Well done Wales. What a great victory! Cymu Am Byth!

Yes, there has been rejoicing in the valleys, singing hymns and arias, Ar Hyd y Nos, Cwm Rondda, Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau the Welsh National Anthem,  and many more songs of victory in the land of my fathers, song, sheep and so much more! Wales won at Rugby! In the Rugby World Cup against Australia. and that's some victory on foreign soil in Japan!   Australia 25 Cymru 29. Odidog! Ardderdog! Wonderful Wales! It's time I bought a new rugby shirt for my wife (Gwraig o Gymru). She looks great in one, as a sort of nightie.

Take it away Bryn....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50W-ZnWx6k

Is it goodbye, later this century, to the Maldives and Sandbanks?

According to some predictions, places like the Maldives and Sandbanks are destined for disaster, and once prime real estate will be washed away by the relentless rise of sea levels. Yesterday's report on the increase in sea levels on ITV News at Ten must be very worrying for areas experiencing coastal erosion, shifting sands and higher tides etc., areas with very low land by the ocean.

Oh dear there is a deer in my garden

This morning around 7.30 a.m. I saw a deer in my garden.  It's a rare sighting.

The lost childhood of Greta Thunberg

Critics of the child activist Greta Thunberg are saying that her parents and political social justice warriors are the ones to blame for her "lost childhood". Greta does protest very strongly and it sounds creepy to some of her opponents. Some have suggested that she should be in school and tidying  her room (a reference to Jordan Peterson's advice) before she launches into naive and immature statements about the environmental crises that are beyond her control. Is she spouting a well learned script?  Greta clearly has a heart. She cares about inconvenient truths that are unpalatable to the Trump loyalists.

People, however, are asking how her mind will change when she goes out to work, takes on employment responsibilities, forms adult relationships and takes care of others. Perhaps she will be studying environmental sciences at an Oxford college. (I was thinking of Malala, the Nobel Prize winner, who is reading PPE at Oxford.)

27.09 2019

Greta's approach could be called, in the words of Jordan Peterson, "low resolution thinking that gets us nowhere" because these issues are unbelievably complicated.

I was wrong

I thought that in Wales there were four million people and eight million sheep. I have said it many times, and I've been wrong many times.

According to 2017 figures, there are 3.125 million people in Wales. There are more than ten million sheep, 9.81 million in 2016. Sheep, therefore, outnumber people by over three to one.



Not a lot of people know that! Cymru am byth!

Borta bra men hemma ba"st

It's good to travel far and wide, to see the wonders of Oregon, to look at the sun setting over the high waves on the Pacific Coast, to watch whales at Depoe Bay, to drive along Highway 101, to wander along forest trails and to ride the Portland Street Car around the Pearl district, to buy books at Powell's store(s) and to walk by waterfalls and to feel the heat in the high desert area by the Painted Hills.

Yes, going out can be great, but for me there is no place like home. And now home is a happy Hampshire house and garden,

 south of wonderful Winchester and north of Cowes (the yachtsman's and yachtswomen's haven on the Isle of Wight).   Soon I hope to have Smultronsta"llet built in the garden, my special place where my books and films will be kept and where I can read in a lovely location. There is no single word in English that conveys the meaning and beauty of this Swedish word. It is the title of an Ingmar Bergman film, which has inspired many film directors and cinephiles. The English title is Wild Strawberries, but that in no way captures or explains the meaning.