Renowned food critic Jay Rayner has got two chapters in his latest book 'A Greedy Man In A Hungry World' ; one entitled 'Supermarkets Are Not Evil' and another 'Supermarkets Are Evil'....the latter a good bit longer.  
   While I do agree with a number of his criticisms - especially that supermarkets attempts to remedy unhealthy eating habits are akin to supplying clean needles to drug addicts - I seriously wonder to what extent I can trust a foodie who is constantly obsessed with eating pork belly and offal.
   For me to take him seriously, he'd need to fully acknowledge the benefits of becoming a veggie. Not only would his own chances of a longer life improve markedly ( and the opportunity to eat more excellent meals!) with both bowel cancer and heart disease much less likely, but arguments for a more economic dietary pattern would follow, with fish and meat being the most expensive items on most people's food bills.
   In addition, if more people took up vegan and vegetarian diets the plight of the Third World could be altered considerably, as more land could be allocated to growing crops for their own countries' subsistence as opposed to their use and export of animal feed. Moreover, the vast areas of rainforest chopped down and then turned into grazing for cattle to feed the world's burger-snorters, would be deemed unnecessary.  
   To adapt George Orwell's dictum about socialists : 'Food critics should be encouraged to live out their ideals.'
   I have blogged previously about the insidious influences of supermarkets, though perhaps haven't made my views completely clear. Despite all their faults, they have still become meeting-places for people to chat, like the High Streets of yesteryear.
   While supermarkets like Tesco in Merthyr have sucked the life-blood out of our town centre like some giant concrete vampire ( now I see young Goths wanting to congregate there), others such as the Co-op have tried to set a better example.
   Unfortunately, the latter cannot compete in terms of prices and there is a real need for another kind of co-operative which sells local goods as well as Fairtrade products from the Third World in particular.
   My friends in the States were greatly involved in such a venture over there ( why do we copy all the worst aspects of that culture?) and it could be both 'green' and sustainable, using allotment surpluses.
   A suggested name could be 'Cyd-Fwyd Cymru', to take 'cyd' from the togetherness of the co-operative ideal and combine it with 'food'.
   It is absolutely vital that alternatives are set up to challenge the hegemony of the multi-national supermarkets.
   Sadly, I don't believe that small shops can do this any more, with high street rents and business taxes being too prohibitive.
   Such a Wales-wide co-op could utilise local skills - from bakery to micro-breweries - and could offer an online service as well.
   Farmers' markets are all very well, but they are sporadic and tend to be too pricey.
   Supermarkets are places where junk food mania is perpetrated and where shoppers are tempted with ridiculous offers (Rayner is right to decry the Bogoffs on so many unhealthy options).
   Amongst a plethora of sugar-high goods in Merthyr Tesco you might just spot a charity box for Diabetes UK  on the counter.......the ultimate irony!
   Of course, they are also places which reflect and encourage prevailing propaganda as witnessed last year, with masses of Union Jack products and monarchist regalia. I always expected a Loyalist marching band to appear from behind the cheap offers, drumming down the aisle with the baton-wielder tossing, instead of a staff, a long bottle of Coke!
   Rayner's reviews focus on restaurants which are way beyond the means of most and I'd sincerely hope that 'Cyd-Fwyd Cymru' would offer opportunities to avoid Value products and their very dubious nutritional and taste benefits (even if you're a fan of horse!), yet at reasonable prices.
   Rayner believes we can reform these supermarkets, but he is naive. They will merely come up with ever more subtle ways of exploitation.




                                CITY  OF  FOOD

I need my sugar fix,
I need it desperately.

My gut is dragging on the floor,
I've got to take it with me.

The supermarket is my dealer,
all there for me to see:

soon as I enter, towers of doughnuts,
malls of Coke facing me.

Then there are many Bogoff deals
celebrating Second Cousin's (or somethings) Day.

Skyscrapers of lager cans and packets
of crisps the size of window displays.

Hurry through fruit and vegetables,
I'm looking for pies and pasties.

They're there, whole aisles of them,
not sweet but lying seductively.

The real business, streets of cakes
and huge blocks of lovely chocky.

I'm shaking now, bars by the till,
I slip a couple in my trolley.

Can't wait for my city of food,
when I settle in front of the telly. 

