by Julian Ruck
We live in a democracy and a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, do we not?
Well, Wales it seems has opted out.
Literature Wales – sister quango of the Arts Council of Wales who receives nigh on 1million a year from it – has refused outright to give me a press pass for the Wales book of the year next week (and I do write a regular column for a Welsh newspaper) albeit that all the cosy taxpayer funded Welsh literature websites, Welsh literature mags and periodicals, and all the other Welsh Establishment gravy train literary junkies will all be out in force.
The PA to CEO Lleucu Siencyn (Lucy Jenkins for all you English readers) managed to discover that all press passes had been dished out within seconds of hearing my voice without any reference to seating allocations etc etc. One must further ask how the PA to Ms Siencyn would even know this data anyway, and so quickly?
Orders from on high perhaps?
Have someone there to report on Welsh literati shenanigans who hasn’t joined the gang? And won’t be bought?
Forget it, can’t have Ruck there to spoil our fun now can we? Duw mon, he just might report some inconvenient facts!
I can guarantee a few things though. The works submitted for the Wales Book of the Year will have been written by Welsh writers replete with taxpayer bursary bucks, Welsh publishers will have been paid by the taxpayer to publish them and even the Prizes will be tax-payer funded.
It will be interesting to see what a Nielsen Bookdata printout of sales will reveal in a few months time.
Hard times? Not in Wales, and to cap it all the Welsh government will only communicate with me through their Head of News, Simon Jenkins.
Please read on.
On Tuesday this week, Martin Shipton, Chief Reporter with the Western Mail did a follow up to my Letter on Uncut (28.6.13) on the Arts Council of Wales’ taxpayer funded jolly to the Venice Biennale ie 7 people from the Arts Council going on a 3-4 day promotion of a Welsh artist exhibiting the recording of a man snoring in a telescope.
It will be interesting to know if any of his work had been sold thus ensuring some payback for the taxpayer? After all, never mind the expenses (£1500-2000 each including £260 per night hotels), it also cost the taxpayer £400,000.
In respect of tax-payer funding for Welsh arts, more particularly the Welsh publishing ‘industry’, it should be noted that in spite of media exposure in the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Jeremy Vine show, the Sunday Politics et al, John Griffiths, the culture minister (and responsible for funding to Welsh writers, publishers, Welsh Arts etc etc) is still refusing to be interviewed or even comment on all these matters.
Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money going into books that no-one reads, millions going to state of the art printing plant and machinery, millions going to all kinds of Welsh ‘art’ regardless of quality ( the Arts Council of Wales dishes out 34 odd million pa of taxpayers’ money to causes that show little if any return for the taxpayer) – and yes I know, the ebook has yet to blip on the Welsh government’s radar.
And yet in spite of all this, minister John Griffiths feels that his department is not accountable? Nor it seems, does he believe that he is subject to democratic scrutiny. On the other hand this is Wales, so why spoil the habit of a post-devolution lifetime?
Neither indeed does that wonderfully independent side-kick of the administration, the Wales Audit Office, believe there is a case to answer albeit that the evidence is there for all to see..
Now if you think all this isn’t bad enough then observe what has happened over my last Letter re 130M Euros prospective private sector project in north Wales being pulled due to the Welsh government’s diffidence and desultory responses.
I personally have contacted Edwina Hart’s office, made requests for interviews and comment and what has been the response?
Classic old Welsh Labour. “Dive for cover boyos! Bugger accountability and scrutiny, it’s only taxpayers’ dosh!!”
My point here is that devolution has allowed a Welsh establishment to rule with autocratic disregard for the norms of a free and open democracy, a distinct contempt for any kind of criticism or scrutiny, let alone accountability, and obsessive delusions of self-importance and wilful entitlement.
The Taffia will have no truck with dissent, no truck with those who merely look in from the outside.
They are killing the Welsh economy, the education of Welsh youth and the Welsh Health Service and all because they believe that England raped Wales and its Welsh-speaking Nirvana many, many years ago.
On Newsnight (10.7.13) Margaret Hodge, the Boudicca of public spending accountability, was heard to say about the BBC ‘You are accountable!’
She should set up court in Cardiff Bay if you ask me, now that really would get the Welsh politicos running for their pleasure cruisers!
Come to think of it, Ed’s ‘death throes of old politics’ doesn’t apply to Welsh Labour either.
Give more powers to the Welsh Assembly?
God help Wales.
