G.I. James's Blog, page 4
September 7, 2022
Who Do You Think You Are?
(Published
Cambrian News
(print editions) 7 September 2022)I had lived in my Welsh village for only two years upon hearing I had been referred to as ‘a local man’. Chest swelling considerably, I began to believe I might finally belong somewhere.
Born in England, living north, south, east, and west for forty years, seldom was I permitted to feel I belonged like this. For during the 70s, 80s, 90s, claiming to be a non-white Englishman would have been widely regarded as delusionary, might get me into a scrape, certainly invite some ridicule. And today, those with any hint of colour or trace of foreign accent who claim to be English (rather than British) still routinely find their identity diminished by the disqualifying follow-up question: okay, but where are you really from?
I learned early that Englishness was not a matter of where I was born and raised but informed by bigoted and capricious consensus. And also, that there was little point identifying with a group who refused my entrance, so before reaching double figures I was already a fully-fledged member of the ‘anyone but England’ brigade: supporting the West Indies at cricket via Caribbean ancestry; tilting towards Wales in the rugby and football via adoption into a family with Welsh roots.
So now, having resided in Wales for the past fourteen years, having taught many of your children cricket, having (twice) opened my little business in Aberystwyth, do I belong here? Do I feel Welsh?
Damn right I do. I feel Welsh because my qualifications are not only unquestionable, but thankfully unquestioned. I am asked if I am Welsh; never told I am not. Not once has anyone enquired where I was ‘really’ from. And this explains why I choked on my cornflakes reading that Welsh people need to be more welcoming to outsiders.
Prof Nathan Abrams, an award-winning learner from London, says he feels like an outsider despite living in Wales for sixteen years and learning Welsh. Prof Abrams suggests he has not been allowed to feel like a Welshman: “I speak Welsh, the children speak Welsh, but I don’t come from the area”. Prof Abrams believes it is difficult to feel Welsh when not fitting into certain categories, asking, “what is identity in Welsh? speaking the language, coming from Wales, going to chapel, being a Christian?”. Prof Abrams concludes that Welsh speakers should do more to help immigrants belong, suggesting, “the community isn’t making an effort to open the doors to people like us, because I haven’t married someone from Wales”.
This implication that Welsh speakers are the gatekeepers to Welshness is a misconception. Speaking Welsh is neither qualification nor condition of Welshness, certainly not as far as the seventy percent of residents who remain non-Welsh speaking are concerned; me, Tom Jones, and Gareth Bale included. And scandalously, I feel Welsh to the bone even though not attending chapel and unmarried to anyone, let alone a Welsh girl.
I am Welsh because I am a bonafide stakeholder here and because Welshness does not deploy gatekeepers to disqualify my claim. No one can exclude or help anyone else feel Welsh. We self-certify. If there were exclusions, I would be made aware of them, constantly. And if there exists a smattering of characters who profess to referee (for I have never come across such a clown), they are to be dismissed as comically anachronistic troublemakers.
Welshness is a characteristic for which the only requirement is a heart and soul commitment to the nation, an allegiance to this vast overlapping Venn diagram of cultures, lifestyles, and backgrounds. Welshness develops within, with little obstruction from others. A sense of national belonging only hindered, I suggest, by one’s heart residing elsewhere.
Our shortfalls may be many – long may I comment on them – but let us not be told we Welsh are not welcoming.
August 31, 2022
Two Days – Busy Busy!
Being called ‘brave’ in a business context is rarely complimentary. I am hearing it a lot – energy costs for the hospitality industry have tripled this year and the number of pubs in England and Wales has recently hit the lowest level on record.
Nevertheless, on Friday, Irie’s will reopen as a Rum Bar; the same week as leaders of six of the country’s largest breweries call for immediate government intervention to save the industry. This will be an interesting and challenging Autumn upon my Aberystwyth corner.
Cheers y’all! 
Rum, Red Stripe & Reggae – Vibes are Right!
August 24, 2022
Who Cares?
(Published Cambrian News (print editions) 24 August 2022)
Click Here to read on Cambrian News website.The intended column abandoned. A distraught daughter. The day darkened by overnight news that another local youngster has taken his life. Not the first time parents hold their heads and cry.
