http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-27649225
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/rhydyfelin-library-rhondda-cynon-taf-7200185

And so Bouncers is over and normality returns (is this normality I hear you ask?)....

On Friday I was in HMP Parc Prison in Bridgend for the end of their wonderful 'Hay in the Parc' week of artistic endeavours that takes place alongside that other Hay festival. 
I was launching a book of prisoner's poems. 
It was the culmination of many sessions with many writers. I thoroughly enjoyed my workshops and found the men involved (95% of prisoners are men!) incredibly honest and forthright in their views and they opened up with very raw emotion. It may appear ironic that prisoners should be heralded as being honest and full of integrity while they're incarcerated for acts of social deviance...........but then that depends how you view people in prison doesn't it?

Aren't we all in it together?

There but for the grace of god go all of us and all that (don't get me started on god.......who mentioned him............or her?).

It has long been my view, having visited many prisons, that they are not full of the middle classes but rather the impoverished, drug fuelled section of society that is struggling to survive. Various pieces of statistical evidence supports my theory too (30% of prisoners have been in care with all the fragmentation and pain that can cause... 80% of prisoners have writing skills below the level of an 11 year old).

And they were honest.

And then on Saturday 31st May  I was out breaking the law myself.... looking to join my new found mates in HMP Parc.
 
 This was in the shape of the renewed fight for libraries.............

100 people turned out at Rhydyfelin Library  for the closing ceremony and four of us chained ourselves to the library shelves until the police arrived, refusing to let the library go quietly. It was a peaceful protest but the library did not shut at the appointed hour of one o'clock and stayed open until 5pm. 

I hope the point was made. It is dishonest to talk of a Big Society and all being in it together when time after time services are being switched off . Maybe we'll all end up in prison or the workhouse........

The link above is to the BBC news report and Wales Online article and photos.

We certainly didn't wish to waste police time but we felt a crime had been committed. It was  one perpetrated by the RCT Council decision to decimate our deprived community by imposing yet more cuts and closures. So desperate times  call for desperate measures.............. 

Who are the real criminals? 

15% of Britain's prisons are privately run....that's people making money out of other people's misery.....

And it's not over yet....we have a Court hearing in Newport on Thursday in an attempt to be granted a Judicial Review..........................and so it goes on....watch this space!!

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/library-protesters-take-fight-senedd-7114973
http://www.aandbcymru.org.uk/2014-winners/
  http://southwalesliterature.co.uk/projects/award-winnin/


These three links follow on from the previous blog. One is about the library protest at the Senedd (Wales Online article) and the other two are about the Arts and Business Awards night at the Wales Millennium Centre.  The video at the Senedd was an instant on the hoof interview, the one for the Awards night was prepared and played as we collected the Award on the evening and put together by Orchard films. 


Hope you've got your Bouncers tickets?..........................I'll be checking...........

Yes it's another discussion about fame and fortune, topics which seem to crop up regularly, either linked to the destruction of community libraries, or sneaked in as comment around celebrity culture.

I read this morning that Britain is now the country with the most billionaires per head of population. We have 104 billionaires with a combined wealth of more than £301 billion. By any stretch of the imagination that is obscene isn't it? 

I'm often told in conversation they deserve it...they've worked hard to get it...they are the entrepreneurs that keep the cogs turning.
But I wonder....did Einstein do what he did for money? Or Darwin or Mozart?
The public servants I see seem to work hard too....nurses, doctors, bus drivers, the policemen and social workers...and the builders and oil rig workers...tell them they're lightweights in the economy.

The good old NHS sees 1 million people every 36 hours and the so called entrepreneurs are privatising it out of existence....what was the jewel in Britain's crown....the real wealth and health of a nation..........if only they worked as hard as those poor billionaires...............who access the best accountants to keep their hard earned cash in offshore accounts....probably on islands that they already own!

And the queues for food-banks and loans with incredibly high interest rates persist.
 
Even the sales people of Sky have  become whistle-blowers to their practice of targeting the poorest areas on behalf of their billionaire employers.

It is nothing short of scandalous.

Then there's me.

On Friday night I was invited to a £100 a head dinner at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. This was the annual Arts and Business Awards bash and the sort of event I am regularly invited to...............well I say regularly.......
I would have been happy with a fish n chip supper and a seventies disco complete with Chicory Tip and Mungo Jerry.

