"The arms that you wield now are not such as your forefathers wielded; but they are infinitely more effective, and infinitely more irresistable" ~ Cymru Fydd leaflet, 1890

Monday 30 December 2013

Most popular 'Daily Facts'

After conducting a review of the facebook posts for 2013 I wanted to also conduct a review of the daily facts that I share each day. The easiest way to do this is via the twitter posts since I already collate them here on the blog. It's basically a case of looking at the page for each month and then seeing which has the most interactions. As with the other review I will post the most popular from each month. Hopefully we can learn something from the results.

January
Dydd Santes Dwynwen was the most popular daily fact on both twitter and most popular picture I shared on facebook for January.

Sunday 29 December 2013

2013 review via facebook

With 2013 coming to a close I wanted to conduct a couple of reviews, the first is of the posts shared on my facebook page. So I have looked back to the beginning of the year and taken the one picture from each month that had the most shares. Some months had a stand out winner, others were fairly close. But I hope this gives some sort of indication of what people like.
2013 in pictures, chosen by facebook users - facebook original | twitter

Saturday 28 December 2013

Piss off Biggles

I came across an amusing picture on the internet, it told how a Welsh farmer grew so tired of low flying aircraft using his farm as a 'target' and scaring his children that he took matters into his own hands. I googled the key words "piss off biggles" and the story appears to be quite true. I've remade the graphic below and included the picture credit to the original photographer, Terry Blacow a former BAe Systems (Warton) photographer.
Taking on the colonial war mongers like a boss! Share via twitter | facebook

Monday 23 December 2013

Proud to be British? - Anglostralia

The Stolenwealth of Anglostralia, where a people once lived peacefully for millenia, in fact modern DNA evidence indicates that they may well have been there for 400,000 years. Of course none of that matters when you discover a new land to exploit. If there are natives there then you simply kill, rape, kidnap, enslave and even create sports to wipe out those who were ironically called 'savages'.

So please take less than five minutes out of your day to watch this video I found which illustrates some of the heinous crimes committed and the hypocrisy used to remember the fallen in selective campaigns whilst deliberately forgetting and covering up those who were wiped out by their genocidal ancestors. That doesn't make the modern day rulers innocent though as they continue the oppressive regime that maintains that first Australians are second class citizens of their own country.
Share video via twitter | facebook or view on YouTube

Tuesday 17 December 2013

A good place to start

Another rag, another poll. Except this time it's the Western Fail asking the people of Wales how they would vote in a referendum on income tax-varying powers. The headline from the Fail states that it's "too close to call", and since the gap between yes and no is just 2% you might be forgiven for agreeing with them. But when you realise they weren't asking a straight yes or no question you begin to wonder how big the gap really is. National Left has posted a link to the official poll page so I can see the stats and delve a little deeper.
Aargh my eyes! Learn about images please Beaufort

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Better together?

YouGov were recently commissioned by gutter rag The Sun to poll people across the UK on a few different questions but the one that YouGov jumped on was that the people of Englandandwales were desperate to deny Scotland one of the most basic of all rights, the right of self determination.

In the poll, YouGov claim that 55% of adults in Englandandwales would, if given the choice, vote no to Scottish independence. In the graph below it does state that the % is of all UK adults, but even with Scotland taken out it's the same figure.
Poll from here

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Gold medal winning hypocrisy

Paralympic legend Tanni Grey-Thompson has appeared in The Independent, giving answers to a few questions. The questions range from boring hardly newsworthy ones on Scottish independence to topical question about Tom Daly's sexuality, real hard hitting journalism. What caught my eye though was what Cardiff born Tanni said about devolution.

"It doesn’t make sense to do something differently in England to the other home countries."

In other words, devolution doesn't make sense to Tanni. My hypocrisy alarm did buzz slightly because Tanni had already answered a question about Cymraeg and she sounds quite pleased that children are learning Welsh in Wales. Now since they don't learn Welsh in England, Scotland or the six counties you might naturally start to question if Tanni really does believe that it doesn't make sense to do things differently. But then we did things differently before devolution so I decided to have a little google.

I know the feeling Jackie, my mind is full of it too. Share via twitter | facebook
The exact search phrase I used was "tanni grey thompson devolution", which any hard hitting journalist could have typed in. About the 12th link down the search results was a (.pdf) from a Sport Wales group in which Tanni chaired.

On page 5 of the report the following statement is made.

"the development of devolution has offered a massive opportunity to look forward, and to offer something different, visionary and transformational which would help Wales’s ambition to be a world-leading nation in sport and physical activity."

So here we have the hypocrisy, on one hand we have a Tanni led group outlining the "massive opportunity" that devolution offers us in order to be a "world-leading nation". And on the other hand "It doesn’t make sense to do something differently in England to the other home countries."

It's also worth pointing out that Tanni's official title is "Baroness Grey-Thompson, of Eaglescliffe in the County of Durham", I've looked on google maps and I can't find that anywhere in Wales. It must be one of those places in that UK nation that doesn't have devolution.

Share via twitter | facebook

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Quoted for truth - Jack Straw

Here's a couple of great quotes from nu-Labour stalwart Jack Straw. They are from 2006 but in many ways they are even more relevant now than they were back then. After all, back in 2006 Labour had a clean sweep of Governments in Wales, Scotland and UK. Now they only have Wales and with the Scottish referendum less than a year away they are facing self destruction.

So first up, here's Jack Straw outlining why England needs to hang on to the rest of us in order to keep up the pretence that they are still a world power.
Jack Straw outlining why England needs us. Share via twitter | facebook

Monday 2 December 2013

Myth - Wales isn't represented on the Union Rag

There is a myth that many people in Wales believe, they believe that Wales isn't represented on the Union Rag. And that is nonsense. Just in case anyone doesn't know the Union Rag in its current form was drawn up in 1801 but other variants have existed since the 1600s. The current design features the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick. St Patrick is used since Ireland was part of the 'union' back then.
So no Wales then?
Union Rag. Share via twitter | facebook

Sunday 1 December 2013

On this day in Wales - December

December 1st