Folklore & Welshness

A friend of mine is currently constructing a website, it is work in progress but I already feel it has the potential to be great and I'd like you all to visit and say what you think.

http://trolltale.com/

Personally I love folk tales, being Welsh gives me a predisposition for loving the old myths of other countries and comparing their stories to ours.  The Welsh stories are written within one book called The Mabinogion, something I grew up with during my pre-school years and have yet to re-read since I left school.  I feel there might be a greater understanding of ourselves to be found in the old tales but with today's pressures of living, we seem to have forgotten who we are.

Those of you who read my blog on occasion know that I am intensely proud of being Welsh, and I think it's rightly so. As a nation we have faced invasion after invasion, our language has survived through centuries despite ridicule and castigation and only now have we managed to surface as a nation of greatness due to the media.

You all know a few of our great actors, Anthony Hopkins, Christian Bale, Cathreine Zeta Jones, Rhys Ivans, Richard Burton to name a few off the top of my head, other greats to come from our nation are Dylan Thomas, Ivor Novello, Bertrand Russell, T.E Lawrence, Roald Dahl, Aneurin Bevan, David Lloyd George, Henry VII. who began the Welsh domination of the country and sired Henry VIII and grandfather to Elizabeth I, the greatest age of 'english' reign in Britain. Musically we have Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Catatonia, Manic Street Preachers, Feeder, Stereophonics, Super Furry Animals, Duffy, Bryn Terfel etc. and those are just names I can remember off the top of my head.

Quite a few considering we are a nation of only three million people to date; measuring 8000 sq miles and a principality degraded to a third world country by our neighbour.  Compare us to New York for instance, a city of 20 million people, name the good ones…

I could go on forever, however I'm feeling like a Bolshevik, so I'd better not.

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100 Truths

Because I am bored and have been tagged by McCracken, here's another meme.