A project I was involved in with older residents in Merthyr (previously alluded to in this blog) happened to win the much sought after section for arts and the community. And a great project and a very deserving winner in many ways (although I still struggle with a society that seems to value everyone solely as winners and losers)......................................but the smell of money and patronage of the arts worries me.......should it?....hasn't it always been so?

Still worries me.

Everything from kidneys to morality seems to sell as a commodity on the stock market these days. 

The battle for community libraries goes on (see other posts) and on Tuesday (13th May) we are demonstrating at the Senedd (Welsh Assembly)...please come if you feel inclined it's a 10.30am meet up outside.....let's make ourselves heard.........and hope the billionaires are listening over the airwaves of their helicopters and security fences.

Which brings me back to Bouncers the sort of security needed to ensure the riff raff and common people are held firmly in their place with a bit of rowdy beer and bingo. 
I'm still very heavily involved and off to rehearse again today. I've been told it's the most performed play after Shakespeare in the English language....so if you've never seen it why not head down to St David's Hall in a weeks time and take a look....patronise the arts in the best possible way. Here's the link again to the promotional video...........................enjoy.....................see you down there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFjTgdIRyo8&feature=youtu.be

Caught a discussion on the radio about bankers, financial wrong doing and bonuses today.....I was riveted...partly because novelist Maggie Gee ensured there were countless references to literature, including Steinbeck and a throwaway line about the corrupting nature of the 'one ring' in Tolkien's classic that is a metaphor for relentless desire and greed that, if unchecked, will destroy us all.

This was coupled with another article I saw recently about Bill Nighy who is fully supportive of the Robin Hood tax which is a well justified levy on the ludicrous excesses of the financial sector and would raise billions to tackle poverty etc.

 I read this alongside a piece highlighting a DJ who had invested in a miserable, selfish little cheating scam for his tax bill and claimed he was misinformed......blah, blah

And there is hope.

There is always hope....and that came from news about Jose Mujica, the President of Uruguay, nominated for a Nobel prize.

Apparently he gives 90% of his income away, dresses casually,drives a battered old VW Beetle and lives in a modest little farmhouse with his wife  (what a refreshing antidote to Jimmy Carr and Bob millionaire Geldof).

I hope this wonderful picture is not punctured by cynical revelations.....because we want all our politicians to be like that....don't we? Bring back a bit of honesty, integrity and principle to replace the career moving, money orientated, silver spooned politicians.
I'm sick of the grey suited public school lookalikes jockeying for the middle ground .

On a personal note I've just been cast in Bouncers by John Godber and will be performing in St David's Hall in Cardiff in May.....do come along it's a very entertaining, raunchy play (I'm sure you know it) and this will be my third run in it.....is it just tailor made for bald blokes?
Here's the link for tickets    
 http://www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk/English/Bouncers-May-14/

Also performing poetry in the Riverfront Theatre in Newport tomorrow night (25th February)...great event celebrating work from the Jigsaw and Hafal groups that are working hard supporting people in the area....do come along...its a 7.30pm start and a great exhibition of work too....see you there?.......

I do want to begin this January entry where I left off at the end of last year.
RCT Council held their crucial cuts meeting on the 8th January and ,as expected, many libraries will be closed before April. 
Before the meeting I sent all 60+ councillors a short film made with film maker Craig Oats that demonstrated the crucial and unique role that libraries have in our communities. I know I'm biased but it was a warm and heart wrenching piece, wonderfully shot by Craig. 
There were some interesting responses back from councillors, many very sympathetic to the cause but feeling caught without many options and under pressure to save money. 
Craig is in negotiations with the BBC who are interested in a longer film that highlights the losses of libraries to communities. Hopefully it will get wider coverage. When resolved will put a link to the film so it can be seen by all of you.
And all of you amounts to about 1500 views a month (according to my stats from weebly) so who ever you are thank you for your support.
Tomorrow I will try to get to a 'Red Poets' reading in the Andrew Buchan pub in Albany Road, Cardiff....maybe will see you there

Happy New Year

Ode To Dylan Thomas
(Celebrating the centenary of his birth)

It is Christmas in the city
the non sleeping, night clubbing
dub-step bubbling city of hopes and dreams
The bible black times have disappeared
The Christmas crowds cheered
For the neon lighted, decorously lighted
Permanently excited city of streets
Paved with glittering gold
To hold
The thronged and molten masses  of Wales

Wales...
The party going, soap opera knowing
debt ridden, assembly bidden
drunken hordes
all tattooed and tribal
rugby redded, easily bedded
out for the night
and the right to...Paaarty!!!

