Victorian Postage (Christmas Black)

I have had a very old fashioned Christmas, almost Victorian by some standards. Indeed were it not for spinning around the globe via the teh interwebz and tapping out pretty words on my new laptop, it could have been 1850 in my household. Christmas television? I didn't watch it (even missed my usual Corrie). Films? I watched the original King Kong on Christmas day and that was it as far as movies went. I didn't pull a cracker, or stuff my face with mince pies and neither was I eating turkey sandwiches for four days straight after the event. (We have goose as I cannot abide turkey, a dreadfully bland meat if ever there was one).
To be honest I have not felt festive at all, and were it not for family the decorations would have remained in the boxes. I realise I sound like a terrible damp feather but this is how its been this year. Its not been totally 'oubliette fever' of course but the magic spark that used to set me off and get my enthusiasm going has dimmed a wee bit. Might be that I could attribute some of that to losing the person who put me on this earth and who always made Christmas so special, and there is that but I also feel like I have outgrown it too.

Merry Christmas

Why am I blogging on Christmas day?


Goose giblets

A Sig To Me from Phil

from a rugby legend

I have met many famous faces on my often boozy travels from rock stars to movie actors but never once have felt inclined to ask for an autograph. I don't do that (mainly because I feel they should be wanting my signature) and neither do I stand with my mouth wide open like a star struck prune. People are people regardless, it matters not to me if you happen to be in the public eye. Basically I couldn't care f**king less. But I do happen to have a signature that I cherish.
It was back in 1999 when I was at death's door (literally) after a drop too much booze and I found myself in Prince Phillip hospital in Llanelli. One day rugby legend Phil Bennett was visiting a member of his family, and seeing as he also knows my family he kindly came over to my bed and wrote those nice words on my poetry notebook in an attempt to cheer me up. (My poetry notepad goes everywhere, even to my deathbed).
Phil played in the great Wales rugby team of the 1970s, and is a genuinely lovely guy, and if you ever read this Phil then yes you did indeed cheer me up at what was a very grim time for me. Diolch yn fawr!

Porthcawl Mexicans

The bandits still standing (just)

Porthcawl fair (or Coney Beach Pleasure Park to give it its proper name as it was named after the New York fair on Coney Island) has been around since 1920, offering thrills and cherished memories to countless thousands who would visit the fair every year. Sadly nowadays numbers are in the decline but during the summers of the 1980s Porthcawl was THE place to be.
Schoolchildren and grandmothers alike would look forward to the trip and the delights it held, from donkey rides on the beach to the famous Water Chute ride which was situated at front of the funfair and greeted visitors with the shuddering noise of carts on its wooden frame and great sprays of water that would spill over the plastic glass shelter.
I, and many many others, loved the place. For a child you couldn't not love Porthcawl because it was the place that could make your childish fantasies come alive before your eyes. Wooden roller coasters, ghost trains, the Devil's Dipper (a mix of coaster and ghost train), the Enterprise (think giant bicycle wheel with you on the spokes in a metal seat), amusement arcades, waltzers, dodgems, it never ended. And then there was the food! Like all funfairs, it had a bit of everything from candy hearts to hot dogs but it was the fresh doughnuts and faggots and peas that the fair was famous for.
So many memories nestle in the good parts of my mind; like wanting to be the first to see the Water Chute as the car got closer, and creeping slowly through the Chamber of Horrors where scenes of medieval torture would be lit up in the dark complete with blood curdling noises. Then there was the Funhouse which had an assortment of cool things from crazy mirrors to the steepest and highest slide I have ever seen. There was lots of grazed and bruised flesh after a visit in there.
One of the rides which stands out in my recollections is the 'cowboy ride' which is situated (its still there all these decades on) almost at the back of the fair. Its a childrens ride where a steam train goes around a Wild West themed track complete with saloon bars, cactus and the Mexican bandits you can see in the above photo. (A picture I took on a 2008 visit).
As you can imagine, being a childrens ride its not very exciting and the highlight was going over and under the small bridge in the middle of the track (I had a strange fascination with staring at the ferns which grew under this bridge) but whenever I think of Porthcawl my mind invaiable gets drawn back to this charming little attraction. And there I am once again, 7 years old, holding a quivering candyfloss in one hand and ringing the rusty bell on the trains bare carriage with the other.
And whenever we chugged past those Mexican bandits, my brother and I would try to reach out to try and touch one of them, believing if we did that some sort of magical dust would rub off on us. (Or at least I believed this).
Today if I tried touching those fading bandits, I might expect to be instantly sent back to my childhood, my beard gone along with my tattoos, and the sands golden again with the worlds weight lifted from my heavy shoulders. Those wooden cut outs are a link to my youth, long before the modern engines arrived and burned away the ghosts.

