Other people's arguments preserved on my bookshelf

Over the years we've bought a number of second hand books with various messages written in them. I had a small cull of the shelves recently and discovered this gem of an interpersonal conflict on the frontispiece of a book by CS Lewis.

"The owner hastens to add that this book was not bought by choice, but rather that is was forced upon him in a most Unchristian manner by [pen colour changes] The Reverend Skene Catling who in an even more unchristian manner, refused to sign.

October 1953."

I found that funny and can imagine the Reverend reading the snarky comment and then telling his friend where to step off when his friend asked him to sign. It's doubly ironic that it's in a book called 'Christian Behaviour'.

But that's not all. On the back dust jacket was a doodle (of a film projector I think) and this argument recorded for posterity. 

"This book is based on Christian principles though very often they are nympholeptic ideals. The Christian religion is very "Castles in the air-ish" in it's origin -"

[Retort] "Absolute bunk old man!"

I had to look up nympholeptic. It means being in a passionate mystical state. I can't see me using it very often in day-to-day conversation. 

I've kept this book. The accidental comedy of the inscriptions saved it from the cull. 

STEAM - the Great Western Railway museum

I mentioned visiting STEAM in Swindon in my bank holiday sports round up. Here are a few more bits and pieces that caught my eye there.

STEAM is housed in one of the Great Western Railway's former foundry buildings. The railway engineering works was pivotal to the growth of Swindon as a large town, although that industry has disappeared now. Most of the former locomotive works is now the outlet shopping village next door.

The museum starts with several exhibits explaining how the foundry worked and its importance in the area. I went through those parts fairly quickly to get to the more exciting stuff - the steam engines.

There were several locos in the museum, including no.6000 King George V. Fun fact: my Dad had a model of this on his model railway when we were kids and I think my brother still has it.

Dad also had a pannier tank engine, and so did the museum. Different scales of course.

One of the highlights was going underneath a loco and being able to look up and see the interior workings.

I thought this Wickham inspection trolley was a fun, unusual item.

The Welsh connection to the GWR is huge because the railway absorbed almost all the Welsh railway companies. Four of the companies are on these plaques.

And there were several other Welsh themed exhibits.

The GWR did a lot to publicise Wales and the West Country as a tourist destination. 

The GWR also owned several road vehicles. The museum had restored this old fire engine.

And I liked this Scammell tractor unit.

STEAM is also the venue for several Lego events during the course of the year and so, naturally, there was a Lego train too.

All in all a decent way to spend a morning in Swindon.

Bank holiday sports fest

It was quite the bank holiday sports fest for me. Four sporting fixtures. Three away trips for teams I support. Two university teams. And one railway museum as an added bonus. 

The weekend began on Friday night with...

Pontypridd United v Cardiff Draconians

Dracs ready in red

The Dracs have a bingo card this season. Play like a herd of deer in the headlights for the first 20 minutes. Give away at least one avoidable goal. Goalkeeper Harry Johnson will do one crazy thing that has me biting my knuckle and muttering "Oh, Harry, what are you doing". Someone on the bench gets a yellow card. Then finish the game strongly playing like a team that deserves to be at this level. On Friday they ticked all the Dracs Bingo boxes. And some.

I went to games at Pontypridd United a few times when they were on an upwards trajectory and made it into the Cymru Premier Leaguer. However, it feels like they are declining now. Their temporary stand behind the goal got repossessed a little while ago. The pagoda they used to put up at the entrance has been replaced by a table and a cash box. The bar area in the university building isn't being used any more. Their supporters seemed outnumbered by a noisy Dracs away following.

The home team took the lead after a player controlled the ball on the ground with his arm then scooped the ball forward with his leg. A team mate got the goalward side of the last man and went down in the box. It was a penalty, but the Dracs fans who saw the handball were incensed by this turn of events. Unfortunately the ref didn't appreciate the abuse and from then on on proceeded to dish out yellow cards to Dracs players for offences that went unpunished when emulated by Ponty players resulting in more angry comments from the sidelines. 

By the end of the first half, the Dracs had learned the Ponty defence were commanding in the air, but couldn't play on the floor. After the break a lovely passing move brought the Dracs level and then a drilled pass sent a Dracs forward through. Despite an attempted drag back by the defender, the Dracs scored to make it 2-1. Then the ref got involved again. Two quick yellow cards dished out, we think, for sarcasm saw one of the Dracs wingers sent off. A midfielder picked up a second yellow card for a dive with less than ten minutes of normal time to go. He admitted it was a dive as he walked to the dressing room in front of the Dracs fans.

