'he's only saying what people are thinking'

The Golden Glow by Howard Grange on Mixcloud

howard has been busy and has opened up not only a musicians of bremen facebook page - 45 likes so far - and done a podcast of fingerpicking type music - he has promised (on behalf of musicians of bremen) another one in a fortnights time - right then horsemouth better get listening and selecting. similarly howard has filmed a video to go with his tune another world.






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bedwas- trethomas and machen are in the rhymney valley just up the road from caerphilly (next to the rhondda valley - one that people might have heard of - ok the byrds covered the bells of rhymney) - bedwas used to have a coilery (now it has a grassed over slag heap), they all did, and a main road running up through them. when horsemouth was a child the rhymney river ran black with coal dust.

horsemouth's main memory of it, growing up as  a child there  in the 70ies, was that it was pretty fucken poor and pretty fucken white - ok there were a handful of black and asian kids at the school horsemouth went to. UKIP have just deselected their candidate for the by-election there as a result of an investigation by the caerphilly observer. he said in a social media post that immigrants should be gassed but then (as one of his supporters literally said) 'he's only saying what people are thinking'. he has also 'liked' various pages by the EDL(!), britain first etc. and other full-time racists but seeing as he was not a member of these parties this did not stop him from becoming the UKIP candidate.

horsemouth is of course against racism, nationalism, petty chauvinisms etc. - he just regards them as archaic (not in a good way) and stupid.

horsemouth has never understood welsh ukippers - there's no interest in welsh nationalism or plaid cymru or speaking welsh in the valleys but then it's the same as up north of england really, post-industrial, disaffected labour heartland. horsemouth fails to see what wales gets out of being part of the UK (there's EU social fund money but horsemouth guesses that most of that money stays in cardiff anyway) and he really doesn't see what the advantages of 'loyalty' are (or liking a page by the EDL bach) .

horsemouth was 'english' as a child, as were his parents, and his dad worked for the customs, his mum was a teacher - it was a very colonial set up. horsemouth has never gone back. the nearest he comes to it is newport railway station. the rhymney river has allegedly regenerated and is clear and full of wildlife, the old coal carrying railway lines are cycle paths. he suspects that many of his schoolfriends will have gotten out but that most will have stayed. if asked nowadays horsemouth will often claim to be welsh.