moving Pictures
I decided that I wasn't happy with the layout of the Gallery, so it was time for a complete revamp.
I hadn't realised that the bloody thing had growed like Topsy since the last time I rejigged it. It's taking a sodding age!
Fret ye not, however; it'll stay up in its present form until the new version is ready to go live. The way things are going, I think about Easter time would be favourite...
Update (13:10): Just got back. Great turnout. Report (and pics) to follow once I've had a nap.
18:50: (No, I've not only just got up again; you'd be surprised how long it takes to do one of these posts).
I got to the picket line outside the pickle factory I work in at about 08:40 - it would have been slightly sooner, but the bus I came out for didn't turn up - to find ten of my colleagues already on vigil. Some had been there since before seven, and had seen what might be termed 'the usual suspects' (some non-union, others who could only be described with a word which rhymes with 'poor dabs') going in through a car park entrance barrier which - contrary to the security paranoia which is usually on display - had been left permanently 'up', presumably to spare them from having to justify their actions.
I was told that they had had one very negative response from a passing motorist, but apart from that drivers were either supportive or indifferent.
Certainly we had a fair number of beeps and thumbs up whilst I was there.
We stood there in a decidedly chilly wind (I wished that I'd remembered to take my gloves), talking about the short-sightedness of some of the people we work with (about 15 per cent of the office had crossed the line), and about the hideous and hypocritical posturings of those who presume to lead our country.
After about an hour and a quarter - and with the personnel on the barricade changing gradually through that period - I decided to head off into town to try to do a bit of Christmas shopping. Having again had to wait a fair bit longer than I'd expected for a bus, I noticed on the way in a large picket outside one of the main entrances to the hospital.
Once in town, I headed towards Queen's Square, where the rally was to take place later, and found a substantial presence outside the Council offices. I went and chatted in solidarity with one of the pickets there, who said that they'd had a very good response. Up until yesterday, he said, the Council had intended sending the bin lorries out as usual on Wednesday (I'd earlier seen one of my neighbours dragging his wheely bin, recycling box and paper sack to the roadside. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was wasting his time), but this had changed overnight.
I then went on around town to do some shopping, before heading back towards Queen's Square at about 11:15. Gradually, all the unions were visibly - and noisily - represented; Unison, Unite, PCS, UCU, ATL, GMB, UCAC, even a show of support from two unions - FBU and RCN - who weren't actually on strike today.
A goodly crowd had by now gathered, and whistles and vuvuzelas (remember them, boys and girls? So 2010, don'tcha know?) were much in evidence. The speeches started. Only three of them, all three hampered by a combination of a poor PA system and an inability to use it properly. Peter Jones of UCU (someone who was of immense help to me and my union rep when I had to take action against my manager earlier this year) was first - and was Master Of Ceremonies throughout- and he made the point that what was happening to us was a form of class war. Someone standing behind me started muttering about how Peter shouldn't be saying things like that; I felt like turning around and telling Brother Muppet that Peter was right; this is a war being waged by a millionaires' government on all working people.
Peter was followed by someone from one of the teaching unions (I think his name was Craig, sorry for unretentive memory) who, dressed as he was in shades and a woolly hat, cut a fair dash as he whipped us up into a frenzy of whistling and honking. And then a rep from Unison addressed us briefly before Peter returned to give us instructions for the march which was to follow (whilst being persistently interrupted by some nut trying to give away copies of the Morning Star - no wonder that paper's up financial Shit Creek).
So, flags flying, placards waving, whistles and horns going at full chat, the crowd (which probably numbered a thousand or so by that point) headed off. Down Lambpit Street we went, turning right onto Chester Street, right again up High Street, right again into Hope Street and up Regent Street to Hill Street, where - after some delay so that North Wales' finest could stop the traffic, we came to a standstill outside Grove Park Theatre (a.k.a. The Little Theatre), where there would be more speeches.
It was quite an exhilarating experience to march through the town like this, people from right across the public sector all in solidarity with one another. It was quite a deafening experience too, especially if you were walking just in front of someone with a whistle for most of the way (I tried to duck out of the march from time to time as much to protect my ears as to try to get some photos).
What the attitude of the shoppers who were greeted by this collage of flags and fluting was was quite difficult to ascertain. I didn't see any rounds of applause from the dear consumers as we went by (and I wouldn't have heard any because of the bloody whistles), but there was certainly no antagonism in evidence.
I decamped from the whole thing outside the theatre. For one thing, it was obvious that we weren't all going to fit in there; for another, I didn't need to hear any more speeches - I knew what I felt about it all. As I stood waiting for an opportunity to leave, I was buttonholed by a reporter and cameraman from BBC Wales (I'd done an interview with that particular journalist a little while back), and she interviewed me over a background of noise which made it difficult for me to hear her questions - goodness knows what the mic was picking up. If it was unusable, then it's probably just as well - I didn't give a very coherent set of responses, especially in comparison with my usual reputation for being 'one-take' in these things.
And then, I went and tried to do a bit more shopping and went home.
So, what did we achieve today? In the wider context, possibly very little; the government and the extremist crank organisations it fronts for - the CBI, the Institute of Directors - and the official media have sought to mis-state the scale of the protest (BBC claiming that there were only 200 marching in Wrexham, for example, or the wretch Cameron claiming that it was a 'damp squib' - you wait till you see the rocket we've got for you next time, Call-me-Dave). And enough people will still believe the bullshit about "gold-plated pensions" and "five-a-day disabled lesbian outreach officers".
But it was important that we stood together today, and that we did so visibly (and audibly), so that real people on the streets of our towns and cities can see the scale of the opposition to what Millionaires' Row are trying to do to us (as a prelude to doing it to them, of course). And that we did so may - in the long term - be success enough.
Here are some pics from the day:
Getting ready to start.
Flags and banners.
Up for the fight!
Setting off from Queen's Square.
You know who they say the sun shines on, don't you?
A clear, unambiguous statement of government policy on public sector pensions?
Solidarity from the Fire Brigades Union - not out today, but showing support.
"Of course, we're all just speculating at the moment re. Gary Speed, but it seems a fair hypothesis to assume that he suffered from clinical depression (perhaps even undiagnosed).
"What people tend not to comprehend is that depressives do not go around the whole time with a face as long as High Wycombe and talking like Marvin The Paranoid Android. They can appear to be just as 'normal' as before. Inside, however, it's a different story, and it's one I only came to recognise when I started to suffer from it (a mercifully mild version - so far) at the start of this year. It takes over your whole life in one way or another - you feel in some way completely isolated from experiencing what's around you, and you're unable to take pleasure even in things which would normally give you delight. I've likened it to being inside a whole-body condom: nothing can get out, and nothing can get in (and, of course, you feel a complete prick).
"For those with the more severe forms - and some who are not, on the whole, at that stage - there comes a moment where all rational thought is overcome by an acute desire for the whole thing to go away, with tragic consequences.
"Public understanding of depression - and most other psychiatric conditions - is on the whole very poor, and telling a sufferer to "pick their socks up", or insinuating that they're "putting it on" is not only offensive but dangerous.
"This - and the general stigma in our society regarding mental ill-health (which I believe to be a remnant of the time when people suffering from it were considered to be possessed by demons) - means that the quality, even the availability of treatment is almost random and subject to dominance by one or two prevailing theories or dogmata at any given moment.
"As soon as society in general stops stigmatising those with mental health issues - which may take until those of us who have them stop feeling ashamed of having them and, as it were, embrace our status - then better approaches may come along. Until then, however, there will continue to be lives ruined or destroyed when it need not be so."
Only found out on Thursday that there's a brand new Kate Bush album due out on Monday.
I've managed to listen to it a couple of times already because National Public Radio have been streaming it from their site. The first impression was favourable; the second was that this could be her best album yet.
Needless to say, I've already ordered it. As soon as I've heard it in its proper environment, I'll try to review it here. If I can stop drooling for long enough, that is.
I think I may finally have created a stylesheet which works so that, when you try to print from this site, it'll only print black-on-white text and no graphics other than those contained in the posts themselves.
More testing is needed before I'm sure about this, and then it'll have to be rolled out to every page on the site (over 260 of them). Updates to follow...
This morning, in my customary Monday befuddlement after a lousy night's sleep, I unthinkingly cut the power to my PC before it had finished shutting down.
Powering it back up again at tea-time, it would load as far as that screen with the annoying blue dots moving across the bottom, but that was it.
Fired up my old Windows 98 machine to look for advice. Found some, but only after the old box had locked up a couple of times and had had to be given the three-finger salute.
Tried a repair from the XP disk; said I didn't have XP loaded. Tried getting into Safe Mode; stopped after one particular file. Tried the Repair Console (or whatever it's called) to rename the file which was apparently stopping the Safe Mode boot; denied me access. Finally, tried what I should have done in the first place if I had remembered my skills from my sysadmin days - ran Checkdisk; that got to 70-odd per cent before looping back to 50%. This happened a few times; I said a lot of naughty words.
Finally, Checkdisk completed and I trepidantly booted up. Yay!! Whoop! Whoop!. Three hours!
It was quite scary how panic-stricken I was starting to get. I mean, I had the old 98 rig, but that's old, slow and not entirely reliable (much like its owner).
I have now put a sticker over the computer power switch on the surge protector. I don't care if that means that there's power going through to the tower unit all bloody day, I'm not having that happen again!
Mewn ffordd, nid yw'r newyddion fod Gerallt Lloyd Owen wedi rhoi'r gorau i'w ddyletswyddi fel Meuryn ar Y Talwrn yn fy synnu rhyw lawer. Fel y disgrifiais yn y darn hwn, yr oedd yn eithaf amlwg yn Eisteddfod Wrecsam fod ei iechyd yn bur fregus (er nad oedd hynny'n effeithio ar ei afiaeth wrth bwyso a mesur cynnyrch y beirdd). Mae'n amlwg hefyd fod yr holl deithio sydd ynghlwm wrth gadeirio a beirniadu beirdd anystywallt ledled y wlad yn debyg o fod yn faich ar unrhywun yn ei iawn gorff a phwyll. Ac felly, peth doeth fuasai iddo ildio'r awennau tra gallai.
Mater am awr arall fydd myfyrio uwchben yr oblygiadau i'r Talwrn o ymadawiad yr Arthur hwn o'n llên, a gofyn pwy allai ddilyn yn ôl ei draed a llenwi ei esgidiau er mwyn cyflawni'r daith honno.
Mae'n bwysicach o lawer i gymryd cyfle i fawrhau a moli un sydd â'i ddylanwad yn ddwfn ar farddoniaeth Gymraeg, er nad ydyw'r dylanwad hwnnw o bosibl o'r math y disgwyliai'r dyn ei hun wrth iddo ddechrau ar ei yrfa farddonol bron i hanner canrif ynghynt.
Oblegid mawr ydyw dylanwad Gerallt Lloyd Owen ar farddoniaeth Gymraeg yn ein hoes ni. Pan ail-ddechreuodd Y Talwrn ar Radio Cymru ar ddiwedd saithdegau'r hen ganrif, bu gan farddoniaeth Gymraeg o hyd arogl cryf y capel a'r ysgol arni i raddau helaeth. Yr oedd hyn yn arbennig o wir ym maes y canu caeth, rhywbeth nad oedd gan y to ifanc o feirdd a gododd ym mwrw brwydrau'r iaith a'r genedl fawr i'w ddweud iddo. Hyd yn oed pan ddechreuais innau wrando ar Y Talwrn yn rheolaidd (ac yn selog wedyn) tua 1984, rhyw loches i feirdd hŷn oedd y gynghanedd, efo bron pob un o'r enlgynwyr a'r cywyddwyr a glywid ar y rhaglen yn swnio fel petai ar fin cyfansoddi ei englyn beddargraff ei hun. Er bod clec y gynghanedd yn dechnegol gryf, clec dannedd gosod oedd honno hefyd, neu felly yr ymddangosodd i mi ar y pryd.
Ond yna, yn ail hanner y degawd hwnnw, gwelwyd rhywbeth arbennig; yr oedd beirdd ifainc yn dechrau ymwneud fwyfwy â'r mesurau caeth ac - er mor simsan i raddau wrth gychwyn arnynt - yn dod ag ysbryd a hoen newydd i'r hen ffurfiau, yn canfod trawiadau cwbl newydd ac yn trafod pynciau newydd trwyddynt (yn ogystal ag ymwneud â'r themáu tragwyddol, wrth gwrs). Bu adfywiad ysgubol, nes bod statws y canu caeth bellach ar ei gryfaf o bosibl ers dyddiau Dafydd ap Gwilym.
Buasai'n annheg i briodoli hyn i gyd i ymdrechion Y Meuryn, wrth gwrs. Am flynyddoedd, bu beirdd eraill yn cyfrannu'n helaeth i barhad, twf a ffyniant y gynghanedd trwy eu dosbarthiadau a'u hesiampl; y diweddar Roy Stephens i enwi dim ond un. Ond roedd Y Talwrn yn digwydd ar goedd gwlad, yng ngŵydd y werin a'r bonedd diwylliannol fel ei gilydd, ac felly yn cael effaith llawer ehangach na sesiynau mewn ambell i ysgoldy neu festri capel.
Gellid priodoli llwyddiant ysgubol Y Talwrn - o safbwynt yr effaith y mae wedi cael ar o leiaf dwy genhedlaeth o gyswynfeirdd - i radd helaeth iawn i natur y dyn fu'n ei lywio cyhyd. Ac yntau wedi bod yn dipyn o enfant terrible barddonol yn ei ddydd ("Wylit, wylit Lywelyn/Wylit waed pe gwelit hyn", eniwon?), efallai na ddylai neb synnu gormod fod ganddo le yn agos at ei galon i feirdd ifainc, boed eu llafur ar gaeau cyfyng yr hen arddull neu ar beithiau eang y canu rhydd. Fe'u hysgogwyd ac fe'u hannogwyd gan y Meuryn, ac yntau'n ymhyfrydu'n amlwg yn y cynnyrch a gaed gan feirdd ifainc megis Twm Morys, Mei Mac a Thudur Dylan (oedd, mi oedden nhw'n ifanc ar un adeg, blant!) a'r sawl ddaeth yn eu sgîl hwythau.
Ac ni chafodd yr effaith honno trwy rwygo cynnyrch y tyros hyn yn ddarnau; ond yn hytrach trwy bwyntio - efo cadernid tyner - at wendidau'r gwaith dan sylw ac awgrymu gwelliannau iddo. A siarad yn blaen, bu fel y math gorau o athro; yn ysgogi a hyrwyddo trwy fod yn adeiladol a thrwy gosod esiampl.
Gellid dadlau efallai fod ei fyth-bresenoldeb wrth lyw'r Talwrn wedi cael effaith andwyol oherwydd i'r swydd gyfyngu ar yr amser fu ganddo yntau i farddoni; ond er cymaint gallai'r colled hwnnw fod, mae ei gymwynas i holl fyd barddoniaeth Gymraeg yn rhywbeth pwysicach o lawer er mwyn sicrhau parhad conglfeini ein llên.
Ac rŵan, mae dyddiau ei feurynna'n dirwyn tua'u terfyn. Ond nid ydyw'r cochyn hwn wedi "digwydd, darfod megis seren wib" fel llwynog arall gynt; bydd ôl ei lafur a'i lawenydd ar dudalennau ein barddoniaeth am genedlaethau eto i ddod. A dyna pam y mae'n ddilys ac yn deilwng i mi - na fu erioed yn fwy nag un a ddymunai fod yn fardd go iawn - dalu teyrnged iddo tra bod y dyn ei hun dal ar dir y byw.
Petaswn i'n fardd am y byd, mi ganwn gywydd iddo cystal ag unrhyw un luniodd ei hen gyfaill Dic Yr Hendre gynt. Ond mae fy noniau wrth drin geiriau yn gaeth i fyd rhyddiaith, felly - gan ystyried mor ffodus y bûm wrth weld Gerallt yn llywyddu dros Y Talwrn am, mae'n amlwg bellach, y tro olaf - y cyfan gallaf fynegi ydy diolchgarwch am fod un cystal wedi llywyddu ar a llywio ein hetifeddiaeth farddol cyhyd.
(Ychydig blynyddoedd yn ôl, ysgrifennais erthygl ar gyfer gwefan hanes darlledu Transdiffusion ar Y Talwrn ar gyfer y sawl y tu hwnt i'n diwylliant oedd yn anwybodus fod y math rhaglen yn gallu bod. Gallwch ei darllen yma.)
**********
The Last Verse?
(Note: before you go any further, I suggest you read this article which I wrote for Transdiffusion a few years ago, as it gives some useful background for what follows.)
In a way, the news that Gerallt Lloyd Owen has given up his duties as Meuryn on Y Talwrn hasn't greatly surprised me. As I recounted here, it was pretty obvious at the Wrexham Eisteddfod that his health was fragile (although that didn't affect his zest as he weighed and measured the poets' contributions). It's also clear that all the travelling involved in chairing and keeping order on unruly bards throughout the land would be a burden on anyone sound in body and mind. And so, it was wise of him to yield the reins while he still could.
Consideration of the implications of the departure of this Arthur of our literature on Y Talwrn, and pondering who might be able to fill his shoes and follow in his path, is a matter for another day.
Far more important is to take advantage of the opportunity to praise someone whose influence on Welsh poetry runs deep, although the kind of influence is possibly not one the man himself would have expected to have had when he started his poetic career nearly half a century ago.
For great has been the influence of Gerallt Lloyd Owen on Welsh poetry in our times. When Y Talwrn recommenced on Radio Cymru at the end of the seventies of the old century, Welsh poetry still had a strong whiff of the chapel and school about it to a large degree. This was particularly true of poetry in the strict metres, something to which the generation of young poets which had arisen in the ferment of the battles over language and nation seemingly had little to say. Even by the time that I had started listening regularly (and, later, zealously) to Y Talwrn in about 1984, cynghanedd was a sort of refuge for the elderly, with almost every contributor to be heard on the programme sounding as if they were about to compose their own epitaph. Although the click of the cynghanedd was still technically strong, it was the also the click of dentures, or so it appeared to me at the time.
But then, in the second half of that decade, something special happened; young poets were taking an interest in the strict metres and - however shaky they were to begin with - came to bring new spirit and verve to the old forms, finding new connections, and dealing with new topics through them (in addition to the eternal themes, of course). There was a remarkable renaissance, so that by now the status and strength of the strict metres is possibly greater than at any time since Dafydd ap Gwilym.
It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe all of this to Y Meuryn's efforts. For years, other poets had contributed extensively to the continuation, the growth and the flourishing of cynghanedd through evening classes and by example; the late Roy Stephens being only one such instance. But Y Talwrn was in public, in the sight and hearing of noble and common alike, and so had a far wider effect than sessions conducted in schoolrooms and chapel vestries.
The remarkable success of Y Talwrn - from the point of view of the effect it has had on at least two generations of budding bards - can be attributed in large degree to the character of the man who steered it for so long. He himself having been something of a poetic enfant terrible in his day ("Thou wouldst weep, thou wouldst weep, Llywelyn/Weep blood were you to see this", anyone?), perhaps no-one should be surprised too much that he held a special place in his heart for young poets, be their travails in the narrow fields of the old ways or on the expansive prairies of vers libre. They were inspired and encouraged by Y Meuryn, and he in turn took delight in the works produced by young poets such as Twm Morys, Meirion Mcintyre Hughes and Tudur Dylan (yes, children, they were young once!), and those who have come after them.
And he didn't have that effect by ripping the produce of these tyros to shreds; rather, he would point out - with tender firmness - the weaknesses of the poem in question and suggest improvements to it. To put it bluntly, he was like the best kind of teacher; urging and promoting by being constructive and by setting an example.
It could perhaps be argued that his near-ever-presence at the helm of Y Talwrn has had some negative effect because it limited the time that he had to write his own work; but however great that loss could be, his contribution to the whole world of Welsh poetry is of far greater importance in order to ensure the continuation of the cornerstones of our literature.
And now, the days of his judgement are coming to an end. But this red-haired creature has not "happened, vanished, like a shooting star" like another wily creature of poetic legend; the mark of his work and his joy will be seen on the pages of our poetry for generations yet to come. And that it why it is right and proper for me - who was never more than someone who wished he were a poet - to pay tribute to him whilst he remains in the land of the living.
If I were any sort of poet, I would write him a cywydd the equal of any composed by his own old friend Dic Yr Hendre. But my word-herding capacity extends no further than prose, so - considering how fortunate I was to see Gerallt presiding over Y Talwrn for what is now, clearly, the last time - all that I can express is my gratitude that such a one has presided over and directed our poetic inheritance for so long.
Yes, it's time for the release into the wild of JudgeCo™'s Calendar for 2012!
I had had doubts about doing one this time around, to be honest. The main reason was that I have taken very few suitable photographs since this time last year, so I've had to delve into the archives for one or two. I've also compressed the image files a little bit more so that the total file size of each calendar is about two thirds that of last year's.
As ever, there is a plain version, a version with UK public holidays and the changes to and from British Summer Time, and a US version with federal public holidays marked on it.
Just click the appropriate link below to download. Then you can print and bind as you please.
BT engineer now due Monday afternoon (which means I've got to leave work early and lose up to two hours flexi).
I hope he can fix the fault (which is almost certainly in the line rather than anything else, because my diagnostics have ruled out everything else), because I'm fed up of having to reboot the router four or five times an evening just to get a usable connection. And even then the signal-to-noise ratio is around zero, which means that even my Netgear DG834v3 can't hold the connection for very long.
I'm sorry to do this to you. No, really, I an djhrs offdj...erm, it's difficult to type with your fingers crossed, isn't it?
Yesterday, while I was waiting for the BT engineer not to turn up, I did a sort of backup of backups, consolidating the last couple of years of saved files into two CD-Rs.
In the course of this, I came across the following image (which, I'm afraid, I've not been able to attribute), but which is the best example of psychological suggestion I think I've ever come across:
I'm in the process of putting together the JudgeCo™ calendar for 2012, so I've now taken the 2011 one off the site.
I hope to get the new one ready by a week or so from now, but my internet connection is still being a bastard so I don't know when it will be available. I'll get back to you.
P.S.: Why didn't anyone tell me that the 2011 calendar had a title page which said "2010"? I feel a right 'nana now.
Bu'r nesa' peth i ddim i mi anghofio'n llwyr am yr achlysur, a dwi ddim yn siwr beth yn union a'm hatgoffodd, ond mae'r penwythnos hwn yn un arbennig, gan iddo nodi deng mlynedd ar hugain yn union ers i mi fynd i'r Coleg Ger Y Lli.
Mi oeddwn i'n flwyddyn yn hwyr yn mynd i fyny i'r Brifysgol. Un rheswm oedd i mi fethu â chael y graddau lefel 'A' yr oeddwn i wedi gobeithio amdanyn nhw (er i mi gael ar ddeall wedyn y buasai'r Coleg wedi fy nerbyn i beth bynnag); a'r rheswm arall oedd nad oeddwn i'n teimlo'n barod i fynd.
(Fel mae'n digwydd, doeddwn i ddim yn barod yr eildro, chwaith; doethaf peth fuasai i mi gymryd blwyddyn neu ddwy i ffwrdd o'r gyfundrefn addysg yn gyfangwbl fel y gallwn i brofi'r byd go iawn cyn i mi fentro'n ôl arni, ond testun arall yw hynny).
Mi oedd 'na gryn gyffro yn yr wythnosau'n arwain at fy ymadawiad. Roedd 'na gymaint o bethau i'w trefnu, cymaint o bethau i baratoi ar eu cyfer. Mae gen i gof clir o hyd o fynd i lawr i Wrecsam ychydig dyddiau ynghynt - yng nghmwni fy hen gyfaill Alex - i agor cyfrif banc yng nghangen Y Stryd Fawr o Barclays, a hwythau'n cynnig bonws i fyfyrwyr am ymuno â nhw (dwi ddim yn cofio faint rŵan - naill ai £5 neu £50; y lleiaf o'r symiau 'na dwi'n meddwl). Roedd Alex yntau yn mynd i ffwrdd hefyd - i Fanceinion yn ei achos o - ac mi oedd yr edrych ymlaen at yr antur fawr yn cyniwair trwyddom ni'n dau.
Dyma fasa'r tro cyntaf i fi fynd i fyw heb fy rhieni - wythnos o wyliau mewn pabell efo pedwar o ffrindiau o'r chweched dosbarth yn Sywdd Henffordd ym Mis Gorffennaf y flwyddyn flaenorol bu'r peth agosaf hyd hynny - ac erbyn y dydd ei hun, mi oeddwn i'n ysu am fynd, er i mi boeni rhyw ychydig ynglŷn a'r syniad o orfod rhannu stafell â rhywun dieithr; person preifat iawn a swil oeddwn i (ac ydw i o hyd, gan hynny).
Ond, o'r diwedd mi gyrhaeddodd y Diwrnod Mawr ei hun. Y Dydd Gwener oedd hwnnw, gan fod angen i'r Glasfyfyrwyr gyrraedd cyn dechrau'r penwythnos er mwyn iddyn nhw gynefino â'r lle cyn i'r rhai mwy profiadol ddychwelyd.
I mewn i Vauxhall Cavalier melyn Wncwl Phil aeth fy stwff i gyd - roedd Wncwl Phil i yrru ac fy mrawd fel 'eilydd' iddo, fel petai, a Mam a finnau yn y sedd gefn, yn ogystal â'r stwff nad oedd digon o le iddo yn y bŵt. Mae gen i gof clir hyd heddiw o ysgwyd llaw â 'nhad trwy ffenestr y car cyn i ni ymadael - doedd ei iechyd ddim yn ddigon da iddo deithio'n bell iawn erbyn hynny, a doedd dim lle iddo yn car 'ta beth.
Mi oedd y daith i lawr yn ddigon di-nod ynddo'i hun, ond doeddwn i ddim cweit wedi disgwyl yr hyn welsom ni wrth gyrraedd pen yr allt ger Plas Hendre a gweld y dref ei hun yn gorwedd islaw. Roeddwn i wedi bod i Aber ddwywaith yn barod - ar gyfer cyfweliadau yn Adran Y Gymraeg - ond ar y ddau achlysur, roeddwn i wedi mynd ar y trên ac felly heb weld fawr o'r lle. Erys yr olygfa odidog honno o'r dref a'r môr y tu draw iddi yn gryf yn y cof o hyd, er bod dros chwarter canrif wedi mynd heibio ers i mi ei gweld hi ddiwethaf.
Os cofiaf yn iawn, colli'r troad ar gyfer Neuadd Pantycelyn wnaethom ni'r tro cyntaf a gorfod troi a mynd yn ôl ato, ond ddaru i ni ei ffeindio fo'r eildro a pharcio. Dyma fi wedyn yn mentro i mewn i'r adeilad arbennig hwnnw am y tro cyntaf er mwyn arwyddo i mewn a chael yr allwedd am Ystafell 199, a fuasai'n gartref i mi am y misoedd canlynol. Cefais yr allwedd a mynd i chwilio am yr ystafell ei hun - a methu'n lân â chael hyd i'r diawl. Mi es i ddwywaith rownd y lle a gorffen lle gychwynnais i, yn y cyntedd. Rhoddwyd cyfarwyddiadau mwy manwl i mi - yn arafach hefyd, gan nad oeddwn i'n deall y Gymraeg yn dda iawn yr adeg honno - ac ar ôl ychydig, mi ffeindiais i hi. O diar! Reit ar y gornel yn nghefn y neuadd oedd hi a - gan iddi fod ar gornel - mi oedd ganddi ddwy ffenestr. A hithau ar y llawr isaf hefyd, roedd pawb a oedd yn mynd heibio yn medru sbecian i mewn wrth basio. Fasa 'na ddim fawr o breifatrwydd na diogelwch gen i fanno, felly.
