The Judge RANTS!
Date: 31/12/13
In Bad Odour
I'm afraid that it is my lot to end this year on a maledictory note.
There is a village in what used to be called Gwent. A nondescript enough place, of which no-one will ever have heard but for one thing.
The proper name of this place is Y Farteg but, due to the almost total anglicisation of place names in the eastern half of the country, has for years been spelt 'Varteg' despite - or even because of - there being no letter 'v' in modern Welsh (there was in earlier times). The 'v' sound is represented by the letter 'f' (the 'f' sound is indicated by 'ff', in case you were wondering).
So, when it was quietly suggested recently that the village should go by its original name rather than a bastardisation of it, one might expect the good burghers of Y Farteg to agree.
But remember that this is Wales, where - especially in those golden Valleys of song and fable - any semblance or simulacrum of genuine love of country is confined to the stands of the Millenium Stadium three times a year. And so, a shit-storm duly erupted.
Ignorant politicians lobbed in their little pearls, of course. The local Member of the Imperial Parliament (a second-generation Irish immigrant called Paul Murphy - or Pól Ó Murchú, just to get it absolutely authentic) got just about everything absolutely wrong when he pronounced from the snug confines of his expenses claims that:
"Varteg is not an English word so translating it is totally unnecessary."
Er, Murphy me brave boy? No-one is suggesting it be 'translated'; just that it should be spelled properly.
And our wonderful First Minister - a man of such all-encompassing dullness of mind and manner that he would be considered a non-entity in his own living room - claimed that using the correct spelling wasn't 'sensible', "for obvious reasons".
What the main 'obvious reason' might be came in darling Carwyn's next sentence:
"We have to be sensitive to the mis-interpretations that can be put on certain spellings."
In this, he was merely echoing the sentiments of the rent-a-quote resident (who is called Sioned, although if being consistent she would probably prefer to spell it 'Shonnnneddd') who claimed that she would feel 'humiliated' every time she told people where she came from.
(Only if you don't pronounce it properly, luvly!)
You see, what seems to have exercised the stout-hearted (and Brains-bitter-livered) citizens of Y Farteg is this: if the village's name were to be spelled correctly, the English would laugh at it!. "Oh, they'd pronounce it 'Why Fart Egg'! Whatever would we do?". Even worse, English tourists might start flocking to the place to have their photographs taken next to the sign (just as they do with the Shetland hamlet of Twatt, the identically-named settlement on the Orkney Mainland, and - in excelsis - with the Austrian town of Fucking).
A positive view would have seen Y Farteg embracing the name - and the attendant road signs - and touting their village worldwide as a destination for those intelligent travellers who cherish the recondite, the quaint and the quirky. Postcards - and their 'e-' equivalents - could have been sent with a special franking stamp (just as the village of Bethlehem in Carmarthenshire has done for decades). You could have made a mint, bringing in much needed money to repair the roof of your community centre (if you even have one, that is).
But no: in place of this forward-looking attitude, and in order to pander to the cloddish impulses of knuckle-draggers from (K)nuneaton, ignoramuses from Ilford, wankers from Wednesbury and even people from Scunthorpe, you - the people of Y Farteg - will happily and fiercely deny your own heritage even down to deliberately mis-spelling the name of the place you live in. Truly the servile, cultural-cringing, cowardice traditionally (and justifiably) associated with our country is alive and kicking.
And, if you wanted not to be laughed at by the terminally ignorant, then the fuss you've kicked up has meant that you have failed, and failed wretchedly. The whole world is laughing at you now; story after story which I have scanned whilst doing what is too grandly to be called 'research' for this Rant has chortled, chuckled and sneered at you and your village. So that really worked, didn't it?
Of course, no story about that glorified theme-park of sentimentality known as 'The Valleys' would be complete without the local borough councillor, one Giles Davies, barging his way into the spotlight. When (today) it was announced that the corrupt, anglicised name was to remain, he clambered aboard his publicly-subsidised soapbox to announce he was "Chuffed to bits".
Of course you are, butty bach! You - like Murphy and Jones - belong to the all-powerful Labour Party, a party which has long sought to deny any burgeoning sense of genuine national pride which you fear you wouldn't be able to turn to electoral or pecuniary advantage. And so, like Shonnnneddd, you prefer to side instead with the sort of pig-ignorance which leads the Retired Colonel Set to still call Conwy 'Conway', still spell Caernarfon with a 'v' and no 'e', and still call Y Felinheli 'Port Dinorwic'.
Now you know what's wrong with the bloody country...
Update: For an outline of the psychological and historical processes at play in all this, I suggest this piece by Tom Law (agus go raibh míle maith ag An Sionnach Fionn).
