Olympic Partners and Pomp

This doesn't refer to athletes shaggin' in the village, although I'm sure that does go on.

The days of the Olypics being an amateur event about sport are obviously long gone.  It seems to now be an odd trend between pointless ritual and money, with some events thrown in the middle somewhere. Let's face it, the games themselves are about 3 weeks? Just over? While the worldwide cash in campaign is months, if not years.

Companies (the partners of the title) will throw any possible amount of money at the organisers just to get their name associated with the event. Some of these just don't make sense. Two obvious one's stick out, McDonalds and Coca Cola, two things criminally bad for health, I enjoy partaking in both, but in no way do I think Big Mac meal with a coke, let's do some triple jump!Is unhealthy food really who the IOC want to be associated with? Of course, as they have the most money to give them.

Others on the list just make you think, why? P&G are on there and it's plastered all over their adverts. But once again... what's the association? Are the risks of Paula Radcliffe shitting on the pavement again so high, they've got the manufacturers of pampers in just in case? Or have they got some discount Ariel out of the deal and the athletes wash their (hopefully not shit stained) clothes in it?

UPS? Well I suppose if I was an athlete I wouldn't want to use bastard Yodel either, who would? Fucking Yodel.

Visa? Naturally the more active or accurate or... ummm, of the payment methods...

Nature Valley? Will those business people falling into the haystack on the advert be being replaced with water polo players?

There are some obvious matches, Airwave a radio supplier, going to need them. Ticketmaster, yep going to need someone to sell tickets, addidas, sportswear... yeah cool, technogym, running to techno music? I not sure but it sounds like something that makes sense.

Basically any company with enough cash and the urge to have their name associated with such a global spectacle of an event can become an Olympic partner, I don't like that.

Then there's all the pointless ceremony. Friday I've taken the day off work, the reason? A good percentage of Cardiff will be closed while people run through the streets holding the Olympic torch, so everyone can get to see it. Wow, a torch. Yeah, I'll hang round for that...

Then the bastard thing is following me and will close bits of Merthyr Saturday, for gods sake I've got things to do!The idea that this torch thing has to go within x distance of everyone's house baffles me. I understand it some attempt to involve the whole country, but I don't give a shit. I don't want to see the torch, I don't want a T-Shirt, I don't want a mouse mat, or a mug. I momentarily thought about getting tickets to the football, but as my beliefs are no Welsh players should be involved (Bale, Ramsey, Williams, Allen, etc this means you) I thought no, plus they were expensive!

There'll be an xbox game, it'll be crap, they're always crap, so I don't want that.

I also don't want to watch drug cheats such as Dwaine Chambers compete, but looks like I'm stuck with that too. I won't celebrate if he gets a medal, luckily he shouldn't.

I'll watch and enjoy the Olympics, don't get me wrong, but all the BS that comes with it, I can do without. I'm now resigned to however many decades of having this shit stuffed down my throat. It should be about the athletes, not cash.

Merthyr Town FC Champions again

Saturday afternoon I took my semi regular trek through the gates on Penydarren Park to watch my beloved Merthyr Town play Infracombe in the knowledge a win would confirm they win the league and return them to the Southern League, now just 1 division below where they were when Merthyr Tydfil went bust.

They beat this side 5-0 away not 1 week before, surely it would be simple! When is it ever simple?

After a considerable period of being unable to hit a cows arse with a banjo, eventually the significant proportion of the play Merthyr had paid off they scored and won 1-0 (Goal by Ryan Prosser), keeping them a point clear and with second place Bitton having no games left... game over. There was a nice trophy prsentation after and much sparkling white was sprayed around the field. Nice trophy too:

Western League trophy

Two promotions in 2 years is nothing to be sniffed at any level and while the Western Football League wasn't exactly of blistering quality, it was entertaining at times! Next years return to the Southern League (in a regional division) should be a notable step up in quality and I doubt three on the bounce is really on the cards, but you never know! Next year will see the return to some more familiar teams such as Mangotsfield, Tiverton, Taunton... Still pretty obscure, but better!