001. Real name – Gwyn

002. Nickname(s) – King, Knobgag, You bastard!

003. Status – Single

004. Zodiac sign – Scorpio

005. Male or female – Male

006. Religion – Cosmic

007. Primary – Ysgol Eifion Wyn

008. Secondary School – Ysgol Eifionydd

009. University – Newport Film School aka UWCN

010. Hair color – Brown

011. Eye color – Hazel

012. Loud or Quiet – Quiet

013. Sweats or Jeans – Sweats

014. Phone or Camera – Cameraphone

015. Health freak – Never

016. Favorite Physical Quality – Eyes

017. Do you have a crush on someone? – Yes

019. Piercing – None

020. Tattoos – None

021. Water or Fire – Fire

022. Love of your life or 4 Billion Dollars – Love

023. First fear – Spiders

024. First best friend – Rachael Mullholand

025. First award – Er… 20m Swimming badge?

026. First crush – Leoni, she's still a hottie.

027. First pet – Pws, stray cat.

028. Car trip – London.

029. First big birthday – 18th, gatecrashed by 100's trashed the hotel.

030. Siblings- 3

033. Favorite Dessert – Apple crumble and custard

034. Favorite toy in your house – Plasma Ball

035. Ring? – Got my Pterry ring, hardly wear it.

036. Favorite Season – Autumn

037. Favorite Flower(s) – Dandelion

038. Favorite Spice – Chilli

039. Pancakes or Waffles – Neither

040. Left- or Right-handed – Right handed

041. Virgin? One or two, most boring sex ever.

042. How many relationships have you been in? – ?? Too many, definitely in the double figures

043. Silver or Gold? Silver

044. Checkers or Chess? Chess

045. Desktop or laptop?- Laptop

046. Ever been Out of the country? – Yes

047. Where? France, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium

048. Big City or Small town? – Small Town

049. Favorite Food type – Kebab

050. Favorite Drink – Red wine

051. Dogs or Cats – Both, but if I had to make a choice, cat.

052. I'm about to – Keep breathing.

053. Listening to – Nothing.

054. Plans for today – Not a lot.

055. Waiting for – A break.

056. Your Height- 5'10"

057. Contacts or Glasses – Both

058. Want kids?- Not really

059. Want to get married? – Just a piece of paper

060. Careers in mind – Astronaut, Playboy, World Leader.

061. Rain or Snow – Rain

062. Gloves or Mittens – Neither

063. Favorite Girl's Name – Jessica

064. Favorite Boy's Name – Definitely not mine!

065. Believe in Magic? – Yes

066. Soda, Pop, or Coke? -None of them, hate bubbly soft drinks.

067. Brain or Brawn? – Brain

068. Prefer Lips or eyes – Eyes

069. Great body or great Personality? Personality.

070. Do you want to be Shorter or taller? Taller

071. Do you want to initiate the relationship or him/her?- Usually me.

072. Romantic or spontaneous – Romantic

073. Nice stomach or nice arms – I have the arms, so stomach.

074. Sensitive or loud – Sensitive

075. Hook-up or relationship – Either would be quite nice at the moment, but prefer relationships.

076. Should you be friends first or date first? – Friends first

077. Trouble maker or hesitant – Troublemaker

078. Chivalry or not? – Chivalry

079. Favorite Board Game – Trivial Pursuit

080. Lost glasses/contacts – Yes

081. Ran away from home – Yes

082. Held a gun/knife for defense? – No, I have enough confidence in my fist.

083. Killed someone? – Not yet

084. Heartbroken – Who hasn't been.

085. Been arrested – Nope, only cautioned a few hundred times.

086. Done anything illegal – Every day.

087. Cried when someone died – Yes

088. Cried by yourself – Yes

089. Laughed til you cried? – Yes

090. Believe in Miracles? – No

091. Believe in Love at first sight? – As a hopeless romantic, I have to.

092. Heaven – is a place on earth.

093. Santa Claus – Fat old paedophile

094. Say 'I Love you' on the first date – No

095. Sex on the first date – Almost always.

096. Hold hands on the first date – Yes

097. Is there one person you want to be with right now – Yes

098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life – Not at all.

099. Do you believe in God?- No

100. Post as 100 truths and tag at least 10 people including who tagged you.

I wont tag anyone because I don't think that many people read my blog nowadays, well people that blog that is.

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Middle Briton

I suppose you could call this post 'Middle Anywhere', but I live in the UK, so there you go see.

I am a Middle Briton, I earn enough not to starve and not claim any benefits, but I don't earn enough to be considered wealthy, or even well off, hell, I don't earn enough to go to the cinema (see previous post) so I'm certainly not middle class as I don't have my own house or a family and I don't conform to any ideal our government provides for, besides families earn benefits!  I'm a Middle Briton, one of the Lost.

There is a huge source of talent within Middle Briton, they are the people who do the jobs they are over-qualified to do.  They are the people who apply to take jobs who are beneath their talents but never seem to get them.  They might apply for jobs which are above them, but obviously it never happens, so they trudge along in the drudgery of their lives, paying their taxes and voting once every four years or so in the vain hope that the entrenched local politician might fall to a joke candidate because the main opposition candidate is as much a hilarity as the current one.

It bothers me that Middle Britons no longer protest as they used to, but in this new 'Soviet' UK, where the Public Sector employs between 60-70% of the workforce, why would they?

We have become weak, we live in a communist dictatorship which was not elected, yet we are happy to sit in front of the TV and do nothing.  When I grew up, students were constantly on the streets protesting about something, now we only have the hunting brigade and a few gay petrol complaints. Nobody cares.

Complacency murdered freedom.

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Piracy

Arrrr! Not a post on swashbuckling and buccaneering on the high seas you landlubbers, but internet piracy.  I think it's safe to say that everyone has downloaded something from time to time, whether it was a song, computer program or a film, you would have to be an angel to admit that you haven't because lets face it, sometimes you just can't afford to pay the extortionate prices that media producers charge.