   'HELP ME MAM!' wrote one 7 year-old pupil taking the Welsh Government's National Reading Test recently.
   Others broke down in tears, as the NUT reported.
   Minister Leighton Andrews and his department dismissed the Union as 'alarmist'. What would they know, they're only teachers?
   All this at a time when Andrews proposes fining parents for their children's truancy. Far better to fine Government Ministers for appalling acts of cruelty to children.
   While Gove is imposing his brand of 19th century education on England, with rote learning and exams based on memorising information, it would be easy to view Wales as a haven of the Comprehensive ideal.
   It would also be seriously delusional!
   As well as tortuous tests, Andrews seeks to impose a similarly reactionary vision on the entire system and opposition parties offer few objections.
   A Head of History at a Comp. tells me that the whole focus of his subject is being altered in a Govian manner, with a shift towards regressive notions of history shaped by powerful individuals alone. In English, grammar for its own sake is coming to a fore.
   Recently every Primary teacher in RCT (a Labour-run Council) had to attend courses on 'synthetic phonics' at a huge expense to tax-payers. The courses were run by experts from England who had no notion of the differences in methodology here, where literacy is taught deploying more than one single approach.
   Andrews' banding system is an example of the way he has introduced league tables, by the back door.
   It has lead to Comprehensives becoming even more obsessed with targets and assessments, at the expense of developing new resources and widening the curriculum.
   And so to the dreaded tests.
   What they are about (as one parent told me) is - 'The Minister of Education , not the children.'
   As a direct result of Wales performing so badly in the Pisa international tests of 2010 (when he actually shifted blame onto schools and teachers), Andrews decided to act.
   Just like Gove, his idea of action has nothing to do with improving the long-term prospects of children and everything to do with improving the long-term prospects of his career.
   The same parent sarcastically noted - ' Still, if it demoralises teachers and pupils, then that's okay!'
   To add to the absurdity of these tests in literacy and numeracy, parents will be told, when they receive the results, that they weren't overly important and , if they have any problems, to go and see the class teachers.
    Most teachers know their pupils' strengths and weaknesses intimately. Their own tests are far superior as they are child-friendly and also take into account the ages of pupils and those who achieve beyond the ceilings set by the National Tests.
  Instead of time wasted on the tests, teachers could be producing resources so they could apply themselves to literacy through scripts, books and poetry and to numeracy through the basics of Maths, showing its relevance to society.
   The tests were conducted in schools under widely differing conditions and no clear instructions were given to Heads. Some would've encouraged befuddled pupils to guess, while others told them to abandon them if they couldn't cope.
   Trials took place last year in certain schools and the responses  by teachers were duly ignored.
   Looking at any text, pupils should be encouraged to find their own interpretations. Yet only certain answers were deemed correct.
   They should be encouraged to write in full sentences, while these tests consisted almost entirely of tick-boxes and gaps which goaded them into guesswork.
   The same parent commented on the vocabulary used - ' The test had words like 'skitter ' and 'Hydra'.......but how many adults even, have come across such words?'
   Year 2 pupils were asked to do the same test as Year 3, thus pupils who could be two academic years apart were faced with the same 19 pages of reading material!
   Whoever set these tests has no understanding of Primary education, nor did they know what they wanted to achieve (apart from intimidation).
  One Primary teacher even claimed that the former SATs were more acceptable.
  
   In previous blogs I've outlined most of my ideas for a radical improvement , from straight-forward reforms like reducing class sizes, to more revolutionary changes such as the abolition of exams and inspections.
   Sadly, no alternatives have been offered by Plaid Cymru, who have shied away from applying democratic and socialist ideals to education.
   Pupils would not truant if all the positive work they did at school counted towards a final outcome.
   They wouldn't truant if they - alongside teachers - helped to run schools and evolve their own curriculum.
   They would not truant if uniforms were jettisoned and all the friction caused by their implementation removed.
   They wouldn't truant if classes were small and they were afforded far more individual attention.
   They would not truant if - in their early years - instead of testing, everything was focused on enjoyable and creative literacy and numeracy, so they could access all subjects later on.
   The boundless enthusiasm of the vast majority of teachers and pupils is being systematically destroyed by Andrews and his department. As the same parent pointed out - 'If it was Gove doing it in Wales, we wouldn't stand for it!'