I'll be there next year, and judging by the turnout at a few of the later games this year, there's potential for quite a few others to be there too, just need to carry on doing well to keep the crowds in. 725 my arse. Even got their mugs on sgorio. Da Iawn!

Worst part is, despite the season being done, champions decided etc, 2 teams have not played the full 34 matches, Merthyr and Wells. The games been abandoned once and postponed once and now... doesn't matter much (Unless Merthyr score 5 to get their 100 goals for the season, or if Wells win they come 11th not 12th). It's now scheduled for the 8th, I doubt too many of the players will be up for the 4 hour round trip for little/no reason. Call it a draw?

Stuff like this just confirms to me even more, while an Arsenal follower I'll continue to be, I'm a fan of Merthyr.

I dislike looking for cars

My car is screwed, and the repair bill to unscrewify it is most the the actual value of the vehicle, so it's uneconomical to do so, so I'm not. I've secured funding to purchase a replacement, however this means one thing...

...finding a replacement...

I dislike shopping for cars. Ideally for me, there'd just be one type in slightly different sizes, or I could have some kind of car personal shopper, but alas, my Saturday was taken up by walking round forecourts, at first with some enthusiasm, but by the end... I'd say more defeatism.

I never knew how hard finding a 1.4 diesel car was, there's not many and they're more expensive than you'd think, the recession has made these cars highly desirable and the price is going up on them. I quite liked a Ford Fusion:

Until I test drove a £3.5k (reduced) 2004 one and it was like driving a mid/late 90s Ka, with little in the way of breaks and quite basic inside, not impressed. £3,295 for a 2005 Peugot 307 SW... nice colour, size of a bus, expensive to fix, very likely to need fixing, I'll pass.

Eventually (after watching a 54 plate go for £4,300 at auction) I found, drove, liked and put a deposit on a 2003 Fiesta in a little garage in Caerphilly:

Obviously not the real one, not going to give 'the internet' my reg no.

Priced at £3,000, after the typical salesman price swapping eventually acquired for £2,500. It's nice to drive and I like it very much, also looks more goldy than the one in the picture.

One of the main reasons I dislike shopping for cars is the salesmen, they do my bastard head in. You can't just wander round and look, as soon as you step into a 1/4 mile radius of their garage, they start to hone in on you, then try some of the weirdest sales patter in the world.

Picture this, I'm in the always classy Merthyr branch of Trade Centre Wales, no Trevor didn't send me. The billboard says:

"Cars £999 to £3999"

There's no cars for £999 for a start, and there's many many over £3999. I look at a couple of fusions, priced around the £4k mark, a nice older but spec'd up mondeo and go to shuffle off, when the salesman, targets and moves in. We tell him what we're looking for and he takes us to a Nissan Note priced at a £3,999 busting £4,495.

I point out that, it destroys the budget we have and without a moments hesitation, he didn't 'speak to a manager' or 'check the paperwork' or any of the usuall bull, just went, "Well what if I can do it for £3,000?"

Didn't want or like it anyway, but you can't just drop the price by 33% on the spur of the moment. It says one thing and one alone, the original price was a rip off, designed to give the salesman some leg room or was intended to catch people out. Who knows hey, but careful anyone going there to buy!

So now my car shopping is done for a good few years, I'm a happy boy, my 'new' car will be ready this evening but I doubt I'll be able to pick it up sadly. Anyone want to give me a lift Cardiff ---> Caerphilly at 4:45 let me know lol.

 Next one'll be about tennis, there's more Brits going down in Oz today than there were at Rorke's Drift.

Merthyr Town / Non league football

I took the bank holiday weekend to revisit the world of non-league football.

I support Arsenal as I'd imagine the vast majority of people reading this will know are not non-league, far from it (and no I don't want to talk about Sunday). But as much as I want them (and Swansea) to do well, my team has always been and will always be Merthyr Town (formerly Tydfil) FC.

