Creoso Chwedeg Nain

The year was 1969. A memorable year. It was the year of my first visit to Wales and to the National Eisteddfod. The Prince of Wales had just been invested in the magnificent ruin of Caernarfon Castle. Welsh Wales was at its most obedient. Or so it seemed. There had been a few nutters from the Free Wales Army to be rounded up so the investiture would not be disrupted. Two guys from Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru obligingly blew themselve up. And then there were Dafydd Iwan's satirical songs Carlo and Creoso Chwedeg Nain to be borne in silence by the Welsh establishment.

Unlike the investiture of Charles's predecessor, in 1911, also in Caernarfon Castle, this one was a little more controversial. This was particularly so since the burning of yr ysgol fomio in 1936 by Saunders Lewis and two of his colleagues, and the publication of his rallying cry for the Welsh language Tynged yr Iaith in 1962. On this occasion, the authorities had reason to be nervous of protests of one sort or another. This is probably why the monarchy made that little extra effort to portray its connections to Welsh culture and the Welsh people as something more than a label of convenience.

The Prince had spent some ten weeks learning the language and familiarising himself with the culture of Welsh Wales. The best available scholars had distilled Welsh history, culture and language in to such readable briefs that they were subsequently published as books in their own right.

But the big gesture, much vaunted at the time, was the Prince's Gracious Reply to the Loyal Address of the People of Wales which he delivered first in Welsh and then in English. His Welsh was rapturously described by the BBC Welsh commentator as bendigedig which, in the circumstances, could be translated as divine.

In my enthusiasm, for the language and not the Prince, I had bought the (vinyl 33rpm) record of the investiture and have just now digitised the Prince's contribution (below).


I leave you to make up your own mind.

Some further sounds from the Investiture.

The Change Machine

Lots of supermarkets have these machines and I've been using them on and off for years. The coins start getting heavy in your pocket so you put them into the machine. Press the green button (far right). The machine counts the coins. Press the red button (middle) and it gives you a receipt for their value (minus a percentage) which you cash at the checkout. What red button? Ah, there's the rub. Instead of pressing the (removed) red button, you now have to summon a member of staff with a special key to get your receipt, which is then personally endorsed for payment.

Now, this sounds like a lot of hassle, not only for the customer, who might not be able to find a member of staff, but for staff who are now constantly interrupted in their other duties.

So, what's it all about. Well, the old system was subject to a scam that operated as follows. A person puts in a Euro and gets a receipt. The receipt carries the relevant id number for the shop and some other information. This information is then incorporated into a new receipt printed by the scammer with a much higher amount on it, which he collects at the checkout.

I was told that one store was stung for €9,000, though that is hard to imagine. The storekeeper I spoke to told me he is well familiar with the texture and print characteristics of the real receipts and when he confronted a scammer recently the guy immediately took to his heels.

I suppose the only proper way to defeat the scammers would be to have the machine online and linked to the checkout where all the information on the receipt would have to compute before any money was paid out. The increased cost of such a system would no doubt send the machine's percentage through the roof and make the whole thing uneconomical.

Stay tuned.

CHQ

CHQ is a massive retail arcade which straddles Dublin's Custom House Quay (CHQ) and George's Dock. Its principal catchment area seems to be the IFSC financial sector from the George's Dock side, though it is also on the tourist trail at the Custom House Quay end (above), where it is close to the Famine Monument and the Jeanie Johnston famine ship.

I had occasion to walk through it the other day and was gobsmacked by how empty it was. I would estimate that well over 50% of the shops were vacant and there was hardly anyone around except in the cafés which seem to be weathering the recession. The gym was also open.

I had encountered this phenomenon in recent times in the Irish Life mall. There, a pathetic two dimensional attempt had been made to give an appearance of activity with fake shopfronts. Not so here. Vacancy stares you in the face, in all its naked honesty. Virtually all the fronts shown in the picture above are vacant.

And here is another row of vacancy. All very depressing.

It's just as well that I subsequently happened on Sueann Moore's Dockland Days exhibition in Pearse St. library. Raised my spirits no end.

History of CHQ/STACK A

Tonto

I was asked if I knew of any secondhand bookshops in Dublin. The above recently acquired book was no longer needed and the hope was that it might now prove useful to someone else rather than ending its short life in the shredder.

In a wild moment, I suggested that it might be put up on FreeCycle. Surely, at this very moment, in this capital city, there was some Spanish speaking person out there who wanted to start learning German.

As my wife is a member of Freecycle, she put it up, more as an act of faith than in serious expectation.

And, lo and behold, there was. A Spanish speaker, working in Dublin, and now migrating to Switzerland.

And who said they didn't believe in miracles.