THE SUNDAY CORRESPONDENTS

A GENIUS RETURNS

London, place of opportunity and excitement. A glamorous place for a provincial boy from (insert place name). London, fortune made, loses its charm. A place of sin, crime and dirty squalor. A need to return to / relocate to a place of more honest virtue (insert place name). This difference between everywhere in the UK and London seems only to be told in these two ways. Here's something slightly different.

I'm from London. OK, so I'm from Metroland. No inner city kid me. But I'm more comfortable on the Tube than in a car. But at 18 I left to live in another part of the UK. Of my own volition and everything. I went to Wales. Swansea (Abertawe) to be precise. I knew the accents would be different but I didn't expect any culture shock. After all, it's only Wales.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

First day. I'm at a bus stop waiting to go to Mumbles. There's me and an old woman waiting. We've been there about 30 seconds. And she asks me where I'm going. Just like that. Its not like we'd waited an hour or anything before catching each other's eye and asking for a while about the lack of a bus before conversing. I am gripped with fear. What is she after? Money? Cigarettes? Or worse? I realise I'm stuck with a nutter. I mutter something, edging way. But she comes over and chats away until the bus mercifully comes. I am shaken and worried what will happen on the bus. But I can't not get it now its here. We get on the bus and she sees a friend and joins her. With a sinking feeling I realise it was just that. She was having a conversation. I'm relieved. And scared. Oh no! Other people will want conversations in future. I'm going to have to walk everywhere if I want to avoid this.

LANGUAGE

I love the sound of Welsh. I watch S4C (Welsh language TV channel) and am amused at the adoption of English words (like Snooker, which is Snwcr but pronounced 'snooker') until I realise that English has always taken on words from other cultures, especially for new things. But I do like the fact that on a Welsh soap opera (might have been Pobl y Cwm) there is a fierce argument between a couple over her unplanned pregnancy full of consonants and phlegm but ending (in English) with "...up the spout". As if there is no Welsh term for unplanned pregnancy. The unexpected use of English is really amusing. But I do come a cropper with the language.

I take the coach back to London at the end of each term. It takes forever. I look for things to mark stages. One of the last ones on leaving Wales by the bridge is a place called Gwasanaethau. It becomes a signal of returning to England. I look for it for almost two years with increasing affection. Then I get invited by a real Welsh person to visit their farm in mid-Wales. We go by car and on the way I'm astounded to see a sign for Gwasanaethau. My friend looks equally confused that I've got so excited about a sign saying Motorway Services.

Enough meandering. A couple of Welsh tracks from The Alarm and Llwybr Llaethog, representing North and South Wales. Of The Alarm, discogs laconically notes that "The Alarm are a Welsh alternative rock band, who were most popular in the 1980s." They aroused strong pro and anti passions with their big hair and bigger choruses:-

mp3 : The Alarm - Hwylio Dros Y Mor (A New South Wales) featuring the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir

Llwybr Llaethog are a seminal anti-establishment North Walian production outfit that pretty much invented Welsh-language hip-hop. The sounds primitive today but is of its time:-

mp3 : Llwbyr Llaethog - Ai Bod Dub (To Be Dub)

Acid Ted, Sunday 5th September 2010

Note from JC

The name Acid Ted should be familiar to many of you. It was the name of a blog, written by ctel, a long-time friend and ally of TVV.

The thing is Acid Ted was savagely removed from the interwebby without any warning back in April 2010. Read more here for a reminder of what happened.

I got a great email the other day, from the man now formerly known as ctel. He calls himself Acid Ted nowadays. Not only did he offer up a Sunday Correspondent piece, but let me know that he had retrieved the 1300 lost posts and has quietly reinvented the blog elsewhere.

Right here if you must know.

And that, boys and girls, is the best bit of news to break in a long long long time.