I am scared for my children because they are not children anymore. Scared for their peers, trying to find the way right now. And I am scared for the rest of us. For whatever we may pretend, being confined for years with those we love, with those we loathe, or by ourselves, is a considerable hurt and few have resurfaced into this cost-of-living catastrophe unscathed. We are not perfectly fine; examine the relevant analysis; depression, alcohol abuse, violence. It is not only a matter of attending to the obviously wounded when, to varying degrees, we are all wounded.
As we get back on track, a national recovery can be aided by demanding a society better shaped to heal. And let me suggest we start by rejecting individuals and organisations whose mission is to make lives feel inadequate, whose unapologetic monetisation of dissatisfaction and misery pollutes and saps the souls of us all.
Last week, exploring marketing opportunities, I opened an Instagram account. This is how millions of us connect with celebrities, influencers, companies, and organisations from around the world – which is why I was there. But I found no one genuinely connecting with anyone. Instead, I found an endless feed of wishful thinking and cliche fairy tales posted by over-manicured posers frantically seeking approval and money. After twenty minutes I deleted the account then messaged my daughter: Instagram is everything that is wrong – no wonder you are all depressed. You should see TikTok, she replied.
Unfortunately, being thrust into corrupting fantasies is not an experience unique to social media. Unavoidable bulletins concerning Love Island, TOWIE, and too many other ‘reality’ programs, splashed across newspapers and television news broadcasts. A parallel universe constructed. A bizarre yet cliched la-la-land whose spectacular output purports to describe aspiration and success. Like some crooked religion, reality television has become a glittery illusion against which, younger generations especially, are encouraged to measure real lives and real relationships. Little surprise that in the mirror nothing looks up to scratch.
During breaks in this insidious output, we then permit ourselves to be trolled with spiteful content that further demeans. For five minutes, nothing about our lives is acceptable. Not only is your scalp flaky, your skin ugly, and all your possessions rubbish, but you are an instantly terrible person if you cannot immediately donate two pounds to save this donkey, cat, dog, tiger, African child, or Ukrainian family – you would if you cared. But few can give to charity twice every fifteen minutes so we are forced to ignore graphic images of intense suffering; images that until recently would have stopped the world. For I can recall the entire television-owning planet absorbing similar pictures from Ethiopia, shocked into action. I remember the instantly mobilised global response around Band Aid and then Live Aid. What chance today?
Demeaning and distressing messaging alters the nature of every consumer. If such content were not hugely affecting, organisations would neither invest fortunes in explaining how awful we are, nor commission so many blood-soaked ransom messages with which to extort our cash.
With little hope of those creating mentally undermining content quickly seeing the error of their profitable ways, the solution at hand is to stop rewarding individuals and organisations whose industry is to make us feel worse about ourselves.
Is such unlikely change worth attempting? Yes, because this mental health crisis is as urgent as any threat we face. So, the longshot that needs constant repeating; to remind that grasping individuals, businesses, and shameless charities, are not on our side and to shun their antisocial messaging. Because life is difficult enough as it is, and though hurting, we are more complete than others would wish to imply… Hang on in there.
August 17, 2022
What Animal am I
August 10, 2022
Plaid Cymru – Party of Wales – Spineless on Domestic Violence
(Published Cambrian News (print editions) 10 August 2022)
In the runup to the last round of local elections, I was a little depressed to be deemed worthy of visits by only two candidates: a local independent, and the representative endorsed by Plaid Cymru. So, I marched up to the polling station feeling overlooked and ready to whinge about lack of interest in rural voters. However, upon arrival I discovered just three candidates listed, and as such only the Liberal Democrats had failed to tap my door. So, with Labour and Conservatives not on the ballot, with the Liberals not bothering to pitch up (as well as remaining stubbornly stuck on my electoral naughty step for their part in introducing university tuition fees), the choice fell between Plaid and the independent. I re-read leaflets then voted for the independent. A knife-edge decision to reject Plaid that all of a sudden feels vindicated.
During lockdown, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards assaulted his wife and was subsequently arrested by Dyfed-Powys Police. After admitting guilt, by accepting his police caution, Edwards was suspended from Plaid Cymru – as one would expect. Remarkably, Edwards did not resign his Westminster seat and to this day sits in Parliament as an independent MP.
If Edwards has the brass neck to squat as an independent, that is a matter for a shameless individual. And if Carmarthen East and Dinefwr re-elect an admitted abuser, that is a matter for that unfortunate constituency. However, an issue of national significance would be if Plaid Cymru again endorse this self-confessed perpetrator of domestic violence.