The team has just returned to play in Penydarren Park, after a year in exile (which I didn't make a single game in)  20 or so miles away in Taffs Well. So I trotted down to the park yesterday to watch them play league pace setters, the undefeated Brislington Town (where??). It was then I realised I quite missed watching football like this, TV is comfortable, gives you replays, you can stop, rewind and all that shit, you have commentators telling you whjat to think any any given moment, stats popping up on screen, and generally speaking it's of a higher standard.

But being right up next to the pitch, taking it all in yourself, the experience is so much better.

The game itself was quite decent, Merthyr looked tidy passed the ball quite well, sometimes overly so and they could have done with taking a shot more. While at the back, but punts forward were a bit haphazard. Brislington had one or two tidy players, their left back looked good, while on the reverse their no4 looked like we was as likely to fall over at any given moment than successfully run in a straight line. Both keepers showed some... interesting positioning, but proved to be good shot stoppers when needed.

There was a few moments of marking (mainly the English side to be fair) that would I'm sure would give both sides coaches nightmares for a while. Even the ref had mostly a good game (although the away penalty was a bit of a mystery).

Happily Merthyr won 2-1 and moved 3rd in the table. Next week they have 2 matches in 2 days in 2 different cups (FA Prelim Round, Welsh Cup 2Q) and if I'm able I'll take the chance to pop down for the Welsh Cup game on Sunday.

Next week is an international break, no Prem games, no Championship games, which means come the weekend many football fans are at a loose end (Wales playing Friday). So if that applies to you, why not go see a team a bit further down the pyramid than you're used too? Go see Newport, Merthyr, whatever lower league teams are around, whoever's closer, you might like it! It's not always a comfortable as a sofa and sky sports, it's likely to be less conformable than a seat in the Liberty or CCS, but it's fun!

But speaking of armchair fans, the US Open started yesterday and I do love my tennis. I'll happily go see it in person if anyone wants to shout me flights and tickets. Please?

Football season has properly begun, 'mon the Martyrs

So we're into the Premier league season, and this one could potentially quite interesting. Don't get me wrong I've written Arsenal off already, I think 4th is a pipe dream and 5th more likely, chances are Man Utd will win it, Chelsea and Man City close behind and maybe a bit of improving Liverpool rounding off the Champs league spaces. But I don't think I'm most interested by the top this year.

As everyone probably knows who has any interest in the sport, Swansea were promoted. Oooh a Welsh team in the Premier, and, as I've said before, a Welsh team I quite like (sorry Cardiff, you could be playing in the Champs League final and I wouldn't give a rats ass and everytime I'm told by Cardiff fans I 'should' support them, and it's great for the whole of Wales when they win stuff, it makes me care just a little bit less.) so I find myself quite interested in how they do, to the point where I may even watch them tonight (while I still have sports).

Obviously I think they'll struggle and while I'd never say I 'support' them, I'd like them to do well. I think they've made some decent, not overly high risk signings which could be enough, could being the word. Just get to 40 points and the rest will sort itself out.

Going down the odd step, Merthyr are playing in Merthyr again, and I have a feeling this is where most of my football related time will be devoted this year. I didn't go Saturday as there was stuff on, but I'm quite fancying a few trips to Pen Park this year to watch them. They went up last season and are now playing in the Western League Premier, not exactly stuffed with footballing giants but you can only play what's infront of you. They started off beating Odd Town (I have no idea what's so odd about it) 7-1 which is a hiding at any level, so we may have a shout again this year, who knows.

I did miss every game last year, but the trip to Taffs Well was a pain in the arse.

Also the new kit is very nice

So if you see me wet and looking p'd off in Penydarren Park, say hi!

Oh and the bloke sitting behind me looks the spit of Leonard Nimoy...

Cash Generator 2 - The reply

Right, here goes again, for anyone wanting the back story the original blog, including my communication to Cash Generator can be found here:

http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.com/2011/07/cash-generator-vs-good-service.html

Well you've never have guessed it, they've responded and to be honest it was a very predictable response, so as not to dilute the experience, here it is in all it's glory:

From: merthyr tydfil [mailto:merthyr@stores.cashgenerator.co.uk] 

Sent: 14 July 2011 15:37

To: Still not gonna leave my email address here, nuh-huh.