Down to 9 men, the Dracs dug in. Long clearances into empty space in the channels kept the Ponty goalie busy scampering across the pitch to wallop the ball back. Harry the goalie had been booked in the first half after dashing out of his area and colliding with a player - that was his bingo card moment. But in additional time he pulled off two awesome match-winning saves - a block on the goal-line he dropped down to and a reflex save to tip a shot over the bar.

The win gives the Dracs their first points of the season and they moved up to 11th in the table. Their game on Monday has been moved and its cup action next weekend. But this was a massively important win and hopefully it will get their season going.

The next day, I set off down the M4 to watch...

Swindon Town v Shrewsbury Town

Before we got to the match, Paul, Paul and I went to STEAM, the GWR museum. It was an interesting museum with a well-ordered set of interactive exhibits and some big gleaming static green and black GWR locos. Highlights included being able to walk underneath a loco and some of the odder items like a Scammell tractor and a Wickham trolley made to look like a little car. 

After lunch we headed to the County Ground for the battle of the STFCs. Both teams have rather fallen from grace and are slumming it in the basement division now. The County Ground is too big for the current level of support and one end was empty.

After conceding four goals in both their previous league away games, I thought there was a good chance Salop would be on the end of another battering. After 5 minutes Swindon passed the ball around the Salop players like they were cones on a training exercise and scored, and I wondered how bad it could get. But after that, Salop forced some chances, Swindon sat deeper and deeper content with making breakaway attacks when they could.

That pattern continued in the second half until Shrewsbury got a deserved goal on 87 minutes. It looked like they might pick up their second point of the season but 7 minutes of added time proved too long for them. The defenders backed off Swindon sub Billy Bodin, inviting him to shoot. He shot. He scored. Absolute limbs in the home end behind the goal he scored in. Despondency around me in the away section.

Overall, both teams were poor really. Both struggled to retain possession and neither were good enough to capitalise on gaining possession. It's hard to tell whether Salop have improved from their previous hammerings in terms of performance. However, it was yet another defeat and right now the result is all that matters.

Despite the result, I enjoyed the apple rolling challenge at half time.

On Sunday I switched out sports and companions and went to...

Cardiff Devils v Concordia Stingers

Every time. I go and watch Ice hockey I think I should go and watch ice hockey more often. This was my first time in the Vindico Arena since an international game about 18 months ago, and my first Devils game for almost 3 years when I did a "two sport twofer" with my brother, Dave. Best of all, Cathy felt well enough to come with me and was able to stay for the full game.

This was an intriguing match up. Concordia is a University in Montreal who have also played against Nottingham Panthers on a short UK tour this month. They have a lovely maroon and dark yellow kit combination. Sadly there was no visitors merch on sale but I did go a bit daft in the Devils club shop and bought six pin badges!

The Devils spent most of the first quarter peppering the visitor's goal but couldn't get the puck past the Stingers massive goalie, who I think had the surname Vrbitec. I'm not sure how tall he is and he's not on Concordia's roster to check, but he towered over his team mates. He was excellent at stopping shots and, for a big man, dropped down fast to block any low attempts. After sustained Devils pressure, Stingers scored against the run of play and led 0-1 at the end of the first period.

Things got spicy in the second period leading to lots of power plays. At one point the Stingers were two players up due to Devils players being sin binned after trying to squash the netminder, all other attempts to score having failed. Eventually the Devils did find a (legal) way through to equalise but the announcer had barely listed the assist and pre-assist before Concordia scored again. It was 1-2 at the end of the second period.

Devils started the third period a man down and Stingers quickly made it 1-3. A fightback saw an excellently worked goal for the Devils. Cardiff took their netminder off for the last 2 minutes to try and force a tying score, but again the giant in the Stingers goal proved more than a match for a frenetic series of shots. The goalie was given man of the match by the sponsor to much applause from the crowd none of whom seemed to begrudge the visitors their win.

I love the atmosphere at ice hockey, the pantomime around it. And I really laughed at how the mascot was put to work helping clear up after "chuck a puck" in the second break.

Mascots have to earn their keep these days

After chilling in the ice house on the Sunday evening, on the hottest every August bank holiday Monday in Wales I went to my fourth and final sports event of the weekend:

Cardiff Metropolitan v Barry Town

Cardiff Met have a new logo that includes the year 1957. But I suspect they are fabricating a history they don't have. 1957 doesn't link to any known football team of the many institutions that feed into their history. Before the game I spoke to Dave Collins, the editor of Welsh Football magazine, about it and even he didn't know why they have settled on that year. It could possibly be linked to one of the precursor clubs that formed Inter Cardiff whose place in the League of Wales was taken over by UWIC before they rebranded as Cardiff Metropolitan. Anyway, they have a mural with their new badge and the year on it. 

