Duw, Duw!

Ireland 26 Wales 3

The commentator on France 2 lauded the praises of the Welsh national anthem, but still insisted on referring to it by its colonialist name of Land of My Fathers. That was just the beginning of a lot worse to come.

You have to wonder why the Welsh team bothered to travel to Ireland, unless they were looking forward to the après-match célidh, if there is such a thing.

Really, there was only one team in the whole game and that most certainly wasn’t Wales. The few Welsh attempts at attack faded to nothing; the Welsh kicked, but why was a mystery and they then either missed touch, or got the ball kicked back with advantage, or both; they lacked discipline, giving away silly penalties; they knocked the ball forward (it seemed more times than they had chance to pass the thing!), they were lousy in the lineout… Well, you get the picture. Wales was quite simply terrible. Wales had one decent pass at a try and that was correctly disallowed, which was just as well, as just a couple of minutes before Ireland had been denied a line-out on the Welsh line and, given the Irish packs magnificent mauling performance, that would have been a certain try for Ireland.

Well done Ireland. You played well and gave the Welsh plenty to think about.

Way to go, David!

Here's a news story you might have missed. And that's a pity, for it is a story of courage, common-sense, and utter love.

The story concerns a couple from Friesland in The Netherlands. David Postma and his wife, Willemke, had been married for 61 years. David was 86 years old and Willemke 84. Willemke had been suffering with her health for several years and in November she had to be taken to hospital and it looked as if she would then have to go into a care-home. Although David had been in relatively good health up until then, he too, felt that he had had enough of life. They therefore decided together to put an end to their lives and chose a date in January to do so, informing their children of their decision.

January was chosen so that they could spend a final Christmas and New Year together with all the family.

According to Dutch law, David and Willemke could not ask for help from their doctors, as they were not in the unbearable and hopeless medical situation that Dutch law requires for this. David, however, used the Internet to search for a solution, and this he found in an organization called De Einder. With their help David was able to complete all the necessary formalities, and locate the products needed to prepare the potion. He took care of everything, even returning letters that arrived during the last few weeks, marking them "deceased" and stopping any subscriptions that were still active.

David and Willemke made no secret of their intentions and both family and friends were informed of the chosen date, so that there was plenty of time for good-byes. Christmas was a very pleasant occasion, with the whole family getting together in one of their son's houses. Old photos were passed around, together with plenty of memories, some tears, but also a lot of joy, remembering the happy times.

On the final day, a Saturday, the family gathered again, this time at David and Willemke's house. Willemke's favourite accordion music was playing and there was some dancing. Willemke remarked how nice it was to be able to dance out of life. David prepared two pots of yoghurt and the plan was that he and Willemke would each eat a pot while lying on their bed. This is what happened, too, and as each felt the effects of the potion, they waved a final goodbye to their family members.

David had prepared the notice of death for publication in the local newspaper. He even composed a poem to be included in it. The last line read, "Wy ferlitte no tefreden dit ierdse bestean, it wie ús tiid, wy gean." (Contented, we leave this earthly existence, it is our time, we are going.)

David and Willemke, you're a wonderful example. I wish all the best to the family members that supported you in your courageous action.

You can read a Dutch newspaper report here.

Mama Mia, Mon Dieu!

Ah, the dark days when football dominated the sports headlines are over and we are back into the glorious season of the Rugby Union RBS Six Nations Championship. Rugby Union, really the only sport that merits the name sport and light years away from the namby-pambyism of the soccer-pitch.

Anyway, yesterday the 2014 season of the Chamionship kicked off to an excellent start with two very good games.

Wales, the current holders of the Championship, had the honour to host the first match against Italy, played in Caerdydd, and this was followed across the Channel in Paris, where France hosted the team from England.

Four teams and three decent anthems to get the season going: Wales's rather sentimental, but stirring Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (introduced by the French commentator on France 2 as Land of My Fathers for some peculiar reason: if a Frenchman is going to give a title in a foreign language, he can just as well use the language of the song as English, surely?); the Italian anthem, which, let's be honest, bears more resemblance to an opera in two parts than to an anthem, but is wonderful; and then the superb battle-cry of La Marseillaise. Three wonderful, powerful numbers, bellowed out by players, staff and supporters alike and in stark contrast to the call to a mythical being to look after an old woman (God Save The Queen), as sung (if one can use that term) by the English.