Subject: Kinnect Game

To

Mr Driscoll

In response to your e-mail as a gesture we will offer an exchange on the item or credit note to the value of the disc, our exchange policy is clearly stated and when initial query was handled no mention of disc burn was  mentioned and as far as we are aware this damage cannot be repaired, although scratches to discs can be. We will happily give you the exchange as above or credit note which has no expiry.

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thank you

Cash Generator

Merthyr Tydfil

I haven't responded.

A few points, not written the best (or maybe it's my years of letter writing giving me OTT standards) and it never fills you with confidence when they can't even spell the product... The product knowledge (disc 'burns' can't be repaired??) worries me a little also... and grow a pair (or the female equivalent) and sign your email.

No mention of disc burn, true, but saying that I didn't mention anything, I left the staff member to examine it, but they possibly/probably didn't know what disc burn was!

And honestly a credit note, like I'd ever want to shop in their pikey shitehole again after this experience. I'll leave that to people in tracksuits from now on.

I did take a picture of the pre-fixed disc and although it's a shite picture (I'm not a photographer!) you can see the white rings of surface disc scoring! Et voila:

By some crazy random happenstance though a guy from Trading Standards in Merthyr rang my house asking for me today, not long after the email landed in my inbox. One monster of a coincidence if you ask me. Maybe it's fate... maybe it's just really pro-active, maybe even it's some jester from Cash Gen pretending to be trading standards to judge a reaction! I'll give them a ring back tomorrow (or they now have my mobile) and see what they got to say.

There's very little in it for me to do anything, but I just feel like I should, or they'll just carry on.

Cash Generator Vs Good Service

Give an opinionated introvert with basic writing skills a public forum such as this and you should be expecting... opinions! Particularly when something makes a real impression, whether that impression be great, or rubbish.

On Friday, among other things (and far more important things at that) that happened, I was also privy to service at complete opposite ends of the scale. For me 'n' the wife's wedding night, after everyone else had buggered off home we stayed in the Dragon Hotel in the centre of Swansea and in general it was an excellent experience. The staff were very helpful, nothing was too much trouble, the room was nice, clean and everything that was required and I acquired quite nice shower gel etc from the room (ahem). They did ID me (29 and lets face it pretty damn weather beaten) and Brandy (28, yes... petite, but still doesn't look young) at the bar, which I suppose is a compliment, or an annoyance!

The taxi that took us to the service was from Yellow Cabs and was fabulous, and to show service gets repeat custom, thanks to that 1 good journey, we booked 3 of them to get from the registry office to TGIs for the grub. If she'd been crap or shitty, the bookings would have gone elsewhere! If you're ever in Jackland for any reason and need a taxi, I heartily recommend Yellow Cabs.

On the other end of the scale was Cash Generator Merthyr Tydfil. Yes I know Cash Generator is probably the pikiest 'shop' around, designed to sell broken second hand stuff to chavs, morons and skint people (which I know now technically would include me) at a huge mark up than the 45p they paid Bob for his 32" flatscreen TV. I knew all this but they had a copy of Kinect Sports I wanted and they were like a tenner cheaper than anywhere else I could find.

I got the disk home and due to my newfound fandom of all things Call of Duty I didn't play it from purchase date (2/7) to the pre wedding Thursday (8/7). I stuck it in and, chug chug, nothing... hmmm try again, same, check disk and believe me this thing has had a hard life, more scratches than a Merthyr girl bitch fight and more burn than a bald bloke with fair skin on his holidays.