Cododd broblem yn syth ar ôl i mi symud fy stwff i mewn. Roeddwn i wedi dod â thipyn o gyfarpar trydanol efo fi - set deledu, radio, peiriant tâp, cloc larwm a siafiwr - a dyma ni'n sylweddoli nad oedd modd defnyddio'r un ohonyn nhw oherwydd bod y socedi trydan yn y stafelloedd yn wahanol. Socedi â thri phin oedden nhw, siwr iawn; ond pinau crwn oedden nhw, fersiynau llai o'r socedi fu gynnon ni gartref hyd at ganol y saithdegau. Felly, doedd y plygiau oedd gen i ar bobeth yn gwbl ddi-werth, hwythau a'u pinau hirsgwâr. Felly, i mewn i'r car â ni i fynd i lawr i'r dref ei hun i geisio cael hyd i blygiau i ffitio. Cafwyd hyd i'r rheini yn Currys, a thalu crocbris am ryw dri neu bedwar ohonyn nhw.
Yn ôl â ni i fyny i Banty wedyn, felly, a ffitio un o'r plygiau newydd ar bobeth. Erbyn hyn, roedd fy nghyd-drigolyn yn Ystafell 199 wedi cyrraedd - Edward Stephen, mab fferm o gyrion Llangefni oedd hwnnw. Mi aeth o a'i rieni - a'r parti oedd wedi dod efo fi - ar daith dywysedig o gwmpas yr adnoddau tra roeddwn innau wrthi'n ail-weirio.
Yna ddaeth yr amser i ffarwelio. Efallai y disgwyliech chi mai amser dagrau a chofleidio fasa hi; y gwir plaen amdani yw nad y math yna o deulu fuom ni erioed, ac nid oeddwn i'n medru cael gwared â nhw yn ddigon cyflym fel y gallwn i fwrw i mewn i'r bywyd newydd hwn oedd yn agor o 'mlaen i. Dwi'n cywilyddu wrthyf i fy hun rŵan wrth feddwl mor eiddgar oeddwn i weld eu cefnau nhw, ond mi oeddwn i am symud ymlaen a doeddwn i ddim am i neb feddwl mai oen bach mam oeddwn i.
Mae Pantycelyn yn enwog, wrth gwrs, am fod y lle Cymreiciaf yn yr holl Coleg (yn yr holl Brifysgol efallai, er buasai gan drigolion JMJ ym Mangor farn bendant ynglŷn â hynny, bid siwr), ac felly'n lle delfrydol i ddysgwr roi rhyw sglein ar ei Gymraeg. Ac felly y bu ymhen byr o dro i mi, er mai bur dawedog oeddwn i am gyfnod wrth ymgynefino â phrofiadau rhyfedd megis clywed Hwntws yn siarad eu math unigryw o'r iaith am y tro cyntaf.
Y peth cyntaf a'm trawodd am fy nghyd-drigolion oedd iddo ymddangos i mi fod y rhan fwyaf ohonyn nhw'n nabod eu gilydd yn barod, efo'r sgyrsiau'n troi'n aml o gwmpas cyngherddau roc ac eisteddfodau y buon nhw ynddyn nhw efo'u gilydd a phethau felly. Y rheswm, wrth gwrs, oedd bod y mwyafrif llethol ohonyn nhw wedi eu magu ar aelwydydd Cymraeg (ac ar aelwyddydd Yr Urdd yn aml), ac fod y pethau'n hyn yn ail natur iddyn nhw i gyd. I fi, pethau y tu hwnt i'm profiad a'm hamgyffred oedd y rheini i gyd, ac felly cefais y teimlad o fod ar y tu allan i bobeth, er nad oedd bai yn y byd arnyn nhw am hynny; yn wir, gwnaethant eu gorau glas i'm tynnu i mewn i bethau yn aml. Ond hogyn swil a di-hunan-hyder oeddwn i, ac felly roedd eu hymdrechion yn ofer i raddau.
Roedd ambell i gamsyniad gennyf innau nad oedd yn helpu pethau. Er enghraifft, does dim syniad yn y byd gen i hyd heddiw pam gymerais i hi'n ganiataol mai ffans mawr Max Boyce fasa pobl Panty. Yn wir, dyna beth oeddwn i'n ei feddwl; cyn i mi gyrraedd yno a chael ar ddeall nad oedd yr un gronyn o realiti i'r syniad; yn wir, pan oedd pobl yn meddwl amdano fo o gwbl, roedden nhw'n ystried yr hen Facs yn hen Wncwl Tom go iawn.
Mae gen i nifer o atgofion o'r penwythnos cyntaf hwnnw sydd wedi glynu'n gryf yn fy nghof. Ar nos Wener, mi es i ar fy mhen fy hun i lawr i'r dref, a mynd ar goll yn y strydoedd cul ar waelod Penglais cyn cael fy hun yn Y Cŵps am y tro cyntaf (ond nid am y tro olaf o bell ffordd!). Dwi'n cofio treulio rhan o brynhawn Dydd Sadwrn yn un o'r ystafelloedd ar y llawr uchaf (Ystafell 123), ar goridor a adwaenir fel Y Ffynnon, yng nghwmni Gerwyn Williams ac Aled Jôb (oedd yn rhannu'r stafell) yn ogystal ag Arwel 'Soch' Jones (sydd bellach yn athro yn Ysgol Y Berwyn, Y Bala, dwi'n credu) ac Alun Howells (os cofiaf ei gyfenw yn iawn - fel 'Alun Mawr' roeddwn i'n ei nabod), cyn i ni fynd i lawr i'r dref efo'n gilydd. Mae gen i'r set wyddbwyll deithio brynais i'r prynhawn hwnnw o hyd, er bod blynyddoedd maith wedi mynd heibio ers i mi chwarae'r gêm.
Ar nos Sadwrn, mi arhosais i yn fy (sorri, yn ein) stafell yn gwylio'r teledu. Roedd Edward wedi mynd i gyngerdd Y Trwynau Coch, ac mi oedd hi ymhell wedi un o'r gloch pan ddaeth o mewn. Ychydig wedyn, ddaeth bedlam. Roedd o wedi anghofio cloi'r drws ar ei ôl o, ac i mewn ddaeth Jôb, Arwel 'Pod' Roberts a chriw arall i greu hafoc bach am chwarter awr cyn ymadael.
Treuliais y rhan fwyaf o'r Sul yn cymdeithasu gorau y medrwn, cyn i mi fynd i fyny i far Neuadd Cwrt Mawr (un o'r ychydig lefydd lle gallai dyn gael yfed ar y Sul bryd hwnnw) efo Gerwyn, Alun Mawr, Alun Davies o Gaerdydd ac Arwel 'Soch'. Yn ôl a ni wedyn, a finnau rhywsut yn gorffen y noson yn Ystafell 200 efo Karl Davies (Plaid Cymru a'r BBC wedyn), ei gyd-letywr Elwyn ac ambell un arall, efo Karl yn adrodd straeon annygoel am y cymeriadau yn ei deulu.
Ond mi ddaeth Ddydd Llun, ac amser dechrau ar fusnes. Mynd i fyny i adeilad Hugh Owen i gofrestru a dewis pynciau, ac yna yn y prynhawn cael darlith ar sut i ddefnyddio llyfrgell y Coleg. Ond ddaeth amser i gymdeithasu eto yn yr hwyr, efo grwp ohonom ni'n mynd ar 'Grôl Hanneri'r Bois'; dechrau yn Y Cŵps, cyn i ni fynd ychydig llathenni ymlaen i'r Weston Vaults, lle cafodd Jôb ei daflu allan gan i'r hen surbwch o Sais y tu cefn i'r bar fynnu nad oedd Aled wedi talu am ei gwrw. Ymlaen wedyn i'r Tavern In The Town (neu Y TIT, fel y'i gelwid o yn fyr), y Ffarmwrs a'r Llew Du. Adewais i'r criw yn 'joio mâs draw' yn y Nag's Head - gan nad oeddwn i'n yfwr mawr yr adeg honno chwaith ac mi oeddwn i'n ei theimlo hi braidd erbyn hynny - a chrafu fy hun i fyny'r allt i Banty.
Roedd gweddill yr wythnos yn dawel braidd, ar wahân i un digwyddiad od yn oriau mân Ddydd Iau. Mi oeddwn i'n cysgu'n braf yn fy ngwely nesaf at y ffenestr ogleddol (roedd gwely Edward wrth y drws, ac yr oedd yntau heb ddod i mewn eto). Doeddwn i ddim wedi cau'r ffenestr gan iddi fod braidd yn gynnes (roedd y gwres canolog wedi'i droi ymlaen, ac mi oedd yn uffar o job symud y gwely i gael hyd i'r redietyr i'w droi bant). Curo ar y gwydr. Finnau'n troi yn fy ngwely a cheisio anwybyddu'r sŵn. Dyna'r ffenestr yn agor a phen yn dod trwy'r llenni (roedd gweddill y boi efo'r pen, diolch i'r drefn). "Gawn ni ddod miwn?", ofynodd y pen, "Dan ni wedi'n cloi mâs!". Hogiau ffeind oeddan nhw ill dau, chwarae teg.
Aeth pethau'n rwtîn braidd ar ôl y cyffro hynny i gyd, a ninnau'n setlo i mewn i ryw rigol o ddarlithoedd a chymdeithasu, yn y lolfa ac ymhell y tu draw. Ond eto, ddaeth fy swildod yn ôl i'm llethu a'm torri i ffwrdd o ran fwyaf o ddigwyddiadau'r neuadd er gwaethaf ymdrechion fy nghyd-breswylwyr. Yn ogystal â hynny, roedd y peth a oedd wedi achosi problemau difrifol yn y chweched dosbarth wedi codi ei phen eto, sef y tuedd i fod yn ddiog. Mi ddechreuais i dorri darlithoedd; peth hawdd i'w wneud wrth ystyried fod fy holl ddarlithoedd i lawr yn adeilad yr Hen Goleg a bod llusgo fy hun yr holl ffordd yn ôl i fyny'r Glais ddim yn apelio. Fel canlyniad o hyn oll, ac ar ôl i mi gael fy rhybuddio gan y Deon ei hun, roedd fy mherfformiad yn yr arholiadau ar ddiwedd y flwyddyn mor wael fel nad oedd modd i mi ddychwelyd i'r Coleg am flwyddyn gron. Ddysgais i ddim yn hynny o beth chwaith, a dim ond o drwch blewyn lwyddais i barhau at gael gradd.
Ond mi oedd y flwyddyn gyntaf honno ym Mhantycelyn (a'r flwyddyn dreuliais i yno ar ôl i mi grafu fy ffordd yn ôl rhyw bymtheg mis wedyn) yn hanfodol wrth fy nhroi'n Gymro Cymraeg go iawn, ac ennill hunan-hyder wrth ddefnyddio'r Gymraeg. Mae arnaf ddyled enfawr i Bantycelyn a'r gymuned gref a gafwyd yno, a'r sawl oedd wrth galon y gymuned honno, gan gynnwys yr hanesydd nodedig John Davies bu'n warden yno yr holl amser y bûm innau'n byw yno.
Nid fy mod i wedi mynd yn ôl i ymweld â'r lle ers i mi raddio ym 1985 er hynny, nag i Banty nac i Aber chwaith. Mi ddysgais i ambell i wers galed dros y blynyddoedd lle mae mynd yn ôl at lefydd fu gynt yn ganolog i'm bywyd yn y cwestiwn. Dwi'n gwybod yn union beth fasa'n digwydd taswn i'n mynd yn ôl; mi fasa'n codi'r felan arnaf i'r math raddau fel y dinistriai'r atgofion. Mi fase'r lle'n llawn ysbrydion, a does dim dwywaith mai ddrychiolaeth o'm hunan iau fasa un ohonynt. Doethach fasa gadael llonydd iddo fo: mae'n debyg ei fod o'n hapus yno.
Bu sôn am gau Panty ychydig blynyddoedd yn ôl, gan fod y sawl sy'n rhedeg y Brifysgol (fel y'i gelwir bellach) o'r farn nad ydyw'n ddigon 'modern', a'r bwriad oedd codi neuadd newydd i gynnwys grwpiau o fflatiau yn hytrach na chael ystafelloedd unigol (neu ddwbl) a chael pawb i gymdeithasu yn y lolfa neu'r ffreutur. Yn ôl a welaf i bellach, mae'r Brifysgol wedi ail-ystyried, a da hynny: dwi ddim yn gweld y posibiliad o'r un gymuned yn ffynnu o dan y math amgylchiadau ag a geir (ac a gafwyd) yn yr hen adeilad urddasol hwnnw.
Ac mae deng mlynedd ar hugain yn union wedi mynd heibio - fel petai'n freuddwyd - ers i mi gerdded trwy ei drysau hi am y tro cyntaf. Ble aeth y blynyddoedd, dwêd?
**********
Bright College Days
I almost forgot completely about the occasion, and I'm not sure what exactly reminded me, but this weekend is a very special one, as it marks thirty years exactly since I went to 'The College By The Sea'.
I was a year late going up to University. One reason was that I had failed to get the 'A'-level grades I had hoped for (although I discovered later that the College would have accepted me anyway); and the other reason was that I didn't feel ready to go.
(As it happened, I wasn't ready the second time, either; it would have been wiser for me to take a year or two out of the education system altogether so that I could experience the real world before venturing back in, but that's another subject).
The weeks leading up to my departure were ones of considerable excitement. There were so many things to organise, so many things to prepare for. I still have a clear memory of going down into Wrexham a few days beforehand - in the company of my old friend Alex - to open a bank account in the High Street branch of Barclays, as they were offering some special bonus for students who signed up with them (I don't remember how much now - either £5 or £50; the lesser sum, I think). Alex himself was going away too - to Manchester in his case - and the anticipation for the great adventure ran through us both.
This was to be the first time that I would be living apart from my parents - the nearest I'd come to it before that had been a week's holiday spent in a tent in Herefordshire with four sixth-form friends in the July of the previous year - and by the time the day itself arrived, I was straining on the leash to go, although I was anxious about having to share a room with a total stranger; I was (and still am, for that matter) a very private and shy person.
But, finally, the Great Day itself dawned. This was the Friday, because they wanted the Freshers to arrive before the weekend to acclimatise to the place before the old hands returned.
Into Uncle Phil's yellow Vauxhall Cavalier everything went - Uncle Phil was driving with my brother as 'reserve' as it were, and Mam and me in the back, along with the stuff which couldn't be fitted in the boot. I have a clear picture in my mind today of shaking hands with my father through the open window of the car before we set off - his health wasn't up to long journeys by that time, and there was no room in the car anyway.
The journey down was uneventful enough in itself, but I hadn't quite expected what we saw when we crested the hill by Plas Hendre and saw the town itself lying below us. I had been to Aber twice already - for interviews in the Department of Welsh - but had gone on the train on both occasions and hadn't seen much of the place. That splendid view of the town and the sea beyond has stayed fresh in the memory still, even though more than a quarter of a century has gone by since I last saw it.
If I remember correctly, we missed the turning for Pantycelyn Hall the first time and had to turn back towards it again, but we found it the second time and parked up. Then I ventured into that particular building for the first time in order to sign in and get the key for Room 199, which was to be my home during the coming months. I got the key and went in search of the room itself - and couldn't find the bugger. I went twice round the place, ending up where I had started - in the foyer. More detailed instructions were given to me - slower ones, too, as I didn't understand Welsh very well at that point - and after a short while, I found it. Oh dear! Right in the back corner of the hall and - as it was on a corner - it had two windows. With it also being on the ground floor, everyone going past could have a nose in. I wouldn't be getting much privacy or security there, then.
A problem arose immediately after we moved my stuff in. I'd brought a fair bit of electrical equipment with me - a television set, a radio, a tape recorder, an alarm clock and a shaver - and I then realised that I couldn't use any of them because the electric sockets in the rooms were different. They were three-pin sockets, certainly; but they had round pins, smaller versions of the sockets we used to have at home up until the mid-seventies. So, the plugs that I had on everything were completely useless with their oblong pins. So back into the car we went, and down into the town to try to find plugs to fit. These were to be found in Currys, and I paid a king's ransom for three or four of them.
Back up to Panty then, and fitted the new plugs on everything. By this time, my fellow resident of Room 199 had arrived - Edward Stephen, a farmer's son from just outside Llangefni. He and his parents - and the party who had accompanied me - went on a guided tour of the facilities as I was doing the re-wiring.
Then came the time for goodbyes. Perhaps you would expect that it would be a time for hugs and tears; the plain truth about it is that it has never been that sort of a family, and that I couldn't get rid of them quickly enough, so that I could launch myself into this new world which was opening up before me. I feel ashamed now as I think how eager I was to see the back of them, but I wanted to move on and I didn't want anyone to think I was Mammy's little lamb.
Pantycelyn is, of course, famous for being the most Welsh part of the whole College (the whole University perhaps, although the inhabitants of JMJ in Bangor would have had definite Views on that, you bet), and so an ideal place for learners to put a polish on their Welsh. And so it proved to me in a very short while, even though I was very quiet for a while whilst I adapted to strange experiences such as hearing Southerners speaking the language in their own unique ways for the first time.
The first thing which struck me about my fellow residents was that it seemed to me that most of them already knew one another, and their conversations revolved around rock concerts and eisteddfodau that that they had attended together, and suchlike things. The reason, of course, was that the vast majority of them had been raised in Welsh-speaking families (and often been through the Urdd as well), and these things were second nature to them all, and so I got the feeling of being slightly outside of everything, although no blame attaches to them for that; indeed, they often did their level best to bring me into things. But I was a shy boy lacking in self-confidence, and so their attempts were in vain to some extent.
The odd misapprehension which I had didn't help things. For example, I can't for the life of me to this very day think why I took it as read that Panty people would be big fans of Max Boyce. That really was what I had thought; before I got there and was given to understand that there was not a grain of reality to the notion; indeed, when his name was mentioned at all, it was clear that they consider old Max to be a real Uncle Tom.
I have a number of memories of that first weekend which have fixed themselves strongly in my memory. On the Friday night, I went out alone down into the town, and got lost in the narrow streets at the bottom of Penglais Hill before finding myself in the 'Cooper's Arms' ('Y Cwps') for the first (but definitely not the last) time. I remember spending part of Saturday afternoon in Room 123 on the top floor, on the corridor known as 'The Well', in the company of Gerwyn Williams and Aled Jôb (who shared the room) along with Arwel 'Soch' Jones (who is now, I believe, a teacher in Ysgol Y Berwyn in Bala) and Alun Howells (I think that was his surname - 'Big Alun' I knew him as), before we went down into town together. I still have the travelling chess set I bought that day, even though it's been years since I last played the game.
On Saturday night, I stayed in my (sorry, in our) room watching television. Edward had gone out to a gig by Y Trwynau Coch, and it was long past 1am before he came in. Shortly afterwards, all hell broke loose. He'd forgotten to lock the door, and in burst Jôb, Arwel 'Pod' Roberts and a fair crew to create havoc for about a quarter of an hour before leaving.
I spent most of Sunday socialising as best I could, before we went up to the bar at Cwrt Mawr hall (one of the few places where you could get a drink on a Sunday at that time) with Gerwyn, Big Alun, Alun Davies from Cardiff and Arwel 'Soch'. Back we came later, and I somehow ended up spending the rest of the evening in Room 200 with Karl Davies (later of Plaid Cymru and the BBC) and his room-mate Elwyn and one or two others, with Karl regaling us with incredible stories about the characters in his family.
But Monday came, and it was time to get down to business. I went up to the Hugh Owen building to register and to choose my subjects, and then in the afternoon we had a lecture on how to use the College library. But there was time to socialise again in the evening, with a group of us going on the 'Boys' Halves Crawl'; starting off in the 'Cwps' before we went on a few yards to the 'Weston Vaults', where Jôb was thrown out by the sour old Englishman behind the bar who insisted than Aled hadn't paid for his drink. On again to the 'Tavern In The Town' (or the 'TIT', to give it its short name), the 'Farmers' and the 'Black Lion'. I left the gang enjoying themselves tremendously in the 'Nag's Head' - as I wasn't a big drinker in those days either, I was feeling it a bit by then - and crawled my way back up the hill to Panty.
The rest of the week was fairly quiet, apart from one incident in the early hours of the Thursday. I was sleeping well away in my bed next to the window on the north side (Edward's bed was by the door, and he hadn't come back in yet). I hadn't closed the window because it was quite warm (the central heating had been turned on, and it was a hell of job to move the bed to get at the radiator to turn it off). A knock on the window. I turned over and tried to ignore it. Then the window was opened wide and a head poked through the curtains (the rest of him was joined to the head, thankfully). "Can we come in?", asked the head, "We've been locked out!". They were good lads, fair play.
Things became rather routine after all the excitement, and we settled into a timetable of lectures and socialising, in the lounge and well beyond. But again, my shyness came over me, and this cut me out of a lot of the activity in the hall, despite my fellow residents' best endeavours. In addition to this, the thing which had caused me serious problems in sixth form raised its head again, namely the tendency towards laziness. I started missing lectures; an easy thing to do when all of my lectures were down in the Old College building on the Prom, and that dragging myself all the way back up Penglais didn't appeal. As a result of all this, and after I had been warned by no less a figure than the Dean of Arts himself, my performance in the exams at the end of the first year was so poor that there was no way that I could return for a full year thereafter. I didn't learn much from this either, and I only got back in to continue my degree course by a hair's breadth.
But to me, that first year in Pantycelyn (and the year I spent there after I scraped back in about fifteen months later) was essential in turning me into a true Welsh-speaking Welshman, and in gaining self-confidence in using the language. I owe Pantycelyn and the strong community there, and those who were at the heart of it - including the noted historian John Davies, who was Warden the whole time I lived there - a huge debt.
Not that I have ever been back to visit the place since I graduated in 1985 either; not to Panty nor to Aber itself. I learned a number of hard lessons over the years regarding going back to places which had once been central to my life. I know exactly what would happen; it would cause such melancholy to me that it would destroy my memories. The place would be full of ghosts, and doubtless one of those phantoms would be of my younger self. It would be wisest to leave him alone; he may be perfectly happy there.
There was talk of closing Panty a few years ago, because those who now run what is now called the University were of the opinion that the place wasn't 'modern' enough, and the intention was to build a new hall to include groups of flats rather than having individual (or double) rooms and have people socialise in the lounge or refectory. From what I can see now, it looks as if the University has reconsidered, and a good thing too; I can't see the possibility of the same sort of community flourishing in those surroundings as flourishes (and flourished) in that old, dignified building.
And exactly thirty years have passed - as if in a dream - since I walked through her doors for the first time. Tell me this: where did the years go?
As the number of items in Welsh on this blog seems to be on the increase, and as I wanted to provide English translations for them, this involves You, The Reader™ in a lot of scrolling.
Well, scroll no more! Wherever you see this at the top of an item in Welsh:
clicking on it will take you to the English version.
(Don't bother clicking on this one; it won't take you anywhere at all)
Unfortunately, for reasons I don't quite fathom as yet, this way of doing things breaks the functionality of the 'Back' button in Firefox. Further research needed...
Caught this beaut of a mistake on the BBC News wesbite, and just managed to get screencaps of it before they realised that they'd cocked up:
I suppose the BBC can be excused for mixing up Minister Philip Hammond with their very own Top Gear Stunt Hamster. After all, Jeremy Clarkson has been a sensitivity trainer at the Department For Communities for some while.
I'm aware that I haven't given much information as to my well-being in recent months. This is partly because it could only ever be of passing interest to anyone other than I an' I, and partly because things seem to have settled down a little bit.
Not that this has meant that normality (however one may define that slippery concept) has been fully restored. I described here my attempts to distance myself from things which would cause my 'prisoner complex' to flare up. And it would probably have worked pretty well had it not been for all the high-profile cases over the last few weeks of hundreds of people getting a grand shafting by the combined might of corrupt and thuggish police, performance-target-chasing prosecutors, a politically-compliant judiciary, screaming scum media and politicians who don't know when to shut the fuck up. The abuse of power exercised by these groups - and the manifest and malicious glee which they have exhibited whilst doing so - has created a deep anger in me. I find myself identifying yet again with the victims of this judicial activism, and my sympathies lie with most of them rather than with the self-righteous, purse-lipped "decent, hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying, cliché-ridden folk" who seem to be so consumed by the desire to find a group of people it can hate with official approval that they totally fail to realise that what is being done to those people now will almost inevitably be the fate which will befall them or someone they care about in due course.
I have reached the conclusion that the clocks have been turned back with a vengeance. Living through the 1980s once was bad enough - that time where society was set at war with itself for the benefit of hard-line ideologues who had no compunction in punishing the vulnerable and turning them into hate-objects for the insecure middle classes who showed themselves to be far less tolerant than they claimed to be - but to have to see the same thing coming around again is deeply troubling for anyone with something which approximates to a functioning conscience, and who can see the catastrophic waste of lives which is the inevitable consequence of such attitudes.
Back to me, then. I still haven't had any of the therapy sessions I was referred to/for/through over six months ago. I could arrange something similar via The Employer's outsourced welfare system, but it doesn't seem to be a major issue to me just yet, so I'll hold off on that for the moment.
Suffice it to say that, as that melancholy time of year comes round again whereby I realise that one more of my few remaining summers has passed into oblivion, I'm not looking forward to winter.
Mi addewais i erthygl arall ynglŷn â'r Eisteddfod, yndô?
Mae 'na ddwy agwedd ar y peth yr hoffwn i sôn amdanynt, a bod yn onest; gellid eu rhannu i'r 'personol' a'r 'cyffredinol'.
Beth am y 'personol' i ddechrau? Wel, am un peth dwi'n edifarhau bellach na wnes i'r gorau o'r cyfle, gan nad ydyw'n debyg fydd y Brifwyl yn ôl yn y fro hon yn ystod fy einioes i. Dylswn i - a finnau'n sylweddoli hyn yn llawer rhy hwyr - wedi cymryd yr wythnos gyfan i ffwrdd o'r gwaith a mynd i'r ŵyl rhyw dair neu bedair gwaith yn hytrach nag am ddiwrnod a hanner yn unig. Mi oedd 'na bethau eraill yr hoffwn i fod wedi'u gweld neu'u clywed, ond mi oeddwn i'n rhy grintachllyd i ystyried prynu diwrnod arall.
Roedd 'na siomedigaethau eraill, wrth gwrs. Soniais i o'r blaen am yr arwyddo gwamal oedd yn gwneud cael hyd i bethau (y Maes, er enghraifft) yn anos nag y dylsai wedi bod. Ddarllenais i rywun yn awgrymu y dylsid wedi gosod hysbysfwrdd mawr y tu allan i bob un o'r prif bebyll a stondinau i ddangos beth yn union oedd i ddigwydd ynddynt y diwrnod hwnnw. Sylwch, Gyngor Yr Eisteddfod, a dysgu!
Peth arall oedd i mi fethu'n lân â chwrdd â neb y bûm yn eu hadnabod o ddyddiau coleg. Mi oeddwn i'n teimlo a baswn i'n siwr o gyfarfod â rhywun o'r hen ddyddiau, ond welais i'r un hen wyneb gyfarwydd yno. Dim un. Petaen nhw yno'r un adeg â fi, welais i'r un ohonynt; neu doedden nhw ddim yn fy adnabod innau, na hyd yn oed fy nghofio. Ar wahân i Dylan Jones y BBC â finnau'n rhannu cyfarchion cyflym (ac yntau'n gweithio, wrth gwrs), dim ond rhyw dri neu bedwar o'r gwaith welais i yno.
Hefyd, mi gollais i'r cyfle i siarad â Gerallt Lloyd Owen i ddiolch iddo fo am Y Talwrn, ac mi fethais i'n lân â gweld arddangosfa ffotograffau Geoff Charles, sy'n drueni mawr ac yntau'n hannu o'r un pentref â fi. Mi anghofiais i'n llwyr amdani nes i Grahame Davies sôn amdani wrth i ni fynd yn ôl i'r dref ar y bws brynhawn Dydd Iau.