                            LEARNING   PUNCTUATION

My daughter comes home worried -
'We've got a SPAG test, dad!
Can you help?'

'I can do a mean Bolognese sauce!'

'Don't be daft! Spelling and Grammar.
It's Punctuation tomorrow and I'm lost!
What's a colon for a start?'

' A tube in your stomach,
part of your intestine.'
I watch as her eyes pop.

'No ,love, it's two dots,
often before lists. Any good?'

'I can't even use an exclamation mark!'

'You just did!'

'Well, how about a semicolon?
And don't tell me it's a part
of your tummy cut in half!'

' It's a pause, between a comma and full-stop,
which the Americans call period.......
but we won't go into that!
Hey, the best way to learn is to read.'

And I give her Joyce's 'Ulysses':
'Classic lit........read the last 100 pages....
he knew how to punctuate!'

   I am lost.
   I'm looking for something.
   It's like those repeated dreams I have of teaching, wandering in a strange school (often dressed only in pants or dressing-gowns.....Freudians, don't respond! ), searching for the class I should be teaching, totally unprepared.
  (With the exception of the garb, much like I was when in education then!)
   I'm lost, as the dandelions keep growing up between every crack, even as I turn my back; as the front lawn turns into a green trampoline of moss ; as the patio's year-long dark pollution (exported from Ffos-y-fran?) won't be shifted, no matter how hard I brush and whistle the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
   A fan when the season's finished, like a twitcher underwater glimpsing a few cormorants diving for fish. I go into a state of transfer speculation , of reluctant summertime hibernation.
  It's not just the thrill of games I miss, but the whole ritual (especially remembering the right routes to take, so we win again) : the pre-match pints of hoptastic ale, the banter and discussion with the infamous Pompeii and the boyz and my regular refusal to make any predictions.
   What can possibly replace the excitement of the game itself?
    Cricket I long since abandoned as turgid and , anyway, why do Welsh players need to play for England?
   I enjoy Wimbledon and I would certainly reach for my racket, if I could find a willing partner with equally dodgy eye-sight and lack of fitness.
   But it's the atmosphere of the Cardiff City stadium I miss.
   There is nothing like watching live footie. I've been to a rugby international and wanted to leave because it rained piss (literally!). I've even been to club rugby games way back when our matches were called off and they make mowing the lawn seem an out-of-this-world experience!
   In the end, it's the difference between watching a band in concert and listening to the cd or download, except in the case of Bob Dylan where his gigs are as uplifting as reading a train timetable.
   I love the crowd: the shouting ,joking and swearing. I love the chanting raising the team and , above all, the sheer ecstasy of scoring when you jump, leap and scream and lose yourself completely.
   What can I possibly do with my Saturdays now (answers confined to haiku, please)?
   Fill them with dust and flour, which easily blows away?
   Shine them till they sparkle, yet never look at my reflection?
   Or walk, doggedly and away, hoping that distance will mean I forget where I should be, where I'm lost in another way....... and belong.



                                      EMPTY  SATURDAYS

Empty Saturdays
out of season :
wishing it was head of ale
not froth of car shampoo


I cut the lawn
but it's not the pitch
I'd watch, I'd stand
for the team to emerge


from the tunnel ;
television in the evening,
talent show karaoke kings
fame ruling everything


flowers the colours of teams
bluebell and rose both ours,
reminding of the clash
and wanting to hack down


empty Saturdays
full of shopping
and cardboard chasms
of aisle after aisle


when I was young every wall
was a goal, an aim ;
now brick upon brick
the cells of my brain. 
   

