BUCKLE-UP! It’s time to get controversial and venture into the swamplands.

In a journalism career spanning nearly 50 years, I have often wondered about the stupidity of some members of the population.

An early example came when reporting on a case at Swansea Magistrates’ Court.

Picture the scene: a burglary case, the two defendants (two brothers) are in the dock, handcuffed to each other.

They hatched a plan to escape, climb out of the dock, barge through assorted policemen and court officials and make their way out into Grove Place.

The escape plan started to creak when the duo decided not to race from the court on relatively flat terrain, but, instead, opted for the sharp climb up Mount Pleasant.

Being fit young lads they were, however, still going at a decent sub-Olympic pace as they approached a metal lamp-post.

Yes, you guessed it, one defendant opted to go left, the other decided to go right.

Result? A victory for the lamp-post, two broken wrists and two very sad looking defendants escorted back to the court room.

Recent weeks have seen me pondering the stupidity of various yobs who seem to have been on a nationwide tour of police-baiting, violent disorder, looting anti-Islamic and anti-immigration protests.

The riots and protests bear no connection whatsoever to the tragic deaths in Southport, but many seem to have used that event to light the blue touch paper on disturbances which have horrified most law-abiding citizens in the UK.

One case arising from the ‘protests’ caught my eye – two men who took part in the violent disorder in Plymouth city centre.

John Cann, aged 51, and Ryan Bailey, 41, both pleaded guilty to violent disorder at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court and were jailed.

Judge Robert Linford didn’t hold back in his sentencing remarks.

The Judge told Cann that during police interview he claimed the protests were about “an immigrant that had killed girls”.

Judge Linford noted that the judge in Liverpool who dealt with the alleged perpetrator of the (Southport) attacks “took the unusual step of naming him in an attempt to show people that the person in question was not an immigrant – but they [other rioters] and you didn’t really care about that. It was just an excuse to go out and have a go at people with whose views you disagree.”

Judge Linford rounded on Cann, telling him that according to his police interview he discussed with them “about the better use of taxpayers’ money and why people were having to pay to keep ‘these’ people in this country after committing such heinous crimes.”

Judge Linford added: “So, let’s look at how the taxpayer has been funding your activities over the last 38 years – let’s see what you’ve cost the country . . .

“You’ve got 10 aliases, four fictitious birth dates, you’re 51 years of age, you’ve been convicted of 170 offences, you’ve been convicted of theft, arson, taking cars, handling stolen goods, obtaining by deception, burglary, dangerous driving and possessing bladed articles.

“In all, over the years that you’ve been visiting the criminal justice system, you’ve received sentences totalling 357 months in prison, many of them concurrent. In other words, nearly 30 years.

“That, Mr Cann, is what you’ve been costing this country . . . and you sit there in that interview and saw fit to be critical of others. You have no right whatever to say who should or should not be in this country.”

To Bailey, Judge Linford said he had 29 convictions for 39 offences, including theft, criminal damage, possession of drugs, supply of class A drugs, threatening behaviour, breach of a Domestic Violence Protection Order and robbery “and you were chanting with the rest of that rabble about immigration”.

“You two were in no position to judge anybody.”

Judge Robert Linford sounds like my sort of Judge. Perhaps we need a few more strong speeches from our justices, reported swiftly and accurately by bona fide media up and down the land.

Stupidity will be one factor in recent events. Another factor will be the willingness of some people to believe every conspiracy theory under the sun.

This problem was well described by the much-admired journalist Helen Lewis in the most recent episode of Page 94 – the podcast of the Private Eye magazine.

Helen put the spotlight on misinformation, particularly on social media.

She said: “What’s interesting to me about that is so often the people peddling this misinformation aren’t kind of dispossessed and marginalised people. They’re actually very comfortable little people, often top end of ‘Gen X’, lower end of Baby Boomers, who’ve lived through periods of peace and prosperity and stability in their own lives.

“Actually, in their own day to day lives, you wouldn’t say they’re kind of economically struggling.

“We have to talk about the fact that lots of middle-class, middle-aged people spent a bit too much time online during Covid (pandemic).