O, a thra rydw i'n sôn am Grahame, mi lwyddais i gael copi o'r casgliad yna o gerddi Bryan Martin Davies wedi'r cwbl. Mi brynais i gopi ail-law trwy Amazon rhai dyddiau wedyn, gan lyfrwerthwr o'r Alban - am geiniog (a £2.40 am gludiant)! Pan gyrhaeddodd y gyfrol, mi welais mai o hen stoc gwasanaeth llyfrgelloedd Dinas Abertawe ddaeth hi. Gobeithio bod yr hen Liblabs anniwylledig lawr fan 'cw wedi cadw ambell i gopi yn ôl er mwyn addysgu pobl Treforus a'r Dyfnant.
Ag eithrio hyn i gyd, sut brofiad oedd hi i mi? Wel, faswn i ddim wedi'i ei cholli am y byd. Er y cyfleoedd coll, er y problemau soniais amdanyn nhw parthed arwyddion, roedd bod yno yn deimlad mor gyfforddus, mor iawn, fel bod y darnau wedi disgyn i'w lle rhywsut.
Am un peth, doeddwn i ddim yn teimlo am yr un eiliad yr anesmwythyd hynny sy'n dod drostof i ym mhob man arall sydd yn achosi i mi fod yn amharod i edrych i wyneb rhywun arall. Ymhob man arall, gwelir y math uniongyrchedd fel rhyw fath o her neu fygythiad, sy'n galw am yr ymateb "Wot ddy ffyc âr iw lwcin a'?". Roedd pawb, neu felly yr ymddangosodd i mi, yn agored i bawb arall. Efallai mai rhywbeth i'w ddisgwyl ydy hynny, a phawb yno i gael hwyl - llawer ohonyn nhw ar eu gwyliau yno i bob pwrpas.
(Rwy'n cyfaddef mai delfrydu ydw i wrth ddweud pethau felly; fod y Cymry Cymraeg yn bobl sy'n gynhenid o neis. Gallai unrhywun sydd wedi gweld Maes Caernarfon ar nos Wener dystio nad ydyw'r darlun hwnnw'n dal ymhob achos. Ond fel egwyddor mae'n addas ar y cyfan).
Mae'n rhaid cyfaddef, wrth gwrs, mai torf o bobl ddiwylliedig oedd y rhain gan fwyaf, a'r dorf honno'n hunan-ddetholedig o ddosbarth canol i raddau helaeth; pobl oedd wedi dod i ymsuddo nid yn unig i ddiwylliant ac awyrgylch yr Eisteddfod, ond i gymdeithas oedd yn naturiol Gymraeg.
A dyna'r ail deimlad gefais i; mor naturiol o Gymraeg oedd hi. Rŵan, i lawer fydd y sylw hwnnw'n ymddangos yn wallgof; naturiol o Gymraeg y mae'r Brifŵyl i fod, yntê? Ond i'r mwyafrif llethol ohonom ni a aeth yno, nid peth arferol yw hi i fod yn y math awyrgylch. I lawer o Gymry Cymraeg - y mwyafrif, bellach, o bosibl - y mae pob dydd o'n bywyd arferol yn dod â'r angen i gyfaddawdu, i orfod ildio i realiti'r gymdeithas 'ddwyieithog' honedig sydd ohoni trwy Gymru benbaladr bellach.
Ond yna, ar y Maes, doedd dim rhaid iddyn nhw - doedd dim rhaid i mi - fod dim byd arall ond yr hyn yr ydym ni - Cymry Cymraeg - ac ymlacio. Iawn, mi oedd 'na ddigon o bobl ddi-Gymraeg yno - yn enwedig ymhlith y sawl oedd yn gofalu am rai o'r stondinau, neu'r sawl fu yno i gystadlu mewn meysydd lle nad oedd y Gymraeg yn hanfodol - ac mae'n rhaid cofio nad oedd y ffin â Lloegr fawr mwy na thafliad carreg i ffwrdd a bod y fro hon wedi'i llwyr seisnigo bellach; ond eto, y rhai di-Gymraeg oedd yr eithriadau y tro hwn, a nhw fu'n gorfod ffitio i mewn i'n disgwyliadau ni i raddau helaethach nag yn y byd mawr y tu hwnt i'r maes pebyll a'r caranfanau. A siaredais i fwy o Gymraeg mewn diwrnod a hanner nag mewn blwyddyn gron cyn hynny.
Cymdeithas ydy'r gair dwi'n chwilio amdano, mae'n debyg. Mi oedd 'na deimlad o berthyn yn cyd-weu trwy'r awyrgylch yno. Cefais fy hun yn pendroni - a dwi wedi bod yn myfyrio uwchben hyn byth wedyn a bod yn onest - ai dyma sut fasa hi i fyw mewn cymdeithas wir ddiwylliedig, yn hytrach na'r jyngl uffernol o sothach, dicter gwneud a hunan-gyfiawnháu cysetlyd sy'n rhannau annatod o'r 'diwylliant' Eingl-Americanaidd bellach?
Wrth gwrs, gallai'r math gymdeithas fod yn bell iawn o'r cyflwr delfrydol i lawer; gallai fod yn gul, yn gyfyngedig a'r un mor gysetlyd yn ei ffordd fach ei hun. Ond mi gefais i'r teimlad mai nam ar yr ochr orau fasa hynny ar y cyfan. Fasa'r teimlad o berthyn i gymdeithas glos yn wrthwenwyn i ran fwyaf yr anfanteision hynny, ac yn sicr yn creu mwy o fodlonrwydd a chysur na'r gymdeithas 'allan fan 'cw', lle nad oes neb yn poeni am fawr ddim mwy na nhw eu hunain, lle mae'r syniad o 'gymdogaeth' wedi diflannu i bob pwrpas, a lle nad oes 'na'r math beth â 'chymdeithas' oni bai fod modd i sgriwio arian allan ohoni trwy actio'n gyfaill ffug i'r holl syniad.
A allasai Cymru annibynnol fod yn gymdeithas felly? A ydi'r Eisteddfod yn feicrocosm o'r hyn y basa rhywun synhwyrol yn dymuno'i weld? Wel, fasa hynny'n dibynnu ar ewyllys y bobl, ac wrth gwrs ewyllys y sawl fasa'n ei rheoli. Ond gallaf ond meddwl nad peth drwg fasa hi o leiaf i anelu am rywbeth felly; i gymdeithas lle mae pawb yn cyfri, i gymdeithas lle mae 'na le teilwng i bob un, i gymdeithas sy'n rhoi lles pobl yn llawer uwch nac elw na mantais fasnachol; i gymdeithas, yn hytrach nag i gasgliad llac o fuddianau yn cystadlu'n ddall a byddar yn erbyn eu gilydd.
Breuddwyd gwrach, efallai, ond mae 'na ddirfawr angen delfrydiaeth yn yr oes ddi-feddwl, wrth-feddwl hon.
A dyna pam fod yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol yn bwysig; yn bwysig y tu hwnt i faterion o lên, cerddoriaeth a chelf yn unig; yn batrwm efallai o'r hyn y gallem ni fod, o'r hyn y gallai ein byd ni fod petaem ni'n mynnu hynny.
A dyna pam ei bod hi'n bwysig fod y Brifwyl yn parhau, ac yn parhau i deithio o flwyddyn i flwyddyn, ac yn parhau i barcio'i phafiliwn pinc ar feysydd allai ymddangos yn weddol ddiffrwyth ar dir ymylol megis Wrecsam, Glyn Ebwy a Sir Y Fflint. Fel y gall y sawl sydd heb y profiad o'r hyn y gall y diwylliant Cymraeg ei gynnig iddyn nhw flasu tipyn ar yr hen gawl, ac i'w hysbrydoli efallai i fynd ati i'w berwi o'r newydd yn eu ffordd nhw eu hunain.
Ac i fynd yn ôl ataf i fy hunan i gloi: llyfrau Cymraeg fu ar y bwrdd wrth erchwyn fy ngwely byth ers y Brifwyl; bûm yn gwrando'n aml ar nifer o'r caneuon ar y CD "Degawdau Roc" - Maes B Y Blew a Nansi Omega un arbennig; dyma'r drydedd erthygl yn y Gymraeg i mi roi ar y gwefan hwn o fewn mis, lle bu'r Gymraeg yn ymwelydd prin a'i dudalennau dros y blynyddoedd ers i mi gau fy ngwefan Cymraeg ym 2009 - yn wir, dwi wedi bod yn meddwl am a posibiliad o agor adran Gymraeg ar y gwefan hwn rhywbryd; dwi wedi bod yn meddwl hefyd am y posibiliad o ddechrau barddoni eto am y tro cyntaf ers achau. Dwi'n gallu teipio ychydig yn well yn Gymraeg rŵan hefyd.
Do, mi gafodd Eisteddfod Wrecsam gryn effaith arnaf. Brysiwch 'n ôl, Brifwyl!
**********
Praise The Essential Festival
I promised another piece about the Eisteddfod, didn't I?
There are two aspects of it I'd like to talk about here, to be honest; one could divide them into the 'personal' and the 'general'.
So what of the 'personal' to begin with? Well, for one thing I regret now that I didn't make the most of the opportunity, as it's not likely that the festival will be back in the area again during my lifetime. I should - and I realised this far too late - have taken the whole week off work and gone three of four times rather than just for a day and a half. There were other things I would have liked to have seen or heard, but I was too tight with myself to consider paying for another day.
There were other disappointments, of course. I've already mentioned the lousy signage which made finding things (such as the Maes, for example) more difficult than it should have been. I read someone suggesting that they should have put large noticeboards outside each of the main tents and stalls to announce exactly what was going to be going on in them that day. Take note, Eisteddfod Council, and learn!
Another thing was that I completely failed to meet anyone I knew from college days. I had felt certain that I would meet someone from the old days, but I didn't see a single familiar face there. Not a one. If they were there at the same time as me, I didn't spot them; or they didn't recognise me, or even remember me. Apart from sharing brief greetings with Dylan Jones from the BBC (he was busy working, of course), I only came across some three or four people from work.
I also missed the opportunity to talk to Gerallt Lloyd Owen to thank him for Y Talwrn, and I failed completely to see the exhibition of photographs by Geoff Charles, a great pity seeing as he came from the same village. I'd forgotten completely about it until Grahame Davies mentioned it to me as we went back into town on the bus on Thursday afternoon.
Oh, and while I'm talking about Grahame, I did manage to get hold of a copy of that anthology of poems by Bryan Martin Davies after all. I bought a second-hand copy via Amazon some days later, courtesy of a bookseller in Scotland - for a penny (plus £2.40 postage and packing)!. When the volume in question arrived, I saw that it had come from the old stock of the Swansea City Council library service. I hope the old uncultured Liblabs down there have kept a few copies for the edification of the people of Morriston and Dunvant.
Apart from all this, what sort of experience did I have? Well, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. For all the missed chances, for all the problems I've mentioned vis-à-vis signage, being there was such a comfortable, such a right feeling, as if all the pieces had somehow fallen into their alloted places.
For one thing, I never felt for a single moment that uneasiness which comes over me everywhere else which causes me to be reluctant to look anyone in the face. Everywhere else, such directness is viewed as a challenge or threat, to be met by the response "What the fuck are you lookin' at?". Everyone, or so it appeared to me, was open to everyone else. Perhaps this was only to be expected, as everyone was there to enjoy themselves - many of them on their holidays to all intents and purposes.
(I confess that I'm idealising things a bit in saying such things; that Welsh-speakers are people who are intrinsically nice. Anyone who has seen the main square in Caernarfon on a Friday night could testify that that image doesn't always hold. But as a principle it is on the whole appropriate).
It must be admitted, of course, that this was in the main a crowd of cultured people, and that that crowd was self-selectingly middle-class to a large degree; people who had immersed themselves not only in the Eisteddfod's culture and ambience, but into a society which was naturally Welsh-speaking.
And that was the second feeling I had; how naturally Welsh-speaking it was. Now, to many that observation might seem bonkers; the festival is supposed to be naturally Welsh-speaking, isn't it? But to the vast majority of those of us who went there, such an atmosphere is not a usual place to be. To many Welsh-speakers - possibly to the majority of us - the everyday experience of our lives brings the need to compromise, to have to yield to the reality of the allegedly 'bilingual' society which exists throughout Wales nowadays.
But there, on the Maes, they didn't - I didn't - have to be anything other than what we were - Welsh-speaking Welsh - and could relax into it. Yes, there were enough non-Welsh-speakers there - expecially amongst those who were manning some of the stalls, or those who were there to compete in fields where the language was not essential - and it has to be borne in mind that the border with Greater England was scarcely much more than a stone's throw away and that this area has been completely Anglicised by now; but all the same, the non-Welsh-speakers were the exceptions on this occasion, and they had to adapt to our expectations to a greater degree than out in the big world beyond the fields of tents and caravans. And I spoke more Welsh in a day and a half than I had in the previous year altogether.
Society is the word I'm looking for, I suppose. A feeling of belonging was woven through the atmosphere there. I found my self wondering - and I've been musing on this point ever since to be honest - if this is what it would be like to live in a truly cultured society, rather than the hellish jungle of trivia, fake outrage and conceited self-justification which are inseparable parts of the Anglo-American 'culture' nowadays?
Of course, such a society could be far from the ideal condition for many; it could be narrow-minded, limiting and just as conceited in its own small way. But I got the feeling that, on the whole, it would be a fault on the right side. The feeling of belonging to a close-knit society would be an antidote to most of such disadvantages, and would certainly create greater feelings of satisfaction and comfort than the society 'out there', where no-one cares for much more than themselves, where the idea of 'neighbourliness' has to all intents and purposes disappeared, and where there is no such thing as 'society' unless there is a way of screwing money out of it by acting as a false friend to the whole concept.
Could an independent Wales be such a society? Is the Eisteddfod a microcosm of what anyone sensible would wish to see? Well, that would depend on the will of the people, and of course on the will of those who would rule them. But I can't help but think that it wouldn't be a bad thing to at least aim for such a thing; for a society where everyone counted; a society where there was a place for everybody; to a society which put the well-being of people far above profit or commercial advantage; to a society, rather than a loose collection of interests competing blindly and unhearingly against each other.
A pipe dream, perhaps, but there is an urgent need for idealism in this unthinking, anti-thinking age.
And that is why the National Eisteddfod it important; important beyond matters of literature, music and the arts alone; a pattern, perhaps, of what we could be, of what our world could be were we to wish it so.
And that is why it is important that the festival continues, and continues to move from year to year, and continues to park its pink pavilion on fields which appear to be comparatively barren, on such marginal lands as Wrexham, Ebbw Vale and Flintshire. So that those who have not experienced what Welsh-language culture has to offer them can taste a little of the old broth, and perhaps to inspire them to go at it to make their own fresh brew of it in their own way.
And to go back to myself to finish: Welsh books have been on my bedside table ever since the Eisteddfod; I have listened often to a number of the songs on the "Degawdau Roc" CD - Maes B by Y Blew and Nansi by Omega especially; this is the third piece in Welsh in a month that I've put on this site, where Welsh has been an infrequent visitor since I closed my Welsh wesbite in 2009 - indeed, I've been considering the possibility of opening a Welsh section on this site sometime; I've also been thinking about the possibility of starting to write verse again for the first time in yonks. I can type in Welsh better now as well.
Yes, the Wrexham Eisteddfod had quite an impact on me. Come back soon!
Admin might notice, but probably no-one else will.
As my free webspace amounts to 250MB, I have to ration things a bit, especially as the site content (in terms of posts) is not going to go down.
So, something else has to go. Last time it was most of the music clips, this time it's the turn of the graphic content.
Not that I've actually got rid of anything this time, mind. Instead, I've taken all the images posted here and compressed them a bit more. The aim being to have no graphic (be it an illustration, a photograph or a what-'ave-yew) bigger than 100kB.
It doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference to what you can see, I think. And it appears to have cut the overall size of the site by about 40MB, which will leave more room for another few years of Rants, Raves and aperçus.
Roedd yn rhaid i mi fynd i lawr i'r dref i wneud ychydig o siopa cyn ei hegli hi am y Maes, a gan fod y peth cyntaf roeddwn i isio'i gweld yn dechrau yn y Babell Lên am un-ar-ddeg o'r gloch, mi benderfynais i adael y tŷ am naw.
Doedd y tywydd ddim yn argoeli'n dda o gwbl wrth i mi gychwyn allan - roedd y glaw wedi dechrau ac mi oedd y nen yn un cwmwl mawr, du.
Roedd y llanc oedd y tu ôl i olwyn y bws i lawr yn gyrru fel Jehu, ac felly mi gyrhaeddais i ganol y dref ychydig ar ôl ugain munud wedi'r awr. O fewn hanner awr, roedd y siopa wedi'i wneud, ac mi oeddwn i'n barod i anelu am y Maes.
Cyrhaeddodd y bws Arriva sydd yn rhan o'r gwasanaeth yn rhedeg pob deng munud rhwng yr orsaf rheilffordd a'r orsaf fysiau a'r Maes, ac mi oedd yn llawn hyd sefyll erbyn i ni bicio trwy ochr ddeheuol y dref a thrwy Rhostyllen a Bersham i'r arosfan jyst ychydig lathenni o gefn y Pafiliwn (ie, dyna mor agos oeddwn i at gael bws Ddydd Sadwrn!).
Gan fod dros hanner awr i fynd cyn i Ddarlith Goffa Hywel Teifi ddechrau, mi benderfynais i fynd am dro fach rownd y Maes. Erbyn hyn, roedd y glaw wedi cryfhau tipyn eto byth - tywydd traddodiadol o Eisteddfodol - ac roedd golwg llwyd iawn ar y Brifwyl (yn wahanol iawn i heulwen y Dydd Sadwrn blaenorol).
Erbyn y briod awr, ddaeth yn bryd i mi fynd i mewn i'r Sied eto. Ychydig ar ôl i mi gymryd fy sedd (tua chefn prif ran y gynulleidfa y tro hwn), mi ddechreuodd hi fwrw ffyn a hen wragedd, ac mi ddaeth un o'r hen wragedd honno i eistedd drws nesaf i mi.
Roedd y Babell yn rhyw dri-chwarter llawn (mwy nag oedd ar gyfer y Talwrn, mi dybiwn) pan gododd Gwenno Ffrancon i gyflwyno M Wynn Thomas, a oedd i draddodi Darlith Goffa Hywel Teifi Edwards, "Colli Hywel Teifi: Ymadawiad Arthur?". Roedd Thomas a Theifi'n ffrindiau mawr, ac roedd gan Thomas ambell i stori ddifri am ddiffyg amynedd yr ymadawedig wrth orfod gwrando ar ddarlithoedd nad oedd yn cwrdd â'i safonau o ei hun am ddyfnder a chryfder. Ond, roedd sylwedd y ddarlith yn canolbwyntio ar awdl T Gwynn Jones "Ymadawiad Arthur" (a ennillodd y Gadair iddo ym Mhrifwyl Bangor ym 1902), a sut mae'r ddelwedd o Arthur wedi'i defnyddio gan y Saeson a'r Cymry am ei wahanol rhesymau.
Mi oedd yn ddarlith ddiddorol iawn, yn gwneud y pwynt (ymysg pwyntiau eraill) fod Jones wedi cael ei fersiwn o o Arthur nid o lenyddiaeth Gymraeg y Canol Oesoedd, ond o feirdd Saesneg megis Mallory, Tennyson a Scott, a bod hynny wedi effeithio'n gryf ar sut oedd Jones ei hun yn cyfleu tranc Arthur, cyn i Thomas fynd ymlaen i nodi mai ofer oedd i Gymry gwladgarol ddiwedd y bedwaredd ganrif ar bymtheg geisio dwyn Arthur yn ôl fel symbol i'w cynnal yn sgîl methiant Cymru Fydd, oherwydd nad Cymro oedd Arthur.
Unig wendid y cyflwyniad oedd bod rhai o'r lluniau oedd ar y sgrîn y tu cefn i'r darlithydd yn rhy fach i'w gweld yn glir; tipyn o anfantais gan fod rhai ohonyn nhw'n gartwnau lle na ellid darllen y testun oddi tanynt.
Wrth i mi fynd allan o'r Babell, cefais fy hun yn meddwl - yn gwbl sentimentaidd, bid siwr - mai dyma'r hyn y dylai diwylliant ac addysg fod mewn cymdeithas war: yn ymestyn gorwelion y gwrandawr a pheri iddo/iddi feddwl ac edrych ar bethau mewn ffordd newydd, beiddgar braidd.
Roedd hi'n nesau at ganol dydd erbyn hyn, a'r glaw, diolch byth, wedi stopio'n llwyr, ac mi benderfynais i gael tro arall rownd y Maes, ond y tro hwn yn galw i mewn i rai o'r stondinau. Felly y prynais i gopi o ddisg "Degawdau Roc 1967-82" o stondin Sain (roeddwn i wedi rhyw hanner meddwl am brynu disg Tebot Piws hefyd, ond mi benderfynais i beidio y tro hwn - sorry Pws!).
Erbyn hyn, a'r digwyddiad nesaf ar yr agenda yn dod ymlaen am chwarter i ddau, roedd hi'n amser i mi gael tamaid bach i fwyta. Roeddwn i wedi dod â'm bwyd fy hun efo fi, fel y gwnaf fel rheol wrth i mi fynd i rywle, ac yn enwedig ar ôl i rywun yn y swyddfa Ddydd Llun gwyno am bris y bwyd oedd ar werth ar y Maes. Roedd 'na ddigon o ddewis o hwnnw ta beth - rhywbeth at ddant pawb, yn wir; yn enwedig os nad oedd y 'pawb' yn poeni am bwysau ei waled.
Felly, mi es i i eistedd y tu cefn i'r Llwyfan Perfformio Mawr ar gyrion y Maes. Roedd dawnsio gwerin brwdfrydig yn digwydd ar y llwyfan gan griw o ferched ifainc, a gafodd dderbyniad gwresog gan a sawl oedd yn eistedd ac yn ciniawa o flaen y llwyfan.
Cinio drosodd, ac roedd hi'n bryd i mi gerdded yn hamddenol yn ôl tuag at ben y Maes a'r hen Sied unwaith yn rhagor, am achlysur pur arbennig.
(Wrth i mi wneud hynny, mi welais i ddyn yn sefyll y tu allan i stondin y Principality yn siarad ar ei ffôn. Roedd yn cario câs gitâr a rycsac, ac yn gwisgo spectol tywyll a het fawr ddu. Neb llai na Meic Stevens, Y Brawd Houdini ei hun! Mi lwyddais i i dynnu ffoto bach slei ohono fo wrth iddo orffen ei alwad a cherdded ymlaen (er i mi bron â chael fy nharo gan fws mini wrth wneud hyn).
Rwy'n hannu o aelwyd oedd bron â bod yn gwbl ddi-Gymraeg, er bod rhyw afael gan fy nhad ar yr iaith wedi iddo weithio ar ffermydd Dyffryn Clwyd fel dyn ifanc yn nauddegau a thridegau'r ganrif ddiwethaf. Mi ddysgais i'r iaith yn raddol wrth fynd trwy'r ysgol gynradd a'r ysgol uwchradd, a phan ddaeth hi'n bryd i mi benderfynu pa bynciau i'w hastudio ar gyfer arholiadau Lefel 'A', mi ddewisais i'r Gymraeg fel un ohonyn nhw (er trwy ddiffyg awydd am brynciau eraill cymaint â dim byd arall). Ac felly yr es i, ym Mis Medi 1978, i Goleg Chweched Dosbarth Iâl (fel yr oedd hi yr adeg honno) ar Lôn Crisbin.
Wrth i mi ddechrau yno, mi ddechreuodd rhywun arall hefyd, ond ar staff dysgu'r Coleg. Bryan Martin Davies oedd hwn. Y Prifardd Bryan Martin Davies. Y Bardd Coronog Dwywaith Drosodd Bryan Martin Davies â bod yn fanwl.
Yr argraff cyntaf gefais ohono fo oedd un corfforol. Mi oedd yn stereoteip o Gymro'r Cymoedd (ac yntau'n hannu o Ddyffryn Aman); eithaf byr, gwallt du pitsh, wyneb gron. Yn wir, mi allasai fo wedi camu'n syth allan o un o gartwnau Gren.
Yr ail argraff gefais oedd mai dyma ddyn oedd ar dân dros ei bwnc. Doedd y gwersi iaith a gramadeg ddim yn ei danio cymaint, ond pan ddaeth hi'n bryd i ni astudio'r gweithiau llenyddol oedd ar y maes llafur: Gwenallt, R Williams Parry, "Rhys Lewis", "Gwanwyn Yn Y Ddinas", "Siwan", dyna'r gwreichion yn dechrau tasgu. Mi oedd o'n ddi-flewyn-ar-dafod yn ei farn am ymddygiad rhai o'r cymeriadau yn y llyfrau hyn, yn ddirmygus o gymelliadau ambell un ohonynt. Ac mi roes ei farn a'i ddysg drosodd mewn modd uniongyrchol a grymus - yn ymylu ar yr echreiddig yn aml.
A siarad yn fyr ac yn blaen, mi oedd o'n gymeriad. Petaswn i wedi cymryd gwell sylw o'r hyn yr oedd o'n dweud wrthyf innau am farddoni ac am fywyd - fel efo'i gyd-athro, yr hanesydd Eric Earnshaw - faswn i wedi elwa'n sylweddol. Ond mi oeddwn i'n rhy amharod i dderbyn na chyngor na chyfarwyddyd o du neb yr adeg honno (a Davies ei hun a'm disgrifiodd fel "a satirical rebel"), ac felly mi gollais i gyfle enfawr. Er hynny, mi gafodd o effaith pell-gyrhaeddol arall arnaf, sef mai fo - yn anad yr un person arall - a'm troes yn Gymro Cymraeg go iawn (er i ddwy flynedd ym Mhantycelyn lwyddo i fynd â'r maen yn llwyr i'r wal wedyn).
Felly, fel rhyw fath o fynegiant o'r ymddiheuriad yr wyf yn meddwl sy'n ddyledus iddo fo o'm tu i, ac fel mynegiant o ddiolch iddo am y cymwynasau a wnaeth i mi, roeddwn i'n meddwl y base'n addas i mi fynd i deyrnged iddo fo yn Y Babell Lên a gyflwynwyd gan Grahame Davies ac Elin ap Hywel.
Rŵan, mi oeddwn i wedi rhyw led-glywed am Davies, ond roedd Elin yn gyfarwydd i mi gan ein bod ni'n gyfoedion yng Ngholeg Iâl, a hithau yn y dosbarthau ar gyfer y sawl oedd â'r Gymraeg yn famiaith iddynt. Mi oedd hi yn Aberystwyth mwy neu lai'r un adeg â finnau hefyd.
Roedd y Sied yn rhyw hanner llawn, os hynny, ac mi oedd hynny'n biti mawr o safbwynt golwg y peth. Mi ddaeth rhyw hen wraig gron, flodeuog i'r llwyfan i gyflwyno Grahame ac Elin, ac mi anghofiodd hi enw Elin ac hefyd y ffaith fod y meicroffon yno at bwrpas penodol; troes i ffwrdd ohono yn rheolaidd ac felly mi gollais i - a rhan fwya'r gynulleidfa - y rhan fwya' o beth oedd hi'n ceisio dweud.
Yn gyntaf, mi ddaeth Grahame Davies ymlaen. Mi oedd Grahame yng Ngholeg Iâl yn union ar fy ôl i, ond mi oedd o wedi gwrando ar BMD ac wedi dysgu ganddo. Doeddwn i ddim wedi clywed darlith lenyddol o unrhyw fath ers i mi raddio o'r coleg dros chwarter canrif yn ôl, ac hyd at ddoe doeddwn i ddim wedi poeni rhyw lawer am y diffyg hwnnw. Roeddwn i wedi barnu bod tueddiad i or-gymhlethu pethau wrth drafod llenyddiaeth (a'r celfyddydau'n gyffredinol), a'i gwneud yn fwy astrus nag oedd rhaid. Ond nid felly y tro hwn. Mi ddaeth y gymysgedd o anecdotau personol a dealltwriaeth gelfyddydol a gafwyd gan Grahame â goleuni i un fel fi sy ddim wedi ymddiddori'n fawr mewn llenyddiaeth fel rhywbeth ag eithrio rhywbeth i'w darllen ers achau. Roedd ei ddehongliad o themáu, arddull a syniadau'r bardd yn peri i mi edifarhau am fod mor esgeulus o ddiog yn fy ieuenctid.
