Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. This column appears in the South Wales Evening Post, Carmarthen Journal and Llanelli Star. Website – www.philevans.co.uk

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TAKING STEPS TO GET FIT

Last autumn, a friend of mine who (shall we say . . . ) was “a little overweight” told me he’d decided to do something about it.

His timing wasn’t perfect as we were enjoying a meal of chicken tikka masala, onion bhajis, poppadoms and garlic naans.  

It was the weirdest Italian restaurant I’ve ever eaten in.

Rather than take out a gym membership or sign-up for the London Marathon he was going to follow the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of walking 10,000 steps a day.

Last week, I saw him strolling along Fabian Way, Swansea and it was obvious he’d put on weightrather than lost any, so I decided to attract his attention in my usual subtle, diplomatic manner. 

“Oi! Chubster!” I shouted – and, fair dos, his head spun around in my direction.  

I couldn’t shake his right hand as it was gripped around a half-eaten Greggs pastie – and myright hand contained a half-eaten Greggs sausage roll.

I said, “I thought you were going to walk 10,000 steps a day?” as l brushed little flakes of pastry from my chin.

He explained “I intended to. But I couldn’t findonebuildingin this city with 10,000 steps to walk up and down.”

Which sort of made sense…

I did some research into this ‘10,000 steps a day’ idea to see if it was another number randomly picked out of the air like the ‘Five pieces of fruit a day’ advice of a few years back.

It started in 1964 when the Kyushu University Of Health And Welfare in Japan discovered that by walking 10,000 steps a day, a person could walk off 20% of their daily calorie intake. 

So…if we took 50,000 steps a daywe could walk off 100%of our daily calorie intake. 

Trouble is, if we walked 50,000 steps every day, at the end of the first week we’d end up in Hereford.

I wonder if there’s a Greggs there?

…………………. 

Don’t forget it . . . 

I remember the days when you could only get petrol, oil and bags of coal from the local petrol station.

How times have changed!

Today, most petrol stations are as well stocked up as the supermarkets, which is a blessing in more ways than one for many men, especially as St Valentine’s Day is tomorrow!

The last-minute chocolates, cards and flowers can quite often save a relationship.

Having said that, Welsh men are actually quite lucky – we get St Dwynwen’s Day on the 25th January, which I’m convinced was created as a three-week pre-warning just so we don’t forget.

Perish the thought!

Last year, I decided to get that special person in my life some lovely flowers for St Valentine’s Day.

The landlord of my local was quite touched and displayed them in a vase on the bar.

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You can follow Phil Evans on Twitter @philevanswales and www.philevans.co.uk

The Society of Editors has welcomed the central theme of the Cairncross Review into the future of the UK media industry, particularly its focus on the need to protect the reporting of local news.

The Review underscores the importance of high-quality journalism and the role it plays in ensuring a vibrant, working democracy and that such a service is expensive to maintain.

The Society applauds calls set out in the review for the digital giants – Google, Facebook and Apple – to work more constructively with the media industry and proposals to seek new, innovative ways of funding quality news production.

The Society notes recommendations in the review that call for the establishing of a new digital regulator and an Institute for Public Interest News and looks forward to working with the government to ensure that such initiatives do not damage the vibrant and independent media industry in the UK.

“It is extremely gratifying that Dame Frances and her panel have underscored the need to protect and indeed reinvigorate the reporting of local democracy and open justice, areas which have suffered and continue to suffer as the industry contracts,” commented Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray.

 “An enlarging of the present Local Democracy Supporting Service, which sees funds from the BBC supporting around 150 local journalists covering councils, also makes sense, although again there is no indication where such funding would come from and on what scale.

“Crucial to all of the recommendations for what is really state support for the local media industry in particular, are the report’s insistence that bodies such as the proposed Institution are free from political and other interference in deciding what constitutes public interest news worth supporting. The Press in the UK has not fought long and hard to maintain its independence and freedom to then find itself regulated by state-appointed bodies, no matter how well meaning was their original creation.”

The Society welcomes recommendations to extend the current VAT exemption for newspapers to on-line publishers as well as magazines and considering charitable status to assist the industry. 

Dame Frances said she had not been asked to look at the effect of the BBC on the market, but still felt it necessary to call on the broadcaster to work more in partnership with local media to act as complimentary rather than as a competitor to commercial news bodies.