   Today I received a certificate from Eisteddfod Dysgwyr Morgannwg 2012 for my poem 'Bro'. It was 'Ail' ( 2nd) in the competition for the Chair.
   I'd have much preferred a chair, we need an extra one when my family drape along the sofas.
   I don't like being second and I have to stop entering competitions, in English and Welsh.
   I used to be a Compoholic, but I'm gradually managing to handle my addiction and, as a slow process of withdrawal, restricting myself to a few a year.
   It's hopeless! I never win, though I have been commended for a couple.
   I don't back horses (they should be running free and not end up getting shot after falling at fences) and after watching the tv drama 'The Syndicate' I am now an authority on just how miserable winning the Lottery can make you.
   So, I back myself in the Verse Race instead.
   If I were a horse I'd be called Live In Hope and always be pipped at the finish.
   For that Eisteddfod (run by the Uni. of Glamorgan) I entered 'Croesi' the first year and came nowhere , though it did appear in the learners' magazine 'Lingo'.
   This year I actually entered two under the title of 'Drysau' ('Doors'). One features on a previous blog. Yes, you guessed........came nowhere!
  Like the poem 'Drysau' on my blog, 'Bro' opens a door to my own past, in this case my childhood.
  'Bro' literally means 'region' and can be used in this way, as in 'Bro Morgannwg'. However, it also has very personal connotations and is much closer to the idea of a 'heartland'. Indeed, I was tempted to use that as the title of my translation, except that it sounds rather sentimental.
   'Bro' can be a special word, evoking a strong sense of belonging. In terms of my childhood in Cymru, the countryside around Pen Dinas means so much to me.
   The wild abandon I experienced at such an early age was exhilarating. I lived to be outside the house and roaming. It was as if the myriad dens in gorse; storm beach at Tanybwlch , place we called 'Devil's Gulch' (as from some Western film) and rivers we skimmed stones, all belonged to us.
   I was at the same time sophisticated and a wild child : taking stories from films and tv (in its nascent years) to use in games, yet also vicious as we threw stones at each other in the streets.
    I find it ironic revisiting Aber in Welsh, the language I sadly neglected at Uni. there and one my parents both dismissed.
   My mother (outwardly sympathetic to Communism and CND) was hostile to a Welsh language school being set up in the 1950s. My father - a monoglot from Barry whose recent ancestors had all been Welsh-speakers - was equally antagonistic, due to his job and contact with Welsh-speaking farmers, who , he always claimed, mocked his lack of Cymraeg.
   So, the Land of My Fathers goes back further, to other generations of coopers, hauliers and estate managers. My tentative steps reclaim their land and also, I sincerely hope, forge a different future ( one great-grandfather was a blacksmith, so I'm allowed this cliche).
   No doubt I'll enter next year just for the challenge and not come anywhere.
   I have read the poem which won and it was very well executed in rhyming couplets, with admirable patriotism. I'm afraid I could never write like that.


                                          BRO

Yna, y gemau ar y bryniau:
hela cusan, hela afalau,
hela tatws yn y cae,
taflu nhw ar y tan,
blas fel y baw.

A nawr, dw i'n cerdded
a chwilio a gwrando
ar y gwynt sy'n cario
yr aderyn o'r cof
a fydd yn aros ar ben to.

Yna, doedd dim ffiniau ;
roedd eithin a drysien
yn lleodd i wneud gwalau,
ac roedd mor ac afonydd
hen barciau dwr i fi.

Nawr, mae'r gwylan yn screchian,
ond y barcud coch yn hedfan
uwch yr heol lle dw i'n rasio
a chwarae gyda phel :
unwaith eto y bachgen yno.


                                       ****************************

                                           PENPARCAU

Then, games on the hills :
kiss chase and windfalls,
pulling up the potatoes
and throwing them on a fire,
they tasted of soil.

And now I'm walking
and searching and listening
for the wind that carries
the bird of memory
which will settle on the roof.

Then, no boundaries ;
bramble and gorse bushes
were places we made dens,
and the sea and rivers
were my ancient water-parks.

Now, seagulls are screeching
and the red kite is flying
above the street where I race
and play with a ball :
a boy once more.


                                   
                              

