If you live in Wales, or maybe the wider UK, you may be familiar with this story from earlier this week:

Everyone reports that the grafitti daubed on the farm reads "English out". Hence the racism.

Except it doesn't. The grafitti "Cai Maes Sais" is practically gibberish. Apparently, it SHOULD read "Cer Mas Sais". So where does the "Cai Maes Sais" come from?

Well... if you go to Intertrans, the translation software, and type in "Get Out Englishman", it comes back as "Cai Maes Sais". Incorrect, BUT it implies that the person who wrote the graffiti wasn't a Welsh-speaker at all. It was someone who used translation software to make up a Welsh slogan. Why would people in a Welsh speaking area use translation software? It also implies that no-one from the news services bothered to check up, they just reported it as they were told.

Translating Welsh by machine isn't a straightforward matter, so it's not all InterTrans fault Infact, machine translation is a common problem. If I was Dyfed-Powys police I would be looking at local computers, to see if any of them had used a translation website or similar in the day or two before the attack. this thread is illuminating.

I've started a new blog, since this one is mainly techy-geeky stuff. My other blog is here:

Pobyl Y Cerrig

and deals with my other interests, archaeology, Welsh history, paganism, myths & legends. Particularly the area of the old "Silures" tribe, Gwent, Glamorgan, into Herefordshire. Feel free to add it to your feedreaders.

It's not on Vox, because I wanted to try out Windows Live Writer, and that works well with Blogger/Picasa. So yeah..

In view of the fact that I think the judges on the Landmark Wales project need a taste transplant, I've set up a petition on the 10 Downing Street website calling for the Rhiannon Piece by Toin Adams to be commissioned.

OK, in reality it probably won't sway the LM team, but if enough people sign it (needs 200+ I believe) then at least it will draw attention to public feeling. If no-one signs it, well... then they're not bothered, obviously.

Personally, I'd rather see this on Dowlais Top:

Rhiannon by Toin Adams

Why my stubbornness about this issue? Well, for one, Dowlais Top is where my grandfather lived. Secondly, Rhiannon is obviously a character from the Mabinogion, which Lady Charlotte Guest, from Dowlais I believe, made famous. Thirdly, we have enough abstract blocks and spheres and shapes littering the Welsh countryside. If we're going to have art, lets at least have it LOOKING like something.. a famous person, a famous event, a famous tale.

Anyhow, if you're from Wales, or anywhere in Britain really, and want a Landmark that it would be worth travelling to see, please sign the petition here.

Thanks

No, not Ents.

I've been attempting to trace my family tree. It started off as a casual "I wonder..." and is now practically an obsession. From what I've been able to work out so far, my family spent the last 200 years in and around Merthyr Tydfil. Originally they came from Carmarthenshire. Some time in the early 1800s the family up-sticks, kids and all, and moved to the valleys.  Guess the valleys must have been booming back then. Unlike now, where its just plain depressing. Although, saying that, I'm not complaining, because nature is starting to reclaim the 200 years of damage done by steel and coal. Give it another 50 years and you wouldn't know that there had been heavy industry here at all. Apart from the rows of houses lining the valleys.

One thing that I did find quite depressing. In the early 1800s, the census results show that they spoke Welsh. Maybe a few words of English. Cut to the last census available, 1901, and it shows the kids spoke English (with maybe a few words of Welsh). Church and education and state and industry did well to almost kill off a language within 3 generations. They would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for them pesky Nationalists :)

When I was a nipper, growing up in New Tredegar, I used to go for walks on Brithdir mountain. It fascinated me. At the time there was a big pine plantation up there, and the rumour in school (1981ish) was that there was a band of bloodthirsty devil-worshippers in them-there woods. Well, we went up there and didn't find any lol. There was also the tale of the woman with one leg who was buried in the graveyard on top - she would come out at night looking for her other leg (Apparently) : whoa betide anyone up there after dark! But I loved the quiet of the place. As I got older I used to go up there for long walks on my own, I used to love to go exploring, and sit at the bottom of the Tegernacus stone.

Capel Brithdir

The original stone in now in the National Museum of Wales, there is just a marker stone there now. The latin inscription is commonly thought to read :

TEGERNACUS FILIUS MARTI HIC IACIT  (Tegernacus, son of Marti(us) lies here)

The Tegernacus Stone

This in itself is fascinating, if you do some research. The inscription is thought to be 7th century, although the stone itself may be earlier. Tegernacus is probably a Latin spelling of Teyrnog, an early British name that crops up in the list of Cambrian saints. However, this Teyrnog was a Silurian, and probably gave his name to the place where Tintern Abbey now stands (Tin-Tern is English, the Welsh would be Din-Tern). Teyrnog also crops up, of a fashion, in the Welsh Chronicles: `A.D. 1179, this year a convent was completed at Nant Teyrnon'. Teyrnon/Teyrnog lived in the 7th century (the date of the inscription) 