Another of the report’s recommendations called for a regulator to be able to enforce a requirement on digital giants such as Google and Facebook and perhaps Apple to ensure that it is made clearer the sources of news carried on their sites.

“While proposals to ensure genuine news from reliable sources is easier to identify are to be welcomed, this is again an area that if poorly executed could lead to a situation where the digital giants feel obliged to block whole topics of news simply to avoid falling foul of a regulator, “ added Murray.

“We must not see the public’s ability to access fact-based and checked news, whether of public interest or just of interest to the public, reduced through well-intentioned but poorly executed new regulations.”

Full details of the Cairncross Review including a summary of findings and recommendations, can be found by visiting: societyofeditors.org

By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants. The Money Matters column appears in the Pembrokeshire Herald, the Carmarthenshire Herald and the Llanelli Herald newspapers.By Mark Jones, director of Carmarthen-based Clay Shaw Butler chartered accountants and business consultants.

There’s no avoiding the dreaded ‘B’-word nowadays. Brexit issues are dominating the news headlines as the deadline approaches to Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Here at West Wales chartered accountants Clay Shaw Butler we have been keeping a weather eye on the latest consumer and business information from experts across the UK.

Surveys show that British consumers remain gloomy.

The GfK consumer confidence index held at Minus 14 in January, its lowest since July 2013.

Economists taking part in a Reuters news agency poll had expected a slight fall to Minus 15.

Businesses gave a sobering outlook in surveys published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Lloyds Bank.

The GfK survey showed households’ assessment of their personal finances improved due to falling inflation and higher wages and employment.

But their outlook on the economy over the next 12 months was the weakest since December 2011.

“Consumers, companies and corporations thrive on certainty, which is in short supply just before the planned date for the UK’s EU exit,” GfK executive Joe Staton said.

Without a deal that is acceptable to both sides, Britain risks a disorderly exit from the EU on March 29.

The CBI said small businesses reported the sharpest decline in sentiment about exports since the financial crisis, despite above-average output growth in recent months.

“Uncertainty in the domestic and global trading environment is clearly hitting manufacturing SMEs hard, with sentiment falling, concerns over political and economic conditions abroad spiking and investment plans still well down on the past year,” CBI economist Alpesh Paleja said.

Political or economic conditions abroad were named as the biggest challenge to exports over the next three months since the survey began in 1988.

The latest survey by Lloyds Bank showed a small rise in business sentiment this month, after it hit its lowest since June 2016’s Brexit referendum in December.

Meanwhile, British house prices rose by just 0.1 percent in annual terms in January, their weakest increase in nearly six years, adding to signs of a slowdown in the country’s housing market ahead of Brexit.

Data from mortgage lender Nationwide showed the housing market’s loss of momentum reflected the unusually “uncertain economic outlook”.

But the Nationwide said that if the economy grew modestly, house prices on a national level would probably grow “at a slow single-digit pace” in 2019.

In monthly terms, prices rose by 0.3 percent.

Britain’s housing market has slowed since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 when Nationwide estimated house prices were rising by around 5 percent a year.

You can find out more about money matters on the Clay Shaw Butler website (under our news for business section) – 

http://www.clayshawbutler.com/news/latest-news-for-business

We have a strong and experienced team with great local knowledge all geared-up to helping you get the very best from your finances – whether that is as an individual or as a business.

We stay ahead of the game by putting great store by continual professional development for our staff.

With Investors In People status at Clay Shaw Butler, we care passionately about making sure our staff have all the tools they need to serve you, our customers.

Weblink – http://www.clayshawbutler.com

The team at Clay Shaw Butler can be contacted on 01267 228500.

The team at Clay Shaw Butler are on Twitter. Look for @clayshawbutler.

The latest podcast from Phil Evans and Robert Lloyd.

The Big Cwtsh – Episode 40.

Now available on Soundcloud.

Love is in the air at the Jenkins Bakery’s 30 shops across South Wales.

The popular bakery business has launched special products to mark St Valentine’s Day on Thursday, February 14. 

“Love Bugs, special romantic cup cakes, heart-shaped Welsh cakes and Valentine Heart biscuits are just what you need to add that sprinkling of romance to your day,” said Jenkins Bakery operations director Russell Jenkins. 

“2019 seems to be the year when romance is in the air. 

“We’ve already had the saint’s day for the Welsh patron saint of love, Santes Dwynwen, and now the countdown is well and truly on to Valentine’s Day.