   Could UKIP become a real political force in Wales, to mirror what they have achieved electorally in England?   Judging by their leader Farage's boasts they already are, because he described last week's astonishing gains in the local elections as a 'sea-change in British politics'.
  In the media English became synonymous with 'national' and the results in Ynys Mon were hardly noted, where they took a mere 7.8% of the vote, yet still beat the Tories!
   UKIP no doubt appeal to those who are understandably cynical about mainstream parties. They also appeal to those (from all classes) who seek to blame immigration for society's ills. They appeal to those who rail against bureaucracy ,but are horrified at the horse-meat scandal caused by less regulation in the food industry. Many see the European Union as the source of all evil.
   Crucially, they fill a widening gap in the English identity crisis, only heightened by Scotland's moves towards greater self-determination. A place for those who don't want to be tarnished by the overt fascism of BNP and EDL.
   They are the respectable side of xenophobia , with their motto of 'It's not about race, but about space!' This conceals an underlying racism that spreads fear about millions of Romanians and Bulgarians descending on this Disunited Kingdom.
   The 'No to Europe!' negative rallying cry of UKIP  is very similar to the Loyalists in n.Ireland, who constantly define themselves by what they are not and not what they are.
   UKIP see themselves are quintessentially British, yet their narrow-minded obsession with sealing the borders reflects the worst aspects of English jingoism ; the very opposite of the Occupy movement with its idealism and anarchism harkening back to the Diggers and Levellers.
   So, given this, how could they possibly appeal to the people of Cymru?
   Well, in Merthyr Tudful we recently had two UKIP Councillors and still have one; moreover, the Welsh UKIP MEP John Bufton has anticipated gains in next year's European elections.
   I happen to agree with him for a number of reasons and believe that pro-EU parties will see a marked decline in their votes.
   The appeal of their anti-immigration stance and British triumphalism certainly attracts right-wing elements who either see the BNP as too extreme , or the Tories as too weak.
   In my street alone, there are at least two such people: blatant racists who might not vote for an overtly fascist party, but would definitely consider UKIP.
   More significantly, their anti-EU stance has no left-wing equivalent.
   Social Democratic parties like Plaid Cymru are slavishly uncritical of the EU, yet so many of its worst manifestations are destroying the lives of working-class people.
      Workers are lured from country to country with the promise of higher wages, only to be exploited by companies and then discarded. Countries such as Cyprus are forced to kow-tow to the Troika and deploy vicious austerity measures.
   The EU has become an autocratic monetarist Union, which has appointed technocrats in the governments of Greece and Italy, who weren't even elected to govern!
   The reality in Cymru for years is that we have been neglected both by Westminster and by Europe and our continuing poverty and unemployment is an indictment of both levels of government.
   Naturally, we need to co-operate with others of a similar ilk, with workers and progressive groups throughout the world who share our interests and aspirations.  Especially with those movements who, like ourselves , are struggling against larger nation-states.
   There's no doubt UKIP will get support from those in Wales who see themselves as exclusively British and are still opposed to devolution (this includes Labour and Tory voters).
  However, I feel that a genuine disillusionment with the EU will express itself in greater support for the obnoxious UKIP.
   Another factor will be voter apathy. Many will not vote because they cannot see how European institutions are affecting their lives, yet can see that it's  the ConDem Coalition which is causing them to become poorer in every way.
   Where is the leftist alliance capable of arguing a case against an EU which exists increasingly to improve the lot of banks and companies? Where is the force for genuine change from outside these bodies, where people can set up their own alternatives and take power into their hands, rather than simply making a cross on a square : a paper kiss and a thrown-away promise.


                                THEY'RE COMING, 29 MILLION!


Romanians and Bulgarians are coming,
29 million of them,
shiploads across the Channel,
we cannot stop them!


How many Dimitar Berbatovs
will be among them?
They'll bring their horse-meat
with them, more contamination.


Like Vlad the Impaler,
like vampires from Transylvania ;
I've been to Sunny Beach,
I know those shady dealers.


Bulgarians and Romanians are coming,
not just Romanies on the run
flogging their Big Issues,
but the real thing this time.


They'll be taking all the jobs
we haven't got, the Council housing
which has been sold off,
opening unpronounceable shops.


They'll be living off benefits
and working on fruit farms,
they'll be gangs of pick-pockets
converging on every town.


They're coming, 29 million,
to suck red blood from the Union!
I've got nothing against them as people,
but there's just no room.

    
 

                                  






                           






THIEVES  STEAL  BRIDGE!




Outside-a newsagents I seen the eadlines
'THIEVES STEAL BRIDGE!'
sif this town wuz livin up
to its repewtation.


I thought of the missis
on er way ome down-a A470
an would she disappear
inta a chasm by Pentrebach?


Thought o my son goin swimmin
down Rhydycar an would ee
afta swim the river
jest t get t the Leisure Centre?


An my dad walkin is dog,
would ee think of it
as a big gap in is brain,
tha ee woz gettin dementia?


Thought o ones over main roads,
them A-shaped structures
don' seem t be going nowhere ;
nobuddy'd notice if they woz missin.


For once, I bought a paper
an they adn stole the whool thing,
jest loadsa iron bars.
Still, it got me thinkin.