Yna mi ddaeth Elin ap Hywel i'r meic. Roedd ei chyfraniad hi'n fwy o atgof personol o Davies a'i nodweddiadau na dim byd neilltuol o lenyddol (er iddo gael effaith enfawr arni hi fel llenor hefyd). Mi ddaeth ei hatgofion hi o nerth cymeriad a natur echreiddig y dyn ag atogion yn ôl i mi hefyd, fel yr holl amseroedd y base'n eistedd ar y silff ffenestr i bontifficeiddio ar ryw bwnc llenyddol efo'r ffenestr nesaf ato ar agor fel y gallai gael ffag slei.
Mi aeth y tri chwarter awr yn gyflym (arwydd da o safon darlith heddiw, fel yr oedd yn nyddiau'r coleg gynt), ac wedi ymdrech ymbalfalus arall gan yr hen wraig i ddiolch i'r ddau, mi oedd yr achlysur ar ben.
Mae'n rhaid i mi gyfaddef fy mod i wedi gobeithio gweld yr hen foi ei hun yno (er pam ddylai neb yn ei iawn bwyll isio clywed rhywbeth sydd i bob pwrpas yn obit iddo fo ei hun yn aneglur i mi), gan i mi ddeall ei fod dal ar dir y byw. Ond doedd hynny ddim i fod (ac mi ddo' i'n ôl at un esboniad posibl yn y man).
Yn wreiddiol, roeddwn i wedi bwriadu aros yn Y Babell Lên i weld yr Ymryson a ddilynodd y deyrnged. Ond mi oedd hi'n nesáu at dri o'r gloch erbyn hyn, ac mi oeddwn i isio cael un tro bach arall o gwmpas y Maes cyn i mi ymadael â'r Ŵyl. Hefyd, mi oeddwn i isio gweld a oedd modd cael copi o'r casgliad o holl gerddi Bryan Martin Davies y bu Grahame ac Elin yn dyfynnu ohono. Felly, mi es i i stondin y Cyngor Llyfrau. Na, doedd y gyfrol neilltuol honno ddim i'w gweld yno. Stondin Siop Y Siswrn? Nage. Stondin Y Lolfa? Dim byd (ac roedd hi'n ymddangos i mi fod mwy o lyfrau Saesneg yno na rhai Cymraeg - so mytsh ffor ddi oltyrnatif cyltsyr, ondifê?). Doedd dim copi gan stondin Barddas chwaith, a nhw oedd y sawl a'i chyoeddodd! Ond, mi brynais i gopïau o "Os Hoffech Wybod...a chofio Dic" (hunangofiant Dic Jones) a "Cerddi Dic Yr Hendre", casgliad o waith bardd caeth mwyaf blaenllaw a phwysicaf ail hanner y ganrif ddiwethaf.
Yna, mi sefais i rhwng Y Babell Lên a'r Brif Fynedfa am rai munudau yn cymryd un golwg arall o'r Maes, gan i mi dybio mai dyma oedd y tro olaf i mi weld Maes Prifwyl yn fy oes i.
Wrth i mi fynd yn ôl heibio'r Pafiliwn er mwyn dal y bws yn ôl i'r dref, mi welais i Grahame Davies yn sgwrsio efo rhyw ddyn arall. Roeddwn i wedi gobeithio cael rhyw sgwrs fer efo Elin wedi'r cyflwyniad gynnau fach, ond doedd dim modd. Felly, gan fod cyfle wedi cyrraedd i mi ddiolch i'r person arall oedd ynhglym wrtho, mi fanteisiais arno. Fel roedd hi'n digwydd, mi oedd Grahame yntau'n mynd am y bws er mwyn iddo ddal ei drên. Felly, mi gefais i'r cyfle i siarad â fo am ryw chwarter awr wrth i'r bws GHA weindio ei ffordd yn ôl i Stryd Y Brenin. Bûm yn sgwrsio am Bryan Martin Davies a'i ddylanwad arnon ni'n dau, a Grahame yn sôn am gyflwr trist y dyn ar ôl i'w wraig farw tua diwedd yr wythdegau, a berodd iddo droi i mewn arno fo ei hun a byw'n feudwyaidd - stori drist am un fu gymaint o rym natur.
A dyna ni'n ffarwelio â'n gilydd wrth yr orsaf fysiau; yntau'n mynd yn ôl i Gaerdydd, finnau'n mynd yn ôl at fy mywyd di-fflach fy hun.
Mae gen i ragor i'w ddweud am yr Eisteddfod fel ffenomen, a Chymreictod a'r hyn y mae'r Brifwyl yn ei gynrychioli, ond rywbeth ar gyfer y penwythnos fydd hynny, gobeithio.
**********
Back To The Field
I went back to the Eisteddfod yesterday.
I had to go down into town to do some shopping before heading off to the Maes, and as the first thing I wanted to see in the Literature Tent was to start at 11:00, I decided to leave home at nine.
The weather wasn't at all promising as I set out - the rain had started and the sky was one large, black cloud.
The youth who was behind the wheel of the bus going down drove like Jehu, so I got into town just after twenty past the hour. Within half an hour, the shopping had been completed, and was ready to head Maes-wards.
The Arriva bus which is part of the service running every ten minutes between the train and bus stations and the Maes duly arrived, and it was standing-room only by the time we started to pick our way through the southern side of town on through Rhostyllen and Bersham to the bus stop just yards from the back of the Pavilion (yes, that's how close I was to getting a bus on Saturday!).
As there was over half an hour to wait before the Hywel Teifi Edwards Memorial Lecture was due to begin, I decided to go for a walk around the Maes. By now, the rain had intensified yet further - traditional Eisteddfod weather - and the Festival wore a very gloomy aspect (very different to the sunshine of the previous Saturday).
At the appointed time, it was time to go into the Shed again. A little while after I had taken my seat (near the back of the main part of the auditorium), it started raining cats, dogs and little old ladies, one of whom came and sat next to me.
The Tent was about three-quarters full (more than had been present for Y Talwrn, I'd estimate) by the time Gwenno Ffrancon rose to present M Wynn Thomas, who was to deliver the Hywel Teifi Edwards Memorial Lecture: "Losing Hywel Teifi: The Departure Of Arthur?". Thomas and Teifi were big friends, and Thomas had some amusing stories about the departed's lack of patience as he had to listen to lectures which didn't reach his own standards for depth or strength. But the main part of the lecture was to concentrate on T Gwynn Jones' awdl"Arthur's Departure" (which won him the Chair at the Bangor Eisteddfod of 1902), and how the image of Arthur had been used by the English and the Welsh for very different reasons.
It was a very interesting lecture, making the point (amongst others) that Jones had received his version of Arthur not from mediaeval Welsh literature, but from English poets such as Mallory, Tennyson and Scott, and that that had had a strong influence on how Jones himself conveyed the death of Arthur, before Thomas went on to note that the Welsh patriots of the late nineteenth century acted in vain to retrieve Arthur as a symbol to sustain them in the aftermath of the failure of Cymru Fydd, because Arthur was not a Welshman.
The only weakness in the presentation was that some of the images on the screen behind the lecturer were too small to be seen clearly; this was something of a disadvantage as some of the images were cartoons where the text below them simply could not be read.
As I went out of the Tent, I found myself thinking - totally sentimentally, I'm sure - that this is what culture and education should be like in a civilised society: expanding the horizons of the listener and causing him/her to think and look at things in a new, rather daring, way.
It was getting close to noon by now, and the rain, thankfully, had completely abated, and I decided to take another stroll around the Maes, this time calling in to some of the stalls. So I bought a copy of the "Decades Of Rock 1967-82" double CD from Sain's stall (I'd half-considered buying a Tebot Piws disc as well, but I decided not to this time - sorry Pws!).
By this time, with the next item on the agenda due at a quarter to two, it was time for me to grab a bite to eat. I'd brought my own food with me, as I usually do whenever I go somewhere, especially after someone in work on Monday complained about the price of the food on sale on the Maes. There was plenty of choice of it, anyway - something for every taste, indeed; especially if that taste included not worrying about the weight of one's wallet.
So, I went to sit behind the Large Performance Stage at the edge of the Maes, where a suitably Large Performance was taking place involving a group of young women folk dancing, which got a warm reception from those who were sitting and eating in front of the stage.
Lunch over, and it was time for me to walk in a leisurely fashion back towards the top end of the Maes and the old Shed once more, for a quite special occasion.
(As I did so, I saw a man standing outside the Principality stall talking on his phone. He was carrying a guitar case and rucksack, and wearing shades and a big, black hat. None other than Meic Stevens, Brother Houdini himself! I succeeded in taking a sneaky little photo of him as he ended his call and walked onwards (although I nearly got run down by a minibus as I did so).
I come from a home which was almost entirely non-Welsh-speaking, although my father had a few words of the language as a result of him working on the farms of the Vale of Clwyd as a young man in the 1920s and 1930s. I learned the language gradually as I went through first primary and then secondary school, and when the time came for me to decide which subjects to take for 'A'-level, I chose Welsh as one of them (although this was as much down to a lack of enthusiasm for other subjects as anything else). And so, in September 1978, I went to Yale Sixth Form College (as it then was) on Crispin Lane.
As I started there, so did someone else, but on the teaching staff. This was Bryan Martin Davies. The Chief Poet Bryan Martin Davies. The Doubly-Crowned Poet Bryan Martin Davies to be precise.
The first impression I had of him was a physical one. He was a stereotype of the Valleys Welshman (he was a native of the Aman Valley); quite short, pitch-black hair above a round face. Indeed, he could have stepped straight out of one of Gren's cartoons.
The second impression I received was that this was a man who was burning with passion for his subject. The language and grammar lessons didn't fire him so much, but when it came time for us to study the literature on the curriculum: Gwenallt, R Williams Parry, "Rhys Lewis", "Gwanwyn Yn Y Ddinas", "Siwan", then the sparks started to fly. He was forthright in his opinions regarding the behaviour of the characters in some of these works, scornful of the motivations of some of them. And he put his views and his erudition over in a direct, forceful manner - bordering on the eccentric at times.
To speak plainly, he was a character. Had I taken better notice of what he was telling me about being a poet and about life - as with his fellow lecturer, the historian Eric Earnshaw - I would have profited greatly. But I was too unwilling to take either advice or direction from anyone at that age (it was Davies himself who described me as "a satirical rebel"), and so I lost a huge opportunity. Despite that, he had another far-reaching effect on me, because he it was - more than any other individual - who turned me into a real Welsh-speaking Welshman (although two years in Pantycelyn managed to complete the job afterwards).
So, as some sort of expression of apology which I think I owe him, and as a means of showing thanks to him for the favours he did me, I thought it would be appropriate for me to attend a tribute to him in the Literature Tent presented by Grahame Davies and Elin ap Hywel.
Now, I had sort-of heard of Davies, but Elin was known to me because we had been contemporaries at Yale College, with her being in the classes held for those who had Welsh as their first language. She was also in Aberystwyth at more or less the same time as me as well
The Shed was about half full, if that, and that was a great pity from the point of view of the look of the thing. An elderly, spherical, florid woman came to the stage to introduce Grahame and Elin, and she forgot Elin's name and also the fact that microphones are there for a specific purpose; she turned away from it regularly and so I - and most of the audience - lost most of what she was trying to say.
First of all, Grahame Davies came forward. Grahame had been in Yale College just after me, but he had listened to BMD and had learned from him. I hadn't heard a literary lecture of any sort since my graduation over a quarter of a century ago, and up until yesterday I hadn't worried too much about the loss. I had reached the opinion that there is a tendency to overcomplicate things in discussing literature (and the arts in general), thus making it more abstruse than it needs to be. But that was not the case here. The mixture of personal anecdote and artistic perception which Grahame provided came as quite an enlightenment to one who had not for a long time taken a great interest in literature except as something to read. His interpretation of the poet's themes, style and ideas made me regret being so culpably lazy in my youth.
Then Elin ap Hywel came to the mike. Her contribution was more in the form of personal reminiscences of Davies and his character than anything specifically literary (although he had a huge influence on her as a writer as well). Her recollections of the man's strength of character and his eccentric nature brought back my own memories, such as the times he would sit on the windowsill to pontificate on some literary topic with the window next to him open so that he could have a crafty fag.
The three quarters of an hour passed quickly (a good sign of the quality of a lecture today, as it was in my college days), and after another fumbling attempt by the old woman to thank them both, the tribute was at an end.
I have to admit that I had hoped to see the old boy himself there (although why anyone in his right mind would want to hear something which was tantamount to an obituary to himself isn't clear to me), as I understood that he was still in the land of the living. But that wasn't to be (and I'll return to one possible explanation for this shortly).
Originally, I had intended staying in the Tent to see the poetry competition which followed. But it was getting near to three o'clock by this time, and I wanted to take one last turn around the Maes before leaving. Also, I wanted to see if there was any way of getting hold of a copy of the complete collection of Bryan Martin Davies' poems which Grahame and Elin had been quoting from. So, I went to the Books Council's stand. No, that particular volume wasn't in evidence there. Siop Y Siswrn? Nope. Y Lolfa? Nothing (and there seemed to me to be more English books than Welsh ones there - so much for the alternative culture, eh?). Barddas didn't have a copy either, and they had published the thing! But I did buy copies of "Os Hoffech Wybod...a chofio Dic" (Dic Jones' autobiography) and "Cerddi Dic Yr Hendre", an anthology of the work of the most prominent and most important strict-metre poet of the second half of the last century.
Then, I stood between the Literature Tent and the Main Entrance for some minutes taking one more look at the Maes, as I suspected that that would be the last time I would see a National Eisteddfod Maes in my lifetime.
As I walked past the Pavilion to catch the bus back into town, I saw Grahame Davies talking with some other bloke. I had hoped to have a quick chat with Elin after the presentation earlier, but there was no way to do so. So, as the opportunity had arisen for me to thank the other person involved in it, I took advantage. As it happened, Grahame was himself going for the bus so that he could catch his train. So, I had the chance to talk with him for about a quarter of an hour as the GHA bus wound its way back to King Street. We talked of Bryan Martin Davies and his influence on us both, and Grahame mentioned the sad tale of how, after his wife died in the late 1980s, Davies had turned in on himself and had lived like a hermit - a sad story for one who had been such a force of nature.
And then we bade each other farewell by the bus station, he to go back to Cardiff, me to go back to my own unremarkable life.
I have more to say about the Eisteddfod as a phenomenon, and about Welshness and what the Festival represents, but that's something for the weekend, I hope.
"Myfi a aeth i'r Brifwyl ddoe I gael rhyw sbloet, a gweld rhyw sioe. Ond mi oedd hi'n bell, a finnau'n hwyr Ac mi aeth y peth yn llanast llwyr."
Y tro diwethaf i'r Eisteddfod Genedlaethol ymweld â ni yn y parthau hyn oedd 1977, a gan mai dim ond pymtheng mlwydd oed oeddwn i a heb fawr o afael ar y Gymraeg bryd hynny, thrafferthais i ddim bicio draw i hen faes awyr Borras i'w gweld.
Dwi wedi bod yn aros nes i mi agosáu at fy hanner cant am gyfle arall (er i mi fynd i fyny i'r Wyddgrug ar gyfer Eisteddfod Bro Delyn ym 1991), ond dyma hi'n dychwelyd eleni. Felly, mi oeddwn i'n benderfynol o fynd iddi.
Mi oedd 'na un peth yn sicr roeddwn i'n torri croen fy mol isio gweld, sef Rownd Derfynol Y Talwrn. A finnau wedi gwrando ar y beirdd ers dros chwarter canrif, a gan fod gen i recordiad o bob Rownd Derfynol ers 1987, roedd yn rhaid i mi fanteisio ar y cyfle i weld y Ffeinal ei hun, oedd i'w chynnal ar brynhawn Dydd Sadwrn cyntaf yr Ŵyl.
Wrth edrych ar weddill y rhaglen ar gyfer y Babell Lên, mi welais ddarlith ar dafodiaith Y Rhos yn gynharach yr un diwrnod. Felly, â chost tocyn dydd yn £17, roedd hi'n gwneud synnwyr i mi fynd i honno hefyd a chael gwerth y pris.
Lleolir y Maes eleni ar dir fferm Bers Isaf ar bwys Ffordd Rhuthun, a gan fod hynny ar fy ochr i o'r dref, meddyliais y basa'n syniad i gerdded i lawr a'r tywydd yn braf. Rŵan, blynyddoedd maith yn ôl, faswn i'n cerdded yr holl ffordd i lawr i'r dref i ymuno â rhai o'm ffrindiau yn y Nag's Head ar Nos Wener. Mi ddechreuwn i o'n tŷ ni ychydig munudau cyn saith o'r gloch a chyrraedd y tafarn wrth i gloc San Silyn daro wyth. Felly, mi oeddwn i'n meddwl y basa gadael rhyw awr a chwarter am y daith y tro yma'n ddigon, ac mi benderfynais i ddechrau arni am chwarter wedi canol dydd, gan ystyried fod y ddarlith soniais i amdani uchod i'w dechrau am chwarter i ddau.
Ond, pan godais i fore ddoe, mi gefais neges oedd yn golygu treulio rhyw ugain munud ar y ffôn. Erbyn i mi orffen hynny, a chael cinio, mi oedd hi wedi troi ugain munud wedi deuddeg. Eto, mi oeddwn i'n ffyddiog y gallwn i gyrraedd y Maes mewn da bryd.
Isod y mae map sy'n dangos y ffordd gerddais i (dilynwch y smotiau coch o'r gogledd-orllewin i lawr):
Mi oedd y tywydd yn gynnes ac yn chwyslyd braidd, ond erbyn rhyw hanner awr wedi un, mi oeddwn i ar ben Lôn Bers ac mi droiais i lawr Ffordd Rhuthun, i ble (hyd y gwyddwn i) safai'r Brif Fynedfa.
Ond mi ddaeth yn amlwg ymhen byr o dro nad oedd yr un fynedfa (prif neu fel arall) i'w gweld yna, er i'r map o'r Maes oedd ar wefan y Brifwyl awgrymu felly. Y cyfan oedd i'w gweld ar bwys y briffordd oedd rhesi di-ben-draw o garafannau a phebyll. Yn sydyn, mi welais i binaclau'r Pafiliwn Pinc ymhell y tu draw i'r rhein, a dechrau sylweddoli mae reit ar ochr draw y safle oeddwn i i fod. Mi wyddwn i am fynedfa arall, neu felly oeddwn i'n meddwl, ond roedd cael hyd iddi yn golygu i mi fynd yr holl ffordd yn ôl i ben Lôn Bers a throi fanno.
Ac felly a wnes, ond doeddwn i ddim mewn hwyliau da erbyn hyn, gan iddi ddod yn bur amlwg y baswn i'n rhy hwyr ar gyfer y ddarlith. Mi oedd rhan o'm meddwl i am fynd adref erbyn hyn, ond mi oedd atyniad y Talwrn yn gryfach ac felly dyma fi'n bwrw ymlaen.
Ar ôl rhai munudau, cyrhaeddais i fynedfa i faes parcio, lle mae Lôn Y Bers wedi'i chau i drafnidiaeth o'r de. Gofynnais i'r hogyn oedd wrth y giât a oedd hi'n bosibl gyrraedd y Maes o fanno (gan fy mod i wedi fy nrysu'n llwyr erbyn hyn, ac wedi melltithio safon giami yr arwyddo mwy nag unwaith). Dywedodd hwnnw ei bod hi, dim ond mynd trwy'r maes parcio a dilyn yr arwyddion. Ac felly y gwnes.
Ymhen ychydig funudau, dyma fi o'r diwedd yn prynu fy nhocyn a mynd ar y Maes. Mi oedd hi'n tynnu at hanner awr wedi dau erbyn hyn, ac roedd gen i dros awr cyn dechrau'r Talwrn. Felly, mi es i am dro o gwmpas y Maes, yn y gobaith o weld rhywun yr oeddwn i yn ei adnabod (neu rywun oedd yn fy adnabod innau). Ond er i mi weld a chlywed pobl eraill yn cael y mân siociau o adnabyddiaeth (oedd yn fy atgoffa i o'r wythnos gyntaf yn Neuadd Pantycelyn ddeng mlynedd ar hugain yn ôl, pan ymddangosodd i mi fel petai pawb arall oedd yn dechrau yno yn adnabod eu gilydd yn barod), chefais i mo'r profiad hwnnw.
Doedd fy nhymer i ddim wedi gwella rhyw lawer erbyn hyn, ond roedd hi'n ddigon i godi'r ysbryd rhywfaint i weld cyn lleied o ddidordeb oedd gan y torfoedd yn stondin y Blaid Geidwadol - dim ond tri pherson oedd yn eistedd yno â golwg prudd ar eu hwynebau.
Gan ei bod hi'n gynnes iawn o hyd, mi benderfynais i fynd yn ôl i eistedd yng nghysgod y Babell Lên am sbel a gwylio'r bobl yn brysio heibio, gan gynnwys un heddwas tal a thenau a oedd - yn ôl y golwg arno fo - wedi ei recriwtio o'r pumed dosbarth y diwrnod o'r blaen, a bod dim angen arno fo ddod yn gyfarwydd â rasal am sbel eto chwaith. Mi welais i un wraig o'n swyddfa ni a oedd - dwi'n meddwl - wedi bod yn cystadlu ar y llwyfan, gan ei bod hi (a'r wraig oedd efo hi) wedi'i gwisgo mewn gwisgoedd duon smart iawn. Ond welodd hi mohonof innau, a hithau'n brysur yn siarad â rhyw ddyn oedd yn eistedd o'm blaen i.
Gan fod y munudau'n llusgo eu traed yn enbyd, mi benderfynais i fynd i brynu copi o'r Rhaglen Swyddogol, ac felly wnes i - unwaith i mi ddod o hyd i stondin Siop Y Siswrn eto.
Yna, yn ôl i'r Babell Lên eto i ddisgwyl cael mynediad iddi ar gyfer y Talwrn. Ond, fel efo cael hyd i'r Maes, roeddwn i'n cael trafferth efo mynediadau trwy'r dydd. Roedd y Talwrn i fod i ddechrau am chwarter i bedwar, ond roeddem ni gyd dal yno'n disgwyl i'r digwyddiad blaenorol orffen ymhell wedi pedwar. Roedd y peth yn rhedeg yn ôl Amser Eisteddfodol, hynny yw, gallwch chi gyrraedd hanner awr ar ôl yr amser hysbysedig a chael mai hanner awr yn rhy gynnar oeddech chi wedi'r cwbwl.
Yn y cyfamser, dim ond sefyll ac aros amdani, yn gwylio rhyw griw teledu yn cynnal ymweliad â'r bardd ifanc Ifan Pleming, oedd hefyd yn aros y tu allan i'r Babell ar ei sgwter (aelod o dîm Aberhafren yw Ifan, un o'r timau oedd yn cystadlu). Yna o gyfeiriad Sywddfa'r Maes ddaeth sgwter arall, ac ar gefn hwnnw eisteddodd Y Meuryn ei hun, Gerallt Lloyd Owen, â golwg eithaf ffyrnig ar ei wyneb, efallai fel mynegiant o ryw ddicter ynglŷn a'r ffaith fod yn rhaid iddo ddefnyddio'r math declyn i deithio'r Maes bellach. Mi oedd cryn dorf o flaen y Babell erbyn hyn, ac mi wnaeth y bobl lwybr iddo foduro ymlaen, ond doedd hi ddim yn gwbl eglur ai trwy barch neu drwy ofn o'r canlyniadau oedd hyn.
"Ac yna ddaeth Y Meuryn Yn sbidio ar ei sgwter I'n herio ni, selogion llên A'n sgubo oll i'r gwter!"
Yn wir, mi oedd yn drist i weld un o gewri'n cenedl yn ymddangos mor eiddil nes bod yn rhaid iddo ddibynnu ar rywbeth fel hwnnw, ac mi welais i'r un tristwch ar wynebau rhai o'm cyd-ffyddloniaid oedd (bid siwr) ar fy wyneb innau.
Yna, ddaeth rhyw ddyn yn ceisio creu rhyw sylw i'r cylchgrawn newydd Y Glec tryw tanio un o'r party poppers bondigrybwyll yna. "Mae hwnnw'n hen drawiad, 'ngwashi!", ddywedais i.
O'r diwedd! Mi glwyais i glapio o du fewn i'r Babell ac ychydig munudau'n ddiweddarch dyna'r drysau'n agor a chynulleidfa Cymdeithas Owain Cyfeiliog yn dod allan. I mewn â ni felly, a dyma fi'n cael sedd ar ben rhes tua'r canol ac rhyw bump neu chwech rhes o'r blaen. Ar y llwyfan, roedd criw yn symud a gosod byrddau, cadeiriau, meics ac ati. Ymddangosodd Gerallt a pharcio ei sgwter ar gefn y llwyfan y tu ôl i arwydd mawr Radio Cymru. Do, mi oedd golwg eithaf eiddil arno fo yn sefyll yno, ond dyna fo'n ceisio helpu'r sgorwraig osod lliain du ar y bwrdd o'u blaenau; gorchwyl a wnaed yn anos gan y ffaith fod gan y lliain hwnnw bum cornel yn öl y trafferth yr oeddan nhw'n cael i setio fo.
Nid 'pabell' yw'r Babell Lên, gyda llaw. Mae'n sied, o faint tebyg i'r un sy gan Homebase ychydig canoedd o lathenni i ffwrdd. Doedd y sied yma ddim yn llawn o bell ffordd - rhwy hanner llawn neu ychydig yn fwy, efallai - ac roedd mwyafrif y gynulleidfa yn eu pumdegau ac yn hŷn. Roedd hyn yn groes i'r ffaith fod y beirdd yn cystadlu ar y llwyfan yn rhai ifanc.
Yna, ddaeth y beirdd i'r llwyfan yn ddi-gyhoeddiad ond i gymeradwyaeth gynnes. Aeth y tri aelod o dîm Y Taeogion (Ceri Wyn Jones, Tudur Dylan ac Emyr Davies) i'r ochr chwith (wrth i ni edrych ar bethau), a chwech aelod tîm Aberhafren (Owain Rhys, Llion Pryderi Roberts, Aron Pritchard, Rhys Iorwerth, Mari George ac Ifan Pleming) i'r ochr dde. Wedyn, ddaeth hi'n bryd i Gerallt i'n croesawu ni i'r Babell, gan esbonio beth i'w wneud petai tân yn dechrau ("Ewch am y drws 'fan acw...dyna'r un fydda i'n mynd amdano!") a gofyn i bawb droi ei ffonau i ffwrdd. Ychydig o brofi o'r meicroffonau o hyd (gan gynnwys un ychwanegol ar gyfer Ifan Pleming fel y gallai adrodd ei gynnyrch o heb orfod sefyll fel y lleill), ac i ffwrdd â ni!
Ond i ddechrau, roedd dau gyflwyniad. Yn gyntaf, cyflwyno Tlws Coffa Cledwyn Roberts am delyneg orau'r gyfres. Hwnnw aeth i Ceri Wyn Jones Y Taeogion am ei delyneg "Cwmni". Yna, dyna gyflwyniad cyntaf oll Tlws Coffa Dic Jones am gywydd gorau'r flwyddyn Dalyrnol. Aeth y wobr hon i Aron Pritchard o Aberhafren am ei gywydd "Gwagle", a gafwyd mewn gornest yn y rownd go-gynderfynol yn erbyn Y Waun Ddyfal; gornest na fu ei thebyg am gryn gyfnod. Arwydd o sylwedd y cywydd oedd i Gerallt fod dan deimlad wrth ei ddarllen o unwaith yn rhagor. Mi oedd wedi taro deg yn sicr.
