Contrary to what some people think I'm not Welsh. Don't live there, wasn't born there. But in the last couple of weeks I have realised that my childhood home is pretty damn close to being Welsh. Now this doesn't bother me at all, I went to a Welsh Uni and lived in Cardiff for 6 years but being in the Forest of Dean, this close to Wales, means you do sometimes have to deal with the Welsh. I don't mean 'Welsh' the people as they are all lovely, so there's lovely. I mean 'Welsh' the language. I went to Monmouth the other day, just a few miles away, and only Welsh by a quirk of geography in that on this side of the river Wye it's England, on the other it's Wales. Cross the bridge and suddenly all the signs are in Welsh. Go into Waitrose supermarket and you are confronted with signs like this:
Not only are these signs a bugger to read but I can guarantee that if a native Welsh speaker was in Monmouth Waitrose and asked for the diaroglyddion there would be no-one in sight that would understand them. You see Monmouth, like Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, is what people round here call "English Wales" as opposed to Carmarthen and Aberystwth which are definately "Welsh Wales". My point is: why make everyone struggle with all the signs in Welsh? Especially in a town where one of the most famous Englishmen in history was born. Yes Henry V was born in Monmouth which I suppose means he's not English at all. Imagine that speech with a Welsh accent "Once more unto the breach, my lovelies, once more".
Actually at the moment the Welsh seem to popping up everywhere in my life. For example I was watching a TV show where Raymond Blanc is judging these couples opening new restaurants. Reality TV crap but quite funny. All the more hilarious as one couple are opening a Chinese and Welsh fusion restaurant. Can you imagine that? Laver bread wontons maybe? Stir fried welsh-cakes? The looks on the faces of the opening night customers were priceless. We can also get the Welsh language channel here; S4C (that's ess-pedwar-eck to you). I saw welsh manga for the first time the other day. Doesn't really work as there doesn't seem to be any welsh for robot. The man about to end the world is also Welsh: Dr Lyn Evans who is in charge of the large hadron collider at CERN. Remember that when we all get sucked into a black hole next week.
I also found my old graduation programme while clearing out all the junk I've rudely left at my folks for the last 15 years. I though you might like to learn the hippocratic oath...in Welsh (click it to make it bigger):
It's a beautiful language but thank God I only had to say it in English.
Ah, that's lovely then.
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