Both matches offered some pretty good rugby, with Italy showing still more improvement and giving Wales a good run for their money, even if Wales was never in any real danger. Wales came through well and showed plenty of promise for the rest of the championship, but more work is required and indiscipline (get rid of prop Paul James) can't be tolerated.

The final score of Wales 25 Italy 17 was a fair reflection of the play.

France scared England with a try almost from kick-off and continued to scare England throughout the first half. England came back well in the second half, but Gallic guts won the day and the last ten minutes were all for France, who bravely won an excellent match with a final score of France 26 England 24.

It might be helpful to mention something about the national flags. An English supporter in Paris was frantically waving a Union Flag (commonly called a Jack); the plonker was wrong on two counts: firstly, it is not the flag of England, but that of the United Kingdom (the red cross of Saint George is the English flag); secondly, the flag was flying upside-down. Normally, flying a flag upside down signifies a call for help, so perhaps, given the result, this was deliberate…

Santes Dwynwen

Forget Saint Valentine. Heck, it’s not even certain who the chap was (Valentine of Rome, Valentine of Terni,…?), but whoever he was, he wasn’t British.

Dwynwen, on the other hand, is a genuine British product, saved, yet again, thanks to the Welsh. (Honestly, where would Britain be without them?).

Saint Dwynwen was one of the daughters of the 5th century British king, Brychan Brycheiniog. Poor old Brychan had 24 daughters, but Dwynwen was said to be the prettiest and she fell in love with a local chappie named Maelon Dafodrill.

Brychan had other ideas, however, and had already promised his daughter to some other scoundrel. He therefore forbade the two lovers from seeing each other. In a fit of rage, Maelon raped Dwynwen (well that’s one story) and left her. She then prayed for help and an angel appeared and gave her a potion which she persuaded the dastardly Maelon to drink, immediately turning him into a block of ice.

Ever persistent, Dwynwen then prayed for three wishes, which were miraculously granted: her first wish was that Maelon be defrosted, as it were, and this wish was granted; her second was that God (she was a Christian and believed in that sort of thing, as people tended to do in those days) take care of all true lovers, and this wish was granted; her final wish was that she should never marry. This wish, too, was granted, in that Dwynwen moved to a nearby island and lived there as a hermit until her death in 465 CE.

The island on which Dwynwen lived is now known as Ynys Llanddwyn (Welsh for the island of the church of Dwynwen) and there one can still visit the ruins of a church dedicated to Saint Dwynwen (Ynys Llanddwyn is a tidal island off the west coast of Ynys Môn). Dwynwen’s well can also be visited on the island and there, allegedly, a sacred fish swims, whose movements predict the future fortunes and relationships the couples that contemplate it. Visitors to the well also believe that if the water boils while they are present, then love and good luck will surely follow.

Saint Dwynwen’s day (Dydd Santes Dwynwen), 25 January, is celebrated in Wales in much the same way as Valentine’s day is elsewhere. So this year, celebrate your love for someone in a truly British fashion with a "Happy Saint Dwynwen" or, even better, a "Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen Hapus!"

111213 and American spelling

A few days ago it was 11 December 2013, which, in sensible parts of the world might be written as 111213 (ddmmyy). It’s a special date and many couples therefore chose to get married on that day. Americans, of course, do many (most?) things in a  somewhat cock-eyed fashion and so, instead of it being 111213, for them it is 121113 (mmddyy), which is totally illogical, Mr Spock. Presumably, American couples were rushing to the hook-up ceremony about a month ago, on 12 November 2013, which in Americanese dating is also 111213.

And just think of all the trouble we went to some forty-and-more years ago to change the date entry in punch-cards (remember them?) to correspond as much as possible to the ISO Recommendation R 2014 of 1971: yymmdd. (Yup, only two positions for the year, in order to save precious space, but would lead to problems in the year 2000, of course.)

Anyway, Americans aren’t just peculiar about their dates, they’ve also created havoc with the English language. They use different words to standard British English and where they do deign to use the same words, they spell them differently, making a complete shambles of computer-based spell-checkers.

Here are just some examples of British English words and their American English equivalents:

Car Automobile
Bonnet Hood
Boot Trunk
Bumper Fender
Lorry Truck
Petrol Gasoline

(It's a wonder they don't call brakes "stoppers”.)

Tap Faucet
Cellar Basement
Garden Yard
Spanner Wrench

Pavement Sidewalk
Motorway Highway
Tarmac Hardtop

Ground floor First floor
First floor Second floor
(and so on; how crazy is that!)