Y peth cyntaf ddaeth i'r amlwg oedd y ffaith nad oedd Y Meuryn - er natur bregus ei iechyd yn gorfforol - wedi colli dim byd o'i fin na'i hiwmor. Mi oedd o yn ei elfen, yn mwynhau pwyso a mesur, gwerthfawrogi a thynnu sbort am ben y beirdd.
Bu tueddiad anffodus i'r Rownd Derfynol fod braidd yn ddi-fflach â chymharu a rhai o'r gornestau fu'n arwain ati (fel yr un gyfeiriais ati uchod). Ond nid felly y tro hwn: cafwyd deunydd o safon uchel iawn, y llon a'r lleddf fel eu gilydd. Chwerthin mwya'r dydd oedd canlyniad limrig Ifan Pleming:
"Wrth i mi fynd adre' o'r 'Steddfod, Fe'm cipiwyd gan gôr o fenywod. 'Dwi'n fardd!', meddwn i, 'Sdim ots gennym ni; Mae'r Meuryn 'di bod 'ma yn barod!'"
Ac, wrth gwrs, doedd neb yn chwerthin cymaint â Gerallt ei hun.
Aed tryw'r tasgau rheolaidd a chaed deunydd ffres, dwys ac o'r radd flaenaf. Ar y diwedd, mi oedd yn amlwg mai dyma oedd un o'r rowndiau terfynol gorau dwi'n ei chofio. Ac ar y diwedd, y sgôr:
Y Taeogion (cyn-bencampwyr):86. Aberhafren (yn eu trydedd rownd derfynol yn olynol, ond heb ennill y ddau arall): 86½!
Telyneg Mari George ar y testun "Gwrthod" droes y fantol, mae'n siwr, ond mi oedd yn drueni fod yn rhaid i'r un tîm golli. Wrth i'r ddau dîm ysgwyd llaw a chyd-lawenhau, mi ymadawodd y gynulleidfa.
Rŵan, gan fod pethau wedi dechrau'n hwyr (ac wedi gorffen yn hwyrach byth, mae'n debyg), doedd gen i fawr o obaith gyrraedd gartref mewn da bryd i glywed darllediad cyntaf yr ornest roeddwn i newydd glywed, yn enwedig a finnau'n cael yr un uffar o job yn ceisio cael hyd i ffordd allan o'r blydi Maes ag oedd gen i gael mynd i mewn iddo yn y lle cyntaf.
Mi grwydrais i lawr i'r ochr o'r maes oedd nesaf at Ffordd Rhuthun, ond doedd dim arwydd o ffordd allan fanno. Felly, roedd yn rhaid i mi fynd yn ôl heibio'r Pafiliwn a'r Babell Lên eto i fynd allan yr un ffordd ag y deuthum i mewn. Wrth wneud hyn, mi welais Gerallt - yn ôl ar ei sgwter - yn mynd am y toiledau. Doeddwn i ddim am dorri ar draws ei daith - wedi'r cwbl roedd o'n symud fel y diawl a phwy a ŵyr ba ddolur arall oedd yn effeitho arno?
"Mae 'na rai 'anhawsterau', a'i osod yn blaen Pan fo beirdd gwrywaidd yn tynny ymlaen. Felly, hwrê i'r Orsedd (waeth beth bo'i ffaeledde) Am roi'r Babell Lên reit ar bwys y toilede!"
Ugain mlynedd yn ôl, ar Faes Prifywl Bro Delyn, mi gefais i'r cyfle i ddiolch i Dic Jones am Y Talwrn, a'r cyfan oeddwn i isio oedd dweud yr un peth wrth Gerallt tra bo'r cyfle. Ond, arhosais y tu allan i'r toiledau am achau heb iddo fo ddod allan. Wrth benderfynu cerdded ymlaen, mi sylweddolais i ei fod o - yn ôl pob tebyg - wedi mynd allan yr ochr draw, ac felly mi gollais i'r cyfle.
Wedi'r siomedigaeth amlwg hon, bu'n rhaid i mi wynebu un arall. Wrth i mi gyrraedd Ffordd Rhuthun eto, mi sylweddolais i fod yr amser hwnnw o'r dydd wedi dod pan fod y bysiau yn gostwng o redeg pob rhyw ddeng munud i'r sefyllfa lle mae'n nhw'n rhedeg unwaith bob awr yn unig, a bod dim posibiliad o gyrraedd yr un arosfan mewn pryd. Felly, doedd dim amdani ond i gerdded yn ôl ar hyd yr un ffyrdd ag yr oeddwn i wedi cymryd ar y ffordd i lawr. Ond, wrth gwrs, bod yr un ffyrdd bellach yn arwain i fyny.
Araf iawn y bu'r daith, ac aml iawn y bu'r stopio. Pob rhyw hanner can llath, a bod yn honest. Roeddwn i heb fwyta ers cyn canol dydd, ac mi oeddwn i'n sych gorcyn. Ac wrth gwrs, doedd neb - er cynifer oedd y ceir ar yr hen ffordd gyswllt - yn fy adnabod a stopio i roi lifft. Mi feddyliais i o ddifrif calon am ffonio fy mrawd i ddod amdana' i. Ond, a ydach chi wedi ceisio cael hyd i flwch ffôn cyhoeddus y dyddiau 'ma? Doedd dim byd amdani ond i straffaglio ymlaen, er i'r galon wegian wrth sefyll ar waelod Tanyfron a sylweddoli maint y tasg - a maint yr allt - oedd o'm blaen i.
Rhywsut neu gilydd, a hithau'n dechrau nosi o ddifrif, mi gyrhaeddais i ben yr allt, ond mi oeddwn i bron â chropian erbyn i mi agor drws y tŷ wrth i'r cloc daro naw. Dros ddwy awr a hanner i gerdded rhyw bedair milltir. Dwi'n mynd yn hen. Wna i ddim yr un camgymeriad eto, hyd yn oed os bydd angen talu am dacsi. Mi yfais sawl wydraid o ddŵr, coginio pizza bach, ac mi oeddwn i - yn wahanol iawn i'r nos Sadwrn arferol - yn fy ngwely ymhell cyn canol nos. Ond pur anesmwyth oedd y nos, a finnau'n codi sawl gwaith.
Afraid dweud fod codi o'r gwely y bore 'ma'n anodd, ac mi fydda i'n cymryd rhai dyddiau o ddod dros y cyfan, bid siwr.
Er hynny, dwi'n bwriadu mynd i'r Ŵyl eto Ddydd Iau. Am un peth, mae 'na raglen deyrnged i'r Prifardd Bryan Martin Davies yn y Sied, a gan mai fo oedd yn athro Cymraeg i mi yn y chweched dosbarth ar adeg dyngedfennol yn fy oes, mi fasa'n biti i golli honno; am beth arall, dwi isio cael digon o amser i fynd o gwmpas y Maes yn iawn, er bod arolygon y tywydd yn bur ansicr.
Mae un peth yn sicr: mi gymra' i'r bysiau y tro nesa'!
**********
The Eisteddfod
"I went to the Eisteddfod yesterday,
To see some sights, and make some hay.
But it was far, and I was late,
And the whole thing was a balls-up, mate."
The last time the National Eisteddfod visited these parts was in 1977, and as I was only fifteen years old and without much of a grasp of Welsh, I didn't bother popping over to the old Borras Airfield to see it.
I've waited until I was nearly fifty for another opportunity (although I did go up to Mold for the Bro Delyn Eisteddfod in 1991), but here it was back again this year, so I was determined to go.
There was one thing I was busting a gut to see, namely the Final of Y Talwrn. As I had been listening to the poets for over a quarter of a century, and as I have a recording of every Final since 1987, I had to take advantage of the chance to see the Final live, which was to take place on the afternoon of the first Saturday of the festival.
Having perused the rest of the programme for the Literature Tent, I saw a lecture on the dialect of Rhos on the same day. So, given that a day ticket costs £17, it made sense to go to that as well to get my money's worth.
The Maes this year is on the land of Lower Berse Farm alongside Ruthin Road, and as that is on my side of town, I thought it would be a good idea to walk there, given the good weather. Now, many years ago, I would walk all the way down into town to join some of my friends in the Nag's Head of a Friday night. I would start from home a few minutes before seven and reach the pub just as St Giles' clock struck eight. So I thought that it would be enough to allow about an hour and a quarter for the journey this time, and I decided to start off at about 12:15, bearing in mind that the lecture I referred to above was to start at a quarter to two.
But when I got up yesterday morning, I had a message which entailed me spending about twenty minutes on the phone. By the time that was over with and I'd had lunch, it was gone twenty past twelve. I was still confident that I could reach the Maes in good time, though.
Above is a map which shows the way I walked (follow the red dots from the north-west down).
The weather was warm and rather sweaty, but by about half past one I was at the top of Berse Lane, and I turned down Ruthin Road to where (to the best of my knowledge) the main entrance stood.
But it soon became clear that there wasn't an entrance (main or otherwise) in evidence there, although the map of the Maes on the Eisteddfod's website suggested one. All that was visible along the roadside was row upon row of caravans and tents. Suddenly, I spied the pinnacles of the Pink Pavilion far beyond these, and the realisation dawned that I should have been right on the far side of the site. I knew of another entrance, or so I thought, but finding it meant I would have to go all the way back to the top of Berse Lane and turn there.
And this is what I did, but I wasn't in a good mood by this point, as it had become obvious that I would be too late for the lecture. I was in half a mind to go home by this, but the attraction of Y Talwrn was stronger, and so I stuck with it.
After a few minutes, I reached the entrance to the car park, where Berse Lane has been closed to traffic from the south. I asked the lad who was manning the gate if it was possible to reach the Maes from there (I was completely confused by now, and had cursed the gammy standard of signage more than once). He said that it was; it was just a matter of crossing the car park and following the signs. So I did.
After a few minutes, there I was finally buying my ticket and entering the Maes. It was getting on for half past two by this time, and I had an hour to kill before Y Talwrn started. So, I went for a walk around, in the hope of seeing someone I knew (or someone who knew me). But although I saw and heard other people undergoing those little shocks of recognition (which reminded me of my first week in Pantycelyn Hall thirty years ago, when it had appeared to me that everyone else who was starting there already knew one another), that same experience eluded me.
My temper hadn't improved very much, but seeing how little interest the crowds had in the Conservative Party's stall - only three people sitting there with long faces - did raise the spirits somewhat.
Because it was still very warm, I decided to go back and sit in the shade of the Literature Tent for a while and watch the people hurrying by, including one tall, thin policeman who - by the looks of him - had been recruited from the fifth form only the day before, and who as yet stood in no need of becoming acquainted with the concept of razors. I saw one woman from our office who - I think - had been competing on the stage, because she (and the woman who was with her) were dressed in very smart black dresses. But she didn't see me, as she was busy talking to some man who was sitting in front of me.
As the minutes were dragging their feet terribly, I decided to go and buy a copy of the Official Programme, and so I did - once I'd found Siop Y Siswrn's stall again.
Then it was back to the Literature Tent again to wait to gain entrance for Y Talwrn. But, just as it had been when trying to find the Maes, I was to have trouble with entrances generally all day. Y Talwrn was due to start at a quarter to four, but we were all still waiting for the previous event to end well past four. It was running by Eisteddfod Time; that is, you could have arrived half an hour after the advertised time and still find that you were half an hour early after all.
In the meantime, all we could do was stand and wait, watching some television crew interviewing the young poet Ifan Pleming, who was also waiting outside the Tent on his mobility scooter (Ifan is a member of Aberhafren, one of the teams competing). Then from the direction of the Maes Office there came another scooter, on which sat Y Meuryn himself, Gerallt Lloyd Owen, with quite a fierce look on his face, perhaps as an expression of some anger at the fact that he now has to use such a device to get about the Maes. There was quite a crowd outside the Tent by now, and people made a path for him to motor on through, although it wasn't completely clear whether this was through respect or through fear of the consequences.
"And then he came, Y Meuryn,
Driving like a nutter,
To challenge us, Slaves Of The Muse,
And sweep us to the gutter!"
Indeed, it was sad to see one of the giants of our nation appear so frail that he had to depend on something like that, and I saw the same sadness on the faces of my fellow-faithful that I felt certain was on my own.
Then along come some bloke trying to draw attention to the new poetry magazine Y Glec by setting off one of those wretched party poppers. "That's an old stroke, lad!", I said.
At last! I heard clapping from within the Tent and a few minutes later the doors opened and the audience from the Owain Cyfeiliog Society came out. In we went, then, and I found a seat at the end of a row in about the middle and some five or six rows back. On the stage, a crew was moving and placing tables, chairs, mikes and so forth. Gerallt appeared and parked his scooter at the back of the stage behind the big Radio Cymru sign. Yes, he looked pretty weak standing there, but all the same he tried to help the scorer in placing a black cloth over the table before them; a task rendered more difficult by the fact that the cloth appeared to have five corners judging by the difficulty there were having setting it.
The Literature Tent isn't a 'tent', by the way. It's a shed, of a similar size to the one inhabited by Homebase a few hundred yards away. This shed wasn't full by any means - about half-full or slightly more, perhaps - and most of the audience was in its fifties or older. This stood in contrast to the fact that the poets competing on the stage were young.
The poets then came to the stage, unannounced but to warm applause. The three members of Y Taeogion (The Serfs) (Ceri Wyn Jones, Tudur Dylan and Emyr Davies) went to the left-hand side (as we looked at it), and the six members of Aberhafren (Owain Rhys, Llion Pryderi Roberts, Aron Pritchard, Rhys Iorwerth, Mari George and Ifan Pleming) to the right. Then it was time for Gerallt to welcome us to the Tent, explaining what we should do in the event of a fire ("Go to that door there...that's the one I'll be heading for!"), and to ask everyone to turn their phones off. A little more testing of the microphones (including an extra one for Ifan Pleming so that he wouldn't have to stand up to recite his work like everyone else), and we were off!
But to begin with, there were two presentations. Firstly, of the Cledwyn Roberts Memorial Trophy for the best Lyric Poem of the series. This went to Y Taeogion's Ceri Wyn Jones for his poem "Company". Then the first ever presentation of the the Dic Jones Memorial Trophy for the best cywydd of the Talwrn year. This one went to Aberhafren's Aron Pritchard for his cywydd "An Empty Space", which appeared in a quarter-final contest against Y Waun Ddyfal, a contest the quality of which I had not heard for some time. An indication of the substance of the cywydd was that Gerallt had trouble controlling his feelings as he read it out one more time. It had certainly struck home.
The first thing which became clear was that Y Meuryn - despite the fragile nature of his physical health - had lost none of his edge or his humour. He was in his element, enjoying weighing and measuring, appreciating and making fun of the poets.
There is an unfortunate tendency for the Final to be rather nondescript compared with some of the matches leading up to it (like the one I referred to above). But that wasn't the case this time: the material was of a very high standard, the light and the serious alike. The biggest laugh of the day came from Ifan Pleming's limerick:
(Note: this is a literal translation. I don't mind bastardising my own doggerel, but I'm buggered if I'm going to traduce the verse of someone far better qualified):
"As I went home from the Eisteddfod,
I was seized by a choir of women. 'I'm a poet!', I said, 'We don't care;
We've already had Y Meuryn!'"
And, of course, no-one was laughing more than Gerallt himself.
The usual tasks were gone through, and we had poetry which was fresh, intense and of the highest grade. And, at the end, the score:
Y Taeogion (former champions): 86. Aberhafren (in their third successive final, having lost the previous two): 86½!
It was Mari George's lyric verse on the subject of "Rejection" which tipped the balance, I'm sure, but it was a pity that either team had to lose. As the two teams shook hands and celebrated together, the audience departed.
Now, as things had started late (and had finished later still, in all probability), I didn't have much hope of getting home in time to hear the first broadcast of what I had just heard, especially as I had the same hell of a job of finding a way out of the bloody Maes as I had had getting onto it in the first place.
I wandered down to the side of the Maes which was nearest to Ruthin Road, but there was no sign of a way out there. So, I had to go back past the Pavilion and the Literature Tent again to exit the same way as I had entered. In doing this, I saw Gerallt - back on his scooter - heading for the toilets. I didn't want to interrupt his journey - after all, he was moving like the wind and who knows what other ailments were affecting him?
"There are certain 'ailments' - to put it no worse -
Which strike elder figures amongst men of verse.
So, hooray for the Gorsedd (you can cheer if you choose)
For putting the poets right next to the loos!"
Twenty years ago, on the Maes at Bro Delyn, I had had the opportunity to thank Dic Jones for Y Talwrn, and all I wanted to do was to say the same to Gerallt whilst I had the chance. But I waited outside the toilets for ages without him emerging. As I decided to move on, I realised that he had - in all probability - gone out the far side, and so I lost the chance.
After that obvious disappointment, I had to face another. As I reached Ruthin Road again, I realised that it had come to that time of day where the buses go down from running every ten minutes to running only once an hour, and that there was no possibility of my reaching a bus stop in time. So there was nothing for it but to walk all the way back the way I had come down. Except that now, of course, the same roads led up.
Very slow was the journey, and very frequent were the stops. Every fifty yards or so, to be frank. I hadn't eaten since before noon, and I was as dry as a cork. And of course no-one - although there were lots of cars on the old link road - knew me to stop and give me a lift. I seriously thought of phoning my brother and asking him to come for me. But have you ever tried finding a public phone box nowadays? There was nothing for it but to struggle on, although the heart quailed as I stood at the bottom of Tanyfron and realised the size of the task - and of the hill - which stood before me.
Somehow or other, and with it getting darker by the minute, I reached the top of the slope, but I was almost on my knees as I opened the front door just as the clock struck nine. It had taken me over two and half hours to walk some four miles. I'm getting old. I won't make the same mistake again, even if it means paying for a taxi. I drank a number of glasses of water, cooked a mini-pizza and - very differently to the normal Saturday - I was in bed well before midnight. But I passed an unsettled night, getting up more than once.
It goes without saying that getting out of bed this morning was difficult, and it will take me some days to get over it all, I'm sure.
Despite that, I intend going back on Thursday. For one thing, there's a tribute to the Crowned Poet Bryan Martin Davies in the Shed, and as he was my Welsh teacher in sixth form at a crucial juncture in my life, it would be a pity to miss it; for another thing, I want to have plenty of time to go around the Maes properly, although the weather forecast is pretty unsettled.
One thing's for sure: I'll take the buses next time!
It being no sort of weather for gardening, I've spent this afternoon making sure that all of the pages here that I've changed recently give valid HTML.
I've found that an troublingly large number of them didn't, and whilst this didn't seem to make for any major problems when I was viewing them in Firefox, the same may not have been true for those of you using crap browsers (like any version of Internet Exploder).
Apologies for any inconvenience; it's the inevitable result of not being arsed enough to run updated pages through a validator before I put them up.
A rather tasteless title, I know. But this morning, Charlie Gilmour was sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment for his actions in last December's students' protests.
Compared to other sentences (that of Edward Woollard and - more recently - of Francis Fernie), Gilmour might consider himself rather fortunate, especially as his antics were fuelled by being ripped to the tits the whole time.
Lee Griffin wrote this at Liberal Conspiracy, to which I replied in the comments, but I'll repost my response here:
"There are a number of elements to this.
"(Disclaimer: despite my posting name, I have no involvement in the judicial system)
"Firstly the defendant himself and his actions. Gilmour was quite clearly ripped to the tits all day, which makes one wonder why no-one - neither his fellow protestors nor the police - seems to have done anything to stop him, or at least calm him down.
"Much was made by his counsel of the consequences of a trauma in his personal lfe. That this took place some months before his offences, and that one would have hoped that his family and/or his friends would have noticed that something was seriously amiss with him in the interim and have done something to address it, doesn't seem to be much of a mitigation. Nonetheless, I would be concerned about what treatment - if any - he will be likely to get for his psychiatric problems in a prison and the consequences of non-treatment subsequent to his release.
"(I hope a previous commenter is wrong about Gilmour's educational prospects, by the way: as he is likely to be released any time between early November (tagged) and mid March, I would hope that Girton would practise the enlightened humanity one would wish to see from an august college and allow him to complete his degree course. I can't see any purpose in denying him that possibility except raw vengeance).
"His attempt to claim that he didn't understand the significance of his trapeze act on the Cenotaph was also never likely to be remotely credible, as the trial judge correctly pointed out. If anything, it undermined whatever other causes in mitigation were adduced on his behalf. Unfortunately for Gilmour, this gave the excuse for the judge seemingly to spend a disproportionate amount of his speech on that point, when Gilmour's actions at the Cenotaph were not included in the charge in any case and when Gilmour had apologised for them the day after.
"We must then look at the sentence in the context of those for others involved in the disorder around the recent protests. Bearing in mind Gilmour's persistent misbehaviour on that day and comparing it with the sentences on Edward Woollard (one - albeit potentially highly dangerous - act committed in a moment of hotheaded stupidity: 32 months) and on Francis Fernie (throwing two thin sticks at the police: 12 months), then Gilmour might be said - in this context if in none other - to have received a proportionate sentence.
"(We don't appear to have the information, but I think it reasonable to assume that the judge started his calculation at two years - pretty low when you consider that the judge at Woollard's trial started his at double that - then reduced it by one third for Gilmour's guilty plea).
"But there is a wider context still. Although the offence of 'Violent Disorder' has been on the statute books for a quarter of a century (it was introduced in the 1986 POA), I don't remember it ever being used in connection with demonstrations with quite the alacrity we have seen in recent months.
"One clue may be in the rather broad definition:
"1) Where 3 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their personal safety, each of the persons using or threatening unlawful violence is guilty of violent disorder.
"2) It is immaterial whether or not the 3 or more use or threaten unlawful violence simultaneously.
"3) No person of reasonable firmness need actually be, or be likely to be, present at the scene.
"4) Violent disorder may be committed in private as well as in public places."
"Potentially, at least, this means that anyone could be done under it for anything, anywhere at any time if the test of "using or threatening unlawful violence" could be passed. Rather like, say, the conspiracy laws, very little has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt to escalate the charge to this level.
"The other attraction - and, I strongly suspect, the reason why it has become the charge du jour for the CPS in such cases - is because it attracts a far heavier sentence than just about any other public order offence except riot (which the police don't like using because it brings other statutory liabilities upon them).
"The use of this charge therefore enables disproportionate sentences to be imposed, and in this sense the sentences are political (using the word in its broader sense). This means that actions which - were they to be carried out on, say, a drunken Friday night in most towns or cities - would attract a sentence of no more than six months, and in most cases a non-custodial disposal, can instead be punished by lengthy spells of imprisonment, even if (as in all the cases I've referred to) no actual physical harm was caused to any other person.
"They also enable certain members of the judiciary to waffle on about the preciousness of the right to protest (which - in other contexts - they haven't shown the same concern with defending, but that's just my BS detector in operation), and - in the light of that - to pass sentences supposedly designed to be 'deterrent' or 'to send a message'. As a former Lord Justice once clearly stated, "Exemplary sentences are unjust", because they punish the defendant for things which were not connected to his own actions.
"There is a still wider context, though, which involves our system's (and our society's) inordinate fondness for thinking that custodial sentences are the go-to option simply because the law gives them as a possibility for an increasing number of offences, and about how such sentences may be thoroughly counter-productive for both the individual and for society in general, but that is perhaps an argument for another time."
Had one of those plastic bags shoved through the letterbox today. You know the ones; the sort where a 'charity' you've never heard of wants you to put things you don't want in a bag to be sold to people who don't want them either.
This one has - in large, friendly letters - the message:
THIRD WORLD CLOTHING COLLECTION
I'm afraid I'll have to tell them that I already have one.
We (that is, members of PCS, UCU, ATL and NUT) were on strike today in protest at this wretched régime of millionaire idlers' plans to make us pay more for our pensions, get less back from them and make us work longer before we can claim even that.
So I had a late start to the day (always welcome - getting up at 06:15 is a real bind a lot of the time, even in summer) and set off at 10:00 to go down and visit the picket line outside The Employer (as I now find it safest to refer to them).
When I got there, there were about four of ours supplemented by representatives from some of the other unions involved and someone from the TUC itself. Some of the media (BBC) and press (Daily Post) turned up while I was there and took video and photographs (including one here: the third picture down - I'm the one in the middle who looks like he's wearing a fright wig).
Support for the strike had been pretty solid there, with only what one might call 'the usual suspects' going in; either non-union members (although that, as I understand it, does not preclude anyone from not working) or members of other unions (bizarrely, if you are in a union but not one which is on strike, you can't join in the fun). We also had good support from people passing in cars, vans and buses, with just the occasional outburst of abuse from the equivalent of 'white van man'.
At about 11:00 the picket wound down. For one thing, anyone who was going to cross the line today had by that time already done so; and for another, there was going to be a rally in Queen's Square in town at 11:30. So I took myself off to town to see if I could get a haircut (something I wish I'd done before given what I look like in that picture) and do a little light shopping.
This I managed to do (hello to Nicholas at The Barber's Pole in King Street - top man!), and joined the rally at about 11:40. It wasn't a bad turnout for a town rightly renowned as Europe's Permanent Capital Of Apathy - about 150, I'd estimate - and we listened to brief speeches from representatives of all the unions involved (including one delightfully excitable Scotsman whose repeated response to the catalogue of political deceit we were facing was a loud cry of, "Shame on them! SHAME ON THEM!!").
What we also got was a bit of stick from one or two of the market traders who have been used to having Queen's Square to themselves on a Thursday whining about how we were disrupting their business. I hope someone pointed out to them that having an increasing number of people with less money to spend because their pensions have been shafted really would disrupt the even tenor of their days.
Rally over, I made my way to Jones' chippy on St George's Crescent again and ate my fish and small portion on the same piece of wall as I had three weeks ago. Then it was a little more shopping and home by 14:00.
Got up at about 10:00, had breakfast and opened my cards. One from my niece was particularly apt, I thought.
Caught the 12:00 bus into town to do some shopping.
Did the shopping, then treated myself to a fish and small portion of chips from Jones' chippie on St George's Crescent. Sat on the wall of one of the flower beds to eat. Absolutely yummy!
Walked around for a bit, going into various shops to see if I could get a new holdall/shopping bag (the zip on my current one is on the way out). Couldn't find anything which fitted my exacting requirements.
Came home. Had afternoon nap.
Made tea - lemon and coriander couscous with fried mushrooms (bought from town earlier). Followed with bowl of Sainsbury's Triple Chocolate ice cream with strawberries. Not sure that this is a winning combination. Followed with cup of coffee.
Spent a couple of hours transferring more CDs onto the external hard drive.
Had can of Guinness.
Did washing up, browsed. Wrote this. Will go to bed shortly.
I don't know how I cope with all this excitement.
**********
Ten Years On(Line)
Today marks not only my forty-ninth birthday, but also the tenth anniversary of getting my first PC and becoming tangled up in that world-wide web of wonders and witlessness known as The Internet.
It might seem curious that - having been a system administrator in what I am (for safety's sake) now obliged to refer to simply as The Employer for about three years by the summer of 2001, the only computer I had ever owned was a Sinclair Spectrum +2A with a mighty 128K of RAM. The thing was, having spent my entire working day grappling with the various failings of The Employer's computer systems (not to mention the far more intricate and amusing failings of the users of those systems), the last thing I felt that I wanted was to spend my evenings and weekends having possibly to cope with the same issues in my own lovely home.
It was only after my brother bought his first PC at the tail end of 1999 that I started to reconsider a little but, being extra-cautious by nature (a characteristic which is not without its serious drawbacks), I delayed and delayed and delayed. So much so that it was the late Spring of '01 before I decided to take the plunge.
Considering word-of-mouth to be your only man when it comes to cast-iron recommendations as to the provision of goods and services, I followed my brother's advice when it came to choosing who should have my custom for such a substantial purchase. So it was that one Saturday morning at the beginning of June we headed down to Eaglecom Computers, which is where he had bought his machine from.
