"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

Friday 21 February 2014

e-Petition:Make ’Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ the Official Welsh National Anthem

January 2016 will mark the 150th anniversary of the composition of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau by Evan and James James of Pontypridd. December 16th 2015 will be the centenary of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau being used as Wales’ anthem at sporting events. For the first time ever the players and crowd sang an anthem before an international match. This would become a staple tradition of international sporting events across the world. But it all started in the old Arms Park because Wales wanted to mitigate the infamous haka used by New Zealand. Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau became our battle cry and we won the game 3-0. Now, it is time to make this battle cry the official Welsh national anthem.

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https://www.assemblywales.org/epetition-list-of-signatories.htm?pet_id=971


I have posted the reason for creating this petition here and the Cymraeg version of this post is here. Again I've included the tweet from the official Senedd account so that if anyone wants to share it simply by retweeting but doesn't want to retweet my account then they can use this.

The important thing is that we all sign this so we can make our anthem official, just like our flag was made official and Cymraeg was made an official language. When the petition was published I made the decision to trickle it over time, at least a week. Posting it in some places on the first day, others on the next and so on. That way it guarantees it a steady stream of hits rather than a big hit and then nothing.

But an important thing to remember is that whilst I may have been the one to submit the petition in the first place it doesn't belong to me, it belongs to everyone in Wales who loves our country and our anthem. So please feel free to save any of the graphics and share the links via your own accounts.

That being said, it would appear that the people of Arfon have said "chill out, we got this". After almost 600 signatures on the petition, Arfon alone account for over 12%.


A couple of things to consider. As of the 598th signature (when the above graph was made) there were 123 separate entries for the area. Many of these are doublers, as an example in the above you can see Cardiff South and Penarth and De Caerdydd a Phenarth. Both the same place just one is written in English and one in Welsh, some will have a typo or be in all capitals which wouldn't have combined them. When the petition is finished I can go through these and combine them where applicable, it's a fairly quick process with a spreadsheet and the filter/sort tools.

It's also worth pointing out that there are signatures from Argentina, USA, Australia, Italy, Belgium and several other countries.

Monday 17 February 2014

E-ddeiseb:Gwnewch ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ yn Anthem Genedlaethol Swyddogol Cymru

Nodir 150 mlynedd ers cyfansoddi’r gân ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ gan Evan a James James o Bontypridd ym mis Ionawr 2016. Bydd can mlwyddiant canu Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau fel anthem Cymru mewn digwyddiadau chwaraeon yn cael ei gofio ar 16 Rhagfyr 2015. Am y tro cyntaf erioed ar y diwrnod hwnnw, canodd y chwaraewyr a’r dyrfa anthem cyn i gêm ryngwladol gael ei chwarae. Daeth hwn yn draddodiad pwysig mewn digwyddiadau chwaraeon rhyngwladol ledled y byd. Dechreuodd y cyfan ym Mharc yr Arfau gynt, oherwydd bod Cymru eisiau lleddfu effaith yr haka enwog a ddefnyddiwyd gan Seland Newydd. Daeth ‘Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ yn gri yng nghanol brwydr y maes rygbi ac enillwyd y gêm gennym, o 3 phwynt i 0. Bellach, mae’n bryd gwneud y gri hon yn anthem genedlaethol swyddogol ar gyfer Cymru.

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https://www.assemblywales.org/cy/gethome/e-petitions/epetition-list-of-signatories.htm?pet_id=971


*Please note I am a learner so the text above has been copied directly from the Senedd website, diolch yn fawr to the staff that translated it so that I may make this post in Cymraeg.

Saturday 15 February 2014

Wales doesn't have an 'official' national anthem.

This year I decided to post more six nations related content on my facebook and twitter pages. One of the features I decided to run with was the anthems, ahead of each match I decided to make a 'hymn sheet' featuring the anthems of each team. Naturally I'm not really going to seriously post that dirge to Betty but, as with many of the things I post I have learnt a few things that I didn't previously know or simply never bothered to pay attention to.

Hymn sheet ahead of Ireland v Wales

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Tesco Broughton Chester Extra

I was made aware of Tesco in Broughton (Wales) using the name Chester for the title of their store. According to the Tesco store finder website the full name of the store is "Broughton Chester Extra". Now I understand the Broughton part as it's in Broughton and I understand the Extra part because of the size and facilities the store offers but the Chester part was a conundrum.

So I asked them.

The original tweet and full conversation | Picture on Facebook.

Thursday 6 February 2014

The editorial policy of the EBC

You may have missed this story from back in January, it's about a woman from Cardigan who for some reason, whilst drunk, decided to bite a car. You read that right, she bit a car. This story was picked up by a lot of media outlets. One of these was the BBC who featured it on both their Cymraeg news site and their English language news site. And as it was a funny story I shared the picture on my facebook page. I will however state that I didn't learn about this important news item via the BBC. I saw it whilst reading another news item that was getting a lot of coverage over on the ITV website.

Stay classy Cardigan

Saturday 1 February 2014

That royal myth about tourism

There's a myth that is ever present in the English media and spouted at every opprtunity by unionist MPs. In the news recently is Scouse MP and former 'Junglist' Nadine Dorries. The Bedfordshire Tory has recently had this to say about the royal parasites.

Pic from ITVs Jungle nonsense. Text from Hilter's pals at the Daily Mail
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