Julian Ruck is an author, columnist, and Freedom of Information campaigner. He also makes contributions to both Welsh and national broadcasting and media.
Tags: Julian Ruck, Letter from Wales, Literature Wales, quangos, Western Mail
It seems to me that John Abell has answered the questions directly and with dignity.
Ruck of course hasn’t and never has.
This is because he has lied about his relations with Welsh publishers, and evades the direct questions about who rejected him and how nasty he turned.
Abell is a serious artist and a talented one, who has won prizes and been paid for work done. Ruck is a self-publisher and a plagiarist, who also cannot write for , as he’d call it, ‘taffy’.
Meanwhile Labour Uncut have hosted, so far, from Mr Ruck: one plagiarised article, three articles containing invented figures, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, personal threat, childish invective, evasion, lies, deceit and, recently, a possibly invented character called ‘Jeremy Oakley’. This is on top of the illiteracy and factual illiteracy.
It now appears to be allowing its ‘correspondent’ from Wales to post up people’s medical records and make ‘jokes’ about tattooed arses when they try to get some sense and clarification from him about what he has written.
Labour Uncut – you’ve hit a new low with Julian Ruck.
Just when you think Julian Ruck can’t get more obnoxious…
And in any case… even if these accusations were accurate, does it mean people on benefits or with health problems have no entitlement to an opinion?
For the record, Ruck, no one has tried to smear you or dig dirt on you. They’ve simply pointed out your plagiarism, your incessant inaccuracies and malicious inventions (‘the bestselling living writer in Wales’), and objected to the bizarrely ad hominem bile with which you pursue this insane and failed attempt to paint yourself as a serious author and commentator.
It really is odd that a Labour website is giving a voice to someone who clearly has a very low opinion of those he feels beneath him, and for state institutions in general. Take this quote from Ruck’s latest ‘column’ for the Llanelli Star.
‘My lady wife manages nursing homes. Private sector, you know 60-hour weeks, day and night never-ending phone calls, minimum wage carers who work their socks off and an inspection regime that sometimes makes her eyes water — not quite the NHS I think you will agree.’
Well actually 60 hour weeks, never-ending phone calls and minimum wages are very much a part of the NHS. But why let facts stand in your way? You never do.
You smear yourself with your own vile words. Once upon a time, before the internet, there were gatekeepers to keep phoneys like you out of circulation. I accept that now those gatekeepers are fewer (though they still keep you out of proper publishers and real newspapers of course). But at the same time you need to accept that a gatekeeper-free world also gives those who see through your ruses the chance to say so publicly.
As long as you invent ‘facts’ and plagiarise others, people will use their rights to out you for what you are. On the other hand, if you wrote accurate stories, substantiated them when asked, and answered genuine questions about their origin I doubt anyone would bother at all.
Is that really so much to ask?
Oh and by the way… the fact that the Llanelli Star didn’t sack you for so shamelessly pillaging Christopher Hitchens shows that your ‘column’ isn’t for a real newspaper at all.
Like I say Hewson, get a life, you silly little man.
To Hewson,
Actually, come to think of it, you could always join Mosby in the tattoo stakes by having one chiselled onto your shiny pate saying ‘I’m a twat’.
To you all,
Well I have to say, you have given me the best Monday morning for a long time.
Even the missus is laughing her socks off and that takes some doing I can tell you!
Good luck to you all and may whatever God or Higher Spirit you worship, go with you.
Pax vobiscum and Ruck is now off to London to sort out the publicity for his next novel The Silver Songsters, to be published next April.
Cheerio!
The man you all love to hate, Julian Fxxx.
“If you can’t take it dear boy, don’t dish it out.”
Quite so, Julian: will you therefore allow me to release the correspondence that proves you submitted to Welsh publishers and got rejected? If they let me have this correspondence, then I presume – FOI and all that – that you won’t mind my publishing it here?
Mr Ruck,
I’m still waiting to know whether Mark Billingham knew you used his name in your festival as a prize judge, and what happened to the two other prizes you promised, one of them for young writers, in the festival’s press kit.
Does Mr Billingham know you claimed to have him as judge on your prize?
Dear Julian,
Perhaps you can celebrate your great Monday morning by answering some of the questions put by me and others above and in previous responses to your ‘articles’?
Dear Labour Uncut editor… I have to ask. If a commentator here suggested to one of your contributors, ‘Actually, come to think of it, you could always join Mosby in the tattoo stakes by having one chiselled onto your shiny pate saying ‘I’m a twat’.’… would you deem that acceptable and use it?
