Gun-don Galling

This morning I hear that yet another Teenager has been killed in Islington North London bringing the total number of teenage gang related murders in the capital to 4 since the weekend.

Surely London is acquiring Manchester's (Gunchester) unwanted crown of Knife and Gun capital of the UK. Perhaps this most dreadful event on New Labour's doorstep may spur them into action. Though even it does I am doubtful that it will get to the root of the problem and will focus naively on 'unpleasant music lyrics' or some other easy target which are in reality an exacerbating symptom and not a cause.

I was interested to hear that Desmond Tutu is bring his truth and reconcilliation foundation to help out in the UK. The foundation based upon the principles of "No one is necessarily evil" and of ubuntu (as in the Linux distro)- that is "I am because we are" or more fully:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1999):
“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed"

Whilst the truth and reconciliation events in South African did some good I'm unfortunately sceptical that it will be meaningful in the UK.

An envious unenviable position

Over the next few days Plaid Cymru will be in the envious position of holding sway in the balance of power in the National Assembly for Wales Senedd.

A difficult decisions faces Plaid Cymru over who if anyone they choose to go into government with.

Labour arguable has done a lot for the region without doing very much for Wales if you see what I mean. However whilst I have some grudging respect for the ocassional departures from the Westminster spin brought out by the sincerity and blunt honesty of Rhodri M I think at times the adminstration has been close to incompetent.

Regrettably as well it is all too obvious that Labour's exclusive motive appears to be their overwhelming desire not to conceed any power.

Meanwhile the rainbow coalition of Plaid, LibDems and Tories seems quite popular with the masses and to be honest it does have some appeal. Some of that appeal though is with a 3 party whip there is a sense that only limited damage can be done.

However I ask my self has the leopard really changed its spots? I'm sure many tory AMs are reasonable people who do aspire to Wales being great and simply desire a country without red tape and a heavy tax burden to help enterprise. However I remember quite a few tory policies and tory politicians in Wales who never had the slightest interest in Wales. In deed it is not so long ago that some tories made their ugly side visible to all to see.

At times over the years it has felt like to be a tory in Wales you needed to be a uber tory; one of bigotry and prejudice. Sometimes some of these Tories have made clear their distain for Wales and exposed their desire to remove Wales from the map and replace it with Greater Herefordshire, Shropshire & Chesire.

The question therefore is have the tories changed sufficiently.

It is a very difficult decision for Plaid Cymru and not one I feel able to answer I just hope that they make a decision in the best interest of the people of Wales and not in the short term interests of political aspirations and power.

So who what or where is Bois Y Cilie

In my desperate desire to have a "privacy preserving" pen name I plumped for something that meant something to me.
I'm sure that's what most people do; to pick some thing significant to them and perhaps something that they hope might appeal to like minded people.

Of course people make the mistake of thinking there are like minded people or that there are people that care or take an interest.

Still that doesn't bother me so allow me to bore you with an explanation of who Bois Y Cilie were and you never know in some dim and distance galaxy someone might be vaguely interested ...

If you siarad y iaith then you can take a look at the welsh wicipedia: http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bois_y_Cilie but for everyone else let me tell you more.

The Cilie family was a famous family of poets, farmers and sailors who lived in and around Cwm Tydu in Ceredigion in West Wales in the 19th and 20th century. Ceredigion for those who don't know is a county in the West of Wales that faces out across Cardigan bay towards Ireland. Cwm Tudu is a beautiful unassuming village in Cardigan bay not too far away from Llangrannog. If you like West Wales then you'll like Cwm Tydu but if you don't well then lets stop here and you can go back to your store card, diet coke and stepomatic; you'll be much happier.

For those remaining, the Bois or Boys were/are:

• Jeremiah Jones (1855 - 1902)
• Fred Jones (1877 - 1948)
• Dafydd Jones (Isfoel)
• John Jones (Tydu) (1883 - 1968)
• Evan George Jones (Sioronwy) (1892 - 1953)
• Simon Bartholomew Jones
• Alun Cilie

Despite arguably humble beginning All the bois possessed considerable literary talent and were both prolific in their work and well regarded in print and eisteddfodau. So successful were they that they apparently gave recitals to then Royal family. Not sure where I read that but I do wonder what either party thought of one another though.

Supposedly somewhere down on the rocks in Cwm tydu beach there's a rock where each of the bois carved their name.

In recent times the descendents of the Bois Y Cilie have been equally famous and include the likes of the folk singer and politician Dafydd Iwan and the actor Huw Ceredig who played Fatty Lewis in Twin town.

So to me to sum it all up the Bois Y Cillie represent the links between art, beauty, nature, family ,peace, politics and being good at things without forgetting your roots. Isn't that a good enough reason?

To blog

It's been nearly two years since I set up this blog and I'm ashamed to say I think I now understand the purpose of blogging. It wasn't that I didn't get the principals of it I just wasn't atuned to it.

I was previously too concerned that anything I wrote needed to be profound, discrete and preserved my privacy. As a consequence I never felt I could write anything - and I couldn't understand the point of creating web content hidden deep in the depths of the web that no one ever bothered to read.

However the reality is that the purpose of a blog is principally to serve the needs of the author whatever they may be.

The 2 years has seen quite a change in what the web is, almost all things point to web 2.0 and social networking has come of age - with even members of the British Royal family having facebook accounts.

I think I've moved on too. 2 years ( okay 20 months) ago I was deeply worried about friends and colleagues who compromised themselves or others through their thought provoking and arguably libelous posts.

I guess this made me anxious and hesitant. I still have concerns about privacy and the ease with which a pretty comprehensive record of personal data can be assimilated by malicious folk using blogs, and social networking sites. In many ways this is a shame and perhaps we should point the finger elsewhere - for example the banks with their typically inane list of security questions they ask:

"What was your mother's maiden name?"
"Where were you born?"
"What was your first school?"

Call me paranoid but this last one even deters me from linking in with my old schools at the expense of not rekindling old friendships. [ huh - who am I kidding everyone I knew at schools was a shmuk and to them I'm sure I was a knob] . Whatever the point remains the same.

So this is a new begining, a new blogistance, like most things I'm going to take it slowly and may be in another 2 years time I'll have opened up and left my bank details in a blog entry.