AM's Trusted With the truth

The Western Mail has a two page spread today about a Committee on Standards in Public life survey on public perceptions of honesty. The article is headed "Our Assembly Members seen as less honest than local MP's" which, on first glance, suggests that the public prefer their MP's to AM's. The key word though is "local".

Even though the survey did find that people trusted their local MP to tell the truth more than local AM (49% v 41%) in every other part of the survey Assembly Members were the ones held in better regard.

As a whole MP's were given a 30% trustworthy rating, compared to 35% for AM's. Interestingly UK government ministers received less than general MP's (29%) but Welsh Assembly Ministers significantly more than their backbench colleagues (41%) .

In encouraging news for Welsh Ministers they outscored their London rivals in every category:

Dedicated to doing a good job for the public - 49 v 40
Competent 42 v 40
Set good example 39 v 31
Do not use powers for own gain 44 v 39
Use public money wisely 34 v 27
Explain reasons for decisions 29 v 24
Tell the truth 32 v 26
In touch with public 33 v 22
Do not take bribes 58 v 55
Own up to mistakes 10 v 13

Of course, both set of politicians come off worse against most other professions, with doctors, headteachers and judges leading the way.

For some reason the Western Mail has decided to ignore all those results and stick to the one single figure that MP's trump AM's on for their headline! Could that be the reason why, right at the bottom of the trustworthy pile, well below both AM's and MP's, come tabloid journalists!

Owain Who?

We all know the stereotype of the estate agent that embellishes a bit on the history or quality of a property they want to sell, but when it comes to McCartneys Estate Agents in Knighton, Powys they may well be able to argue that their apparent blunder is no more than another Western Mail mess up.

In the Western Mail story today we find out that McCartneys are selling Castle Hill for a client of theirs. Local tradition has it that King Arthur was married on the mountain. The Western Mail's report also tells us that:

These days there’s not much to separate it from thousands of other grassy hills that dot rural Wales – other than the buried remains of a Norman castle destroyed by Owain Glyndŵr’s forces...the Normans built a castle on the hill as a way of keeping the troublesome local population in check. But it was unsuccessful in its design, and was consigned to ruin after Owain Glyndŵr’s forces laid waste to it in 1262.

Problem is of course Owain Glyndŵr never saw Knucklas Castle, let alone destroy it. How do I know this? Owain Glyndŵr was not born in 1262, and not for another 95 or so years!

A quick history check tells us that it was Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf's men who destroyed the Castle, led by his general Owain ap Madoc!

What makes the mistake even more careless is that it quotes the Estate Agent's description of the property:

Available evidence suggested that Knucklas Castle was of a square construction with substantial stone walls and a circular tower at each corner. Its purpose was to remind the more or less hostile Welsh population who was in charge. It was attacked in 1262. The castle is last mentioned in contemporary records in 1316.

This description is taken nearly word for word from the Castle Wales' entry on Knucklas Castle:

...available evidence suggested that Knucklas Castle was basically a square construction with substantial stone walls and a circular tower at each corner. Its purpose was to remind the more or less hostile Welsh population who was in charge..The castle is last mentioned in contemporary records in 1316...

The next half of that last sentence on the Castle Wales website reads:

...it is very unlikely it was anything more than a ruin by the time of Owain Glyndwr's revolt in 1402.

Good old Western Mail, as trustworthy as always!

Another Award Winner

It looks like the Hen Ferchetan's favorite letter writer is back

Sign of the times

SIR – I have no wish to lower the tone of the debate occupying your letters pages, following my letter published on August 19 (which expressed my concern about the misapplication of scarce Welsh Assembly funds in the wasteful promotion of the Welsh language and the misuse of curricular time by the compulsory teaching of Welsh to a generation of teenagers who need more marketable skills to prepare them for employment) but this morning, I received through the post a computer-generated certificate stating that I had been nominated for “A**hole of the Year” for my services to Welsh.

Perhaps you will allow me, through your columns, to thank the sender for the award.

I cannot do it personally, because the sender signed X and gave no address – proof, if any were needed, that our Welsh education system is indeed failing.

BERYL ROBERTS

Caerphilly

Ok, who's the joker?!

NB - there's three stars after the "A" in "Arsehole" Mrs Roberts, unless you happen to be American!

Murder She Rode

Quick follow up to the phantom horse-slasher story. A few days on and clearly the BBC, Mule and co have decided to just ignore their mess-ups. The only ones to change a thing were BBC Arlein who changed their quotation of "Sais Mas" to the correct "Cai Maes Sais" - the rest of their article makes it sound like "Cai Maes Sais" is a perfectly common anti-English sentiment!

