HAPPY 8th MARCH

[Bob]

So what did the English ever do to the Welsh, other than generally trying to conquer them (not to mention everyone else), and add some esthetic stony ruins to the already rocky terrain?
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Since I am both fussy and a Welsh imperialist, I, er, mean, Welsh nationalist

1) Tried to conquer, failed, 'annexed' in the end (read conquered). Note that most of the later victories against France were thanks to the Welsh archers.

2) They built castles, not ruins. The Welsh turned them into ruins ;-) before the English finished them. So the English restarted construction and built a bigger and better castle at vast expense. The Welsh left it alone and sat down & smirked in the hills.

Castles like this one:



3) They also imposed the Welsh knot on us.
Remember what kept the Scottish clans spirit alive, their clan traditions like their tartan. The English bannd tartan.
Do you know what kept the Welsh together? the Welsh language. The English banned the Welsh language. To do this they went to the heart of the problem, kids. They banned the speaking of Welsh in schools. If you were caught speaking Welsh you got the cane and the 'Welsh Knot' (a lump of wood) around your neck. The next person to speak Welsh got the cane and the knot transferred to them. At the end of the day whoever had the knot got a good old fashioned thrashing. (There are variations with the caning only at the end of the day, presumably it varied with the school.)

Oh, and they beat us a rugby occasionally, which got us hopping mad and (nicking huge amounts from Max Boyce) we went over to Twickenham and flattened them:

Wales defeated england
In a fast and open game
We sung Cwm Rhondda and Delilah
Damn, they sounded both the same
And we sympathise with an englishman
Who's team was doomed to fail
So we gave him that old bottle
That once held bitter ale

And we were singing
Hymns and arias
Land of my fathers
A hyd yr nos (odds are I spelt that line wrong)

(ok, I lifed that entirely from Max boyce, 1 verse & the corus of Hymns and arias)

Ok, I should go to bed now. Remember, if you ever want a negative attitude towards the Enlgish, I'm your man! :P

-Bob

[Thecla]

They built castles, not ruins. The Welsh turned them into ruins ;-) -Bob
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Yup -- my comment on the ruins was on the ironical side. Edward I's construction of English castles to control Wales must have been among the more ambitious and expensive military projects of medieval times. My sympathies are all with the Welsh on this one. :)

[Thecla]

I'm not really a cynic. I'm a realist.
-A
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Hey Mon, and Diogenes wasn't really a philosopher. ;)

Don't worry about a thing
cause every little thing is gonna be alright
don't worry about a thing
every little thing is gonna be alright

Rise up this morning
smiled with the rising sun
three little birds
pitch by my door step
singing sweet songs
of melodies pure and true
saying, this is my message to you:

don't worry about a thing...

[Minionman]

This brings back some childhood memories. Yeh, TO ALL THE COMMUNIST WOMEN IN THE FORUM (AND IN THE WORLD :D )  HAPPY 8[size=1]th MARCH COMMUNIST WOMEN'S DAY! :) [/size]
-A
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Did you have any traumatic relationships when you were younger? Were these related to your mom in any way? :P

[Minionman]

Woman, you're hard to ignore ~

you're a wife, you're a mother,

and so much more.

The up front combinatino is a challenge to get right.  Funny, have any of you noticed those who try (or get stuck with having) to add father to that list and all the rest can morph into that stressed out "supermom" who needs therapy?
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I don't see those words as anything bad. When adding up half the population, you get plenty of everything, and plenty of good things added to society.

Raised 4 kids: yes, what a concept, raised her own kids, did not delegate it to THE STATE, THE COURTS, GRANDMA (who ws dead) or anyone else. Ran a household on a budget. Knew how to say NO. Put research into deciding on our family's diet, and we ate what she put in front of us, or nothing. Guess who got enlisted in preparing and serving all that? And learning by doing . . . the kids. Phi Beta kappa grad from college. Gave a gift money could never buy: herself.

Pretty pointless rant actually. If it works for you, great, but a lot of people don't do it exactly that way and that's also great. A lot of peopel go for this approach and some cscrew up miserably. I used to get into arguments all the time, would never follow some rules without being annoying, and still worked out pretty good, somehow I picked up the responsibility and some good work habits from somewhere.

A woman: much more than yet another body for the state or the corporate labor pool. But gee, that is such an old fashioned concept.

Not really. I don't walk around seeing people talk about someone as simply "a member of the labor pool" and this applies to both genders of human.

I will agree that a lot of people get too caught up in value systems like "traditional families" or "liberated ones" without it entering their brain that peopel all need to do different things with their lives, some go traditional and it works "like you" some go independent thinking (me I think, hard to think of other value systems that stand out), some go "liberated".

Edit: changed the part before this.

Edit 2: Let's try again. It's hard responding to a rantish post, the main problem I had was it seems to say the stereotypical "traditional" raising of kids is always the best wayt to do it, I don't agree pretty strongly with the "always".




Of course, the biggest question I and many young peopel have about women's day in my area is: Why isn't it a day off school? :P

[Ashock]

Hey Mon, and Diogenes wasn't really a philosopher. ;)
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Ok ok, how 'bout this.... I'm a realistic cynic ;-)


-A

[Thecla]

Ok ok, how 'bout this.... I'm a realistic cynic ;-)
-A
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Guess that would make me an idealistic cynic ;-)

Just at a loose end, otherwise I wouldn't be posting this, and similar, nonsense. :)