Subject: Lapping up the adulation.
I'm sitting in 'Uplands' a suburb of Swansea having a lunchtime beer. The sun is shining and the streets are begging to come awake as people drag themselves from the bed where they had crashed following their usual Friday night shenanigans.
My head is clear, it's a while since I have been 'out late' and I was looking forward to a visit to the Swansea waterfront and the bistro lifestyle which has sprung up there.
'Uplands' to those who don't know it is a quasi bohemian place, the Main Street, full of quirky cafes serving cuisine from across the world. It's a place full of lovely old houses clinging to the hillside on which the suburb is built, a jangle of twisty streets and difficult parking. It has a flavour of a more affluent time when money built homes to take advantage of the view.
Now it's full of a Sushi Bars and the Vietnamese restaurants intermingle with the KFC to bring a cosmopolitan clientèle onto the streets, each contesting the available space with the ubiquitous motor car. At night the pub I am seated outside is heaving with eager testosterone fuelled youth, mixed up with old, "seen it all before" locals who refuse to get old, but now it is the quiet before the storm.
The Welsh, as their accent denotes are a sing song community somewhat displaced from the business hubbub which is increasingly centred on London but they flourish on what ever they can get since the cost of living here is so much cheaper and as long as the pound in their pocket stretches to cover the 'basics', the weekend pub culture and its music scene thrives on what's left.
The guitarists, piano players, base players and drummers, all well past their Prime but still a delight to listen to. Each night they relive their youth somewhere, playing those musical cords that come as natural as using a knife and fork, cords learnt as teenagers in their bedrooms and to this day, just as vibrant. The time warp is that of nostalgia for the music which drove their generation and their following, the lads and lasses who used to listen back then and still do.
Society hasn't changed much in Wales. They have an inherent optimism, their Celtic blood, ties them tight as a community and through it comes their strength. There is a deep consensus of their rights as a nation and if the deceit practised in Westminster doesn't fulfil "promises made", then they will quietly wait.
Where ever you go Wales, Ireland, Scotland the North of England its the same message, "perfidious Westminster". The House of Commons a building where words are spoken which have little sincerity, where deals are struck within the cartel, between the Government and those who benefit from the gravy train of ex-civil service work now spooned out to G4S and their cronies. It could resemble something akin to the Russian oligarch but we give it a cover of genteel spin and call it The Market economy.
This time of day, midday, is a man's world, the girls are still putting on their make up, repairing the ravages of last night. The pub itself a dark cavernous place with a dungeon like interior is empty and we sit outside in the sunshine. Men with white hair, or no hair (me on both counts). Men heavily tattooed, proudly display their art in the sunshine, (not me). One wonders what on Earth encouraged them to become a walking canvas for Doris and her python. The maritime mermaid entwined around the anchor on the forearm is long gone, now-a-days the adornment is total, not an inch escapes the needle. Like an Axminster carpet, the patterns are intricate and full and one has to wonder why they chose to display such a disregard for mothers skin. It's not so much a reflection of class, as of the past but something else. One often also finds beautiful young women disregarding and degrading their bodies, covering themselves in designs more appropriate to a Chinese Dragon Show.
Am I wrong to feel prim and proper as I sit amongst them, not a jolly jack anchor in sight on my white, slowly shrivelling torso, with no wish to embroider my skin in this way. Fashion I know is in the eye of the designer and women become part of an industry which says the moment you've bought it it's out of fashion and you must buy something new to display yourself to others. With the tattoo it's the polar opposite, once you try it on your stuck with it for life. Since life psychological journey is varied and changes with age, surely the thrill of Doris and her python will have worn off by the time you reach 40 and still more so by 60. Showering once or twice a day, there she is reminding you of that moment of madness, egged on by your mates you hadn't the common sense to say no.
Anyway it's bistro time and I'm now down at the Waterfront listening to a trio of fantastic musicians "leading me on" with their Django Reinhardt toe tapping rhythm. Music to die for as I sip my Courvoisier and marvel at the riffs. Oh to be young again, to pick up that instrument of torture which only need the time and perseverance and then I too could be on stage lapping up the adulation.