I’d hope not given that you recently asked for comments to be on topic and barred ones you deemed didn’t meet this criterion. So why do you routinely allow one of your contributors to lob puerile insults around so freely and boast he’s set investigators onto a commenter to check his medical history?
It’s your decision if you want to run his rants, bizarre as that may seem, and I guess to allow him avoid all requests to substantiate his ‘facts’. But really… is Ruck allowed leeway that you wouldn’t accept (rightly in my opinion) among commenters? How exactly are these schoolboy insults ‘on topic’? Are you conducting some kind of sociological exercise here?
To James….you justify the minority dictating to the majority?
What race are the English speaking non Cymraeg speaking people in Wales?
You seem to be confusing racism with bi-lingualism.
What is your opinon on the minority Polish culture in Wales?
Talking of minoirties according to the last census British people constitute a 3rd of the population in Wales, another minority group has now evolved in Wales.
Oh! sorry you are English – an addtional minority group to be included.
…….and the minority group of writers and artists who think diverting money from the NHS to themselves is quite ethical.
Julian, you are a recovering alcoholic are you not? It is common knowledge. The best book you’ve got in you is probably a memoir/faction account of getting pissed in Palestine and doing a runner from restaurant owners, whilst trying to woo ‘dusky maidens from the east’, as you like to put it.
But you have no ideas, or cannot see anything of worth, so convinced are you of your own talents. Which are scant to non existent. You are possibly the worst writer I have ever read in print. I have read some great books, next to men like Yates or Ballard, you look like a sub amateur.
Instead you write crappy novels and espouse your ill informed and unfounded conjecture on Labour Uncut. Every time, without fail, you publish anything on here, plagiarised or not, based on fictional sources or not, you get a complete and utter routing.
That unfortunate post you have written about me is daft, and if you did employ a PI to investigate me, he did a shit job. I would get a refund. I am not on benefits, you tit, and I have not recieved my £250 fee for 22 illustrations, from Parthian. Practically doing it for free Julian, because the book is a project I believe in. You do not have any beliefs, do you Julian?, except that anything cultural should not get any funding whatsoever, because all your efforts have been laughed at.
Your books are shit, Julian. Anyone, comparing my oeuvre, or any of your critics oeuvre, will notice that yours is a joke by comparison. Quantity does not mean quality, though yours is paltry in both for a man of your years.
Your ebook festival was poo, your Llanelli Star column is poo, when not plagiarised, but it is still rubbish then, and your Labour Uncut column is poo.
None of my former friends have been in touch with you, have they? Of their own accord. About your drunkeness, your manual labour jobs, under false names, because you were to embarrassed about them. Your abusive (not physical, but psychological) behaviour towards women? Getting pissed and crying about your brother, your imprisonment for fraud, making up lies about being in the army, fighting the IRA. You are a compulsive liar Julian, in your past life as a drunk, which you have carried on your ‘literary’ career. Answer, yes or no?
Did you plagiarise two articles, did Parthian and Seren reject you, did you invent Jeremy Oakley, do you really know anything about book publishing, are you a convicted fraudster?
Are you a bitter failure?
Yes or no?
Though, for a man who hates online anonymity, you have some strange ideas.
Mr Hewson, Mr Mosby, shred your letters! Julian’s 4th rate PI is probably scoping out your wheelie bin as we speak! Hewson it appears you have been claiming your pension since you were seven and are recovering from a severe Toblerone addiction or something. Or something.
Julian, have you seriously hired a PI to investigate me? If so your tragicomedy has reached new levels, especially considering the inaccuracies of your information!
Julian, I thought so before, but you are now a joke beyond parody, you paranoid little worm.
Mr Origami, I await your definition of ‘Draconian’ for the teaching of Welsh as a subject in schools; it’s no more ‘draconian’ than any other compulsory subject.
As for the BBc story you linked, here again I ask what is ‘draconian’ about it.
In what way are the minority dictating to the majority? less than 10% of assembly members are Welsh-speakers, only 16% of welsh civil servants are, only around 40% of the BBC in Wales speak Welsh, and no-one who teaches in the state sector (unless in a Welsh-medium school) needs to speak it. Same goes for the NHS, and all but (I think) 3 of the local councils in Wales, where, with the exception of Gwynedd, many non-Welsh speakers are employed.