There might be more change coming as the Met are apparently going to drop "university" from their name as well. I'm not sure what that means for their long-term outlook. Their relationship with the wider university has worked quite well for them for several seasons and this looked like the weakest, and also the shortest, Met team than I have seen in a while. 

Paul, Paul, Val and me

Cyncoed Campus looks different in the sunshine. I'm used to November mizzle and darkness not blazing almost 30 degree heat. Fortunately there was a brisk breeze blowing across the pitch to keep us slightly cool in the corrugated iron stand. But the first half was dismal and I'm convinced the heat and the cross-wind were factors in the dismality.

Welsh football's other Ryan Reynolds

Whatever the Met coach said at half time worked because the team came out fizzing, forced some good chances and scored a well worked goal. Barry had nothing in reply until a desperate roll of the dice with a centre back coming on as a makeshift centre forward. This changed the impetus of the game and two minutes into stoppage time Barry forced an equaliser. They even had a couple of chances to nick all three points but couldn't convert any of them.

The draw meant that of the three football teams I supported this weekend, one won, one lost and one drew. It all feels very balanced.

Book of the Month: The Girl Who Speaks Bear

This book by Sophie Anderson was in a stack we were sorting through in our front room. Cathy isn't sure where she picked it up originally. The illustrations (by Kathrin Honesta) caught my eye and when I opened it, I saw it was a book with a map in the front. I'm a sucker for books with maps in the front. So I thought I would give it a go and added it to my 'to read' pile. 

Cathy has told me she wants to read the book too, so I am going to try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible. It's set in a Russian-esque setting -  snow and woods and various anglicised Russian words dropped into the text. There is a glossary of those words in the back, presumably to help younger readers as this is a 'young adult' book.

The story itself is interspersed with short fairy tales, but overall is a fairly standard quest in search of answers and gathering friends to help you along the way. The central character is a girl called Yanka, who is tall and strong and feels like she doesn't really belong in the village where she is growing up. And that's mainly because she doesn't really belong. She's a foundling and, as she becomes aware of that and starts to wonder about where she really comes from, she finds out that a lot of folk tales she has been told have personal significance for her. 

Other books on the back cover

Sophie Anderson has written some other books drawing on a similar Russian folk tale backdrop, and it felt like some of the other characters, like the yaga witches in their living house, appeared without much of an introduction because they have featured in other books. That was a bit odd.

I thought there was a lot to like about this book. Some of the descriptions and metaphors are beautifully done. The setting tends to work. However, overall I struggled to get into the book. Yanka's internal monologue gets a bit tiring at times as she picks over the different stories she hears and tries to fathom the truth in them. I'm glad I persevered as the pace picked up towards the end and I ended up wanting to know how the story ended. 

Election reflection

Last Thursday was election day in the Cardiff Council by-election in my ward. 

Obligatory voting day selfie

I couldn't get to sleep on election night and kept checking the WhatsApp group set up for us canvassers. A little after midnight the provisional vote counts came in and they were confirmed shortly afterwards with an image of the results.

The Green Party won the seat by 44 votes. Labour came second. Plaid Cymru were the third placed party. Worries that split voting among those three parties would let Reform win proved unfounded. They placed fourth with only 13% of the vote. 

I felt sad for Neil, the Plaid Cymru candidate. He worked really hard campaigning. One of the first things he told me was that he wanted to run a positive campaign and focus on the issues not just complain about other parties - and our campaign was positive. I feel we asked people to vote for us because of what we promised, not just because we were "not Labour". 

Our campaign was in marked contrast to the Greens campaign, but I do wonder whether they can convert one time protest voters who wanted to "punish Labour" (like a Green leaflet said) into repeat voters. Personally, as a former floating voter, I don't think protest voters stick, and previous anti-Labour protest votes in Grangetown evaporated when Senedd or Westminster elections came round.

Even if it does turn out to be a one off, it was quite the result for the Greens - their first ever Cardiff Council seat and their first by-election win in Wales. I met the new Green councillor on Saturday morning and he told me it hadn't really sunk in yet.

And now some statting... Turnout was only marginally over 26% of the electorate, meaning only a quarter of people who could vote bothered to vote. From the time I spent canvassing I suspect a reasonable percentage of people were away on holiday on election day and possibly hadn't bothered to sort a postal or proxy vote. This election was held on relatively short notice and certainly wasn't in anyone's plans when they were booking their summer holidays. Turnout was 35% in the 2022 council election, which rather spoils the comparisons of vote share, however, I will give it a go...