Hush the royal babies are sleeping
the shop lifters, the benefit scroungers,
the Rumanian and Bulgarian job taking,
immigrant making Wales.
Hush the business bankrupts are sleeping
the privatised postman,
young girls lie bedded soft by corrupted celebrity
safe in their Catholicism

Hush you can hear the planet warming
and the drunken city chorusing out
their Band Aid and Gift Aid
Come closer
the Central African Republic is sleeping
with machetes by their beds,
their streets running red
half protecting their life expecting
to end at an average 48 years old
But in the Christmas Cardiff cold
Boomtown Bob sings
that he's a multi millionaire
Whoever said life was fair?

Only your eyes are unclosed
to the minecraft and match fixing
the open mikes and drone strikes
on the world's city that never sleeps
And keeps itself awake
for the sake
of a few class A drugs
some 'Free Hugs'
in a carrier bag that cost 5p
strewn across the Christmas tree
with the puke
and a nuke from Iran
we can hear
Hugo Chavez spinning in his grave

Hush
Hushed forever Nelson Mandela
has gone
but the economic apartheid lives on
gone Thatcher the milk snatcher
hushed forever are the mines
and the miners
only Russell Brand pipes up to Paxman
in vain
trying once again
to make it plain
we need to redistribute the wealth
as the hospitalised Health Service of a nation
waits 6 hours in an ambulance station
for a private takeover
or maybe a makeover
from Aneurin Bevan
looking down from heaven
at the processional salt slow musical march
moving through the streets

Listen.
It is night.
Time passes

Listen
It is Christmas in the city
Come closer now
Time passes
And still we have a dream

'Where they burn books they will ultimately burn people also'
Heinrich Heine German poet 1797-1856

Since the last blog I have got more involved with the fight to save libraries in RCT so this one is to offer a little further thought on that fight.
Mr Tan has bought up Cardiff City and tinkered with their identity as a football club. Bob Geldof is honoured for work as a humanitarian and the media has referred to him as 'Saint Bob'. Prince Charles is currently in Sri Lanka acting up for his mum.

Are the three people linked?

Yes I think so by privilege,power and money (and they're all men obviously).

Mr Tan has bought himself a football club to play with (and,it has to be said, injected money that has brought an apparent degree of success). But does he have any real investment in Cardiff or Wales or the Valleys? Maybe he's another Crawshay in disguise.He appears to ride roughshod over the fans...the ordinary, long suffering supporters. Success at any cost?

Bob Geldof, as I'm sure you remember, famously banged tables and implored people to give to starving millions in Africa (and, it has to be said, injected money that has probably saved lives in the short term). He appears now as a multi millionaire said to be worth around £32 million. A fair return? I suppose he must need all that money rather than donate it to charity....god forbid!

Prince Charles comes from that untouchable family (that, it has to be said, does so much for tourism). That outdated family based on inter breeding, exploitation and class superiority...based on an ancient world of social class and apartheid. While the rest of us are fed a steady diet of Soaps and Saturday Talent Shows.

Some will accuse me of envy but it's outrage.

'All animals are equal but some are more equal than others'

In this mad world dominated by a so called winning formula called capitalism surely we can hold onto a bit of honest principle can't we?
Isn't it principle that gave us the National Health Service and  'Keynesian attempts to pool collective wealth and build more just societies' (Naomi Klein)
 Isn't it principle that gave us libraries for all?

Surely a fundamental shift is needed? Surely we're crying out for savage redistribution not savage cuts to vital services?

So on Saturday 16th November there's a march through Pontypridd at 11am
On Tuesday 19th November there's an event in Maerdy Library at 11 am and in Nantgarw Library at 2 pm
There will be poets, free runners, film makers, pensioners, speech givers and knife jugglers (Yes! Really!  All that and more)
Please come along if you can....you can cheer you can boo but let's at least do something....

Shall we?