When we got to the former St Martins airfield to the north-east of Oswestry which was where Eaglecom was based, we found that it wasn't based there any more. A note on the door of the workshop said that the company had moved into Oswestry itself. So off we went, slightly hampered by the fact that neither of us had any real idea of where in the town Smithfield Road was. We ended up parking rather a long way away from it, when it turned out that there was a sizeable car park just across the road.
I think I'd sorted out basically what I wanted by that time, although I don't remember how I reached my conclusions now. I didn't go in with a list of specifications; I was willing just to be guided by the shop's owner. I do recall that when he suggested a system running Windows 98 Second Edition, I had a moment of doubt and asked whether it would be possible to have a system running Windows NT (yes, I know now) as that was what I was used to at work. He said that it would, but that NT was only really useful for its enhanced security features and that there was hardly any software for it. He also simply didn't trust Windows 2000 (XP hadn't been released yet). I yielded and 98 it was. I wrote out the cheque (for £960 - the biggest single purchase I had ever made in my life) and arranged to call back the following Saturday to pick up the finished product.
The big day duly arrived (my thirty-ninth birthday as well - sheesh, that looks like ancient history now), so off we trolled back to Oswestry, picked up all the kit and headed home. Having dropped it all off, it was off to Argos in town, because I needed a desk to put all of this equipment on. There were other things I needed too. I don't remember if I bought anything else, but I certainly bought five boxes of ten floppy disks. Having got all that home, it was time to assemble the desk. All seemed to be going well at the start until we found that some of the holes weren't lining up as they ought. It was then that we realised that we'd put the baseboard upside down. We corrected our mistake, and I was left to connect everything up.
Tower unit, monitor, printer, scanner (the printer was connected in series with the scanner - advanced, huh?), speakers, keyboard, mouse. Power connected, on-board modem connected. Switch on!
I think I watched the system boot up with a combination of excitement and trepidation, as being a sysadmin had led me to understand at least half of the ways in which a PC can go wrong.
Finally, I was at the desktop, a sea of greeny-blue with a light scattering of icons, further Outlook unsettled. I played around with things for a bit, and then launched myself onto the Net.
I was able to do this straight away thanks to my friend and fellow sysadmin, Carl, who had given me a CD which he'd had from his Internet Service Provider. No, don't worry, this isn't going to be a tale of How I Signed Up With AOL And Lost My Mind. Carl was with a company which, at that time, was called LineOne. I loaded the disk, followed the prompts and, within a few minutes, had Sold My Soul To The Browser. And I've been a slave ever since.
It's difficult to comprehend or explain today just how different things were in 2001. For a start, note that a couple of paragraphs ago I made reference to a curious artefact called a modem. Do you remember the days of dialup? The scritching and quacking of establishing a connection, the little green icon in the system tray blinking away? Oh, how quaint! 'Quaint' was hardly the word I used, even then, to describe the experience of waiting for a page full of graphics to download via a 56K connection. 'Slow torture' might be nearer to it.
As for streaming media, well when I tell you (or remind you) that the most popular application for that task way back in the when was Real Player, you might get some idea of how amazingly primitive things were. Small size, low quality pictures and - with such limited bandwidth - a highly uncertain and unsatisfactory experience was almost guaranteed. Hence the rueful chuckle I emitted when I first saw this photo:
But I was online! I was connected! The world (or at least the low-graphics version of it) was mine! Or it was for part of the time, at least. You see, not only did the vast majority of us cybernauts have to endure sub-glacial downloading speeds, those of us who were with LineOne paid our monthly subscription solely to be able to access this boon between 18:00 and 06:00 Monday to Friday, and from 18:00 Friday to 06:00 Monday. Any access outside those times had to be paid for at an extra 1p per minute. On top of this, LineOne kicked you off after three hours, obliging you to reconnect. All these things taken together, the downloading of - for instance - a large program update, or a video file was problematic to say the least. It was no wonder that many of us searched frantically for a download manager which would enable us to establish a number of connections to the server we were trying to download from so that we had a chance of getting anywhere very much.
And of course, dialup meant that your voice phone line was tied up the whole time you were online. This wasn't always a bad thing, however; it meant that you were saved from the worst of that modern-day plague - the telephone salesbeing.
A colleague had lent me his copy of The Rough Guide To The Internet, as useful a map to the wildscape of the bit-jungle as ever saw daylight. Through this, I discovered many useful sites (some of which I use regularly to this day), and discovered Usenet.
Usenet is regarded as terribly old-hat now (unless you're trying to download porn, or so we're informed by our Betters who seem to know rather more than they would care to admit), but in the times before the spread of forum software, it was the way to communicate with people with whom one felt a community of interest. I remember being subscribed to about seventeen newsgroups at one time (I've got it down to seven now, and I'm not sure of the point sticking with one or two of those much longer to be honest), and one thing I found out early on is that - just like with members of your own family - it teaches you to be broad-minded. For it used to be (some of its wilder shores may well still be) where the trolls and flamers were to be found in abundance. I remember one (on soc.culture.welsh if I recall correctly) who was insistent that he had successfully recreated a language he called Cumbric, which had been spoken in the north of England prior to the coming of all those bloody Germans. There had been a Celtic language spoken in those areas at that time, certainly (which has left its mark on, for instance, the way that Pennine shepherds enumerate their sheep), but this character's 'reconstruction' was literally unbelievable. Nonetheless, he refused to be gainsaid and rambled merrily on.
One place I did find a home was alt.fan.pratchett, a newsgroup consisting of the great writer's readers, but where the topics of discussion were far broader than just the books and the subjects touched upon in them. After a few months 'lurking' (that is to say, reading the group without contributing), I finally plunged into posting on 21 October 2001. I've been there ever since, and have great difficulty imagining my daily life without it and its other 'denizens'.
Things haven't always run smoothly on the technology front, however. After a couple of months, I suddenly found that I couldn't get online anymore. The modem was dialling, LineOne was responding and logging me in, but no data transfer was taking place. I had to call Eaglecom, and the guy who'd sold me the PC suggested I bring it in. Which I did, and then me and my brother went for a walk around Oswestry for an hour while he set to sorting it out.
When we returned (having discovered that there is scarcely enough in Oswestry to hold one's interest for five minutes, let alone a whole hour), he and his obnoxious boy assistant were staring into the doings, and the boss was muttering, "That's weird...That's really weird." In the end, even having replaced the modem, he said that a clean reinstall was the only likely solution. What this meant was that everything that had been on the hard drive was lost. This at least taught me at a fortuitously early stage the value of doing backups. I've sedulously backed up my data files on the last day of every month since.
Time went on. LineOne was taken over by the dreaded Tiscali. I began to get increasingly frustrated by the slow speeds.
Then, in the spring of 2003, we were told that our exchange was about to be enabled for broadband. Wow! A whole, stonking 1mbps of download speed!. I didn't want to stay with Tiscali - their refusal to admit when something was wrong was, to say the least, irksome.
So I looked around a bit, and initially decided I would go with a company called VultureISP, which was connected with the online tech magazine The Register. Unfortunately, their upstream ISP went tits-up and they shut down before I could sign up. I looked around a bit more and found PlusNet, which seemed to have a good word-of-keyboard reputation. I remember that one thing which I found attractive was that if something went wrong they seemed very quick to admit that it had happened.
So, I signed up. Or, rather, I applied for a credit card, something which I'd managed to avoid doing up to that point. But I needed a card in order to sign up to PlusNet. Luckily, I've never really been in debt except for when I was at Uni (where everyone was, so it didn't matter), so I was accepted and I joined PlusNet straight away. Once the ADSL modem had arrived and my phone line had been enabled, I joined the Information Superhighway™, rather than having to stick to the Information Drovers' Track I had been on up to that point.
What a difference! Well, several differences in fact. For one thing, I was paying for access 24/7, so no extra charges; for another, it meant that I could download large files without having to worry whether I was going to succeed before I ran out of time; and faster speeds meant that you could see more, hear more, get more done.
Another difference was that my account came with 250MB of web space. I toyed with the idea of having my own site for a while, and decided to join all the other egomaniacs shouting into the void. The result is before your very eyes, as it has been for eight years now.
Joy wasn't entirely unalloyed, however. An ADSL connection meant that my phone line was now freed up for the aforementioned infestation of cold-callers. I registered with the Telephone Preference Service straight away, but that has not stopped my being pestered by the bastards (particularly annoying are the automated calls which come from another jurisdiction. I now have a simple rule: if I don't hear a voice within two seconds of picking up the receiver, I hang up; if it really is that important, I figure that they'll call back).
The other down side (if it is) is that I have spent an inordinate amount of the last ten years - particularly the last eight - sitting at this PC (the November 2007 successor to the Eaglecom rig) rather than doing anything which the po-faced might consider 'worthwhile'. However, I see this as a minor disadvantage if one at all.
Because I cannot imagine that I would have been able to find out so much about the world and what is really going on in it without this huge resource literally at my fingertips. Instead of being reliant solely on the agenda being peddled at any given moment by those who previously controlled the sole means of disseminating news - governments, corporations and the dangerous combination of the two - the Web gives me the opportunity to get different viewpoints, from those who are excluded from the ideological bill of fare which the Old Media wishes me to believe is not only all there is, but all there ever possibly could be.
True, one has to learn discernment when deciding what to believe, and I am no different to anyone else in tending towards explanations which in some way bolster what I believed or what I suspected in the first case; but I take it as axiomatic that the more viewpoints you can have access to, the better informed in general you are likely to be.
It can all be quite dispiriting, of course; even dangerously so as those of you who have followed this blog during the course of the last few months may witness. The more you can delve, the more you do delve, and discovering the ever more ingenious ways in which Man (or at least his manifestations in power) can be inhuman to Man can lead to a leaden cynicism. But at the same time, you can gain insight into acts of great collective or individual courage and conscience which raises your hopes that humankind can ultimately triumph over the brutality of the prevailing political and economic winds.
Which is why, of course, both governments and corporations - forces which are increasingly intertwined in a politico-economic 69 - are desperately keen to assume control of the Web for their own purposes. In pursuance of those ends, they will claim the right of control on a variety of pretexts which - whilst pleasing to Old Media and the forces of curtain-twitching reaction alike - fall apart like soggy bog-roll when you examine them in any depth, be they the supposed threat from whatever is defined as 'terrorism' at any given point, via spurious claims to be defending the 'rights' of 'content providers', right up (or down) to the catch-all manufactured panic of "Will no-one fink of der kiddies?".
And which is why we must always be vigilant against any moves to curtail our right to communicate with each other and to distribute information and opinion. I can think of little more depressing than the prospect of the most remarkable means of communication ever devised by technology being restricted to the same base levels as its predecessors; to that which those with money, power and influence will permit and for their own ends only.
I have been greatly enriched by it over the last ten years, and I hope that I and all of you will continue to be.
I'm fully aware that - especially given recent turns in my life - my mind may be heading for the Recycle Bin, but I'm sure I didn't imagine this.
Standing by the back door just now, and I could hear a bird making a right old song and dance. I looked up and saw two small birds in the upper branches of the silver birch which stands at the back corner of the garden.
One of them was making those fast clacking sounds with his beak which made him sound like a Japanese Geiger counter. And then I heard him say:
"Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?"
And then back to the clacking again, interspersed with staccato tweets.
I stood there doubting my own sanity for the umpteenth time today, when I heard it come round again:
"Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?"
He then made an attempt to mount the bird standing next to him, failed ignominiously and flew off.
I don't know what sort of bird this was. The other bird remained but, even using my binoculars, I couldn't make it out in the fading light.
Some breeds of bird are useful mimics, of course. There was a blackbird which used to nest by the office which could do the reversing warning of a truck better than the real thing, and another of his breed around my garden who could imitate the telephone of the people across the road.
Regular viewers over the past year or so may remember my mentioning an issue regarding my working life which I was repeatedly unable to go into any detail about.
Here's a little (!) story.
Dramatis Personae
(Posh for "them what's in it")
Note: The sets of initials by which the four protagonists are herewith identified were all generated randomly - except for one.
PBI: A downtrodden hack worker
IBM: PBI's manager
FMC: IBM's manager
JNB: FMC's manager
Our story begins in the early part of 2010. Our Hero, PBI, lives in a village nearly four miles from his place of work. He cannot drive, and so is dependent upon public transport. The village is about nine hundred feet above sea level, and about five hundred feet above office level.
In the opening week of the year, a heavy snowfall exacerbated by the local authority failing to treat the roads caused the village in which Our Hero dwells to be cut off from the rest of the planet - at least as far as public transport is concerned. PBI - whose health and well-being is regarded as important, at least by PBI - phones the office to advise them that he won't be in that day.
Overnight, the temperatures plunge well below zero and the slush and ice from the previous day turn into one huge skating rink. No gritting of the roads until some time after sun-up means that there is again no public transport until early afternoon; by which time PBI - who works part-time - would have been getting ready to leave work anyway. So he again phones in absent.
On the third day of The Big Freeze(™) the situation is a little better, in that the buses manage to reach the bottom end of the village, but not until 09:00. PBI therefore arrives in work well over an hour late, but at least - or so he thinks - he'll be appreciated for his hardiness.
Over the subsequent weekend there is a further heavy fall of snow and, due to the ongoing neglect of the roads by the local authority, there is once again no public transport. One more time, PBI has to call in to say that he can't come to work.
The employer (hereinafter referred to as 'The Employer') has special procedures for such eventualities, and PBI therefore seeks to avail himself of them. He applies to IBM (his manager) for special leave for the three days of his enforced absence, and for the hour and a half he lost on the Third Day.
After much prayer and fasting on the part of the high priestesses of the Cult Of Management, it is decreed that Our Hero can indeed be compensated for the first day that he lost, but only for that day and not for the others.
Somewhat baffled and a touch peeved, PBI invokes the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), as he is fully entitled to do. His medical condition means - amongst other things - that extreme cold to the feet (such as would be encountered whilst attempting to walk nearly four miles along roads with inches of snow on them, with the added prospect of having to do the same - and uphill - to get home again) is seriously to be avoided.
The Employer has what it calls 'The Four-Mile Rule', whereby members of staff living within four miles of an office are expected to get to said office come hell or high water - or heavy snow, as in this case. Or, otherwise, if they can walk to work (nothing about walking from work) in one hour or less.
Our particular division of The Employer issues special guidance at the beginning of the second week referred to above which clarifies that the 'four miles/one hour' rule only applies in good weather and to people in good health.
So far, so sensible. Except that that is not the way IBM sees it, nor FMC (IBM's manager). When, upon approaching FMC as to why the second day's absence because of the snow had not been compensated for, PBI is met with the response that the second day constituted "the same event" as the first day, and that he would have been expected to have "made arrangements" to get himself into work that day, he asks - rather sardonically - whether he should have walked through the snow the previous day and booked himself a room at the hotel adjacent to the office. It is made clear to him by facial expression if not by words that, yes, that is the sort of thing he would be expected to do. All this amidst constant claims that, "We're running a business!", which is, of course, what Ian Dury would have called "rampant bollo".
Increasingly baffled and narked by all this, PBI consults his union rep. After taking advice, she tells him to resubmit his claim, which he duly does. This results in PBI being given half a day's credit for the third day, on the grounds that he should have been prepared to come in in early afternoon and still work his normal number of hours (even though this would have meant he would have still been at work at 19:30 that night, with temperatures falling and the likelihood of having to walk home).
At this point, FMC presents PBI with something else which is a completely new concept to him. Because he has chosen to work roughly 08:00 to 14:00, those are his 'preferred hours' (something about which all the available guidance on The Employer's intranet is silent) and he has to live with any loss if he couldn't come in during those hours. PBI could hear Dury rotating in his grave at this point.
PBI ends up losing nearly ten and a half hours time because of all this.
Then, as if his sense of disillusionment with the rather casual and dismissive way in which someone who had given nearly twenty years of hard work to 'The Business™' (and who is covered by the DDA to boot) is being treated were not enough, another matter arises.
As previously stated, PBI's medical condition qualifies him for the protection of the DDA. What it also qualifies him for is having to have regular reviews of his condition. These were previously undertaken at the local hospital (which is only a couple of hundred yards from the office), but in recent times these have been delegated to a practice nurse at his doctors' surgery.
The appointments for these reviews can only take place between 08:30 and about 11:00 in the morning, as these are the only times when the practice nurse who specialises in his condition is available. PBI always tries to get the earliest possible appointment so that he can call in on his way to work (the surgery in question being about halfway between his home and the office), and so minimise the effects upon The Business (™).
The custom for as long as he can remember is that his manager will allow him to claim back the time he loses by attending these appointments. All he does is complete a form requesting this and his manager will grant him the credit of time.
This custom continues into 2010, when PBI has an appointment in early February. At this time, the nurse (in consultation with the doctor) withdraws one of the medications that PBI had been taking to control his blood pressure. The doctor agrees this on the condition that PBI's blood pressure needs to be monitored closely over the coming months. This in turn means that - rather than having an appointment every six months - he would need to attend an appointment every four weeks over the first half of the year. The next appointment is duly set for four weeks later, again at 08:30.
When PBI reports for work that morning and makes his customary application to claim the time back, IBM (who, you may recall, is his manager) grants it without demur.
PBI then tells her that he has a further appointment a month later. This turns out to be a mistake. Three weeks later, IBM calls him in and informs him that he would be able to claim the time back for the next appointment (due the following week), but all future appointments would have to be taken in his own time, as per IBM's reading of The Employer's official guidance. PBI points out that this is counter to long-etsablished practice and that - as he is covered by the DDA anyway - he is fully entitled to claim the time back as the guidance fails to refer to that coverage. IBM insists that IBM's reading of the guidelines is correct, that PBI should arrange all future appointments outside of his working hours (despite IBM being told very clearly that this is not possible), and that as the guidance doesn't refer to the DDA, IBM isn't bound by it.
A week later, PBI has his next scheduled appointment and claims the time back, which is duly given. However, the claim for his next appointment - four weeks further on again - is rejected as threatened by IBM some weeks before. The same pattern follows with the next two appointments, which takes PBI through to the end of May having lost over five hours to the appointments over the preceding two months. IBM continues to maintain that IBM is following 'the guidelines' and refuses to amend the previous position.
IBM's position throughout is based on a set of incorrect assumptions and statements. Firstly that PBI couldn't claim the time back - not even under the provisions for Disability Adjustment Leave - because he works flex-time; the DDA makes no distinction on the point - you either are covered by it or you aren't. Secondly, that simply allowing him to attend the appointments at all constitutes a 'reasonable adjustment' within the terms of the Act; this is quite clearly nonsense, because even within an employer which has developed an unhealthy obsession with denying staff reasonable provisions, there could be very few occasions where the employer could justifiably prevent anyone from simply attending an appointment. Thirdly, that the appointments were 'routine', and not related to PBI's disability; this is bollocks on stilts and PBI had told her so. And finally, that the employer is only required to grant unpaid time off; PBI once again refers IBM to the DDA, but to no avail, even pointing out that if he was being told to take the appointments in his own time, then IBM wasn't allowing him unpaid time off either.
By this time, one of PBI's colleagues has suggested that he ask to be referred for a review with The Employer's 'health advice provider' (a large, multi-headed outsourcing company). Before he can decide on this, however, IBM decides to refer him to them anyway.
So it is that on a dull day in mid-July, PBI clambers aboard a train to travel the sixty miles to a large city in order to attend an interview with a nurse. PBI actually does find the hour-long discussion fruitful, in that all bases are covered regarding the grief that IBM and FMC had been giving him for the previous six months; the person he talks to is extremely sympathetic and fully agrees with PBI that he was perfectly entitled to claim the time back under the DDA (moreover expressing astonishment that management thought for one moment that he wasn't). The nurse would state this in the written report which he would provide within a few days to both PBI and IBM.
PBI leaves that city in the most positive mood he has experienced for some time (even taking into account the fact that he gets lost trying to find his way back to the station and ends up getting home about an hour later than he'd intended). Indeed, when the report arrives on his doormat a short time later, it does indeed make the same points that both he and his union rep have been making to IBM for months. At last, he thinks, I'm getting somewhere with this. IBM won't be able to brush this off.
Famous last words. It is about three weeks before he can get IBM to go through the report with him. When the discussion does take place, IBM dismisses what the occupational health nurse had stated in his report simply by saying that the health advice provider "didn't understand The Employer's procedures". And that is that: nothing changes, IBM still maintains the management position and even goes so far as to imply that PBI has fraudulently reported his hours for that day, a notion of which PBI is very quick to disabuse IBM.
The frustration that PBI is experiencing as a result of IBM and FMC simply not taking any notice of what he and other authoritative sources are telling them begins to take its toll on his well-being. On at least two nights in late August, he lies awake in bed late at night terrified that he is going to die in his sleep.
Another review with the practice nurse comes along in early September, and again PBI's claim for the time lost is refused by IBM. PBI then speaks to FMC (who is, let it be recalled, IBM's manager). FMC takes the same position as IBM, saying that the whole matter has been discussed between IBM, FMC and JNB (FMC's manager) and that that is the line they had decided to take.
PBI then requests a 'clear-the-air' meeting between himself, his union rep, IBM and FMC. FMC declines this on the basis that they have already made their decision and don't intend changing it. Blanked.
An attempt by PBI to engage the department's own mediation service then fails because said service claims they can't get involved in anything regarding procedures or management decisions. Another dead end.
PBI then decides to call the employer's HR Service Desk, and speaks to a delightfully forthright Scottish lassie who says that, as far as she is concerned, if The Employer's health advice provider has stated that he is entitled to claim the lost time, then he most definitely is entitled to claim it. She suggests that he e-mail the Service Desk with details so that he can have a written response which he can show to IBM (and anyone else who needs to see it).
IBM duly does this, relieved to find someone within The Employer who could confirm that he was in the right. Unfortunately, his e-mail goes to someone completely different to the person he had been speaking to, and he receives a completely anodyne reply pointing him to the same 'guidance' that IBM has been using. Back to square one.
Thoroughly pigged off by this time, PBI decides that - all reason having failed to produce the correct result - an escalation is called for. After discussions with his union rep, he decides to avail himself of The Employer's grievance procedure and (with the rep's help) draws up the formal letter. In it, he sets out the basis of his grievance: namely, the failure of two layers of management to operate the provisions of 'reasonable adjustment' under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act, and that this discriminatory behaviour covered both the issue of the medical appointments and the absences due to bad weather; the total failure to accept that statute law over-rides the employer's own guidelines; and the inconsistency in suddenly denying claims for later appointments having allowed them previously and in allowing other members of staff in an identical position to continue claiming the time back.
As his complaint is against both IBM and FMC, he has to submit the grievance case to FMC's manager, the aforementioned JNB, which he duly does. According to The Employer's own guidelines, JNB then has thirty-five calendar days to resolve the matter and reach a decision.
Day thirty five duly comes - and goes - without any indication that JNB is anywhere near a conclusion. This creates a small dilemma for PBI. The next possible step for him would be to submit a formal claim of discrimination to an Employment Tribunal (ET). However, there's a time limit on such claims; they have to be made within three months of the alleged act of discrimination (or the most recent act if there has been more than one). It's a big step, because this is where lawyers can get involved.
After some thought and discussion PBI - suspecting very strongly that the grievance case is not likely to give him any closure on the matter - decides to submit a claim. With advice from the union rep (who, in turn, receives advice from a more experienced rep and from a lecturer who is giving a course on employment law at the local Uni which the rep is taking), he submits his formal claim at the beginning of December.
In mid-December, JNB decides to hold a 'fact-finding meeting' regarding the grievance case with PBI and the union rep - only about twenty-eight days past The Employer's own deadline for dealing with it. The meeting duly takes place a couple of days before Christmas, at which PBI and the union rep give JNB a very clear view of events, some of which seem - judging from facial expression - to be news to JNB. PBI and the rep come away from the meeting with a feeling of cautious optimism that the whole thing might finally be resolved properly.
They should have known better by now. Less than a week later, JNB gives a full, formal reply. In it, JNB states that there was no harassment, no inconsistency and no discriminatory behaviour either!. JNB writes that there couldn't have been any discrimination, because PBI had been treated in the same way as everyone else. So PBI has to face the fact that now three layers of management seem incapable of realising that the Disability Discrimination Act (which by this time has been rolled up - along with other similar legislation - into a new Equality Act) trumps any procedures within its remit that The Employer may devise.
Due to the Christmas and New Year holidays and a further outbreak of bad weather, the papers from the Tribunal Service don't reach The Employer's legal department until early January. When they do, their reaction can be summed up by the phrase, "This should never have got this far!"
There then follows over three months of negotiations involving my union rep, The Employer's solicitors and the Advice, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). During this time, PBI is diagnosed with Depression, thus completing the disruption that the whole lousy shenanigans has caused to his life. In work, things go on much as they have before.
In the end, the union rep advises that a time limit has been reached and it might be advisable to settle up for whatever has been proposed by that point. Taking it to a full Tribunal could take months more, and he would be unlikely to gain any more than was on offer. So PBI - having just about had a gutful of it all anyway - decides to settle via arbitration.
And that's where PBI's story ends. The terms of the settlement are permanently confidential; PBI is not even allowed to tell his own family, supposedly because one member of it works in the same office. All he can state is that there has been a settlement. But he also feels able to confirm that something called 'A' was conceded to him in toto; something called 'B' was half-conceded to him very reluctantly; something called 'C' was shilly-shallied about with to no positive purpose; and that a certain amount of something called 'D' was involved.
PBI is more or less satisfied with the outcome. He has had the main thrust of his argument totally vindicated. Moreover he hopes that, if he has achieved nothing else, he may have dissuaded The Employer from trying to do anything like that to anyone else in his position.
He also feels that those who believe that trade unions are either not desirable or not necessary should have tried walking a mile in his shoes during the past year or so.
It just seems a shame to him that something so straightforward should have taken no less than sixteen months and an awful lot of struggle to put right.
Finally, PBI would like to pay tribute to the following sets of initials for their endeavours on his behalf since the beginning of 2010:
Heroes Of Downtrodden Labour:
EO: his union rep. Handled her first Employment Tribunal case proficiently and was always both encouraging and realistic.
AM: EO's colleague with previous experience of ET who was always ready to offer practical advice and support to EO.
PE: Lecturer on EO's employment law course. Willing to provide advice and encouragement from very extensive experience.
Those Who Served With Distinction:
These are the people who provided the strongest support (moral and practical) to PBI over the whole period:
LJ, BL, SC, SJ, DJ, LM, RC, SD, AS, BH
Those Who Served With Honour:
These are the people who provided regular encouragement throughout:
SJ, AC, ME, DP, ER, JP, JC, RP, SK, PF, RM, HP, CP, CK, SG, GG, GE, TB, WL, DH, DE, CM, JL, CS, DK, TP, CB, VW
PBI is most pathetically grateful to them all. Workers Unite!
If things go a little quiet here (or quieter than they have been), it's only because I've got a new toy.
I've mentioned before that I had digitised all my vinyl, firstly to DVD-R (thirty-odd of them - I've kept the .wav files as well, in case I want to convert them to a format other than .mp3), then to the hard drive on this PC.
I found then that, although I was now giving the music I had on black pieces of plastic with a hole in the middle a lot more of a hearing than for a long time - as you would have seen from following the Raves page in the last few months - I was now not listening to anything much that I had on CD.
This is pure laziness on my part: the discs are within no more than six feet of where I sit, and my elderly Aiwa hi-fi is just as close. Still, I mostly couldn't be arsed.
So, I worked out that transferring the contents of my CDs to the hard drive would take up about 18Gb of space. That's nothing, bearing in mind that this PC has a hard drive of 250Gb and that even after three and half years I'm still only using about 60Gb of it. Nonetheless, I though that an external drive would be a good idea.
In town last Thursday I decided to go for it, and walked into Micro-Plus Computers in Chester Street. Who should be there but Mick, who sold me this PC back in November 2007. I hadn't seen him there for a while, but he was covering the Wrexham shop for a few days (he usually works in their Business Centre down in Oswestry).
A discussion and a lot of pleasantries later, I walked out with a 1Tb Buffalo HD-EU2 for £64.99. One like this, in fact:
Setting it up was easy-peasy. Just connect the power, connect the USB and there you are. I had wanted the drive to go on the desk, but the USB cable isn't quite long enough, so it's sitting on top of the PC tower unit under the desk.