This is why, after Plaid Cymru’s recent decision to readmit Edwards into the party, the National Executive Committee recommendation that Edwards should not represent Plaid in Westminster would appear a no-brainer. But this seemingly straightforward judgement has enraged some within the local party. Former Plaid Assembly Member, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, arguing that, ‘having regained his membership of Plaid Cymru, [Edwards] should also regain the party whip within the group in Westminster’.
Plaid’s stuttering response? That ‘the process of determining Mr Edwards’ membership of the Westminster group is yet to be concluded.’ Really? How much consideration does it require to conclude that being a domestic abuser, however occasional, presents an insurmountable barrier to becoming a Plaid Cymru candidate?
Party member and domestic violence campaigner Julie Richards would go further, demanding that Edwards should neither be associated with Plaid nor be a candidate. ‘I believe we should have zero tolerance,’ she said. ‘In terms of values, as a party this puts it all into question.’ Adding, ‘I can’t be in a party that doesn’t take this and tackle this seriously.’
I am not surprised. Memories of being let down by presumed allies are particularly difficult to forgive. And not taking a swift and principled stand on an issue as singular, as problematic, as persistent as violence against women will ensure Plaid Cymru join Liberal Democrats on that worst of political naughty steps; a party who signal virtuous instincts, claim progressive attributes, but when the chips fall inconveniently, demonstrate that political expediency supersedes these values. Hardly the vote winner.
For, amid depressing reports that incidents of domestic abuse are again increasing across England and Wales, it is imperative that violence against women is always faced down, always confronted as the grave societal problem it is. So Julie Richards will not be alone in concluding she could no more be associated with a political party supporting a domestic abuser than a party endorsing perpetrators of antisemitic, racist, or homophobic assaults. What do you think?
The #MeToo conversation already feels distant. Let us hope Plaid Cymru’s self-destructive deliberations are not evidence that here in Wales those important voices were never genuinely heard.
Click Here to read this article on Cambrian News website.August 3, 2022
Handyman? Barman? Wannabe Poet?
The writing habit has suffered interruption over the past few weeks. Still managing to crack out the Cambrian News column, but time and energy required to write further is being drained by the steady stream of repairs, decorating chores, phone-calls, licence applications, the myriad preparatory tasks required for Irie’s Bar to be fired back up in Aberystwyth.
The business plan? The spirit of ‘new’ Irie’s has been distilled down to premium Caribbean rum (did you see what I did there?). And every Friday and Saturday evening I will serve (incessantly chat about) Irie’s range of my favourites.
I ❤ RumYou will be invited to enjoy our rum as God intended (room temperature while listening to reggae), but in acknowledging that you have the last word, your sugary spirit might be accompanied with an ice-cube or two, coke, ginger ale (Dark n Stormy), or Red Bull (if you must). My taste in reggae is not negotiable.
Last time out, I noticed Aberystwyth developing a taste for Caribbean beer, so Jamaican Red Stripe (and Bajan Banks if I can get it) will be available in bottles. Plus white wine for Michael, obviously.
That’ll be it for Irie’s. Far more chilled (for me anyway) – Caribbean Rum way or North Parade highway – and really, what more could we want?
The target is to be open for you every weekend from Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd September (7pm-11ish 12ish), with Irie’s lounge bar and function room bookable for private functions on weekdays. Once settled, to write all week and rest my bones on Sundays. Sound like a plan?
Plenty to sort out still, but getting there…
The old and original Irie’s sign went back up yesterday – I was trusted with Windolene 
My first time in up a picker – can you tell?
July 27, 2022
View from the Vaults – First Class Nonsense
(Published Cambrian News (print editions) 27 July 2022)
Freshly installed between station and university with a fascinating view up North Parade. Besides amusing observations of Aberystwyth tussling with what to wear in the heat, I note an uncommon quantity of puffed-up parents skipping by, accompanying their gowned and mortar-board-donning offspring. Congratulations.
Yet every July, graduation ceremonies spawn perennial grumblings about another uptick in grades, implying that university degrees have become devalued and now provide a less helpful guide for employers. And latterly, that certain degree courses are ‘low value’, offering little in terms of immediate salary.