He crops up again on an inscribed stone in Cwmdu, Powys, where the inscription reads:

CATACUS HIC IACIT / FILIUS TERENACUS (Catacus lies here / son of Tegernacus)

Is this Teyrnog the mysterious Sir Tegyr, who is King Arthurs's cup bearer in Culhwch & Olwen? No idea, but I love making links like that :)

Back to the Brithdir stone, another fascinating thing. The antiquarians who took the stone to Cardiff argued politely over the name Martius. On the actual stone, it is written Marii or Marti. One scholar (who no-one seems to agree with except me lol) says this is wrong, its probably Mar. A famous Mar in this area is Mar, son of Gwynlliw, brother of Cadoc or St Cattwg. This Mar gives his name to several local places: Mar-stow in Herefordshire, Mar-Cross in Glamorganshire, and Mar-gam. Margam was originally Mar-gan, literally "Mar's Chant" or Mar's Choir.

So was Tegernacus/Teyrnog a dark-age chieftain of the Romano-Silurians, who maybe fought with Arthur against the Saxons? Who knows. It would be nice to have that connection right on the doorstep. And whether its true or not, its there in spirit :)

sources:

University College London
New Tredegar.com

On the opposite mountain, overlooking New Tredegar, above Phillipstown, is Twyn Cornicyll, which (I found out today) was apparently an iron-age settlement. Got to say, growing up with "the pimple" towering over the town, it does look a lot like an iron-age hillfort, of sorts. I'll have to investigate that, see if any research has been done on it, or if it's all just folk-rumour.

Well, apparently the statue/landmark of Rhiannon didn't win the Landmark Wales competition. Surprise surprise, it is some crap glass thing that is going to be plonked on the border with England.

So from all those designs, and proposed locations, we are (apparently) going to get some red people on wobbly sticks at the Severn Bridge, and a glass thing on the border. Hands up who thinks the whole thing is for the benefit of the English, rather than a "Landmark for Wales" ?? Me too.

IMO the Rhiannon Sculpture was the only one really worthy of being commissioned, the only one that would be a true landmark for Wales that we could be proud of. I'm making a petition, to give to Rhodri Morgan, asking for the piece to be commissioned anyway. Who wants to sign?

Landmark Wales "judges" - you're taking the piss. Frankly.

Celtic Nationalists should invest in their heritage instead of flogging it off

from the Guardian website

Surely the money spent on big wobbly red people on sticks could be put to better use preserving the fantastic landmarks we already have? Instead, our landmarks and greenspace gets sold off for landfill and open-cast mining, but never mind! Here's a hideous "installation" you can be proud of! Crap.

Merthyr Tydfil was once a quiet place, a lush, green wooded valley. Until the late 1700s when some clever fecker decided to set up ironworks there.  Since then the place has gone from boom to bust, and the landscape ravaged beyond all recognition. Like most of the rest of South Wales, it has to be said.

However, all the mines and industry have all gone now, leaving one huge run-down suburbia. A place where getting drunk and fighting on a friday night is the highpoint of your life. Where you get pregnant at 16 because thats the only way you'll ever get a house (the state gives you one). Generally a depressed and depressing place (like a lot of Britain outside the South-East).

So, in an effort to cheer people up, to inject a spirit of optimism into our dreary lives, the Welsh Assembly are spending millions on... modern art. Yup, huge abstract pieces of expensive shite littered around the landscape. Like big red people on wobbly sticks... yeah, just what we need. Now, its at this point that I could go off on a big rant about manipulating the perceived outside image vs the actual reality, but I won't because....

...one of the proposed pieces is actually pretty special. Toin Adams has proposed a giant sculpture of Rhiannon on top of Dowlais. It will look something like this:

Rhiannon by Toin Adams

It will have an observation platform in the horses head, and webcams in the figures eyes. And it will light up at night, with a big tower becon light that will be visible for miles. Awesome, seriously. And not just on an aesthetic level. Its also highly symbolic for an old hippie like me... after years of being ravaged, the landscape is finally greening over again. And there will be Rhiannon, the Goddess Epona, a huge pagan symbol, riding out to reclaim the land once more... nothing could be more appropriate.

.... anyhow, thats not just me, thats the point of the piece. You can see more about the piece here. There is a box on that page, where you can say why you like it. The more people who say they like it, the more chance it will get of being commissioned. So... any chance of taking a look, and maybe commenting? Take a look at the other pieces they're proposing too, and tell me why you think they're better, or whether you think the rest are damn eyesores with no relevance to Welsh life whatsoever.

Toin on Myspace
Landmark Wales on MySpace