So, receipt in hand I marched in the following day, prior to departure for Swansea obviously, and asked for my cash back. The none-too-quick shop assistant looked at it, admitted it was proverbially shagged to buggery and phoned her manager (who was a full 12 yards away, so the call was necessary) and declined the refund as 'media' items must be returned within 48 hours. I pointed out that firstly I wasn't made aware of this and 2 I'm pretty sure that encroaches on an odd consumer right. She essentially said, "Tough"

I asked to speak to the hidden distant manager who trundled across, being sure to bring something with her, to give herself focus on apart from me, who essentially repeated "Tough" and confirmed they feel that their self created company rules take precedence over consumer rights. She said all this without ever staying still to address me or indeed looking me in the eye. Shocker. I asked who owns the franchise, they declined to tell me. (Didn't take a genius to find out it was Dave Elwood, I love the quote, "Cash Generator has allowed me to purchase a yacht and sail around the world in my spare time – a hobby not many business men are privileged to do.") yeah - allowed by exploiting whoever you can!

Riled by this, but holding in the language as little Gracie was with me, I left and called Consumer Direct who pretty much said their actions were shady and I should complain to the store. So back I rang complete with advice on the 1979 Sale of Goods Act (as amended) ringing in my ears, and was once again told, "Tough" and worst of all the advice that Cash Generator feel their goods do not need to be of satisfactory quality as they are 2nd hand. Manager Sarah's words not mine!

I actually wanted to play the damn thing so I took it to gamestation a few days later and had a disk repair done. Once again top notch service received, the guy behind the counter actually seemed to know about Cash Generator from other customers and didn't think it was legit either. This spurred me on.

So in line with the Consumer Direct advice, I complained in writing saying:

From: yeah - I'm going to leave my email address here... d'uh

Sent: 11 July 2011 12:14

To: 'customerenquiries@cashgenerator.co.uk'

Subject: Customer Complaint

Dear Sir/Madam,

Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended)

On 02/07/11, I bought a second hand XBOX 360 game - Kinect Sports from your Merthyr Tydfil franchise for £25.00 which is not of satisfactory quality.

The problems are:

·       The disk damaged beyond possible use, both scratches and disk burn was present. This rendered the disk unusable.

I attempted to return this faulty item on 09/07/11 (after first attempting to use it on 08/07/11) complete with original proof of purchase, but this was rejected, despite the staff present agreeing the item was faulty, as your company own rules dictate you may only return ‘media’ products within 48 hours.

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 makes it an implied term of the contract that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality, which this item was not. It also states you need to give reasonable time to allow such returns, which I believe 48 hours is not. Also, at the point of purchase this extreme limitation was not mentioned to me and I was unaware of this until I attempted to return the item, otherwise I clearly would have tested the item much sooner.

I have since had the disk repaired (10/07/11) at my own cost and am seeking a return of this outlay, plus reasonable costs for this inconvenience.

Please respond to my complaint within 7 days from receipt of this email.

Yours faithfully

Andrew Driscoll

It's not even I care about the pitiful amount it cost me to fix, but through being sarcastic, rude and the like to me in the shop, they made it into a big issue, and one I've decided to follow up. Plus you never know, maybe I'll save some kid from blowing his birthday money in there and being bent over in the same way. Since last week I've heard horror stories of TVs blowing up and them washing their hands of it, defective products being happily sold.

It's not on.

Only gone and got married!

So, last weekend was a big weekend, a very big, life defining weekend.

Last Friday (9/7/11) my wonderful fiancée (is that the right one, I can never remember?? I suppose I wont have to from this point!!) got hitched in front of a MASSIVE crowd of 9 in the Kilvey Room of Swansea Registry Office. Everything went to plan, nothing messed up and even the CDs for the music worked. Magic!

From this point onwards I will be mostly wearing:

The wedding itself, as you'd expect with attendance not making double figures (by choice I'll add we're not hideously unpopular), was quiet and indeed most awesome! Lovely music (Pretenders - I'll Stand By You / Piano Players version of Everlong (Foo Fighters) / Ben Folds - Luckiest), nice setting and of course wonderful other half, who looked gorgeous. Not massive amounts of photos as the outside bit was windy as, but some nice ones. Decent grub after and a few pints. Good day!