“It seems everyone enjoys the chance to have some fun and lighten the mood at this time of the year. St Valentine’s Day gives everyone the opportunity to smile and get in the romantic mood.

“Romance has been high on the agenda here at the Jenkins Bakery as we have been busy showing off our award-winning cake designs to wedding customers.

“Our expert cake decorators love a challenge and they are up to any task demanded by happy couples planning their wedding cake. Planning is everything when it comes to weddings and we’re here to help add that extra-special romantic touch to the big occasion.” 

Here are some the products on offer at Jenkins Bakery shops for St Valentine’s Day-

VALENTINE HEART BISCUITS 

£1.00

Top quality shortbread biscuit and decorated with a sugar paste Valentine heart message.

VIENNESE HEART BISCUITS 

£1.00

Top quality shortbread biscuit with a rope of rich Viennese around the edge and in filled with red piping jelly.

VALENTINE CUP CAKES

£1.10

Our moist red velvet cup-cakes topped with marbled frosting and sugar paste hearts.

CHOCOLATE VALENTINE CUP CAKE

£1.10

Our moist chocolate cup-cakes with marbled frosting and sugar paste heart.

LOVE BUGS

£1.00             

A shortbread biscuit with a light caramel filling covered with milk chocolate and hand decorated .

VALENTINE CHOCOLATE ROLL

95p

Our top quality chocolate Swiss Roll coated with chocolate and decorated with two valentine sugar-paste hearts.

GIFT HEARTSHAPED WELSHCAKES

£1.00

Two gift-wrapped heart-shaped Welsh cakes using our traditional recipe

GIFT VALENTINE SPONGE

£3.75

Our top-quality sponge filled with raspberry jam and buttercream covered in white sugar paste and hand-decorated with red hearts displayed in our clear gift box gift pack.

Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. This column appears in the South Wales Evening Post, Carmarthen Journal and Llanelli Star. Website – www.philevans.co.uk

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THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY – AND SOME PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO TRAVEL THERE!

I was dismayed to learn that the statue in London’s Green Park (commemorating the ultimate sacrifice made in World War Two by members of Bomber Command) had been vandalised – covered in white paint.

The Royal Marine Memorial was also vandalised, as was the memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who, in April 1984, was killed by a bullet fired from the Libyan Embassy in St. James’s Square.

The paint-throwing cowards hid their faces beneath hoods, while they desecrated memorials to heroes who bravely faced danger and death every day.

I can’t imagine the vandals would possess the cool-headed courage that 25-year-old flight engineer Norman Jackson did on a bombing raid over Germany in 1944.

After coming under attack, the starboard wing of his Lancaster bomber caught fire and, despite being wounded by shrapnel, at a height of 22,000 feet he climbed on to the wing with a fireextinguisher!

As the plane travelled at 200 mph it came under further attack, he got badly burnt and fell off the plane, his parachute bursting into flames. 

He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp and was later awarded the Victoria Cross.

There’s a growing tendency today for certain groups to delight in smearing major figures from Britain’s past – some of whom were, admittedly, flawed characters.

However,they were the ones who bravely stepped up to the plate to defend Britain and because they did we live in a country where people can try and rewrite history through 21^stCentury eyes – a futile task!

Ironically, if our war heroes and military leaders hadn’t acted as they did, today’s naysayers wouldn’t have the chance to say nay! 

Despite what happened to him, Norman Jackson was one of the luckier members of Bomber Command. 

55, 573 of the 125,000 lost their lives.

It comes down to this.

Who would you rather have a pint and a chat with – Norman Jackson or a self-important, would-be rewriter of our history?

Discuss…

…………………. 

Love thy neighbour:

As a young lad, I was brought up in the days where everybody in the street on which you lived knew everyone else.

I am sure many of you reading this column can remember this time very well.

The good old days.

However, times have changed and, unfortunately, there are so many of us today that don’t know who lives on the street, or, in some cases, even who lives next door!

Gone are the days when you would pop next door to borrow a cup of sugar or your neighbour would pop in to share their copy of the local paper when they’d finished it.

My grandmother would always make the effort to check on her neighbours and get to know anyone new who moved into the street.

If she were still around today, they’d nickname her “Google”.

Keeping in touch with those around you was second nature.

These were life skills and values that would prove useful for all concerned.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to see this sense of community make a welcome return? 

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You can follow Phil Evans on Twitter @philevanswales and www.philevans.co.uk