Month: October 2016

Return the Bardsey Crown

Wales / By

The Bardsey Crown to Return to the land of Merlin

The Bardsey Crown to Return to the land of Merlin

No doubt everyone is watching with great interest the attempts by the Bardsey inhabitants (all ten of them) to have the Bardsey island Crown returned to its rightful place in Wales.
The Island is a god forsaken lump of rock off the Llyn Penninsula in the North of Wales once inhabited by Monks in a colony established there in the 6th Century by one Saint Cadfan. – and as an interesting side note is the imputed last resting place of Merlin – further emphasizing that the whole Arthurian legend is based on the Welsh Princes fighting off those pesky Anglo Saxons.

For many years, the Island had formed part of the estates of the Newborough Family of Glynllifon near Caernarfon who cheered up the locals by crowning the oldest male on the island as King – to be called Brenin Enlli (King of Bardsey). The coronation celebrations being the only known official example in the UK where the Queen of Bardsey was also heir presumptive to the Crown and the entire congregation were either cousins, brothers and sisters. The actual Crown is kept at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool who acquired it when the maritime collection of the Newboroughies was flogged off around the 1980’s for four pence halfpenny and a route map out of Wales – and there in lies the conundrum – those nasty English Liverpudlians are hanging on to it and not inclined to repatriate this artefact of past Welsh glory to its homeland.

The symbolism of the crown goes well beyond the tatty tin and brass it is made of and now assumes the role of an icon and memorial to those former Welsh Princes who went down gloriously in defeat at the hands of the invading Angles; from those at the dawn of time, to Lywelyn ap Iorwerth, Dafydd ap Lywelyn, Lywelyn ap Gruffudd (the Last) to Owain Glyndwr – this latter prince was the last real Welsh prince when the principality was lost by conquest at or around 1415.

Since the time of the Welsh Princes we have been fobbed off with a motley collection of loser princes and elder sons of Kings of England from Edward Blackadder of Caernarfon to the latest incarnation Prince Charles ap Windsor the Halfwit. This Prince whose only known attempts at Welsh are ‘ble ydy ‘r doiled’, and ‘ca ‘m oddi hon dduw adawedig chyflea’ – which roughly translated means ‘where are the toilets’ and ‘get me out of this god forsaken place’ which shows his commitment to the job.

I support any initiative that repatriates ethnic aboriginal art and artefacts to their rightful place – and the Bardsey Crown is right up there with the Elgin Marbles and the African Art pillaged from their rightful owners over the centuries. A suitable place for its final resting place must surely on the mantle piece in the gallery shop at the Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw at Llanbedrog near Pwllheli where for a suitable fee visitors will be able to eat their welsh rarebit whilst reliving the days of yore by wearing the crown.

As a point of interest for our American cousins it may not be well known that Prince Madog ab Owain heir of Owain discovered America around the year 1200 and founded a colony near to Alabama. For more information about the welsh in Alabama visit : http://www.alabamawelsh.com/ and if your interested in signing the petition to restore a monument to the great prince go here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/AWA0987/petition.html

Above is a nice Picture of one of the ‘Brenin Enlli’ His Royal Highness John Williams taken around 1920.

Cheers

Royston

How to Organize Your Home Office by Jennifer Mattern

TipDrop / By

When you work from a home office, you automatically put yourself at risk for greater distractions than if you worked in a typical office environment. You may have to deal with the distractions of children, pets, your spouse, neighbours, radio, television, and your refrigerator. Don’t let home office clutter be added to the list! Having a messy or cluttered home office will do nothing more than add to your stress load and make you less productive.

Organizing your home office doesn’t have to be hard.

Here’s How:
1. Planning – Make a list of your biggest home office organization problems. Do you have piles of papers that need to be sorted, trashed, or filed? Do you have general garbage surrounding you (such as drink bottles, old magazines, etc.)? Do you have disks or CDs everywhere with files and programs that you need? Do you have a problem finding a pen or paper clip when you need one? Can you easily reach your files when you need them? You can’t start to organize your home office if you don’t identify your problem areas first.

2. Remove Trash – Trash should be the first thing you deal with once you jump into organizing your home office. If you see something that you don’t want or need, or that you can completely do without, just trash it! This could include anything from drink bottles to old copies of trade magazines to junk mail. If you’re not sure about something, ask yourself “Will I honestly need, or use, this a month or two from now?” If not, get rid of it. Make sure you have a trash can in your office at all times. If you don’t have one already, buy one so you don’t feel tempted to let trash accumulate again.