Bans Will Never Deter

New figures have shown that more than 58,000 motorists with multiple drink-driving convictions are still repeatedly driving while intoxicated. The bans are not working, and in my humble opinion they never will. You see, it takes a 'special' type of person to drink and drive; a special kind of halfwit with not an ounce of consideration for his fellow man and who will carry on being a menace on the roads no matter what the courts throw at them.
If someone is so wreckless that they would be prepared to risk their own lives and the lives of others by driving after a drinking session, they will be well equipped to ignore any driving bans that come their way. These people are devoid of conscience and posses very little morals. Indeed drunk drivers are selfish and dangerous and they need to be punished properly.
My solution is simple: anyone found guilty of killing somebody after getting behind the steering wheel while drunk would be jailed for life. In fact I would probably go a step further and agree with sending them to the gallows. Murder is murder is murder and if I support executing murderers (which I do) then drink~drivers would obviously be candidates for the scaffold.
Just go along with my idea for a minute. Imagine if Britain did hang drink~drivers. Im willing to bet those 58,000 who stick two fingers up at driving bans would soon see the error of their criminal ways. Some readers will think im being too harsh and maybe they are right but you get my meaning. We need stiff sentences to those who drink~drive, not feeble bans. Bans wwill not deter anyone, least not these cretins.

How To Kill A Film

Withnail's reaction

Most people will have seen the British comedy film Withnail & I (1986) which features Richard E. Grant and Paul McCann as boozy out of work actors. Its probably one of the most quoted movies of all time. And it is funny. Or it used to be. I made the mistake of watching it one too many times and now the film is dead for me. Not even Uncle Monty or a Camberwell carrot could help get a chortle out of my laugh box today. Very sad because it is a great film and if you haven't seen it, please check it out. It is hilarious. Sadly however, no longer so for me. *Unhappy Face*
Think i'll join Withnail in the zoo with a bottle wine.

An Agent For The Holidays

Tomorrow it is Thanksgiving Day in America and as an eager participant of over indulgance and alcohol I shall be celebrating with gusto as if the hounds of hell are at my heel. Nevermind that I am Welsh and living in the wilds of West Wales, the turkey will be roasted, the bread sauce whipped and Jagermeister chilled to within an inch of its beautiful life.
November is usually a miserable month in Britain, with its dark early evenings and biting, cold winds so hijacking another countries holiday to brighten up a few days is a much needed boost to the chilled marrow system.
The modern Thanksgiving holiday I understand stemmed from a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the Plymouth settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season, so it might be argued it comes from the British. And as a limey desperate for action I have taken this information as licence to celebrate on turkey flesh and alcohol.
We globally share so many holidays I am suprised we haven't latched on to this one too. Little matter regarding the real meaning as most have abandoned the spirit of other more grand holidays. Halloween has become a gore fest and Christmas long ago been insulted by greed.
Thanksgiving 'feels' like a dressed down version of Christmas from this side of the Atlantic. It is how the Silly Season should be without the silliness and without being bloated to vulgar states. We know of Thanksgiving here and some celebrate it (I cannot be the only one can I?) but we don't laden it with gifts and carols. Of course if I were to skip over the pond it would no doubt feel different but as it is right now, to a writer hammering this out from the lush, green bosom of Wales, it feels right.
Eat, drink and give thanks for Life and a bountiful harvest but forget about the tinsel and gaudy baubels. Who had the Christmas number one song, or gave the biggest gift is neither important or classy. To be blunt they serve only as further proof of how cheap a person is.
It is quite honourable to give thanks to simple things and for one will be in merriment and giving thanks in earnest. It is the only proper thing to do, and one can only hope next months festivities get restored to a more humble level. We are supposedly celebrating the birth of a Saviour afterall. Humans are ever so fallible and often get lost to real meaning and all the cards and glitter in the world won't mean a thing if we forget that.

Happy Thanksgiving all !!