Private firms have no language law to abide by, and public companies have pretty minimal ones.
Hardly a ‘dictatorship’.
You’re a racist because the definition , for legal and CRE purposes, of racism has nothing to do with race, and includes the grounds of ‘religion, language, nationality and culture’.
Your blog and your comments are only ever about Welsh and Welsh-speakers, you mock them, their language and culture, and accuse them, like a typical minority-basher, of being responsible for all sorts of harmful economic and societal effects.
Does the anti-Welsh lobby have its own version of the Protocols of Zion?
You’d think so, with the crap you write.
…and lastly of course the wacko group of Druids. Carwyn Jones the First Druid of Senate Cymru will put forward a Bill for a second house of Druids. The increasing number of Assembly members will never be accomadated in the Senate because of overcrowding and Health and Safery issues.
Croeso i Gymru…..James – the land of myth and druids and where minorities are accomadated endlessly
Cymru….the public sector miricale, the jewel in the crown for Ed Milliband, the shinning light of transparent democracy and social egalitarianism.
To Mr Hewson
How is your novel about the syntax detective coming along?
Mr Origami
PS I appreciate you not lobbing puerile insults at me anymore.
So Hewson, you squeak and wail when you are in the firing line, whilst at the same time believing that it is just dandy for you to sit in your ivory tower calling me a ‘a crap writer, a liar, a plagiarist, an envy driven failed writer, a pub blowhard…..’ need I go on?
You quite obviously believe you are someone special, but like me you are just a human being with the individual foibles, strengths and weaknesses that make us all so very different.
On a few occasions over the past year, I have held out a humble olive branch to you both on Uncut and on my own blog, I have also sent you personal messages of conciliation (as is the case with Steve Mosby) and yet you both continue to persist with your year long campaign of hate.
It usually takes a man to grasp the hand that is held out to him, you and Mosby quite obviously think otherwise.
I wish you both well, but I will longer recognise your presence here, or anywhere else.
Julian Ruck
To both Hewson and Mosby,
A few last words for the benefit of readers.
You both started your campaign of hate all because I tried to set up the first ebook Festival in the UK with a £10,,000 ebook award a year ago.
Duly honoured.
Mosby’s response to a polite invivtiation to attend was ‘I’d rather stck fxxxxxx pins in my eyes’ and all you could do Hewson was mock and insult, examples of your manic spite can be found all over the internet.
I have never met either of you, we have never spoken, indeed I had never heard of either of you until you received invitations to attend the Festival.
If this obsession with me makes you happy then do please carry on, but somehow I really don’t think you are casting yourselves in a very good light where readers are concerned.
You are merely diminishing and demeaning yourselves as authors.
You are doing neither to me.
Julian Ruck
Julian, you come out with comments like this…
‘To Hewson,
Actually, come to think of it, you could always join Mosby in the tattoo stakes by having one chiselled onto your shiny pate saying ‘I’m a twat’.’
And say Mr Hewson and Mr Mosby are coming across badly?
Julian the stuff you are coming out with on this is doing so much to undermine your reputation, it is unbelievable.
Now answer the questions put to you?
Julian –
I have no huge desire to support you any further in derailing your own thread, but to correct one point: your invitation for me to appear at your festival was neither polite nor remotely professional. The full text of it, along with my reply (which you have actually misquoted, because you are you), is here: http://jewelsfromjulian.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/oh-no-oh-stuff-of-joy/#comment-509
I have to say I love the fact that immediately after pompously declaring ‘I will (no?) longer recognise your presence here, or anywhere else.’… you immediately write another comment trying to lob a few more dubious bricks in my direction.
If I may correct just one more of your errors. I didn’t notice you because of your daft ebook festival (though quite how you invited me to it without knowing I existed is a little puzzling). I noticed you because you went out of your way to grab headlines by declaring yourself a bestselling author and then making some really ridiculous and quite offensive remarks about the publishing industry, something you’re clearly unqualified to comment on.
And now amateur hour has extended to what you seem to think passes as journalism which means you’ve besmirched both of the industries I’ve worked in during my professional life.
Plug away at it then. But if you will keep waving red rags you have to expect a few charges to come your way. And I repeat: all you need to do to avoid the brickbats is get your facts right in the first place. It shouldn’t be too hard.
To John Abell,
You know John I really am a busy chap, having said this I fully understand how your point of view may well differ from mine and you have every right to express it.