I started off by moving the vinyl stuff from the hard drive to the Buffalo, and then loaded the 78 rpm stuff I converted at the end of 2009. I then started on the CDs.
I've done 19 of them so far. I've only got another 369 to go. I'll see you next year sometime...
Those of you who have visited regularly in recent weeks may have noticed a sudden change in the front page, in that it no longer carries graphics relating to - or linking to websites about - the imprisonment and treatment of Edward Woollard and Bradley Manning.
The reasons why I have removed those items are slightly complex and slightly different in each case.
In the case of Bradley Manning, it now seems to be so that since the US Department of Defense was forced (by weight of public campaigning and some lingering sense of embarrassment) to transfer him from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth, his treatment has become much more in line with civilised values, and the justifiable sense of outrage at the torturous conditions in which he had been held is now a moot point.
As regards Edward Woollard, the reason for removing him from the front page is not due to the lad finally getting a sentence which is more just and proportionate than the one handed down to him by Judge Rivlin in January; in fact, the support site (on the rare occasions upon which it has been updated) has never stated whether there is even an appeal in the offing against that sentence.
No, the reason for taking that link down (and the same goes for Manning to a lesser degree) is an attempt at self-preservation.
I've referred before to the primary symptom of my Depression as 'the prisoner complex'. When in that state of mind, I imagine myself as being in prison, or about to be put in one, or having been let out of one yet still being subject to vindictive or degrading treatment. I can go through periods when this frame of thought - this ideé fixe, this obsession - can be held at bay for a few days. But it comes back soon enough, and can be quite debilitating when it does.
I've come to the conclusion that if I made it more difficult - and less of a temptation - for me to go and look at the Woollard site, then I might find it easier to keep the cell door from slamming shut on me, as 'twere.
None of this should be taken as a sign of withdrawal of moral support from the campaigns on behalf of either of these young men; it isn't. I still think Manning is being set up to take the rap for the US government's embarrassment over the Wikileaks affair, and I still think that the thirty-two months sentence on Woollard is a fucking outrage (and look out Charlie Gilmour, it's going to be done to you, too!). But I need to see if, by distancing myself for a while, I can help ease my own problems.
I'm getting a bit fed up of all this, to be honest.
I went up to Chester today, recognising that - during the week off from work to which I would otherwise have looked forward - I needed to keep active. I'd done some gardening over the weekend, and had gone to Sainsbury's on Tuesday (yes, I live life in the bus lane, don't I?). Realising that the forecasts were agreed in showing Wednesday as being the last day we'd have good weather this week, and given that I had other things to do to occupy Thursday and Friday, today seemed the ideal day to take my first proper visit to old Deva for about three and half years.
So I set off on the 09:20 bus and, after it had done its usual circumnavigation of the Plas Coch Retail Park, I got off at Wrexham General station, bought my ticket and made my way to Platform 2 for the 10:02 Cardiff - Holyhead train.
This arrived bang on time, and by 10:20 I was walking away from Chester station.
I didn't have a set plan for where I was going to go, but I started by walking down Brook Street just to make sure that Grey & Pink Records was still there. I used to buy loads of old vinyl from there back in the day, but I haven't bought any bits of round, black plastic with a hole in the middle at all for some years.
Having made sure that my intended target for later was, indeed, still going, I joined the city walls just between the Cathedral and Deanery Field and headed anti-clockwise towards the North Gate. There had been a second-hand bookshop at wall level just before the Gate, and I'd bought a fair whack of stuff from there down the years, too, Wrexham having been completely devoid of second-hand book shops of the right sort for many years.
When I got there, it was obvious that the shop was still in existence - but it was shut. So that was one kick down.
I descended to street level and made my way past the cheese shop from which I used often to emerge with a very large lump of Farmhouse Lancashire in my shopping bag, and crossed the road in front of the Town Hall. At the time of my last visit, there had been much talk (and considerable brou-ha-ha) about 'redeveloping' (planners' language for 'fucking up') Northgate Street. I was quite glad to see that the developers had not had their wicked way with the area just yet. So, I found that the Forum market hall was still open. This, however, like market halls in many another place, is about one-third empty. There used to be, in one of the lock-up shops at one end, a place called The Vinyl Grooveyard, and I used to buy a bit from there too. Now, I found a stall run by an elderly gent whose name - if the sign attached to the stall was correct - is Vinyl Dave.
Now, as a contributor to that wonderful resource for aficionados of seven-inch singles called 45Cat, I had intended to see if I could pick out some interesting examples which might amaze and impress my fellow members. But here's where I sensed that the day was heading south at some speed: much as I would once have revelled in the possibility of flicking through the racks, I suddenly found that my enthusiasm, rather than simply heading south, had obviously decided to stay on the train and was now probably somewhere near Colwyn Bay and heading for the sea. I picked robotically at the selection, wanting little more than to go back outside and more or less to get the whole day over with and return home.
So it was that I left the market after about twenty minutes and decided that I would briefly check out two other old haunts. First off was Waterstone's, which I had decided to visit to see if I could find a copy of a book which my dear chum Alex had recommended to me as a possible means of neutering the Black Dog. I found a copy (after some difficulty; there seemed to be no signage indicating what sort of books were to be found on which floor) and flicked through it, but it seemed to be laid out too much like something from an A-level psychology course, and so I put that idea on the back burner for a bit.
I then headed out and down the street to the local branch of HMV, and then discovered that the ground floor was now all DVDs and games and that the music was all upstairs. So I trudged (and by now, that was the operative word) up to the first floor and mooched around quite aimlessly for a few minutes.
It was here that I made my only purchase of the day; namely a CD of Neu!'s album Neu! '75. I paid seven quid over to a young lad who seemed to be held together entirely by tattoos, and headed back up the road.
(Incidentally, the next time you come across one of those posturing execs or lawyers from the record 'biz' telling you that 'illegal' downloading is 'killing music', tell him he's talking bollocks: I would almost certainly never have bought this album had I not been able to download a .torrent of it first to see if I liked it).
I doubled back a bit and went through the Grosvenor Shopping Precinct. The emphasis here being on the word through, as there was nothing in there which would have maintained my interest even if I'd have been in what passes for my right mind these days. In fact, several of the 'outlets' there seemed to be in the process of closing down.
I emerged on the other side, crossed Pepper Street and headed down Lower Bridge Street to the river. Turning right, I went and sat on a bench downstream of the Bridge Gate to have spot of lunch.
Desperately seeking a means of shaking myself out of my increasing distemper, I gazed across (not for the first time) at a strange outcrop of rock on Edgar's Field on the further bank, and resolved that I would investigate. I duly made my way towards the Grosvenor Bridge in order to cross the Dee, only to find that not only was the footpath some way below the level of the bridge, but the footpath itself was blocked, and progress at that level beyond the bridge was impossible.
The reason? It was Race Day at The Roodee, which I hadn't realised. That also explained why the Little Roodee car park was packed full of fairground trucks and caravans. And the fair itself, although this was not at work at the time.
Forced once again to retrace my steps to get back onto a viable route, I climbed up Castle Drive, where I took one of only two photographs I took during my entire visit: this one of a surviving part of Chester Castle:
Having reached the main road again, I thought "Arseholes to the outcrop!" (as you do), and turned right instead. I then got slightly lost for a few minutes before finding myself by the Roman amphitheatre on Little St John Street. Not even that could hold my interest for more than a few seconds, so I pressed on a little further (passing a group of strangely-garbed men doing mock sword-fighting at the entrance to St John's Church) and sat in Grosvenor Park for a few minutes to no great purpose, especially as I had realised that if I had wanted to follow the Walls back up towards the city centre I shouldn't have even come as far as the amphitheatre.
It was here that I availed myself of a small insight. I had been trolling around in a state of a sort of emotional disconnectedness from my surroundings for the previous hour or more. I mean, the weather was very pleasant (apart from a rather chilly airstream), I was in one of the places in the world which I like a great deal, and there were things I could profitably be doing. So why could I feel absolutely nothing, not even irritation with whole parties of sleek-looking bastards intent on enjoying the day's racing on someone else's expense account?
I then realised that a suitable metaphor for such a state would be that of a whole-body condom: nothing reaches you from the outside, and you can't make proper contact with anything from the inside. And, of course, you also end up feeling a complete prick.
Dragging myself off the bench, I then meandered up Love Street (and, as you might expect from its name, this thoroughfare was once noted for traffic other than that of the vehicular variety, where condoms of any variety would have been a good idea), before finding my route up St Oswald's Way and back onto Brook Street and calling into Grey & Pink as I'd promised myself I would.
Except that here, too, I found that any activity was scarcely worth the effort. Just as in the market earlier on, I found myself scanning the product in a desultory, listless fashion (perhaps it would have been better had I made a list, but that would have been asking too much at this stage). Once I had determined that they didn't have a copy of Living Room Suite, the only solo LP by Harry Chapin released during his lifetime which I don't have, then the last remaining potential interest had gone out of the day.
So, after a mere half an hour I headed out of what used to be a veritable Aladdin's Cave of possible discoveries, and found myself, shortly after 14:00, standing on Platform 4A on Chester station waiting for a train to Maesteg.
(Yes, Maesteg. I'd thought that the train I'd be waiting to come home on would be from Holyhead to Birmingham New Street, but it turned out - after I'd made a necessary enquiry - that it was running via Shrewsbury, Hereford and sundry other places only to end up in a small town in the arsehole of The Valleys).
The train arrived, I sat more than a little pensively on it back to Wrexham before catching a 13 bus back home, all the time wondering what had happened to my joie de vivre and when the hell I could expect it to come back.
Not, all in all, a good day.
Footnote: If you're interested in Chester, I can warmly recommend Steve Howe's Chester Virtual Stroll.
They shot bin Laden at close range in a 'firefight', with no intention of actually, you know, capturing him and subjecting him to anything akin to "truth, justice and the American Way",
They can't show us any pictures because they'd be "too distressing" (this is from the country who brought you Glenn Beck). The photos being used in the world's media today are, by the way, well-known fakes which have been circulating on the www for years,
They can't provide us with any other independent evidence because they also quite considerately made sure that they killed any potential eye-witnesses who weren't 'embedded',
And they threw the corpse into the ocean "out of consideration for Muslim sensitivities", (something they US has not been all that well-known for in recent times).
I wonder how the Duchess formerly known as Kate Middleton feels about the the fact that about fifteen billion people around the world know that she's going to get shagged tonight?
Oh well, perhaps she'll learn to take it on the chin...
Chance Encounters And How They Can Change Your Day
I was sitting here shortly before 19:00 this evening in a bit of a fugue, contemplating writing a piece explaining why - despite my generally rageful disposition at the moment - there had been no new postings on the Rants page for a month (something to do with that epidemic condition called CBA - Can't Be Arsed).
There was a knock at the front door.
Opening it, I found a young man standing there. A very pleasant young man of undoubted Afro-Caribbean heritage and a hairstyle which seemed to be poised fetchingly somewhere between the afro and the dread. He was calling on behalf of a charity, seeking people to sign up to donate.
This charity, to be precise:
Now, as I have pointed out before, I do contribute to charities as and when the mood or the situation warrants, and I don't generally take to being importuned in any way (I know, I've probably missed a lot of fun that way, but a boy must have standards, y'know), but there was something about this guy which I found utterly engaging. So, in order for us to discuss the matter further, I invited him in and we sat there (or, rather, here) in the living room as he described what Blue Cross was about and how I could help.
That wasn't all we talked about, though. Over the next hour we talked about ourselves, our views of the world and our interests and, although I also have an aversion to doing anything very much by Direct Debit, I had no hesitation in the end in signing on the line to make regular donations. Because this young feller's (he's nearly thirty years my junior, I found out) enthusiasm and friendly personality deserved recognition and reward for his efforts, not just for the cause he was representing but for the fact that he loosened me from my listlessness. I had obviously amused and entertained him as well (which is the only talent I seem to have developed to an advanced degree) and reminded me once again that - however cynical we may become about our world and many of those in it - people in general are very good (he said that he'd been very successful with his efforts in the village this evening) and that - as Peter Ustinov put it - people are only made bad by circumstance.
We parted having both gained something rather important from the evening, and not just from the nitty-gritty of a financial transaction.
So, hello Gareth if you read this! Stay cool and keep doing what you do!
Throughout most of last week, I was cruising at altitude; I was outgoing, witty, quite euphoric. "Ah!", I thought, "Perhaps I'm coming through this Depression shit at last!", although I also suspected that the most likely consequence would be one hell of a comedown.
And so it came to pass last night. From around 22:30, I could feel the Black Dog sniffing at my leg again, prior to cocking one and pissing all over me. I went to bed quite early (about 23:30 - early for a Saturday night), but slept poorly and had some rather odd and disturbing dreams. One of them, I'm afraid, even featured Edward Woollard (or, to be punctiliously accurate about it, someone who looked like a photograph of him).
Yes, the 'prisoner complex' has returned with a vengeance, and I am having the same old feelings as drove me to see my doctor nearly two months ago. I also seem once again to be able - completely without trying - to find news stories about people being put in prison when there is no real need for them to be, which depresses me further by the sheer pointlessness of it and also induces something which I've noticed I've been feeling more frequently lately; namely, a feeling of somewhat inchoate and directionless rage at the stupidity with which society operates a lot of the time. Misplaced compassion, perhaps, but better misplaced than none at all.
Having 'slept' in until nearly noon, and despite a brief period of respite having tea at my brother's, I'm sitting here wanting to go to bed (it's 21:25 and it's a bank holiday tomorrow) because I have nothing else I feel any inclination to do, but I know that I won't get to sleep until well beyond midnight - perhaps not even then - and I'm unlikely to feel any better tomorrow.
Not absolutely entirely that and that alone; I did spend a few moments exchanging uplifting haiku with my old chum Alex, who has gone through a rough patch in recent days. But it was mostly mowing.
Now, I don't have a particularly large garden, but it has three expanses of grass: a squarish bit right at the back of the house of about fourteen feet on each side; a long narrow strip right down the side from back to front; and another squarish bit of about twenty feet a side at the front. There's also a grassy bank on the roadside which, although outside the fence and therefore technically the responsibility of our beloved Council's highways department, would never get cut if I didn't do it.
This makes the job quite fiddly, even without the added complication of flower beds, borders and paths which means that a mower on its own simply wouldn't suffice.
In addition, this was to be the first cut of the year, which always takes a lot longer as the grass gets quite long and thick by this time of year. I'm reluctant to start cutting too soon in the season, however, because this usually means it has to be cut more often between then and mid-September, when I pack it in for the year.
I'd developed a set pattern for doing the job over the years, starting by mowing the front, then the side strip, finishing on the back square. And then going around trimming both the edges and the parts which a mower can't reach anyway (a couple of raised areas at the back in addition to the grass verge beyond the boundary).
It took me until last year to realise that I'd been going at it arse backwards. You see, there's a slight gradient from the back of the house to the front, and the way I'd been doing it up to then meant that I was forever mowing up the slope when doing the long side part. This meant that by the time it came to do the back square (where the grass always seems to be longer anyway) I was knackered.
So, at around 10:30 this morning, I unshipped my Powerbase mower and Flymo trimmer (both of which I'd had to buy last summer to replace the old ones which failed in the space of a couple of months of each other), got the extension reel out, tested the circuit breaker, and set to work on the back square.
I was accompanied throughout by the sound of one of the delightful little dachshunds who reside in the shed of the couple who have the house behind mine. These wonderful creatures (they have four in all) are characterised by three main attributes: an irretrievably cranky nature; very short legs which would render a command of "Sit!" utterly redundant; and immense stamina in the yapping department.
(Oddly enough, boy racers and ice-cream vans can go past without a peep from them, but all I have to do is stand by my back door and breathe and off they jolly well go).
Anyway, the back square done (a job made more difficult by a quite steep camber alongside the path which seems to have become more pronounced over the years, perhaps presaging the time when the whole house will slide into a long-forgotten mineshaft), I set to the long shallow slope of the side-strip, pausing from time to time to wipe my nose (I don't actually suffer from hay fever, but my sinuses were being a proper bugger today) or to stop my glasses slipping off from the copious amount of sweat I was producing.
Once I'd finally got down to the front corner by the gate, all the while collecting further evidence for the proof of Stapley's Law of Cussed Cabling, which states that, if there's something - however small - that a power cable can get caught on or around, the bloody flex will go and do precisely that; once, as I say, I got down to the gate, I debated with myself as to my next move. I decided, as it was now about 12:30, to break for lunch.
One individual pizza later, I started on the front square. I've found that the only way I can cope with doing this bit is by that bit of amateur quantity surveying which one tends to bring to such projects; do a bit, estimate how much you've done and how much is left to do, calculate the percentages (or fractions if you're old-fashioned) then do the next bit and - as they say - rinse and repeat.
This part of the task accomplished, I cleaned the worst of the mushed grass off the mower and took it round the back to put on top of the long-obsolete coal bunker to dry off ready for proper cleaning, then started the whole process from the back with the trimmer. The new one shares one characteristic with the model it replaced; namely that the much-vaunted 'auto-feed' of the cutting cord often doesn't work properly, which slows the job down more than somewhat.
The trimmer deals with the edges and fiddly bits which the mower either can't reach or, if used, would damage - flower beds, sort of thing. This means that it has to deal with a far smaller area than the mower, so the trimming part of the exercise usually takes a lot less time than the mowing.
Pulling the extension lead out to its fullest extent, I then stepped beyond the strict boundaries of my own lovely domain to deal with the grass verge. Today was a propitious time for doing it because there's a bus stop immediately outside my gate (very handy for when I'm running slightly late for work, but also - alas - very handy for every litter-dropper in the borough), and with it being a bank holiday the buses were only running every hour. This gave me more leeway than would otherwise have been the case.
The grass on the bank was very thick and lush (possibly something to do with the substantial diet of dog shit it has to feed upon - people for hundreds of yards around seem to bring their mutts specifically for the purpose of dumping their walnut whips there), and the trimmer took a fair bit of coaxing to deal with it.
Finally, shortly before 15:00, the cutting had all been done. I cleaned the worst of the mulch off the trimmer and took that round the back as well. I was taking a little break before getting the rake out when I felt...raindrops. What!? Lo, there was a solitary black cloud coming over, and a small shower started to pass across us. In a rush, I reeled in the extension cable, put it just inside the front door, then dashed around the back to grab the mower and trimmer and put them in the kitchen for safety (thus adding to the amount of dead grass and mushed dandelion leaves which I'd been carrying in and out on the bottom of my gardening shoes and my jeans).
I stood inside the back door having a reflective smoke and wondering if I was going to be able to tidy up properly, when I heard it:
"BZZzzzzZZ! BzzzZZZzzzZZ!"
I'd had to leave the back door open while I was doing the back and side in order to feed the extension cable out, and I knew what the result would be. Sure enough, there on the back kitchen window was a wasp.
I fucking loathe wasps. There's something about them which triggers some atavistic dread in me, possibly the frequency of the sound they make. I've never actually been stung by one, and I don't want to be, either (I've been stung by a dead bumble bee, however; I was about nine years old and wearing shorts, and I knelt on the sod).
I seldom get bees in the house (they're far too intelligent for that), and bluebottles and flies I tend to leave alone because they have no weaponry to deploy against me, but wasps are a different order of threat altogether. So I dived to get the Raid from the cupboard under the sink and gave the thing two or three hefty squirts. I left it thrashing about while I went back outside (the rain had stopped) with the rake to finish what I'd started.
(I've just been to do the washing up and, six hours after I zapped it, the wretched thing is still lying twitching on the window sill. I wish they'd just die quickly, because I start considering the state of my karma when they don't).
The raking is always the worst part of the job. Partly because I get lulled into thinking that, once I've finished the mowing and trimming, the job is nearly complete, and partly because it's the most back-breaking and fiddly part of it. I've got one of those adjustable rakes with prongs scarcely stronger than the wires on an egg-slicer, and it's a bit hit-and-miss as to how much you actually collect together with it. I tend to take a broad-minded approach to this, in that what I don't manage to get with the rake, the wind will take care of (although this means that, the next day, you see all the little piles that you missed).
Having made about seven substantial piles of cuttings, I then dragged the green bin around the place putting the piles in (with even more animated yapping; the dachshunds most emphatically do not like the sound of the bin being trundled up and down the path). Then it was time to bring the mower and trimmer out on to the coal bunker again to clean them off.
Going back into the kitchen, I saw that there was another bloody wasp on the kitchen window. I'd left the Raid can on the worktop, so was able to down this one a bit quicker. By a stroke of luck, it dropped straight down into the sink and I was able to flush it away.
Job done, I made my tea (faggots and chips - for the benefit of American readers, these are the faggots in question), went and had a nap for an hour, then caught up on the happenings in the world and helped myself to a can of Guinness.
So that's what I did on the first day of Zombie Carpenter Weekend.
It's been very nearly a month since I last gave an update on my condition.
I'm afraid that there's very little new to report. I still haven't had a date for my first therapy session, and colleagues in the know have suggested that it could be months before I get one.
My employers have recently contracted out most of their staff welfare provision, and that company's website does offer Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), but they also seem to think that - for the most part - such a very personal, nay intimate, service can fruitfully be offered down the telephone. I don't think so, do you boys and girls?
A dear friend, well versed in the insanitary habits of The Black Dog, suggested to me when I met him in town last Thursday a book which he said had been of enormous help to him. I'm following that up.
In the meantime, I'm still gently (although sometimes not very gently) oscillating between +2 and -5 on the Gloomometer™, although still far more on the negative side than the plus.
After a few weeks' experience, I can only describe the feeling as either:
as if one's brain has been enveloped in a layer of gauze, or
like having one's head and shoulders covered in a rather musty, damp and heavy blanket.
The overall result of this is that - all too often - nothing, but nothing seems worth responding to. Things which amused me no longer seem to, and things which engaged my enthusiasm no longer seem to be able to find an enthusiasm with which to engage. Even when I manage to complete some job or other - like the bit of remedial gardening I did last Sunday - I get no sense of achievement or satisfaction from it at all.
(Hell, I don't even find online porn funny anymore! And it is funny for the most part, you know, both the professional stuff and the amateur material which seeks to ape the pros; the terrible earnestness of expression and the appallingly clichéd dialogue combine to make one wonder whether it is all actually being manufactured by religious maniacs out to render the whole notion of intimacy totally joyless and a subject fit only for ridicule).
At other times - when the graph goes seriously negative - I find that all that will suffice is for me to go upstairs, get on the bed and hug my pillow as if it were a lifejacket for half an hour or so.
Another thing I have realised is that no-one who has not suffered from clinical Depression (note capital 'D', there) themselves can - with the best will and all the love and good intentions in the world - comprehend what it does to the person suffering from it. Before the last few weeks, I would have been of their number, associating the term 'Depression' with someone merely 'feeling a bit down'.
But it's a whole bloody syndrome of things, of psychological and physical effects all combined in a particularly debilitating way. Even now, although the hardcore rationalist in me recognises that - in comparison to many in this world - I am (and have been) very fortunate in my life, and although all solid reason and analytical thought tells me that this is all due merely to some sort of neurochemical imbalance, still it doesn't help, because the one thing I find Depression has done to me is that the irrational and the totally subjective hold a sort of dominance over me.
My dear friend referred to above told me that Depression is something which doesn't have anything which could be called a 'cure'; all you can do is arm yourself with strategies to cope with it when it's at its worst.
Sitting there in work this morning when a colleague started to tell us that her husband had damaged their vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, she began with the following statement (name of husband changed to protect...well, everyone really):
"Fred has buggered my Hoover..."
I expect to see the story in the News Of The World on Sunday, but remember you read it here first!
I've moved items from January and February into the new Archive pages for this year, and I've also made a change to the navigation from those pages so that you can go back to the main Archive menus from the yearly Archive pages rather than back to the front page.
To my great embarrassment, I've just realised that the UK version of the world-famous JudgeCo™ 2011 Calendar didn't show the dates that British Summer Time starts and ends this year. The corrected version is here.
Funny things, days. You can never be sure quite what they're going to bring you.
Take today. I mean, I knew that I had an appointment with the opth...the ophthla...the Eye Department at the Hospital this afternoon. I'd had a scan for retinopathy a month ago, and the people who did that suggested that I make an early appointment with the specialist. So I did. Today was the day.
Unfortunately, the earliest appointment I was able to get was for 16:20 this afternoon. Now, I usually finish work for the day at 14:30 and go home, but I saw little point in doing that today, and the options were either start work at my usual time (07:45) and work until just before 16:00 (even though that would take me well over my contracted hours) and then attend the appointment, or go home at the usual time and then have to come straight back into town again.
There was a third option, which was the one I took. That is, I had a lie-in (which is always welcome on a Monday) and got into work shortly after 09:30. This meant that I could leave at a good time to make the appointment. So that's what I did.
I got to the Eye Department about ten minutes before my appointment and took a seat. I had to wait until nearly 16:40 before being prepped and told to wait outside the consultant's office, but that's about par for the course.
Two or three of us were chatting there together; me, a woman in her late sixties, and a very pleasant and attractive girl of about nineteen. The girl was called in first to see the consultant, and she came out about five minutes later all of a lather, because the doctor had told her that he wanted to do laser surgery on her eyes there and then. The elderly party was then called in, and she came back out having been told the same thing.
Then it was my turn. Yep, me too. Crafty buggers! Because if they'd have told any of us that that was the reason we had been called in, chances are at least two of us would have pleaded a prior engagement.
Anyway, after a little while, the woman was called into the room with the laser operating equipment in it. She emerged some five minutes or so later, slightly unsteady from not being able to see very clearly.
Then it was my turn again. I went in the room and waited with the nurse for a few minutes while the consultant did something across the corridor in his office. Then in he came, the lights went down and I was there, with my chin and forehead resting against this metal contraption while the doctor inserted a lens thingy into my left eye (I'd been given anaesthetic drops by that time so that all I felt was the presence of the lens). There were a lot of extremely bright lights and the occasional series of flashes. I didn't feel anything, to tell the truth, although I would have been scared to contemplate the possibility of something going wrong as a result of my recoiling at a crucial moment or something untoward like that.
When I pulled away from the apparatus and opened my left eye properly, the room was a sort of bottle-green colour (the woman who'd been before me said that everything had been pink when she'd had it).
Then it was the turn of my right eye. The same procedure again, only this time I did feel a little twinge when the laser was firing off.
And then it was over, and I went out into the waiting room to join the other two. The young girl was taken into the room, still very much of a dither, but then had to sit there while the consultant saw a couple of other patients in his room. This didn't help her mood very much, despite our attempts at reassurance.
She was very brave, really, and eventually the doctor re-emerged and went in to the surgery room. We - the elderly woman and me - had determined that we would wait for her come what may, and were reassured by the laughter which was percolating into the corridor from behind the door.
By this time, our eyes were coming back towards normality. The ceiling lights started to look more white than the sort of greeny-yellow they had appeared to be when I had first come back into the waiting room. Things were still blurry, but I put that down far more to the effects of the dilatory drops, which I'm used to anyway.
Anyway, after a few minutes out came our brave young heroine and - after giving her a few minutes to recover a bit - all three of us headed for the exit. A nice bit of human solidarity that, I thought. I finally got home shortly before seven.
I'm typing this about two and a half hours after the surgery. Things are still a little fuzzy - and lights are both blurry and flary at the same time - and I'm still having some trouble reading this as I type it (I'm not a professional touch-typist, but I can shift a bit in that direction when I need to) and it's giving me a bit of a headache, but I'm sure that'll all come right later on and overnight.
If you're ever required to have laser surgery for retinopathy, for goodness sake don't worry about it. If you feel anything at all from the procedure, it's nowhere near as much as you feel from the eye-drops.
All the same, I'm rather glad that they didn't tell me in advance.
I promised that I'd follow up on my post of 19/02/11 with my general opinions on penal policy. I'm sorry if I seem obsessed with the subject at the moment (for reasons which I've already given), but I might as well put that obsession to the use of enlightment and entertainment while I have it.