Lets look at the typical night out to the cinema.  Bus fare into town, taxi, drive, whichever way you decide to go, it could cost you from a coupe of quid to twenty pounds.  The cinema ticket, last time I went I paid around £8.  Refreshments, you could take your own and smuggle them into the cinema, might cost you a few notes, or you could buy your goodies there at outrageous prices.  So your evening out at the cheapest will set you back at least a tenner, and that's just for yourself and lets face it, who goes to the cinema on their own?

Personally I used to love going to the pictures, but nowadays the experience has been cheapened by poorly run establishments where the seating is uncomfortable, the carpets are sticky with old popcorn and the noise levels are too high because they try to drown out the constant munching noises and the five yobs who keep talking throughout the movie two rows from the back.  So is it any wonder that people are turning away from the experience?  Especially more so now as technology has caught up with the big screen.  At home people have widescreen televisions, sound systems that can produce Dolby surround sound and above all the comfort of your own armchair.

Hollywood complained that they have lost nearly $500 million in lost revenue last year in the UK alone, but you have to remember that these are the same people who reported that films like The Dark Knight has made over a billion dollars in profit alone!  One film has accrued more profit than all their losses in the UK.  Besides, the figure of $500 million is silly anyhow, that money never existed as I'm sure that the people who do download films from the internet would not have gone to the cinema in the first place.

The film industry needs to take a look at how the music industry has managed to circumnavigate the problem, don't swim against the tide, embrace it.  The iTunes Store offers songs for 79p, a manageable fee even for a poor person like me.  I'm sure if the film industry were to offer new titles for around £3, people would download them legally and I'm sure the companies would be making a nice profit from such a fee as they would have little or no production/distribution costs.

At the end of the day, we all like to be entertained at a fair price and nobody wants to break the law and see the film industry fall into ruin, but to help themselves they need to address the problem from a different perspective I feel.

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The Arms of Morpheus

For the last few weeks I have not slept much, in fact I'm lucky if I manage a couple of hours a night, which in its way can prove quite useful as I have more time to do things like read and do puzzles, but it also has its downside as I'm constantly feeling tired and my brain feels numb, so whatever mind exercise I manage is negated.

It's quite strange really, as a kid I could sleep for hours on end, dreaming all the time; it would not be unheard of me to sleep until well into the mid-afternoon, much to the annoyance of my mother, in fact I slept through the largest earthquake the UK has seen since records began.

So why can't I seem to find the solace of slumber?  I wish I knew.

Makes me wonder why we need to sleep at all, why do we need to spend a third of our lives unaware and vulnerable when the time could be better spent.

Yeah, I know that the brain needs the rest and it uses this time to reorganise the files on the hard drive, perhaps this is why my drive is having trouble accessing the relevant files to function properly.

See, I told you I'd be writing about rubbish…lol

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Prolificacy

I had a quick look at my archives a few moments ago and saw that throughout 2008 I only blogged 144 times.  Quite a comedown from my EFX2 days during 2006/7 where I would probably post five times as much.  What has changed?

I certainly have!  I no longer write about topical news stories, unless something really grabs my attention.  The main reason for this is because I wanted a quieter online life, sometimes the debates/arguments on my previous blog would rage on for days with people falling out and writing stupid things.  I no longer wish to be part of something like that.

I also know that my readership has dwindled since I moved over to Vox, but the good thing about that is that only the people I consider to be real friends have followed me here to read my outpourings, some of you have even made your new homes here too.

So here's my promise to myself and my readers, I'm going to try and post something at least three times a week.  It might be absolute twaddle or a literary work of art, but I think I need something to occupy my mind a little more.

Oh by the way, check out this blog, she's a new friend of mine I persuaded to join who is currently studying in Lancaster. Please give her a hearty Vox welcome as I have read some of her stuff elsewhere and she's a good writer.

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I know I shouldn’t…

Thank God, there is no longer a Bush to worry about…

Image001

Well done Smurfs, I knew you were good for something!

Well done America, you have restored my faith in the Universe!

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The Quintessence of I

Here I wallow in the depths of my despair, a wonderful amalgamation of my own personal hell and a purgatory brought upon me through agencies not of my making.  I travel, ever so quietly through the forests of my damnation, searching for absolution from those sins that befell me in my previous lives, or was it just this existence?