The Western Mail has decided the best way out is not to make a correction but to print a few letters bringing up the translation points - one of which was extremely scathing of the Western Mail!(Oh and a warning to Cwlcymro at Maes-e, the guy who wrote the fourth letter here is taking credit for your investigation work!)

Many blogs have posted on the matter, with the Old Fart very helpfully giving examples of proper anti-English quotes to assist the next person who wants to pretend to be a Welsh nash!

One part of the story which did make me laugh a bit was the horse's owner giving the teary eyed story of how "Hope loved being around people but now I can’t get near her. She is terrified"

have a look at that picture up there, not only does the horse seem pretty comfortable around her, she's even got her hand on his bloody nose!

I really do hope the Police catch whoever did this, just so that we can have an answer to our riddle!

On a personal note, the last post was the most viewed and most commented post ever on this blog (by a country mile!) Just goes to show that however important the going ons of the Assembly and London are, all you need to really captivate some interest is a poor hurt animal and a healthy dose of scepticism and mystery! (oh, and yes, I do know the headline puns are getting worse!)

Inspector Horse

So the BBC, Western Mail, South Wales Echo, icWales,the Daily Mail and even the Tivyside Advertiser are incensed by the Welsh nationalist thug who "slashed" a horse's nose and wrote racist graffiti on his stable wall. The stupid idiots who, according to all these articles, wrote "English Out" on the wall didn't even realise that the couple were English-speaking Welshmen! According to the horse's owner the area is mostly Welsh-speaking and the vile thug who carried out this attack must have mistaken english-speaking for being English.

Here's a picture of the barn and the graffiti.


Now, if you are a Welsh speaker you will probably have already noticed that something doesn't quite add up here. If you are a monoglot, let me clue you in. See those words on the side of the barn? They don't say "English Out", whatever the respected media named above might tell you. I'd love to tell you what it says, but I can't. Why? Because it doesn't say anything. It is gibberish.

Now Sais clearly means "Englishman", every Welshman knows that. But "Maes"? Well that means field (or town square). "Cai" doesn't mean anything, it is not a Welsh word (it is actually a Welsh name, like Kai in English). So what is the painter trying to say? Beats me!

Could he be saying Cer Mas Sais (Get Out Englishman)? Or maybe Gai'r Maes Sais (Can I Have The Field Englishman)?. Western Mail thinks it says Cer Maes Sais (Go Field Englishman, makes no grammatical sense in Welsh either!) or Cae Mas Sais (Field Go Englishman). The answer is no. This isn't some mis-spelling or typo, most of those suggestions don't makes sense (Go Field Englishman?) and the ones that do (Cer Mas Sais) do not sound anything like Cai Maes Sais and are way too far off to be the words of a grammatically challenged Welsh-speaker or even a poor learner.

Clearly someone up in Trinity Mirror has realised something is wrong, they just havn't quite put their finger on it. The South Wales Echo would have us believe that it's common slang for "English Out" while icWales disagrees and tells us it's actually very old Welsh for "English Out". The Western Mail disagrees again, telling us that the writing doesn't say "English Out" but "English Out of This Field". Top prize for awful reporting must go to BBC Newyddion Arlein (Welsh BBC News) which actually quotes the graffiti as saying "Sais Mas" (English Out) even though the picture of the actual words used above comes from the BBC!

As a Welsh speaker I can assure you that those words certainly don't say "English Out". Not in slang, not in old Welsh, not in proper Welsh and not in misspelt Welsh. Or do they?

This is where things get interesting. I'm sure you all know of the infamous InterTran, one of those diabolical online translators. To you and me "Get out Englishman" clearly doesn't translate as "Cai Maes Sais" - but to InterTran that is exactly what it translates as.

So let us get this straight, whoever painted that slogan had to use an infamously awful online translator to work out how to translate "Get Out Englishman"? What nationalist worth his salt can't say or spell that?

Something smells here, any budding detectives among you?

(Congrats to Cwlcymro at Maes-E for making the InterTran connection - oh and I'm sorry about the god awful headline pun!)

Obama Wins Vital Votes

The Western Mail have exclusively revealed that if Cardiff Bay was accepted as the 51st state of America, Obama would get a few more delegates for the Democratic Convention!

Apparently the vast majority of AM's surveyed would vote for Obama. Labour's Rosemary Butler, Alun Davies, Irene James and Val Lloyd would go for Hillary, while Tory Andrew Davies is the only Republican fan in the Senedd.

Liberal Democrats Peter Black, Eleanor Burnham and Jenny Randerson seems to have gotten the Democratic nomination confused with the Liberal Democrats leadership mess, none of the three were able to pick a candidate to lead!