Hogwash. Lazy gripes about grade inflation are a simple bust. With billions of pounds in extra funding injected into universities from course fees since 1998, with the internet now providing instant access to limitless source material, with improved technology, and evolving teaching methods, if increasing numbers of First-Class degrees were not awarded, the scandal would be why have results not dramatically improved.
In response to such predictable progress, a minority of universities have shrewdly introduced ‘First-Class with Distinction’, or ‘Starred First’, so identifying high-flying students without downgrading the achievements of other First-Class graduates. Sorted.
With regards to ‘low value’ degrees, the Office for Students (OfS), the government department overseeing quality in higher education, warns that courses with high drop-out rates and low rates of graduate employment face increased scrutiny.
Apprenticeships are routinely heralded as the cure-all alternative to the ‘failure rate’ within higher education, however, very little mention is given to data showing 47 percent of apprentices dropped out last year. Yet, under plans to tackle ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees, educational institutions are threatened with fines and the withdrawal of student loan funding if they cannot place 60 percent of graduates into a professional job within six months.
So, what are ‘low-value’ courses? Well, 90 percent of the degree courses taken by sitting MPs would now be considered low value by the OfS: politics, psychology, history, philosophy, English, Classics etc. Yet, however ironic the Government attacks on Humanities, the pressure is felt and effects real. English Literature has been removed from Sheffield Hallam University’s prospectus, following a lead taken by the University of Cumbria. Not enough wages from words.
But it is not missed that the same populist voices this week decrying English Literature degree courses as pointless feigned outrage when anachronistic poems by Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen were recently removed from an English Literature GCSE curriculum. An action described as ‘cultural vandalism’ by Nadhim Zahawi, the erstwhile Secretary of State for Education.
Apparently, Zahawi once found value in English Literature studies, claiming, ‘as a teenager improving my grasp of the English language, Larkin’s poems taught me so much about my new home. We must not deny future students the chance to make a similarly powerful connection with a great British author or miss out on the joy of knowing his work.’
But Zahawi dropped English Literature, graduating with a ‘high-value’ degree in chemical engineering and going on to become the second highest earning MP in the UK. Larkin graduated with a ‘low-value’ degree in English Literature and became a life-long, pittance-paid librarian. So, which degree course do we conclude contributed better value for Britain? Or is this to compare apples with steam engines?
Of course there is scope in Britain for a wide-ranging approach to higher education; whichever mental gymnastics propel students forward. That residents of all ages study on with interest and passion provides more value for both nation and individual than the subjects studied; an inquisitive, motivated, flexible workforce nimbly exploiting the opportunities of an unpredictable future. And anyway, if we restrict degree courses to the instantly lucrative, what a dead-hearted featureless society we will instantly become.
Click Here to read this article on Cambrian News website.
July 20, 2022
Summer Holidays
July 13, 2022
Lying Bastards!
(Published Cambrian News (print editions) 13 July 2022)
It is little surprise that voters believe honesty to be the value most absent from British politics. While we appreciate contrite apologies for ‘misspeaking’ (we all slip up), wilful deceit by those holding public office affronts the majority of us, as conversations surrounding ongoing political events demonstrate.
Public indignation towards deceitful politicians is heightened by the knowledge that under similar circumstances the rest of us lie at our peril. For you, penalties for either perjury or perverting the course of justice are likely to be criminalising. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, along with many other professionals, caught lying in their work capacity are routinely hauled before committees, their livelihoods at risk. Businesses must not mislead; must conform to trade descriptions and advertising standards legislation or face substantial fines. The role of OFCOM is to ensure British media, often intending to sway an opinion, does not outright lie. And as and when the public are misled, it is understood that corrections must be swift, or sanctions increased.
So, it feels anomalistic that there is no equivalent mechanism for elected officials. The explanation seems to be that there was once a convention that those in elected office found to have made misleading public statements were expected to correct, resign, or face being sacked. It was once thought that a Prime Minister was self-evidently honourable, obviously above shenanigans, possessed the integrity to oversee this Code when applied to government.
But it seems those days are over. A void in accountability. And although current events prove that no one can lie and lie with utter impunity, it remains the case that elected representatives can wilfully mislead without threat of meaningful penalty. A state of affairs that maintains the credibility gulf between public and public office.
Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts MP describes the current situation as, ‘each day now brings with it more deception, dishonesty, and duplicity from the highest levels of government. Lies have been told to win elections, spread hate, and evade scrutiny. The consequence has been the withering away of public faith in democracy and the trashing of common values.’