As someone once wrote, hell is a place of those who have denied, they find there what they planted and what they dug, a lake of spaces, a wood of nothing, and yet, they wonder there and never cease wailing for substance.

Is this what I seek?  Substance? 

A will is caged within me, pounding on the walls for release, a dragon of infinite power and elegance pacing in cramped circles, awaiting; neigh, demanding for his time to be acquitted.  Release me from this servitude, let me sleep the slumber of the ancients or allow me to be! Do not dare to presume you can hold me, for I am the only light that burns without the benediction of angels.

The wailing's from my heart cannot begin to to explain the torment of my immortal soul for it seems that the demonic hordes have already transgressed their domain to collect their bounty. They play wistfully with their prey, cajoling and teasing like a feline with its quarry, each moment could be the last, but where is the entertainment in finality? Better to prolong the torment until the precise moment of utter hopelessness.  To finally devour whatever optimism that remains at the point of irrevocable absoluteness.

Still I stand against the wind regardless, for without the pain of reality, who are we? Who am I?

I am anger! I am frustration! I am loneliness! I am bitterness! I am all that consumes the whole and leaves nothing, the void of being, yet I embrace you with myself for if you escaped my tender clutches, who knows what damage you could inflict.  Better within a damned soul than without so it seems.

Emptiness, longing, insubstantial thoughts.  Here is where I make my choice.

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49

[ONE] Who was your last text from?
Hard to tell on an iPhone, I think it was Vickster about the quiz on Sunday.

[TWO] Where was your default pic taken?
Hmm, not really a taken pic, I made it in Photoshop from the Zoolander poster and an old photo of my head.

[THREE] Your relationship status?
Single

[FOUR] Have you ever lost a close friend?
Yes, too many.

[FIVE] What is your current mood?
Rock bottom, in a cold well full of freezing water that seems so very dark and so bloody deep that I can't even see the light from the top.

[SIX] Whats your brother(s)/sister(s) names?
Three sisters, Meirwen, Linda & Gwenan

[EIGHT]Where do you wish you were right now?
Somewhere else.

[NINE] Have a crazy side?
I hope so, dunno where it is though.

[TEN] Ever had a near death experience?
Twice.  Nearly died as a baby with whooping cough, also had a very bad car accident.

[ELEVEN] Something you do a lot?
Breathe.

[TWELVE] Angry at anyone?
Only myself.

[THIRTEEN] What's stopping you from going for the person you like?
Money, continental divides…. 

[FOURTEEN] When was the last time you cried?
About 10 minutes ago.

[FIFTEEN] Is there anyone you would do anything for?
Quite a few people

[SIXTEEN] Who do you think about when you are falling asleep?
I try not to think about stuff, keeps me awake.

[SEVENTEEN]Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My mate Beesey, he wanted a phone number from me.

[EIGHTEEN] What is your favourite song?
Currently Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon

[NINETEEN] What are you doing right now?
Sat on my bed typing.

[TWENTY] Who do you trust right now?
Number 6: Where am I? 
Number 2: In the Village. 
Number 6: What do you want? 
Number 2: We want information. 
Number 6: Whose side are you on? 
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information… information… information. 
Number 6: You won't get it. 
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will. 
Number 6: Who are you? 
Number 2: The new Number 2. 
Number 6: Who is Number 1? 
Number 2: You are Number 6. 
Number 6: I am not a number, I am a free man. 

Trust no-one… I want to believe!

[TWENTY-ONE] Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?
It was given to me by a lovely couple who I helped out when things got a little tough for them.

[TWENTY-TWO]Have you kissed someone in the past week?
Yes, but only a little peck on the cheek to say thank you.

[TWENTY-THREE] Who is your friend that lives closest to you?
Hmm, depends, John next door, I work with him, Claire & Joe are just down the road, so is Lee and Phil.

[TWENTY-FOUR] Describe your life in one word?
Fuckingshit!  I know it isn't one word, but if you say it quick enough….