Leave Furlough

Americans can be prudish protestants, of course, so they prefer “cleaned up” versions of some words:

Arse becomes Ass
Cock becomes Rooster

(but their use of “tidbits” actually reflects the original form of what in UK English is known as “titbits”.)

Clearly, then, there is a problem with word-usage, which is admittedly difficult to overcome with computer software. This is somewhat different where the spelling of the same words is different in the US version of English to the correct UK version. Unfortunately, however, most personal computers are sold with operating systems that think in US English and if the user does nothing, the spell-checker fails to correct Americanisms in documents that are produced in the many parts of the world that should use British English. I have even seen texts from the European Union that have included American spellings—a travesty if ever there was one!

If you own a personal computer, be its operating system OS X, Windows, or Linux (or even a tablet running iOS, Android, or whatever), and if you live in the civilised part of the world, then please check your language settings to make sure you are using British English (perhaps referred to as UK English) and not US English (often referred to simply as English in setups, so look further!).

Double-l is almost always reduced to a single, forlorn ”l”, as in:

Traveling
Jewelry (which sparkles even less because of the dropped “e” in addition to the dropped “l”)


The letter-combination “ou” is likewise abbreviated, this time to just the “o”:

Colour becomes Color
Favour becomes Favor
Flavour becomes Flavor
Neighbour becomes Neighbor
Neighbourhood becomes Neighborhood

And what they do with "through" is nothing short of a massacre, making it "thru".

So, remember, “English” in your computer does not necessarily mean English as it is used in the UK and as it should therefore be used in Europe. The thing is, there is no standard, global English. In Europe, only British English (referred to in some systems as UK English) should be used. Check your systems to ensure that this is the version of English that is being used for your dictionaries, be they application-only or system-wide, and all other system settings. (And if you have an iPad, you can get Siri to speak with a “correct” British accent, too.)

New palms

We have had two new palms planted.

Our Italian Cypress tree had become too tall and was taking the sun in the winter afternoons, so we unfortunately had to make the decision to remove it. A great pity, as it was a lovely tree.

Phoenix roebelenii

Anyway, that we replaced with a Phoenix roebelenii or pygmy palm. It already looks very smart and in a couple of years the trunk should develop the typical "hard scaled" look of its sort.

The roebelenii has a trunk of about 80 cm and can grow slowly to between 2 and 3 metres. It already has a very good looking canopy of fronds.

The other new palm has been chosen to replace our Phoenix canariensis. The canariensis was also becoming too large for our small garden and was also threatened by the red palm weevil, which is causing havoc in the area in which we live. Indeed, we had found some suspicious-looking holes in the base of the canariensis and also some cocoons, so that really made our minds up to replace the palm with a variety more suited to our garden and resistant to the weevil.

We first did some research, visiting the Huerto del Cura in Elche and a number of local garden sentres before deciding on a Howea forsteriana. Strangely, this palm is incorrectly marked in the Huerto del Cura, as can be seen in this photo (note the missing "r"):

Fosteriana instead of forsteriana

There were several examples of this palm in the Huerto (all incorrectly marked) and we were attracted to the narrow trunk and soft fronds. We bought quite a mature example from a local grower, It's a slow-growing palm, so should be fine where it now stands.

Howea forsteriana

You can see more photos in this album.

39 again

A couple of days ago I had a birthday.

I have one each year.

This was the 27th occasion of my 39th birthday and as this seemed to be the cause of extra celebration, SWMBO decide that we should go to a restaurant to have a celebratory meal. She even decided on the restaurant at which we should dine, her current favourite, the Restaurante El Rebate, near Pilar de la Horadada, some thirty kilometres from where we live.

El Rebate was the name of a small abandoned village that the Van Iseghem family completely restored, eventually creating the restaurant itself, as well as a wedding chapel and a shop selling a wide variety of wines, other groceries, handicrafts and all sorts of other things, whilst avoiding the more tacky tourist fare.

The restaurant occupies a large building that was once several small houses. In addition to the large dining room it has a huge terrace.

As usual, we enjoyed our meal at El Rebate and will no doubt be returning soon.

El Rebate seen from the parking area

Steps up to El Rebate from the parking area

Restaurant area of El Rebate

Main restaurant building

Terrace, which would soon be full

SWMBO contemplates the cold tapas

SWMBO admiring the desserts

A Belgian biscuit, a Spanish restaurant, a Welsh man