It is hard to disagree. This explains why an impressive 73 per cent of voting-age public support Saville Roberts’ recently introduced Prohibition of Deception Bill. The Bill had been previously introduced by Plaid Cymru in 2007, aimed at holding Tony Blair accountable for disseminating misleading information justifying the Iraq War. The Bill failed without Conservative Party and Labour Party support. In all likelihood this 2022 reincarnation will also stumble. So, the void in accountability seems set to continue. And so will our distrust. For changes in personnel solve nothing while accountability relies on our representatives ‘doing the right thing’.
And this matters because the credibility of elected officials matters. We have been fed so much guff over recent years that it has become rational to be initially sceptical of just about anything we are told. This matters because, for example, whatever we each believed about Covid, with so much dishonesty flying about our ears, it became tricky to challenge those who stubbornly refused to believe a word said by any official.
It matters to any half-decent parents, guardians, or educators, trying to explain to our children why lying will not serve them well. It matters because others seeking public office will infer that freedom to lie is a perk of power.
So, here is the radical idea; Plaid Cymru, Welsh Labour, The Liberal Party; assuming Saville Roberts’ bill fails in Westminster, why not introduce a Prohibition of Deception Bill into the Welsh Assembly? And let Wales be the change we all need to see.
Click Here to read this article on Cambrian News website.July 4, 2022
This’ll be the Day that I Die.
Sept 1990. The beach at Santa Monica is an expanse of powdery sand the colour of sunshine and extending to a faraway sea. The sand drifting loosely between toes makes for demanding going on little legs; a crate of Budweiser pressing into the shoulder exacerbates the situation.
The beach in front of the Alzado residence is already thick with revellers, the luxury beach-house packed. Yet, it is the stature of this gathering’s attendees that catches the eye.
Lyle Alzado, the cousin of a friend of a housemate, a defensive end for the Los Angeles Raiders, a mustachioed mountain of a man, uses Labor Day to provide the perfect pre-season opportunity for professional footballers to reacquaint after the long summer break. Many NFL franchises are represented at the gathering; a final anarchic blast before the billion-dollar business of tearing each other limb from limb recommences.
Tables are set out on the beach. We secure a few chairs in the hot sunshine. An unopened bottle of Absolut appears, is passed between four professional athletes sitting across our table, is drained like water. A second bottle disappears the same way. A third emerges and is offered across the table. We’ve not been sat down a minute and the tone for the afternoon is set.
I watched a bit of the American Football when aired in the UK on Channel 4. I have even tossed a pigskin around a Manchester park. So, when the sun gives up the high-ground and some bright spark suggests a game of football, I don’t hesitate to raise my hand. But as I invite others from my party to join the impending melee it becomes apparent that there is panic developing amongst almost all non-professionals.
There is ‘no goddam way’ any of my friends, all frowns and shaking of heads, are going to participate in such madness. They describe the peril involved in playing with these big boys, especially when drunk; Gareth, especially when they’re this drunk. Pleading for sanity falls vainly on adventurous ears.
A pre-season game is fierce; points are proved, and men get hurt. Unsurprisingly, and however much I physically throw myself about, I can’t move anyone or make any indent on the contest. But I remain standing.
I change tack, employing some psychology at the line of scrimmage, hurling curses and threats across the divide. I gurn a fierce game-face and to the amusement of all, am tossed across the playing area for almost an hour. A coup de grâce is eventually delivered as I chase down a long pass. Eyes on the incoming spiral, I sense the tackler’s presence, assume the titan intends being gentle with the infant-size morsel heading his way. Unfortunately, the man is a huge and over-excited drunk, an uncoordinated 300-pound mass of muscle careering across the beach.
So, imagine a freight train hitting a ping-pong ball; I am crushed instantly yet rebound some distance before crashing face-first into the sand. There are intakes of breath from around the pitch and along both side-lines. I am checked for life-signs then carried broken towards my chair to be greeted by general shaking of heads, a volley of I told you sos, and some sympathetic cooing from an unattached blond in a cerise one-piece.
Pointing painfully to a space beside her, I moan, ‘lay me there…’ My nurse sighs and strokes sand gently from my bruised chest.
‘You’re so brave,’ she murmurs.