My head is clear, it's a while since I have been 'out late' and I was looking forward to a visit to the Swansea waterfront and the bistro lifestyle which has sprung up there.
'Uplands' to those who don't know it is a quasi bohemian place, the Main Street, full of quirky cafes serving cuisine from across the world. It's a place full of lovely old houses clinging to the hillside on which the suburb is built, a jangle of twisty streets and difficult parking. It has a flavour of a more affluent time when money built homes to take advantage of the view.
Now it's full of a Sushi Bars and the Vietnamese restaurants intermingle with the KFC to bring a cosmopolitan clientèle onto the streets, each contesting the available space with the ubiquitous motor car. At night the pub I am seated outside is heaving with eager testosterone fuelled youth, mixed up with old, "seen it all before" locals who refuse to get old, but now it is the quiet before the storm.
The Welsh, as their accent denotes are a sing song community somewhat displaced from the business hubbub which is increasingly centred on London but they flourish on what ever they can get since the cost of living here is so much cheaper and as long as the pound in their pocket stretches to cover the 'basics', the weekend pub culture and its music scene thrives on what's left.
The guitarists, piano players, base players and drummers, all well past their Prime but still a delight to listen to. Each night they relive their youth somewhere, playing those musical cords that come as natural as using a knife and fork, cords learnt as teenagers in their bedrooms and to this day, just as vibrant. The time warp is that of nostalgia for the music which drove their generation and their following, the lads and lasses who used to listen back then and still do.
Society hasn't changed much in Wales. They have an inherent optimism, their Celtic blood, ties them tight as a community and through it comes their strength. There is a deep consensus of their rights as a nation and if the deceit practised in Westminster doesn't fulfil "promises made", then they will quietly wait.
Where ever you go Wales, Ireland, Scotland the North of England its the same message, "perfidious Westminster". The House of Commons a building where words are spoken which have little sincerity, where deals are struck within the cartel, between the Government and those who benefit from the gravy train of ex-civil service work now spooned out to G4S and their cronies. It could resemble something akin to the Russian oligarch but we give it a cover of genteel spin and call it The Market economy.
This time of day, midday, is a man's world, the girls are still putting on their make up, repairing the ravages of last night. The pub itself a dark cavernous place with a dungeon like interior is empty and we sit outside in the sunshine. Men with white hair, or no hair (me on both counts). Men heavily tattooed, proudly display their art in the sunshine, (not me). One wonders what on Earth encouraged them to become a walking canvas for Doris and her python. The maritime mermaid entwined around the anchor on the forearm is long gone, now-a-days the adornment is total, not an inch escapes the needle. Like an Axminster carpet, the patterns are intricate and full and one has to wonder why they chose to display such a disregard for mothers skin. It's not so much a reflection of class, as of the past but something else. One often also finds beautiful young women disregarding and degrading their bodies, covering themselves in designs more appropriate to a Chinese Dragon Show.
Am I wrong to feel prim and proper as I sit amongst them, not a jolly jack anchor in sight on my white, slowly shrivelling torso, with no wish to embroider my skin in this way. Fashion I know is in the eye of the designer and women become part of an industry which says the moment you've bought it it's out of fashion and you must buy something new to display yourself to others. With the tattoo it's the polar opposite, once you try it on your stuck with it for life. Since life psychological journey is varied and changes with age, surely the thrill of Doris and her python will have worn off by the time you reach 40 and still more so by 60. Showering once or twice a day, there she is reminding you of that moment of madness, egged on by your mates you hadn't the common sense to say no.
Anyway it's bistro time and I'm now down at the Waterfront listening to a trio of fantastic musicians "leading me on" with their Django Reinhardt toe tapping rhythm. Music to die for as I sip my Courvoisier and marvel at the riffs. Oh to be young again, to pick up that instrument of torture which only need the time and perseverance and then I too could be on stage lapping up the adulation.
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