This piece is it, but it's going to be a lot shorter than the one I'd originally intended to post (*) for reasons which I will give later.
One of the key measurements of how civilised a society is is the way in which it deals with those who break that society's rules - or rather the rules which are set down for that society by its ruling groups. We are a society which has decided - sometimes to the disgust of the more vocal elements within - that those who break the rules laid down for lawful behaviour do not have their hands or heads cut off, do not get strapped to a medical trolley and slowly, calculatingly poisoned to death, and do not (except in the most extreme cases, which are very few indeed in number) have removed from them all hope of redemption. Not for us the pre-mediaeval barbarism of Shari'a as practised across the Muslim world today, nor the mechanised, pseudo-sanitised American Way Of Putting To Death.
We have instead decided, by dint of that sort of historical consensus and compromise which has spared us from the worst spasms of extremism and fundamentalism, that the most severe punishment we may inflict on a fellow human being is to to remove him (**) from general society and place him in a secure location. To do so is both a practical act - to protect the public from the possibility of further law-breaking by that individual - and a symbolic one - a clear demonstration that that individual's presence in what we flatter ourselves to call 'normal' society cannot be tolerated until his behaviour matches the minimum standards we have the right to expect.
And yet, for all this adherence to humanitarian values, it is no more possible to have an intelligent rational debate on penal policy in the UK than it is in the US. Because generations of screeching hacks who know that you can never go wrong, sales-wise, by manufacturing outrage on behalf of The Great Public, aided and abetted by desperate, grandstanding politicians who prefer to follow the opinion of said Public rather than try to lead it, have created an atmosphere of vicious hysteria surrounding the issues of crime and punishment.
So it is that - however measured, however carefully based on available facts and research, however tactfully couched - any critique of the way we operate our criminal justice system which dares to suggest that the underlying ideology of "lock 'em all up and cut their goolies off!" is not only ethically dubious but has been unsuccessful by any objective measure, is met by a hail of froth-lipped vituperation about 'namby-pamby do-gooders' (or, if you're in the US, 'bleeding-heart liberals)(***).
(Yes, I freely admit that if I - or anyone else who matters to me - were to be the victim of a criminal act, I would want to don my 1970s-vintage Doc Martens and kick the culprit's arse all the way from here to Samarkand; but that is why we have a system of Justice rather than just of Law - Justice is (if the term is to mean anything at all) Law tempered by consideration, compassion and humanity).
The counter-claims seldom adduce much in the way of facts or serious research, relying instead on decibels and emotive language for its effect. So it is that any statement to the effect that we are far too ready in this country to lock people up for far too long for far too many minor offences will invariably be met by such cries as, "You wouldn't be saying that if your nine-year-old daughter had been gang-raped by forty-seven Muslim illegal immigrants before having her corpse put through a mincing machine!"(****), or just by the chanting of media clichés such as, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime!", which constitutes the criminological equivalent of "Four legs good, two legs bad!". Saying something loudly and frequently doesn't make it any more true.
This is the mindset which has led to the prevalent, the dominant, the only socially acceptable position on the subject being that imprisonment should be not only the first resort of punishment, but that it is incarceration and incarceration alone which can be termed a punishment at all. And so we have the standard, saloon-bar/tabloid-bore comments about anything else being "a slap on the wrist" or a "soft option".
And even imprisonment in itself is not deemed enough punishment in the mind of the demos. Being removed from society is not sufficient for these people; there must also be the total removal of privacy, of dignity, of humanity its very self from those in prison. We therefore get all the Daily Hate-isms along the lines of, "They shouldn't be able to watch telly in prison! They should be chained to the wall for twenty-four hours a day and made to shit their pants in front of everyone!", and the old favourite, "Prisons are just like holiday camps!" (never, in my experience, uttered by anyone who's ever spent time in one, and evidence in my view only of the possibility that the utterer of that particular hand-me-down has, in the past, booked some bloody weird holidays).
(I do wonder, by the way, what sort of quirks lurk in the minds of people who seem to take such an all-encompassing delight in the thought of other people being humiliated and dehumanised; especially if it involves whips and shackles. There's a potentially fruitful area for psychological study there, I feel)
It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that any argument which is based on observable facts - that imprisoning increasing numbers of people for ever-longer periods of time for ever more petty reasons, and then making those people's lives as difficult as possible once they have completed their mandated punishment so as to make rehabilitation near impossible for many has not, does not and will not work in the long-term interests of society - will struggle to gain any traction when trying to move through the sludge of prejudice and vindictiveness in the comprehension of people whose image of what prison life is like seems to have been gained entirely from watching re-runs of Porridge.
And yet, that argument must be made, because it is bloodily clear that the underlying presumptions of penal policy over the past thirty years or more have been a grotesque and deeply damaging failure for all of us. Every reptilian oozing about how "prison works", every 'crackdown', every barmy idea about 'zero tolerance' or 'three strikes' imported from the United States (now installed as the biggest penal colony in human history), where those ideas have not worked either, or have been misused to create the maximum outrage against humane values; none of them can hide the fact that an increasingly extreme and vindictive system does not and cannot ever deliver the sort of society which we claim we wish to see.
The only viable underlying principle of a system of Justice (as opposed to a system merely of Law) is the same as the one which should underpin all of that society's interactions; namely, "Do as you would be done by". We can none of us be sure - unless we are sequestered by our own choice in a cloister, and perhaps not even then - that we will never fall foul of the laws which surround us and bind us, and our best protection is to ensure that even those who incur our disapproval by their actions are protected by the same safeguards as we would hope to be protected by ourselves. Robert Bolt, in his play A Man For All Seasons has Thomas More reprove his ambitious underling in words which sum this up perfectly:
Roper: So now you'd give the devil the benefit of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh, and when the last law was down, and the devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man's laws not God's, and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake.
When we put someone in prison, we subject him to the most severe penalty we can impose; we disconnect him from everything which is familiar to him, everything which may give him solace or comfort, everything and everyone which may give some meaning to his life. We bring him face-to-face with the stark reality of loss, of his transgression and the realisation of the unaccaptability of his conduct. This can have a ruinous effect on him, leaving him with little in the way of hope or - to use a word which may seem strange coming from a non-religious viewpoint - redemption. Even if it doesn't do that, it usually leaves the offender no better disposed to a law-abiding, productive life afterwards than he was to begin with.
It therefore behoves us to take such a step only after the most intense consideration and with all due conscience and humility; for who is to say that we won't be on the other end of that mechanism some day, and hope for proper consideration, measuredness and compassion to be shown to us?
And yet the knee-jerking continues. It must be apparent from any rational and humane view of the matter that our society has overdosed on imprisonment, especially for juvenile offenders, where the damage done will tend to have consequences far deeper and more far-reaching than it would for adult offenders.
Perhaps there are some signs that even those in charge of our currently unbalanced system may be getting the message, however. The Ministry of Justice (which sounds like some sort of Goth disco, but isn't) has published a Green Paper entitled Breaking The Cycle, which gives the thinking of the current Government on what needs to be done with the criminal justice system.
Bearing in mind the ideological complexion of the current régime, the Paper is - on the whole - a pleasant surprise. Although it contains some of the posturing rhetoric I've been complaining about, and although it does see a greater involvement for the profiteering sector in the system, its emphasis upon the need to avoid putting people in prison when there may be more effective (and, in the long term more economical) ways of dealing with them is quite heartening. It bears many of the hallmarks of the current Secretary of State at that Department, Kenneth Clarke, who in his time as Home Secretary nearly twenty years ago did seem to be one of the more intelligent and reasonable men to hold that office in recent times.
The consultation period ended yesterday, so I'm afraid that it's too late for you to add your 2p-worth if you haven't already. I did manage to put together a response (which also included my little bit for the campaign to secure justice for Edward Woollard), and sent it off to the Ministry on Friday. You can find it here.
(**) By 'him', I mean individuals of all sexes throughout.
(***) And what does it say about our respective societies that the words 'do-gooders' and 'liberals' are nowadays terms of abuse?
(****) Thus encapsulating all those themes dear to the heart of the Great Unthinking - lickle kiddies, violent sex, xenophobia, torture and junk food.(*****)
(*****) I must find a better way of doing footnotes than this.
So, one week on from my diagnosis, how are things?
OK, I suppose. Being in work does help, because my colleagues are pure gold and because the job - stultifyingly boring as it is - at least gives me something to occupy my mind. It's when I'm not distracted that what I have started to call the 'prisoner complex' begins to edge towards me with a vengeful leer on its ugly mush.
This means that late evenings and weekends are the most awkward times, and I have to find things to do to divert my attention.
The mood swings are a bit bothersome, if only because they can take place within such a short timescale that I never get used to one state of mind before I have to deal with a different one.
I'm measuring them on a scale of -10 to +10. Usually during the day I seem to be oscillating between about +4 (which is a state of mild, extrovert euphoria) down to about -4 (a sort of dulled numbness where nothing seems worth the effort very much).
In short, I'm coping. But I'll be glad when I get the date of my first therapy session.
Last Friday, I was diagnosed as having depression.
(I was tempted to spell it with a capital 'D', but decided that would look far too self-important)
The symptoms could possibly be deduced by the more perspicacious reader from the content of the previous post, although even my good chum Alex - having been provided with an earlier draft of that piece, and being himself no stranger to such feelings - still hasn't deconstructed it to his satisfaction after a fortnight.
I'm not going public about this in order to elicit pity or sympathy. For one thing, such an attempt would be shameless grandstanding of the "look at me, I'm significant" type; but more importantly, whatever state of Möbius mindscape I've got myself into is my responsibility alone.
It's simply that I don't see any reason why I should hide it. This is potentially perilous in a society where psychiatric ill-health is seen as a subject for shame, guilt or simple avoidance; but - as I said last time - in order to slay the Beast, one has to identify it and name it.
I will enter Cognitive Behaviour Therapy soon. I may tell you about it - as much as I can with proper respect for my own privacy and for the delicacy of your stomachs.
Preface: I have thought long and hard over whether to put this post up here at all; it speaks of the inner workings of my mind, and may be giving way too much away about myself. But I've spent a week or more writing it, and as others seem to use their blogs to express their feelings I'm not inclined to let the effort go to waste. I don't want anyone who knows me to worry unduly about its content; it's an attempt to work out what's going on. In any case, if you don't want to read self-indulgent crap in the first place, perhaps you should just skip this piece.
**********
This piece was originally intended to serve a number of purposes.
Firstly, it was an attempt to describe a certain rather worrying state of mind which I seem to have fallen into in the last few weeks; secondly, an attempt to make sense of that state of mind and where it might be coming from; thirdly, an attempt to exorcise (as it were) that state of mind and clear some clutter out of my head; and finally (if I got that far without getting myself into a state of complete cranio-rectal co-location) to voice some opinions on a matter I've long found engaging my concern, if at times only morbidly so.
It was thinking about the Woollard case which has cast me into the emotional fugue I seem to be inhabiting, but I know that this is not the first time it has happened. There was a case in about 1994 which presented similar symptoms. In that instance, it was the case of a fifteen-year old boy in South Wales who had been convicted of rape (although the reports at the time merely referred to 'a sexual act', which means it might have been rape in the strict legal sense of the term, but not rape in the way that the ordinary person would usually take it as meaning). Upon his initial conviction, the boy had been given a non-custodial sentence (which the details of the case may possibly have merited - this wasn't well enough reported to determine). Unfortunately, presiding over the case was a judge called Prosser who was notorious for eccentric sentencing and bizarre remarks. In addition to the sentence, Prosser ordered the boy to pay his victim a sum of money (memory suggests it was either £300 or £500) so that, as he said, the girl could have a good holiday. It was a crass decision to make and a crass way of expressing it.
Of course, all hell subsequently broke loose. The victim's family was understandably vocal about it (as much as they could be under the necessary condition of anonymity) and - inevitably - the press got hold of it and started its usual sub-human screaming.
The Crown appealed on the grounds that the sentence was too lenient (as it by then had the power to do). In due course, the case found its way to the Court Of Appeal, where the boy was sentenced to two years in a Young Offenders Institution (YOI).
Here's where the workings of my mind started to baffle me (I mean in this specific example; its other workings had baffled me for years - they still do). In all reason and objectivity the revised sentence may have been correct, at least in principle. So why did I start identifying with the boy? Or, to be absolutely accurate about it, why did I start projecting onto him? For what anxieties, fears or other strange considerations was I using his fate as a lightning rod?
Because I started imagining myself in his position. Here was someone who was scarcely through adolescence, suddenly removed from everything he had ever known and put into a setting and environment which would have been completely alien to him, full of people who may well have been older, stronger, tougher and more vicious than he had been (and that one act may have been the only truly bad thing he had ever done in his life). How would he survive? What sorts of things would happen to him? What sorts of things would be done to him, by whom, and how frequently (especially bearing in mind that - as a sex offender - he would be at the very bottom of the heap; even granny-stranglers look down their noses at nonces)? What state of mind would he spend his time in? What sort of mental or psychological condition would he be in when he came out again? What sort of life would he have thereafter (fortunately for him, this was before the introduction of the Sex Offenders' Register, a piece of political grandstanding which has been abused more often and by more members of the judiciary and the police even than the bail laws and ASBOs). Lying abed at night with nothing much else to think about while I awaited sleep, I concocted scenes, dialogues, whole narratives about what he might be going through.
In short, I couldn't get that case out of my mind. Not for months. It was only about a year after the Appeal Court's decision, when it was reported that the boy had been let out (and that was only reported because the girl's father had once again kicked up a fuss, just as he had done about the supervised home visits the boy had made in the run-up to his release) that I seemed able finally to let go of it. Or so I thought (see later).
Fast forward a decade and a half to the Woollard case, and I find myself doing the same disconcerting, dislocating thing. Like just about everyone else outside of Dibden Purlieu, I had never heard of this lad before the trial was reported, but again I have found myself projecting onto this youth's circumstances some form of my own hang-ups. How would he as - by all available accounts - a gently-nurtured boy from an obscure part of Hampshire cope with being on the receiving end of a sentence deliberately designed to be disproportionate? What would happen to him in the notorious YOI at Feltham? What hope would he have of a successful appeal? Again, how would he fare once he was let out (be it after sixteen months, twelve or less) with a conviction for a violent offence on his CV (possibly for the rest of his life)? What would happen to his relationships outside of prison? Would he still be able to bring himself to live with - or even speak to - his mother, who encouraged him to hand himself over to the bizzies and who must now be wondering if it would have been better had she told him to cut his hair, grow a beard and keep a low profile for a few months? If he had a girlfriend, would she stand by him, or would she find the behind-her-back comments too much and dump him in his time of greatest need?
As I must again point out, all of this is mere projection. It is not me imagining him in that situation; it is me imagining me in it.
So why do I find myself once again doing this? There is certainly one common element to the two cases I've referred to, and that is the peculiar behaviour of the judges in them. In the first case, the non-custodial sentence might well have gone almost entirely unreported in anything other than the South Wales Argus had Judge Prosser not made himself look a complete tool with the monetary penalty and his comments in connection with it. In the second, we are confronted with the sight of Judge Rivlin making sentencing calculations and decisions which were clearly political in the broad sense of that term. It could have been anyone (and Charlie Gilmour must be shitting a stick right now, given that he has been charged with two counts of the same offence), and Edward Woollard - being one of the first to be tried in connection with events on that day in November - just happened to be the fall guy for a particularly emetic act of judicial activism.
In short, both the South Wales boy and Woollard found themselves at the mercy of something over which they had no control, in the form of two show-off members of the judiciary. And that perhaps is one reason why they attract my attention. The unfairness of being punished more than once - or punished disproportionately - as a result of factors beyond one's own control; to be singled out; to be 'made an example of'; that is something which a true system of justice should not be willing to countenance, and something which shouts out its wrongness to me. A sentence - like a conviction - should be decided on the basis of the facts of the individual case and the individual perpetrator; allowing external considerations to negatively influence sentencing is not justice, as a one-time Lord Justice once said.
But I know that there is far more to my own reaction that just a case of a sincere - if perhaps misplaced - compassion ('misplaced' because there are almost certainly many other more worthy objects of it - those whose very convictions may have been wrong, for instance). It taps in to something I know has been in my psyche since time was.
Wherever I have been, at whatever time, I have always felt myself to be an outsider. I was very poor at making friends at school - the scrawny old hag who was headmistress of my infants' school actually told my mother to her face that I was 'anti-social'. I was not a 'good mixer', finding my own company - and the company of my fantasies - to be more congenial than hanging out with other boys who were into such empty (and rough) pastimes as playing football or games of 'commandos'. Also, I was probably the brightest kid in the class for most of that time, which in a working-class area was, by the early Seventies, not the cleverest thing to be. These two factors, combined with the fact that I knew how clever I was and was thereby ripe for the kicking, meant that I was regarded as easy prey for others who wished to express a dominance over someone else. I was bullied for much of my time in school from the age of four to the age of sixteen, and looking back I recognise that some of that was my own fault (anti-bullying campaigners will no doubt express horror at this statement, but all I can say is that I didn't exactly help myself much of the time, and most children will take any advantage going to bolster their position in the pecking order). It is quite possible that - were I of that age now - I would have been diagnosed as being somewhere at the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. Back then, I was merely 'shy' or even 'anti-social', and that was that.
And so I never developed the social or psychological ease that most of my contemporaries seemed to demonstrate, whether it was being pretty relaxed about breaking rules at school, or doing the sorts of things that 'normal' teenagers got up to, or by being part of some in-group or other. Oh, I hung around with a certain crowd for most of my time at secondary school, but I never felt fully part of it. This was mostly my fault rather than theirs; I never felt that I 'fitted in' anywhere with any degree of assurance. This aspect of my life continued into sixth form and university, and I only became remotely comfortable in social situations once I had turned thirty-five or so, which was a tad on the late side to be of any real use.
Possibly as a defence mechanism, I adopted this 'outsider' status as a sort of identity at least in my own mind, and came quietly and gradually to embrace it.
Because I have never had either a wife or a life (those in the know claim that possession of these are mutually exclusive options, but I can at least confirm from personal experience that it is possible successfully to be devoid of both), and having long had trouble getting to sleep at night (the 'off' switch on my brain having developed a permanent fault many years ago), I tend to while away the time before I doze off in inventing scenes or storylines in my head, as I mentioned earlier. This started off as being strictly practical, in that I fancied myself as a fiction writer and this seemed a useful way of running through some ideas and seeing where they led. However, long after I reached the sad conclusion that as a writer of fiction I made a damn good typist, I continued to play out these scenes, partly out of habit and partly out of a need for entertainment.
However, although adopting the rôle of the outsider can be a liberating experience, it takes only a small mis-step of the imagination to turn it into playing the rôle of the outcast. As someone who enjoyed - particularly in his twenties and thirties - reading stories about the excluded (encompassing also the self-excluded) to be found in many of the short stories of - for example - Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison, this position too has (or had) its attractions. For what could be more romantic (there, I've used the word) than being the brave individual who stands outside convention and 'normality' as a standing rebuke to the dull, uninspiring world-view of what my chum Alex refers to as The Mundanes? The true man who stands alone, defying the quotidian, the humdrum, with himself as his only resource?
All very romantic, as I have said. But dreadfully, culpably immature. It is the ultimate fantasy of the followers of that false trail of adolescent self-righteousness which nowadays calls itself 'Libertarianism'. But then, as I have always been immature - in line with the poet Robert Lowell's description of himself as having gone through "thirty years of adolescence", and with Wilhelm Stekel's dictum which Salinger quoted in The Catcher In The Rye - and as underdeveloped emotionally as I have been socially, such a stance would at least be consistent with the rest of my personality.
Where it can - and, if my experience is any guide does - go wrong is where one starts to create a rationale - a back-story - for how one's imagined character attained that pariah status in the first place. For instance, in one particular such storyline (for want of a better word) - one which I have revisited so often that I could run the whole story as a film in my head any time I choose - I was an outcast because I had - at a young age - committed a terrible crime, for which I served a term of imprisonment during which I myself had been subject to routine brutality, and following which I was left with little hope in life and little consolation (this storyline obviously stems from the time of the South Wales case I've already mentioned).
This internal screenplay then goes on to delineate the sense of despair, disconnection and worthlessness felt by the character, before he goes on to try as best he can to make something of value of his existence before finally being rescued from the prospect of lifelong darkness and isolation by the love of an open-minded, compassionate and determined young woman.
I'm beginning to wonder if I have already given away too much here, and imagine that I can hear the scribbling of psychiatrists both professional and amateur at all this, but I'll wade out further into this open drain by saying that I have an adjoining fantasy which I indulge in broad daylight. In order to enliven (for certain values of that word) the daily tedium of the bus ride home, I sometimes imagine that I have come back to the area for the first time after a period of many years' banishment, again for some dreadful but unspecified offence. By this method, I feel that I get some fresh perspective on the over-familiarity of the landscape. This may be a little weird, but ultimately harmless, I think.
You can possibly discern a common thread here. It's probably a projection of a poor sense of self-worth or of low self-confidence that I so regularly imagine myself into - and, at least in my head, act out the fate of - a character who is the object of general scorn and contempt.
But none of this seemed a satisfactory explanation of why I appeared to be turning myself inside-out about something over which I had no control happening to someone I didn't even know. And then a Good And Wise Friend to whom I have spoken about this had a Good Thought: perhaps, she said, I identified with the South Wales boy and Edward Woollard because I too perceived myself as being powerless, trapped and victimised. This may be The Key; I've mentioned before that my working environment has been made toxic for some time due to the high-handed stupidity of people in positions of power (I still can't say anything about that; I'd hoped to be able to by now, but the thing's dragging on). There was, I soon realised, a lot in what my Good And Wise Friend said, and her acute perception seems - if not to have lifted the load much - at least to have enabled me to identify where the problem is coming from. Identifying and naming the Beast is an essential precondition for fighting it.
But it would be a terrible waste not to take advantage of an opportunity to take the dog psychologising a little further. There's another common element in all of these concoctions, and one which relates back to the point at which I started these half-crazed ramblings (by the way, you don't mind my having a breakdown in front of you, do you? Jolly good! Stick around - it could get entertaining). That is, the fear of confinement of some sort and - perhaps more significantly - a feeling of horror at the thought of having all of one's freedom of action removed without any possibility of negotiation or mercy.
Although I have long held a dark suspicion in my mind that I would some day - for whatever reason - end up in a cell, up until now I have never even seen the inside of a police station or courtroom, let alone a prison. Perhaps this lack of experience has again led me to create wild imaginings of what being in prison might be like. However, I don't think so. I don't believe that I need much imagination (or any imagination at all) to find the prospect truly terrifying. I can imagine the appalling combination of being removed from all that mattered to me - my home, my music, my books, my ain folk - and being placed somewhere without any of these comforts to the psyche, in the enforced presence of people whose company I would not naturally choose (this is not snobbery, merely a statement of cold fact), knowing that I had no control over any of my circumstances - not when I got out of bed, not what time I ate, not what time I washed, not what time I went to bed, possibly not even what time I went for a shit - and that control over everything other than what went on inside my head had passed into the hands of a bureaucracy which would know nothing of compassion or even humane values, concerned only with the hard rules of its own machinery.
I have found myself in recent days doing routine, humdrum things - cooking, listening to my choice of music, reading my e-mails, or simply standing by my back door listening to the robins and blackbirds - and thinking, "If I were in prison, I simply wouldn't be allowed to do this". And at that I feel the walls - metaphorically speaking - closing in.
That combination of isolation, helplessness and the sheer frustration at not being able to do anything either to mitigate my circumstances or to simply get on with my life would destroy me. I'm sure it would. Those walls would close in on me within hours, chew me up and spit out the remains.
Some might point out (if they knew me at all) that this is a bit odd given that I live alone, don't go out much, and maintain a routine which even I have, of late, come to find deeply boring (thus also fitting the perfect tabloid stereotype of the weirdo/pervert; middle-aged, never married, "a bit of a loner", "kept 'imself to 'imself" - you know, the usual clichés). The point is that I do all this by choice (or whatever degree of choice any of us really has); the idea of a hard-and-fast pattern being imposed on me from without, and by those who have no interest in me as an individual and no concern for my physical or psychic well-being, is what disturbs me at some atavistic level. It's the 'fight or flight' instinct; and if you are barely capable of the former and the entire possibility of the latter has been totally removed, you end up in the waking version of those nightmares where something is after you but your legs simply refuse to carry you to safety.
This, of course, is what criminologists, psychologists and philosophers would call "the bleedin' point, innit?". In our type of society we are ultimately ruled by fear, whether it be by straightforward conscience (what the old hippies called "the cop inside your head") or by the terror of losing all that matters to us to a bad action or judgement (our own or someone else's). It may not be 'morality' - in one of its innumerable and often mutually-exclusive varieties - which is the ultimate arbiter of our actions, but fear of punishment.
And this is the nub and crux of the matter for me. During the period of gloomy introspection which has dogged me these past couple of weeks or so, one of the most painful realisations is this; I have got within stumbling distance of the age of fifty, and have done nothing of any note, and nothing upon which I can look back with one of those rueful smiles which one keeps for use when remembering things which may embarrass one now, but which were 'fun' at the time. I never got chased by the irate father of a girl I was knocking off, for instance; nor did I ever wake up in an unexpected place with a traffic cone (or wake up with a traffic cone in an unexpected place for that matter); nor did I ever have to lie low for a few days to evade detection following some largely harmless tomfoolery or other.
In modern parlance, I have lived a 'risk-averse' existence, and whilst that may have been quite soothing at the time in that it avoided adding further complications to my life, now it means that I feel that I have never really lived. I have a couple of relatives in their early-to-mid teens, and if they were bothered enough to ask I would strongly advise them to live and love to the full while they can (taking reasonable pains to avoid anything too serious or dangerous, natch), because the follies of youth - although they may be wasted on the young - are what youth is actually for. It's the time we are supposed to use to learn about life. It's no use trying to do these things later on; you look ridiculous for one thing - there are few sadder sights in our society than some forty-something with a flash car trying to impress young women while having trouble controlling his waist- and hair-line. With certain obvious exceptions - murder, rape, incest (although this last one is dependent on individual circumstances) and wasting an hour of your life listening to a U2 album - it is far, far better to be able in your declining years to regret - be it with a smile or a grimace of embarrassment - something you did do rather than regret all the things you did not do. That latter form of regret lasts and hits painfully deep.
The possible reasons for my lifelong avoidance of risk (or even anything remotely adventurous) may be rooted deep in my past, but they have always manifested themselves in forms of fear; most notably, fear of looking foolish (even now, I hate not knowing what I'm doing, which means that I can never comfortably do anything new), fear of failure (and hence of looking foolish), and fear of punishment (from being foolish or a failure or both). I spent my entire childhood in fear of either the flat of my father's hand or - often worse still because of their duration - my mother's sulphurous sulks, and I considered the administration of either - because as a child I was as self-absorbed as I was over-sensitive - as being equivalent to the end of the world. Combined with the lack of self-confidence which has been my constant companion for as long as I can recall, it makes for a pretty toxic brand of psychic screw-up.
Enough. This is not only getting embarrassing for You, The Reader, but boring as well. I realise that I have got to here and still haven't talked about the fourth element I referred to in the opening paragraph of this piece. That element is a more general view of something central to a civilised society - namely, the way we treat those who transgress against such a society's rules - and will therefore now be given a post all of its own, as I have much to say and haven't quite worked out how to say it yet. As 'they' say (to 'their' eternal shame), "Laters".
Went out for a walk this afternoon in an attempt to clear the melancholy out of my head, and saw this sign at the northern entrance to the old Steelworks site. I know that signwriters don't have to have any grasp of literary style, but this sign irks me because I can't stand the use of the same word over and over in the same sentence. Like here:
Apologies to anyone who has tried to use the landing page for my webspace at Judgemental recently.
I've only just found out that something had gone screwy with it (probably to do with a redirect I was trying to put in a while back). Should be OK now.
Not A Blog Archive 2011
