chrisp65

I just might go along to this, just to be able to say I went along to this...

'virtue signalling' wow, I thought they'd all moved on to 'bad dudes'. Was snowflake mentioned at all? I need snowflake to finish my right wing bullshit bingo card.

Good grief, we've shut the door on child refugees and refused to give any sort of certainty to EU citizens living and working here, both on the same day. We really do have some nasty little people in the ascendancy at the moment. We used to have some big ideals. Now apparently we'll be great again once we've scared off all the immigrants.

Things that cheer you up: the posting of an A3 song, bless you reverend marv

It's happened a few times. She doesn't appear to be very good at dealing with hard questions. Her natural default reaction appears to be to say something nasty that doesn't actually make much sense and certainly makes it look like she was caught out. As long as the Chinese, Europe and America aren't as good at this stuff as Jeremy Corbyn, we'll be fine.

They were my formative years, but Mooney's correct, a lot of it doesn't stand the test of time. That Nine Below Zero album is a case in point. it's the latest of the bunch at 1982 and whilst it's still in a hurry and you can still hear the cleansing of the late 70's in it, it's already beginning to get some 80's over production and more than a hint of white funk white soul getting in to many of the bass lines. We needed punk, it all needed a good shake. I think I've mentioned it before, we were a right feral bunch of shits from over the island, roaming town looking for people with zeppelin or sabbath or rush written in biro on their school bags.... I couldn't be a milder chap now. Proper passive. Very respectable. I pick n mix eras and sounds far more than the younger me would have approved of, I was zealous. Still nice to have a bit of Dead Kennedys every now and again though. I love the slow start, the grinding and the speeding up of Saturday Night Holocaust. It's a classic.

having a bit of a '77 through to '82 sort of a day ears beginning to suffer if I'm honest, all a bit more rushed and shrill than I'm used to recently

I had a very short conversation with somebody in the loos at Chievley services once a couple of years back. I parked up and marched in to the services needing a pee. There was some middle aged bloke stood just outside the gents, followed me in and stood at a urinal needlessly close to the one I was using. He said something like: 'what a day, eh?' I said something very specifically like: '**** off and **** off now' He zipped up and left.

Nothing quite says 'living in his metropolitan elite bubble' like dunking a grab n go petrol station samosa into a pot noodle. Living the dream.

I don't think I know any Elbow songs. Perhaps they're my Thom Yorke. I've got a picture in my head of a chubby northern lad with rolled up sleeves singing something catchy but indecipherable with an orchestra behind him.

Of the infrastructure projects listed above by @VILLAMARV I know it's only a small select sample, but it's worth working through them. The M4 relief road and improvements still haven't happened. But their intention is to make it quicker and easier for Cardiff business and commuters to get passed Newport. It's going to cost over a billion. It's for the benefit of Cardiff, don't let anyone tell you any different. The Senedd is in Cardiff and cost £70 million. That figure doesn't include the other satellite government buildings that surround it, the infrastructure to put it there, the alteration of existing roads to give priority to traffic to and from the government buildings. As well as the Senedd, Cardiff also got the Opera House. Sorry, no we don't call it that, that was too elitist. We have the Millenium Centre built at a cost of £120 million. It's been built on the old dry dock. Hopefully the dockers all got good jobs in the impressive array of franchised food outlets that now skirt the Bay. Or, they could get work as extras at the new BBC Headquarters built down the Bay at a cost of £50 million. So a vast building project, totalling over £250 million in Cardiff. The promise of a new billion pound road to get straight there (it will literally take you straight to the car park closest to the Senedd). What is the net result? An arts hub, a government building, a BBC Headquarters. Yet still the people of Merthyr, Cwmbran and Neath voted leave. Ignorant bastards. The money ploughed in to Cardiff and Penarth and the Vale of Glamorgan has been impressive and has genuinely transformed that area. There's a very positive buzz and lots of self supporting business start ups. But it's a tight little bubble. There are some very mediocre houses in my town, built for dock labourers that now command a £250,000 asking price. There are multi million pound houses all over the Vale. But drive 45 minutes west to Swansea and you can get a sea front modern apartment with private parking, a balcony and stunning sea views for £110,000. Or head 45 minutes north to Aberdare and buy a 3 bedroom house and get change from £60k. The prosperity almost literally drops off a cliff. It's like the Hunger Games. Incidentally, Cardiff, Penarth, Barry and the Vale all voted remain. Unfortunately, the 'cool' Ramsey Sound turbines only worked for 12 weeks. They broke and the private company that had received £8 million pound of public money collapsed.They're still sat on the sea bed if anyone wants them.

Arts Council Wales, based in Cardiff, funded by the Welsh Assembly. Below is one random selection from dozens I could have picked from their website. We'll have to ask the people that worked at Dunlop Tyres or at Hoover or British Steel, Alcoa, Berlei, Tower Colliery, BP, Dow Corning, Ford, Walkers Crisps, Rank Flour Mills, Seven Sisters Bakery, Ferrari's Bakery, Geest and Burberry if they've taken up the opportunity of creative dance classes. Here's some street art installed in Hirwaun to commemorate pit ponies: They had to be cast in a foundry in Halifax. The local foundry is now a heritage centre. Abergavenny: art installation to commemorate closed brewery £183,000 Newbridge 'green lamp' art installation of one green street lamp £125,000 Caerphilly: art trail £750,000 Abertillery: art installation to commemorate closed mine £185,000 millions upon millions being spent I've just looked up a regeneration proposal for Ferndale in Rhondda Cynon Taff. The local govt document shows 42% of the population have 'no qualifications'. 47% described as sick, permanently ill or disabled. 35% no access to a car. Amongst the improvements recommended for Ferndale: £160,000 for improved car parking and £155,000 of public artwork. The people must be shitting themselves that brexit will bring an end to all this wonderful art. I don't know but I'd be fairly sure there are similar stories for many many other similar places all over the UK.