[TWENTY-FIVE] Who are you thinking of right now?
I was actually thinking of Charlie Cat, he never judged nor expected anything of me, unless it was food and we were the bestest of friends.

[TWENTY-SIX] What should you be doing right now?
I should be ordering a drink from one of my slaves on my personal tropical island whilst I was being pampered by my

redheaded Playboy bunnies, possibly wondering why my stock options have halved due to some idiot who ran America for nearly a decade.

[TWENTY-SEVEN] What are you listening to?
The soothing sounds of water from my fishtank.

[TWENTY-EIGHT] Who was the last person who gave you a hug?
Um, I think it was Katie on Saturday… No it wasn't, it was Jennifer on Sunday.

[TWENTY-NINE] Who was the last person who yelled at you?
Larz, we had a blazing argument when we were walking up the hill.

[THIRTY] Do you act differently around the person you like?
I hope not.

[THIRTY-ONE] What is your natural hair color?
Mousey brown.

[THIRTY-TWO] Who was the last person to make you laugh?
The scary thing is, I don't remember.

[THIRTY-THREE] Who was the last person to make you sad?
People don't make me sad, only situations.

[THIRTY-FOUR] What do you hear?
Sound

[THIRTY-FIVE] Is your hair curly or straight?
Straight like my sexuality.

[THIRTY-SIX] Has anyone ever called you "scrumptious" before?
Not when I was around.

[THIRTY-SEVEN] Do you have a best friend?
Yes, more than one.

[THIRTY-EIGHT] Held hands with the opposite sex in the past 3 days?
Yes.

[THIRTY-NINE] Do you use smiley faces on the computer?
Yes.

[FORTY] Have you ever changed clothes in a vehicle?
Yes, few concerts and suchlike.

[FORTY-ONE] Are you happy with life right now?
No, not in the slightest.

[FORTY-TWO] Are you currently jealous?
Nah.

[FORTY-THREE] What jewelry are you currently wearing?
Only my gold neck chain, sometimes I wear my Pterry ring, but not very often.

[FORTY-FOUR] What were you doing Friday night?

I went to the pub.

[FORTY-FIVE] Have you ever had your heart broken?

Unfortunately.

[FORTY-SIX] Have you ever broken someone's heart?
Not sure, might have.

[FORTY-SEVEN] Is there anybody you're really disappointed in right now?
Yes.

[FORTY-EIGHT] What was the last reason you went to the doctor for?
If I answered this tomorrow it would be something else, but the last time I went was for a broken hand.

[FORTY-NINE] How late did you stay up last night and why?

I didn't sleep much last night, so technically I was awake all night.

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Words

Let me begin by saying that I'm not casting any aspersions nor am I judging anyone here, this is more a general piece of writing on something I noticed this morning about how some people struggle to write.  I wont name any names, but throughout the night I was getting status messages from Facebook almost on the hour as to the writing progress of someone writing a 2000 word essay; it seemed to me that they were managing to write between a hundred and three hundred words an hour.

I know that writing a piece of blogging fodder is much easier, nobody is going to be marking this and regardless of its content, it's not going to affect my future in any way, shape or form.  But saying this, when I was back in university over a decade ago, because I had an interest in the subject that I was studying and had a fair idea what was required of me in a piece of writing, I could easily write up a few thousand words without any difficulty, in fact, pairing it down to the required word count was my problem, as you may have noticed I tend to ramble on, and on, and on….

Again it got me thinking, why do tutors stipulate a word count on the papers they set?  Surely the content of the writing should be the most important aspect of the essay, not how many words you can waffle on for, or how little words you use to be able to cram the needed information in the essay.  Surely the merit should be given on a shorter piece of writing that contains all the valid information to answer the question posted.

I realise it gives you a general parameter to work to, so that everyone knows what is required, but it still seems a little silly to me.  Anyhow, that's got that little piece of brain bubbling out of the way, feel free to comment.

Oh, that was about 350 odd words or so if anybody was interested, took me about five minutes to write… 😉

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