3. Filing – Find a box, bin, or even a shelf where you can put all of your „to be filed’ items. Take any loose papers you find, and place them there for the time being. Then look at your filing cabinet or drawer (if you don’t have one, now would be a good time to purchase one). Do you have your folders well organized? Do you need to create more? Work on neatening up your filing system in general, and then set aside a few hours, or even a full day, to file any papers you added to your „to be filed’ pile.

4. Digital Storage Media – If you have floppy disks, zip disks, or CDs lying around, it’s time to give them a home. Disks can be stored in plastic containers, and CDs are often best stored in binders. While you can store CDs in several ways, binders are ideal for the home office, because you can organize and move them easily, as well as being able to add adhesive tabs to binder pages for labeling.

5. Scheduling – Always keep your schedule and deadlines in front of you. When you work at home, you have to work extra hard to prove your credibility, so missing an important deadline isn’t an option. Keep a planner or PDA with you at all times. Additionally, keep a large wall calendar near your desk, so you can view general deadlines at a glance.

6. Finding Space – By this point, you should be left with only what’s necessary for you to work (and possibly a few personal items). Find a place
where you can permanently keep your writing utensils, printer paper, binders, and everything else you need on a daily basis. When you finish using something, get into the habit of putting it back there.

7. Organizing Your Computer – If your general home office space is cluttered and unorganized, chances are that your computer files are in disarray as well. You’ll find that you can work more productively if you don’t have to search for where you saved files. Simply delete anything you no longer need, clear any unnecessary icons off of your desktop area, and organize your computer’s file folders in a similar manner to your hard files.

8. Finishing Up – Once your home office area is organized, you should take some time to vacuum or sweep, wipe down your computer, monitor, mouse, and keyboard with a little bit of rubbing alcohol, and wash your desk. Touch up your cleaning every few days to help force you into the habit of keeping your home office clutter-free.

What you’ll need:

1. Trash can
2. Filing cabinet and folders
3. Cases for computer disks
4. Binder for CD storage
5. Planner or PDA
6. Wall calendar
7. Bottle of rubbing alcohol
8. Clean cloth
9. Spray cleaner for your desk
10. Time Tips:

  • Once your home office is organized and clean, touch it up frequently so clutter doesn’t re-accumulate.
  • Go digital wherever possible. File emails and documents on your computer in digital form, rather than printing everything out for paper files.
  • Only use rubbing alcohol for your monitor, mouse and keyboard. Other chemicals can damage them.

By Jennifer Mattern: I own a small PR firm and work part-time as a freelance business writer. I also run over a dozen websites and blogs including AllFreelanceWriting.com, BizAmmo.com, AllBookMarketing.com, and NakedPR.com

Campaign to get Red Lady of Paviland returned to Wales

Wales / By

The Red Lady of Paviland

As RoyMogg readers will be aware the ‘Red-Lady of Paviland’ currently resides in a box in Oxford and is the subject of action to attempt the repatriate the red-lady (actually red-bloke cos it is man!) to the land of origin Wales. The Red-Lady actually a red-ochre stained body of a man, is one of the earliest known Palaeolithic burials in the UK and quite rightly belongs as part of the heritage of the Welsh being an example of early occupation of this land some 25 to 26 thousand years ago.

The bones were discovered around 1823 by the reverend John Davies on a stroll and have been the subject of many false attributions as to what the remains were – not least that the body was of a woman not a man. One of the most colourful stories was that the ochre-stained skeleton had become a ‘painted lady’ as a consequence of the service she gave to the needs of the local Roman garrison in the camp on the hill just above the cave. It was a good story possibly dented by the fact that the woman turned out to be a man although this would have been no problem for the roman soldiers I am sure – particularly on a cold welsh night in some godforsaken posting in the south of Wales some 2 thousand years ago. This would also have given an alternative explanation to the bones being often referred to as the red queen of Paviland although for political correctness I cannot take this argument too far.

Anyhoo … in the early years of the 20th century this did not stack up as it could be seen that as well as not a female burial the mammoth ivories around the body were Palaeolithic. The red-lady has made a trip back to Wales in the meantime and is the subject of a campaign to get this fantastic artefact returned from the canny English but too no avail – there is even a campaign group dedicated to the cause called the ‘The Dead to Rights group’, set up by those who regard the removal of the skeleton as a “desecration” of a sacred site and mirrors the concerns of other groups dedicated to the return of plunder from the colonial era to their rightful place. I am not sure of their success but applaud their cause.

I have been to the cave myself some years back and it is a place of mystery especially when you are on your own – It does take you back and certainly grounded me as a modern day Welsh guy in the land where I was borne (ehh enough of this sentimental crap! ed.)