Big Jeremy and little Jeremy, when they haven't had hot food after a long cold day tossing each other off.

I concur. You'll have to take my word for it and accept that I wasn't there the day in the summer of 2013 that new name was chosen. I would have been slightly more aggressive in the name chosen, it certainly would have been shorter. But I wasn't there, I was working away. So you get naming by committee. For legal reasons and boring nerdy historic reasons we needed a name distinct from a couple of other names already 'owned' by the nutjob we beat in court to take over the running of the club, but that also reflected a continuity with older names and references. In fairness, we have also absorbed quite a few other local clubs that had very different names, ladies footy (Vale FC) and a brilliant disabled / mixed ability team (Glamorgan reds), plus kids teams from Rhoose that were blue and a second 11 from Cadoxton that were green hoops. So grudgingly, the united is there for a reason, it's not just some tosser that likes manchester that picked it. Mashed in there, we've got heritage from teams with town, unionist, united and athletic in their titles. But as I say, personally, it's not to my taste but naming day I was literally in a secure facility in Kent. My vote was CPD Barri. Nobody ever refers to us as 'united' it's certainly never been shouted from any terrace, it doesn't appear on any merch.. It's a nice simple 'town' for day to day use and shouting purposes. .

there really are some bad dudes out there, undermining basic law, order and democracy

Pub lunch in a pub that didn't have a big screen. Then a walk along a few miles of beach to walk off the roasties, a coffee and a giant slab of cake and a walk back again to walk off the cake. Plus a walk by of one of my fave buildings, god bless brutalism, eh!

Did your mum work the South Wales hotel and restaurant circuit, early 1980's? True story alert: I went out partying one Saturday night, met up with a new girl I hadn't seen before, turned out she was new in town. Went back to her place had to stay quiet because of the parents. Anyway, I stayed a few hours, we got to know each other quite well. But I had to work Sunday morning shift at the hotel, just a block up the hill from this house I was in, which was handy. So I stayed as long as possible then slipped away. A fifty metre jog up the hill, in to the hotel, a shower in a vacant room, bit of breakfast and start work. Mid shift I'm passing reception and there's a new receptionist, nice enough woman. Get chatting, ask her where she lives and she says 'ooh, really close, this job is brilliant I live just down there.' She pointed at the house I'd left an hour earlier. I'd been with her daughter all night! I might be in the wrong thread...here's some Conway Twitty..

Yes, I'd say Small Faces are my fave band. Kinks are up there too, with a handful of others, but Small Faces have been my thing for well over 30 years. I had a bit of a fish tank malfunction recently, thankfully all the Small Faces albums were fine, totally unscathed. This Kinks record, not so great. Had it since about 1980 in perfect condition, now the cover is badly warped and torn. The inner sleeve is a mess too. But saddest, I'd written a load of notes inside the sleeve in blue ink and it's all washed out. Yeah, don't store your good shit under a **** fish tank. Lesson learnt.

I love a bit of Blondie. I like to think that it was me that discovered Blondie and introduced it to the UK. I base this on the fact I bought a Blondie album (Plastic Letters) in a NAAFI supermarket in Germany back in 1970 something. So I had Plastic Letters before Parallel Lines came out. Which I think was a pretty rare thing. I’m not claiming a deep musical insight though. It was there and I had money burning its hole as it does and an itchy spending finger and didn’t have a clue what it was but was desperate to buy something. It looked cool and American. Also, having since gone back and checked, Plastic Letters wasn’t any sort of official release in Germany and in 1978 certainly wouldn’t have been a big UK seller. So what the hell it was doing in a grocery shop on a military base in Germany I have absolutely no idea. But there it is, there it was. So I bought it. Later that summer, on return to the UK I would surely have been lording it over my mates that didn’t have it. I certainly remember taking it from house to house for my mates to tape. By tape, I mean a microphone in front of the speakers and everyone in the room sat silent. Proper taping. Anyway, that new Blondie track. With time and health and all that as a given, and the fact they never were the most polished of performers, I still have to say that the quality of the vocals are a bit disappointing. They’ve made me a little bit sad for Debbie’s hey day.

Yeah, I didn't have time to switch threads just had to let it out. Like a pee after a long car journey, once you've mentally committed to it, it's happening no matter where you are.

The main mosque in my little town used to be a bible college in a former life. It's claim to fame was that it's where the rev Iain Paisley learnt his schtick. Been in there a few times over the years. Disappointingly mundane. I pressed loads of walls and at no point did I find the secret weapons room or a dungeon full of fallen wimmin. That's both as a mosque and as a bible college. Some people just got no flare or vision.

'the greenbelt' **** off with you, you nimby pretend concern but just worried about protecting your own house price dickheads I wonder what the correlation is between greenbelt nimbyism and people that think we're sinking literally sinking under the weight of immigrants? Pretty much 90% the same people plus a few hippies I reckon.