The day after it was all action stations to set up the hall for the 'party' aspect, and once again was a cracking night. From my sister-in-law doing a Dolly Parton act, avoiding actually singing any Dolly Parton songs in the process, to seeing the pretty damn decent turn out. I even confirmed the fact that I'm almost tone deaf banging through half of Summer Nights and half of Gold!

Very notable part was though you realise you have some damn good friends and family, donations were generous but more importantly some of the stuff in the cards was pretty damn awesome. Some minorly bizarre (you know who you are!). If I wasn't a horrible heartless shell of a human, could almost had brought a tear to my eye, but I am so... Everyone will be getting thank you cards of course, but if you're reading this. Cheers guys, you rock! Me and Cer were very happy everyone came, joined in and enjoyed. Well I assume enjoyed, I don't people generally don't make that much noise if they're bored.

Brandy Edwards did a sterling pair of impromptu speeches (I promised him none, he was heckled up during the meal, then very harshly called up by my sister in the party, as well as covering the female vocal in Summer Nights when Cerys legged it) and the buffet was awesome, even if I ate hardly any of it. Yes you heard me right, you can put any 'yeah whatever fatty' jokes in the comment section.

People raved on about the royal wedding and it got so much blanket coverage that I got sick of it after 30 seconds. But wedding the like of mine and the 3 other mates I've got getting/have already got married this year happen every weekend. Smaller by a factor of 100,000,000, but honestly wouldn't swap a second of mine for the whole royal faff and bullshit.

The Ben Folds song was perfect to close as (even though I heard very little of it on the way out) I am the Luckiest!

Right enough of this sounding all soft and sentimental stuff. For my next trick I'll stop looking confused at the phone every time I get a text from 'Cerys Driscoll' before going "....oh yeah"

Royal Wedding II The Continuation

Some months ago I wrote basically of my complete lack of interest in the forthcoming royal wedding well the time has come, on Friday, which despite my earlier promises that I'd happily go to work on the day... I'm not, as I haven't got too, the two rich posh people will have their giant partially public funded wedding. Can you see how the enthusiasm has build up for me?? Can you tell how much I'm now looking forward to the event I once derided?? Nor me, still think it's a massive waste of hype and column inches.

While the darling other half was watching channel 5 there was even a cheap ass, lame, stupid, painfully romanticised TV movie of how they met. I mean honestly, who would watch that? Is it even accurate, I somehow doubt they were consulted on the script!

TV is preparing to be taken over by constant overage, 'expert' analysis of every insignificant detail, I mean 8 hours solid non ITV... Jesus wept. The entire police force of the country it seems will be in London making sure some nutter with a flag doesn't get within 5 yards of any of the important people. I mean honestly, if you ever wanted to commit minor crime, they're all too busy, now's your moment! It all just seems like a horrible horrible resource hole and more is getting poured down it all the time. Much like the olympics.

Tat has appeared in shops, I've seen mass produced fake hand drawings of the couple, and indeed of each individually, teatowels, cups, coins, all crap! But I suppose someone must be buying it. I'll not be attending a street party and I don't know of anyone who is, thankfully. I don't actually know of any street parties so maybe there is some sanity in the world yet, or at least in Merthyr, and it's not often you can say that with a straight face.

Really it's a good thing, my pure desire to avoid this... event + the time off = day with Gracie n Cerys, see I can find the positives in anything!

Merthyr Tydfil

Well it's taken a while but I've got to 50 posts on here, including a rather lengthy break in postings. Hooray! You can't see this but I'm sat here with a party hat and about to pull a party popper... on way own. It's a sad sight...

Anyway...

I thought I'd dedicate this 50th entry to my home town of Merthyr Tydfil. For a small town in South Wales, the town has a large reputation, and it's not a good one. Through some media outlets (stand up sky news) the town has been vilified as one of the worst places in the country.