In 2022, all four Labour candidates were elected with over 50% of the vote. In this by-election the Labour vote dropped by about half. In 2022, Plaid Cymru and the Greens campaigned together in the "Common Ground" alliance and came second with about 26% of the vote. The former Labour votes presumably went mainly to the Greens and Plaid Cymru this time round, as their combined share of the vote was about what Common Ground got last time plus the missing Labour vote. 

Meanwhile, it looks like Reform took a good chunk of their votes from the Tories. Propel, another pro-independence party, scored about 10%. The Tories and Liberal Democrats finished bottom of the heap. We didn't see a single leaflet from the Liberal Democrats and it really feels like they are completely finished as a force in Cardiff now. Strange to think the Lib Dems held all the council seats for Grangetown as recently as 2012. 

On a personal note, I enjoyed getting stuck in to my first active electoral campaign since going "Big P" political. Canvassing was more fun than I expected. I was a bit out of my comfort zone at first, but many people wanted to chat about what they thought the key issues were to a stranger who knocked on their door. I have developed an intense dislike for Ring doorbells though - both the chime, and the mild paranoid feeling that people are looking through the camera and deciding not to open the door. 

Certain conversations will stick with me -  chatting to the people smoking outside the Cornwall pub (who we had heard chanting "Starmer's a wanker" at Labour canvassers a few minutes previously), the lady who immediately left her house to go and vote when I knocked on her door on election day, the woman who told me Labour had "mesmerised" her ethnic community and she kept telling all her friends to vote Plaid Cymru instead. Only one guy told me the biggest issue that needed to be fixed was to "stop the boats". He didn't tell me who he was going to vote for, but I felt pretty confident I could guess. 

It's a good thing I enjoyed canvassing. There is another council by-election coming up over in East Cardiff and it's likely there will be a Senedd by-election in Caerphilly in early November, after the tragic death of the sitting Senedd member there. And then we have the full Senedd election next year, then the next full council election is due in 2027, and then some time in 2028 or 2029 we will get a general election. 

And that's if everything goes to plan, but politics has been volatile in the past 15 years, so it would be a foolhardy to bet on the future election schedule not changing! 

Yuzu lemon jaffa cakes

You wait a year for a new flavour of Jaffa cake to come out and then discover two in the space of a couple of weeks. 

I've only seen these on sale in Tesco, just like I've only seen 'hot honey' flavour on sale in Asda. This may just be a quirk, or it might be McVities marketing strategy to place new flavours in different supermarkets. 

I took these jaffa cakes with us when we went to see Bryan and Elaine, both of whom also tried them. The overall verdict was unanimously positive. They have a very sharp lemony tang with a mild spicy kick at the end. 

Yuzu is a citrus fruit that is a cross between a lemon and an orange. (According to the Internet; I googled it.) So it feels like this is extending traditional jaffa cakes into new, yet cogent direction. Unlike some of the random flavours they've been hyping recently this really worked. More unusual citrus, please!

Election Day! (Cardiff Council by-election)

It's election day in the council by-election. Three late pieces of literature arrived yesterday. This included a fourth leaflet from Plaid Cymru - the only one I haven't been out delivering myself. 

A Labour postcard arrived with the post. It's monolingual. Honestly, I quite liked the minimalist approach on one side. 

The other side shows the Labour candidate in Blaenclydach Streey, which is where he lived as a child.  

The other leaflet we received was from the Green Party - a big double A4 spread. Cathy said they are trying to use up all the trees.

I have looked at the picture on the front several times and I can't decide if it's real or whether the crowd behind are photoshopped. I recognise the candidate but I don't know who the other people are.

It's a hung jury in our house about the next picture. I thought it was quite effective in trying to get across a message that people are planning to vote Green. Cathy thought it was "filler".

In a conversation online, a Green Party member told me that several Liberal Democrats joined the Greens after the Lib Dems entered their disastrous coalition with the Tories in 2010. That was their explanation for why so many Lib Dem tactics from 15 years ago are reappearing in Green campaign literature now. Like dodgy graphs. 

I would question whether putting another party in the lead on your election literature is a good thing. The Tories did something similar back in 2017 when they compared Jeremy Corbyn's chances to other "unlikely victories" like the Brexit Leave vote and Trump's first win. And of course, Corbyn forced a hung parliament in a much closer contest than most commentators expected.

We will find out whether it makes a difference tonight!