Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Lookalikes #2

I attempted a kind of homage to Gyppo in the previous post, and now it must be No Good Boyo's turn.

Wales


I was dragged up to a Nissen hut in the north of Wales every Easter as it was the only landscape bleak enough to accord with my father’s world-view and thereby help him feel comfortable within himself. An Ivor The Engine train ride from there is wonderful Port Merion, the “Village” from The Prisoner; and I was once further down the coast but remember nothing but jellyfish... big, red, flabby, embarrassing jellyfish, like a thousand Ron Davieses after an all-night “paddling” session. Over to the East we have the lachrymose beauty of The Llangollen_Canal but also places like Wrexham, Flint and Mold, which don’t really sound as Welsh as they should, maybe they're a bit traumatised by this. The middle, if my Counties of Britain jigsaw puzzle was correct, is Radnor and Merionethshire, which I've always imaged as R. S. Thomas country, in other words as miserable as f**k, though I’ll be happy to be wrong. But Down South are some splendid boyos and an ex-girlfriend whom I shall call Morfudd. I met her on the Internet and when I arrived for a first date found out she was really quite deformed - what’s the PC expression for this, guys? - poor lass; but that didn’t put me off at all; no; I’m like that. What did put me off however was her mother, who was a a witch: not the pointy-hatted, mixing-up-herbs type from Bangor University’s Department of Celtic Dawn Studies and Shamanism, but yer actual witch, a female nasty-piece-of-work. The fact that Morf was utterly devoted to her despite the constant put-downs made me eventually make my excuses and leave*. Moving on, we have the gorgeous Ystradfellte waterfalls, the deep sandy beaches at Rhossilli, the actually-quite-pleasant seaside destinations of Tenby and Manorbier and the invigorating Pembrokeshire coastline.

Siân Lloyd’s Face


The face of TV Weathergirl Siân Lloyd covers an area 0.000000003645847 the size of Wales, which is a fascinating statistic but not of immediate relevance here. What drew me to realise the similarity was the disproportion: Siân’s face is much bigger at the bottom that at the top, more fulsome, more generous, more sensual around the mouth and jowl region than around the forehead and crown. Down below we have a half of a face ready to enjoy life, to smile, to laugh, to eat and drink, and - oh yes - to kiss and to tell. Up top we have a more shrunken physiognomy, a personality meanly crouched inside a cranium that’s already too small for it. The mid region is represented by the eyes, supposedly the window to the soul: as we look at her, the left looks nice, bright, welcoming, but the right looks sad and, frankly, traumatised, half a seaweed short of a laverbread. The middle, the nose, is where LLoyd's ex Lembit Öpik is MP, and though I warm to him as an East European and an eccentric, he’s clearly been sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted, e.g. into the private affairs of asteroids and into Cluj’s own Gabriela Irimia, and he’s also reputedly as tight as a gnat’s chuff. Lloyd, Wales’s Marianne, deserves better, as does any country that looks a bit like her.

So there you go, that was my own Welsh Letter - like a French letter but made not from rubber but from the outermost “sheath” of a leek.... and not one of them thin spindly ones, innit - and I hope you enjoyed it. Further information, tourist brochures, Bara brith, etc can be had at the good offices of No Good Boyo, and while he’s dragging the judge, jury and punishment squad out of the Ffwrch & Fferkin in response to this (and to serve on me the martyrdom I’ve always craved) I shall bid you iechyd da!

*Also, her mother, though of retirement age, had a boyfriend who was young enough to be her son. Live and let live. Then I met other couples there with a similar reverse-May-September thing going on – nothing wrong with that, but it was the only community I’ve ever been in where this seemed to be the norm.

22 comments:

  1. Are you sure she wasn't a druid rather than a witch? It doesn't surprise me she had a young beau, though, these Welsh harridans are insatiable. Have you ever seen a Welsh rabbit or eaten one?

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  2. "…while he’s dragging the judge, jury and punishment squad out of the Ffwrch & Fferkin in response to this…"

    I dunno; personally, I think you deserve the Freedom of Blaunau-Ffycin-Ffestiniog for this fine exposition of the wonders of the Wales.

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  3. The All-Wales Tourism & Fighting Board couldn't have done better, Gadjo - llongyfarchiadau, as they don't say in Chepstow.

    The generous lower-face thing is rather sexy, as Lois Griffin out of Family Guy shows.

    In addition, you've hit on the ultimate mad-dictator scheme - make your country look like you! If only Turkmenbashi and Ceausescu were still around, they'd be altering the northern borders of their tormented lands to match their towering tonsures.

    As for the judge, jury and punishment squad, he hasn't finished his pint of dark yet.

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  4. Crumbs Gadj, you've only gone and invented a whole new pseudo-science: geophysiognomy (?). 'The science of discerning a country's attributes through an examination of the bonce of one of its representatives'. That's really something you know - you should be very proud.

    BTW I wonder where Sian learnt her Kabuki-style weather forecast gestures? I'm sure it would have made the Japanese inward investors feel at home.

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  5. I don't mean to sound ungentlemanly, but one can almost see why Mr Opik would prefer bunking up with both cheeky girls.

