No Surface All Feeling

What a song. As you can probably tell, I've tapped into the Manics again. Big time. Review of the new album coming soon!

Yesterday I finally broke through what has been an inpenetrable barrier for weeks and weeks - I have actually been called back by a company for a further assessment for a job vacancy. It was for a graduate trainee job at the Vale of Glamorgan council, and I am glad because it was one of the main jobs I really wanted. It was the assessment centre day yesterday and I am hopeful to get to the next stage, the interview. Here's my fingers crossed - but if anaything, at least I have the confidence I once had instilled back into me. There was a time where I honestly thought no-one was even giving me a chance, but now I hope that with this opportunity I will go on and work harder at improving my approach to vacancies in the event of not making the grade here.

This is a post in dedication of Dale who requested that I write another blog as it has 'been a while' and I should take the plunge and go 'daily'. I have a lot of respect for those people who regularly maintain their blogs on a daily basis, but I just can't do it! I know I have discussed the role of my blog on One Man once before but I just don't 'blog' like that. I try to post every week without fail, mainly with an anecdote of the past seven days or maybe some topic I have been thinking about which I a particular urge to write about. I'm sorry Dale, as much as it has indeed helped with the TTFE history project, I just cannot do what you do with an log of every day events!

One topic which has got me down was the announcement that the 'rainbow coalition' in Cardiff Bay has been shot down by the Lib Dems. Lembit Opik... oh wait not him, despite being the Welsh Leader of the Liberal Democrats he is an MP... Mike German, announced late last night that the party's interests now lie in the opposition and not in government. Even as a conservative, I did think that the rainbow was the way to go - Welsh politics needs to enter a new era after eight years of pitiful Labour rule at Crickhowell House. Now it looks like Mr Morgan will get his throne and septor back, we can look towards another four years of pitiful rule. Thanks a lot! If one good thing has come of this it is the Conservatives renewed attitude of the Welsh Assembly. Their unanimous decision to support the coalition is an example that the Welsh Conservatives have finally come around to the idea of the assembly, and that it is here to say. As a real advocate of Welsh devolution this can only be a good thing for Welsh politics and the healing of a Welsh Conservative party in a land still scarred by Thatcher.

Before I get any stick concerning the 2007 Champions Legaue Final I will get in first - it took a deflection to beat us? C'mon, we dominated the game! We just didn't take our chances and maybe Bellers should have had a go. But I do concede that Pippo was on fire last night and his second goal was pretty sweet. Just like revenge really.

To end this 'weekly' post I feel that in the spirit of the filming of the 'The Edge of Love' in New Quay (yes there is a space, I'm talking about the Welsh one in Ceredigion!) I should really pay homage to Dylan Thomas, one of Wales' finest poets. You may have heard that beauties Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley have recently been in the coastal town filming for the new film, based on the love triangle which surrounded the fine wordsmith. So here for your literary pleasure, here is a poem from Thomas which I particularly enjoy:

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To Others than You

Friend by enemy I call you out.

You with a bad coin in your socket,
You my friend there with a winning air
Who palmed the lie on me when you looked
Brassily at my shyest secret,
Enticed with twinkling bits of the eye
Till the sweet tooth of my love bit dry,
Rasped at last, and I stumbled and sucked,
Whom now I conjure to stand as thief
In the memory worked by mirrors,
With unforgettably smiling act,
Quickness of hand in the velvet glove
And my whole heart under your hammer,
Were once such a creature, so gay and frank
A desireless familiar
I never thought to utter or think
While you displaced a truth in the air,

That thought I loved them for their faults
As much as for their good,
My friends were enemies on stilts
With their heads in a cunning cloud.

By Dylan Thomas