However, I am tired of all this daring do game of unpleasnt ping-pong that you seem intent on playing for an indefinite period.
Of course I didn’t employ a PI to investigate you, I was simply playing you at your own game.
In spite of what you think of me, I am simply not that malicious.
If you believe me to be a ‘shit’ writer then fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion.
If you believe me to be a mendacious bounder, cad, Court Jester etc etc, then again fair enough.
Whatever your views of me John, I must tell you that I am no longer prepared to enter into the arena with you, or any of your friends.
As with Mosby and Hewson, I wish you all the very best and good luck but you know, as I have said before, life really is too short.
Now, I have a meeting to go to.
Best regards,
Julian Ruck
To John Abell,
PS I do think using the death of my twin brother as a bullet a bit below the belt, but there we are.
JR
To James when you say “Welsh” please could use the correct term “Cymraeg”. It is the politically correct term why do you try to anglicise it?
I find it offensive. You could look at a post on my blog.
Julian – we’re still waiting for you to answer the questions re Welsh publishers (you were rejected by them, we know that, so why have you lied in print about never having submitted), and about Mark Billingham as judge, and the missing two e-boojk prizes at your festival, neither of which seems to have been paid out, and neither of which has been ‘duly honoured’.
Come on now, face up to the questions, admit the lies, and tell us about Mark Billingham.
Come to that, tell us about the other judges who you allege in your festival press kit were judging the entries – not one of them wants anything to do with you.
In fact, the more I look at the press kit, kindly referred to us by David Hewson, the more I realise it is perhaps your finest piece of fiction. Including the bit about your being with Nurnberg agency, which we know, thanks to Messrs Abell and Morais, you were dropped by at least a year before you made your claim in the press kit.
Could you be persuaded to address this question too?
For ‘the definition of racism’, read ‘a definition of racism’, i.e. one of several that takes in the abuse of people for being different.
Funny how the term ‘druid’, of which you’re so very fond Mr Origami, is a word used by EDL, BNP and far-right people in West Wales for Welsh-speakers. Is that where you get the term from, Mr O?
We know that Mr Ruck was proud when his anti-Welsh diatribe published here was tweeted by the BNP website, so perhaps the two are connected?
“…indeed I had never heard of either of you until you received invitations to attend the Festival.”
Mr Ruck – you invited to your Festival writers you had never heard of? This is how you organised your Festival? Could you explain?
I think my comments are all on-topic, since they are trying to establish Ruck’s credentials as well as his motivations for his endless attacks on institutions and publishers we know he was rejected by and has threatened.
I am also, since he attacks literary festivals, trying to establish the truth of the claims he made in his festival’s press kit about big-name judges, agents and two prizes that were billed but never awarded.
This is all totally relevant and in fact germane to the discussion because it shows Ruck to have dissembled and lied in print and on this site, and explains his vituperative spite when dealing with successful writers.
“…indeed I had never heard of either of you until you received invitations to attend the Festival.”
Mr Ruck – you invited to your Festival writers you had never heard of? This is the way you organised your Festival? Could you explain?
C’mon Julian!
Mr Abell has ably replied to your accusations / questions.
Any chance of you replying to his?
— Did you plagiarise two articles, did Parthian and Seren reject you, did you invent Jeremy Oakley, do you really know anything about book publishing, are you a convicted fraudster? —
Would love to read your rucking response.
Ta.
TO: jmecoedwig [ name with held]
WHOSE AFRAID OF JULIAN RUCK ?
I think you have , if I might suggest some considerable audacity to suggest that John Abell is someone whose questions should be answered, or even taken seriously.
He, together with Richard, sometime Lewis , DAVIES of PARTHIAN BOOKS came , in a drunken state of hostility ,to a talk Julian Ruck gave at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff – November 2012 to what would have been an interested audience ,and with Q & A to follow.
However bully – boys sitting in a block in the front row ,some wearing balaclavas ,lead by Mr.ABELL himself immediately started shouting as the talk began ,and even insulted members of the audience who asked these ‘gentlemen’, I use the term lightly , to be quiet together with a camera crew from BBC Wales present and a Labour Member of WAG.S he , a woman I might add , was shouted down.
These people, in a pathetic attempt to conceal their identities wore a variety of head gear – including Penny Thomas , editor at SEREN BOOKS who I spoke to myself afterwards for some explanation.
However the continual harassment did not stop for over an hour so that eventually Chapter security was called. As a result no one present had a fair hearing.