    I look forward to your analysis of Romanian geography as represented by the buttocks of the aforementioned Transylvanian twins.

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  6. Sian Lloyd really is the most beautiful thing to come from Wales since Mary Hopkin - although quite what she was thinking of when she stepped out with Lembit Dipstick I'll never know. I always found the centre of Wales rather appealing, particularly Llanymawddwy, and North Wales far too full of Scousers spending ill-gotten gains. Meibion Glyndwr were quite active in heating them up, of course although, interestingly, there never was a Sons of Robin Hood movement burning out expat Welshpersons.

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  7. Particularly like the map Gadj - If NGB's blog is as entertaining as this I'd better get over there!

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  8. Bananas, no, she was a primary school teacher and I didn't like her - she didn't even offer me a cup of tea when I went to her house, let alone a magic elixir.

    Francis, thanks for your support: when Boyo comes a-knocking I'll mention your name and maybe he'll think twice about rearranging my kneecaps.

    Boyo, 'tis yourself! Good idea about the facial dictatorship - I'm going to implement this in my own small way right now by rearranging my rockery into the form of my own noble visage. (Good heavens another Lois Griffin fancier... I honestly thought I was the only one.)

    Gaw, thanks, I think you're right, I may indeed have invented a whole new science. I'm going to test the idea using Shane MacGowan for Ireland, Wee Jimmy Krankie for Scotland and, oh, I dunno, perhaps Nigel Havers for my beloved England. (Weather forecasters are so chipper these days, aren't they - I want to strangle them).

    Gyppo, hmmm, I see your point, but the more I read about Mr Opik the less I want him to get his mitts on our lovely Transylvanian girls. Especially on their cherished buttocks.... ahh, yes....

    Camilla, welcome again, Mary Hopkin indeed, I wonder how long that lovely blond hair is now. I always felt rather sympathetic to Meibion Glyndwr, but the Sons of Robin Hood would have kicked their butts 'cos they would have been led by Errol Flynn :-)

    Lulu, I can't believe you've never visited NGB's blog - get over there this instant!

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  9. Which bit of South Wales would that be, where young men appreciate the charms of the older woman? (It's May to December btw. Or it is in my case.) I am a virgin when it comes to Wales. If I set foot over the border I would likely be the only one.

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  10. I wonder if this is why the map of Banffshire always reminds me of Harold MacMillian...

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  11. Oh headache. I've got to look everything up...
    Sx

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  12. Steven Kokolin of Pembroke College won the title of Welsh Welder of the Year recently.
    The event was supported by the Welsh Government to encourage welding skills amongst the Welsh. Perhaps Sian could become a welder when she stops forecasting rain over East Anglia.

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  13. The Jules, congratulations on your new-found "sense of place"! (Mrs Boyo, the fancy German word for that again, if you please.)

    Daphers, I don't like to say or the place would be swamped with Saga Holiday buses. Oh but there's plenty of girls in Wales who haven't yet lost their virginity, only outnumbered by those who wish they hadn't bothered!

    Kevin, Banffshire is a rather thin, scrawny-looking shire, isn't it? I can see what you mean.

    Scarley, don't bother looking anything up, just get in a car and go and visit all those places and see them first-hand.

    Alice, well done to Mr Steven Kokolin! (Is he one of your relations, by any chance??) I think welding would be an excellent 2nd career for Sian, but she'd probably then have a kiss-and-tell affair with Mr Kokolin, she's like that.

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  14. This is very informative. I once spent a week's holiday in a caravan in Borth and it rained every single day and there was nothing to do. Borth had a face like Ian MacCaskill.

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  15. Mr Brit, a week in a caravan in Borth is surely a punishment rather than a holiday - kind of like "Chinese water torture" with the sound of the raindrops on the caravan roof!

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  16. I feel that I should stick up for my Celtic fringe cousins, but I'm not very fond of the Welsh. My in-laws used to live there. Maybe that was why.

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  17. Madame, ah yes, the association-by-in-laws curse. But however many gits one meets from a certain place, one still vainly tries to emphasise the positive :-)

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  18. I spent a year in Cleator Moor one week. The town had a face like Charles Laughton on a wet Tuesday.

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  19. Kevin, can one spend time in somewhere called in Cleator Moor? It sounds like an open sort of place - Emily Bronte's novel wasn't set in Wuthering Heights, after all.

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  20. First, thank you for the "meme" -- is that as in, "me!me!" or French "meme"? Whatever, I am most appreciative and most apologetic for only now acknowledging it. And for being unworthy of it -- that, too.

    And here you are, as brilliant as ever. I lack the cultural context, but I somehow feel enlightened.

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  21. Gadjo, I kid you not: Cleator Moor is a downmarket outlier of Whitehaven.

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  22. Ana, dear Ana, welcome back at last! I dunno, "meme" is a fancy new word which is geting bandied about a lot, I suggest you interpret it as you wish :-) Sorry, I've totally forgotten what this particular one was all about.

    Kevin, an "downmarket outlier of Whitehaven", ouch. You'd think they'd rename it like they renamed the nearby Windscale.

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