The town has problems don't get me wrong, stats don't lie and it somehow has managed to earn the titles of such things as teenage pregnancy capital of the UK (lost that one now), benefits capital of the UK. But it's not quite the hellhole of disrpute some people would have you think. First up, news companies love stereotypes, so typically if Merthyr is to be shown on TV, or people used for any purpose, they are portrayed in the image that already exists.

If you believe the many news articles you'd think nobody here works, nobody knows how to get to Cardiff, everyone lives in a council house and commits petty crime to fund various habits and support their 6 kids. While areas could conform roughly to some of that, there are many more that don't, nice areas. One thing you'd notice that even in the 'less desirable' places, which lets face it every town or city has, there's usually strong senses of community even here. Meaning they may not be so bad anyway.

I'm not denying there are gulfs between areas locally, I like to think I live in one of the nicer ones, but within a mile or two you'd find potentially the least desirable area of all.

Don't me wrong there are plenty of workshy gobshites round happy to pick up whatever they can get and not work. But equally there are people who go out and work hard. There are people, such as myself, who spend time on the disaster area of a train system or bus system commuting to Cardiff to work. Please don't tar the whole town with the sky-news-desperate-need-for-a-story brush.

I have no doubt the town will continue to have it's flaws blazed over the TV at every convinient opportunity for years to come. Yes unemployment is high, we lost factories by the bucketload. Those workers can't magic up new jobs. Many of them lost industries which has been all they've ever known.

Nobody speaks about the reneavations to the town centre, the decent leisure centre and facilities, the extensions and improvements to the hospital, but a borded up house on the gurnos has 6 cameras camped outside while some smug Londoner stands outside reporting every time new unemployment stats are released.

Maybe that's a part of the problem. Organisations such as sky news need somewhere to make an example of, but the people in many parts of England wouldn't stand for it being them. So they need somewhere out of the way... somewhere in Wales, somewhere with some bad stats going on. Bingo!

Merthyr may be many things, and a shithole may be one, by it's also home.

Voting!

Right now, there are thousands of people all over the world fighting for the right to live in a democracy, to vote. I like to think we're very lucky in the UK that we already live in one. Yes democracy relies on the people and people do indeed make mistakes, but at least they're our mistakes. I don't feel anyone should be rules by a self appointed leader who they may not approve of. So, why oh why oh why when Brits (us Welshies in this instance) get a chance to vote, do we not bother.

Yesterday, Wales had a referendum on giving our assembly more law making powers. All cool, it's a yes or it's a no, you've hardly even got to worry about which box to tick! However a massive 64.8% of people waived their hard earned vote and decided to sit on their arses instead. In my locality of Merthyr Tydfil, we were the 4th worst turned out area with 30.1% of our proud 55k contributing. But why?

In my opinion, both campaigns were poor, partially thanks to the 'no' campaigners not taking up 'lead' status, meaning no funding and no allowance for a 'yes' campaign, meaning lower visibility of the points from either side. In all honesty except one leaflet through the post, you had to go look for any information yourself. Not ideal for reaching those people not typically all that interested in politics. On the other hand, it did save some public cash.

Maybe people haven't realised that this'll affect them. No doubt if there had been a line in there saying, 'vote yes and benefits will rise in wales' turnout in Merthyr would have been 90%, with another 5% turned away for being to drunk. But as we can't even get to 60% for a general election laziness may be a factor. (I mean honestly people, a little difference last time and Merthyr would have been under Conservative rule now, via Cleggs brown nosing.)

I'm all for compulsory voting (go Australia), obviously if you have a valid excuse, fair enough, but I'd imagine the majority of no shows wouldn't. Yes making people vote may be unpopular, or seem like forcing an opinion where there is none, but people can always abstain. At least their voice is then heard. Would any winner really accept a seat if their votes were superseded by abstentions?

Overall, I think the 35% who did show made the right choice, I'm not 100% sure the assembly members themselves are altogether ready for more power, but we'll now have a great chance to find out. It'll just always stick in the mind that the decision was ratified by only 20-odd% of those available to vote.

Mainly I'm gutted that the no campaign was called true wales, not the same as in '97.

Just Say No...

Just like Zammo