Those of you blogging from the urban bubble obviously know very little of street life in Wales first – hand ,and really should ask yourselves is: IS THIS THE WAY IN WHICH CIVILISED PEOPLE BEHAVE ; let alone a functioning DEMOCRACY, by the use of these tactics of bullying and crude intimidation? I think not.
We should all be grateful to Mr.Ruck , I believe, for opening up a wider level of debate that the insular and elite dominated culture the pervades Wales with the rampant virus of nepotism.
I speak as a woman writer in Wales ,of what I know and the discrimination taking place here of many minority groups.
In my experience Wales does not cope well with differences , sexual or otherwise , or with grown-up debate.
G.K.B.
Gill, is this a joke?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-20566698
Here is the video of the event, as filmed by the BBC. Is anyone wearing balaclavas? Seriously, Gill, is this a joke?
Based on the evidence I’ve linked (something, that Julian never does), the reader can make there own judgement.
I will also put to you, Gill, that you are a liar and a fantasist. If you watch the above video, that will become apparent.
Here is my account of Julian’s Chapter shambles.
http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julian-ruck-comic-creation-par.html
Gill, you really are something else. Please stop lying or entertaining your lurid fictions when there is video evidence to the contrary. Headgear? Balaclavas?
Julian Ruck, debate? Gill, he is just a bitter failure who cannot deal with rejection.
To: G.K.Brightmore [grammatically correct comma usage withheld],
I’m a keen observer in the debate, a longstanding Labour party member and reader of literature, Welsh or otherwise.
I think it would nice if, having received answers to his questions from Mr Abell, that Mr Ruck replied to the questions asked by Mr Abell (which I quoted).
Having followed the ‘incident’ at Chapter keenly, I know the background between the two gentlemen: there is no need for your individual version, thank you.
These two are having something of an up-and-down debate. As such I would like to see Mr Ruck’s answers. Surely if he has nothing to hide, as a man of integrity, he could at least put these long-running accusations of Abell to bed.
Regards.
J. M. ECOEDWIG
jmecoedwig – welsh earwig ?
I was present at Chapter , you w ere not it seems. I was the unfortunate person who actually facilitated that event so I have every right to comment ,or can a paid-up a member of the Labour Party actually believe that a woman , should as I am ,has no right to her opinion?
The ” incident” as Chapter your banal comments suggest was NOT a one -to -one, “up-ad- down debate’ between Mr .Abell & Mr .Ruck as you suggest : you have been ill-informed.
NO, it was an was an orchestrated , organised attack from the first two front rows ,but NOT only on Julian , but on any member of the audience who dared speak up ! It was an example of outrageous behaviour in a public arena.
Can you really believe , whoever you are and of whatever political party , that a spectacle of public bullying and fascistic intimidation is a good example of the expression of views in Wales ? I hope not .
Furthermore do not speak of, “integrity” on this blog when you do not have enough to reveal you actual name. So what are you afraid of ?
To James…… I didn’t know that the EDL, BNP, and far-right people in West Wales use the term ‘druid’ for Welsh speakers. Interesting! Saying that, obviously I didn’t get my term for ‘druid’ there.
When you say “Welsh” do you mean “Cymraeg”?
Also I think you may be under a delusion if you think druids are specifically Welsh.
If a bunch of whacky folk want to proclaim themselves as druids, fine by me.
I am a nature worshipper but keep it to myself and don’t find the need to call myself a druid. Anybody can call themselves a Druid or a Jedi Knight but we shouldn’t really take these people too seriously, should we James………
http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2012-08-10/first-minister-joins-druids/
Oh GK, way to miss a point. Or several.
Urban bubble? Street life? What? I live in the valleys!
Oh, and did you see how I separated the statement about the Chapter talk from the statement about their long-running up and down debate by using a paragraph break? That is to say, I was not implying that the Chapter talk was a debate.
Anyway, I didn’t expect an ankle biting from one of his pitbulls (although I should have) – I just thought in the interest of this conversation that seeing as Mr Abell declared his answers, perhaps Mr Ruck could do the same.
Cor blimey! You’re a woman! With an opinion! Who’d a thunk it! I didn’t know this was allowed.
And I didn’t think that real names were exactly necessary on the internet, but if you insist…
Julia May Elizabeth Forrester.
As to the previous comment – all I can do is to , LAUGH OUT LOUD !
And have a lovely Sunday in the valleys.