“These days, you don’t just end up falling for one of these kind of tropes (conspiracy theories).

“You become a (cornonavirus) lockdown sceptic, which leads into a vaccine sceptic, which leads into you’re worried about the World Economic Forum (WEF), making us all the insects, or you’re worried about ‘15-minute cities’.

“And then you’re worried about MK Ultra and thought experiments. And then you’re worried about contrails. And then you’re worried about whether or not ‘they’ are controlling the weather.”

Helen Lewis added: “What’s interesting is that people end up drifting from one bit to another. All of these kind of different islands of conspiracism are kind of connected to each other.”

It was the American journalist Brian Stelter who said: “You can convince yourself of just about anything when you want to believe a conspiracy theory.”

So, make your mind up – Is 21^st century man (or woman, or non-gender specific human, for that matter) being influenced by wild conspiracy theories fuelled by social media?

Or is it just an outbreak of stupidity?

I know what gets my vote.

Twitter: @rlloydpr

Email: robertlloydpr@rlloydpr.co.uk

This year’s Carmarthen River Festival will take place on Saturday, August 17.

The fun-filled day at the town’s Quayside will start at 3pm and run into the early evening.

And for the first time in its history, the perennial summer favourite will end with a rubber duck race.

The festival has been staple of the town’s summer calendar for many years and organisers are hoping for bumper crowds yet again.

The event had to be postponed from July 20 because of bad weather.

Phil Grice, chairman of the Carmarthen Riverside Association, which organises the festival, said: “A new addition this year will be a rubber duck race of 5,000 ducks. All the usual fun activities will be available on the river and on the riverside including the coracles, boat trips, ice creams and other foods.

“However, given recent concerns about river water quality, the lilo (inflatables) race may not go ahead this year, the organisers will decide closer to the date.”

Mr Grice added: “The river festival has been a popular event, supported by the town council, and we hope this year’s will to continue to provide a fun afternoon by the river for young and old.

“The festival represents a real celebration of the river and its importance to the town over the years. We hope to see many people at the festival once again this year, it’s a fun event for all the family.”

The association is hoping for sponsorship from local businesses and organisations, and any possible sponsors can get in touch with Jenny Fox at the town council offices in Nott Square on 01267 235199.

THE perils of social media, eh? You could probably write a decent 80,000-word PhD thesis on the topic.

Your dissertation could include chapters such as ‘How social media left me with egg on my face’ and ‘Is social media a dangerous tool for mobilising mob violence?’

At this stage, you can relax; you are only going to get a few hundred words on the subject, not a full-blown thesis.

One thing I have learned (from bitter personal experience) is that social media is – 1. Not very ‘social’. 2. Not very representative of the bona fide ‘media’.

In various places, I have seen ‘social media’ described as digital technology that allows the sharing of ideas and information, including text and visuals, through virtual networks and communities.

In no definition have I seen the words ‘everything on social media is true, please suck it up at your leisure and pleasure with no need to research ‘the truth’.

The following ‘observations’ (I prefer that word to ‘arguments’) will be random . . .

For example, let’s take the example of the danger of the ‘quick click’ response.

Many moons ago (in the pre-electronic age which this old hack still remembers well), we didn’t have to worry about giving ‘instant responses’.

We could root around, do some research and then give a considered response to an issue or an allegation.

When the new-fangled electronic mail (email) arrived in the office, one of my early blunders involved giving an instant reaction to a problem in work and firing off an incendiary response to a colleague.

My secretary at the time, the much-missed Kathy Holford, gave me a decent lecture on the need to research issues, pen a response . . . and then sit on it for 24 hours to allow perspective and context to do their work. It was advice I followed for the rest of my career.

Weather presenter Siân Lloyd has this week reaped the whirlwind of the dreaded ‘quick click’ response. She has issued a sincere apology to a north Wales pub after claiming her friends were ejected for singing in Welsh.

The 66-year-old took to her X (Twitter) account to voice her “utter mortification” over the “hostility and prejudice” that followed her initial remarks.

In now-deleted posts, she had described it as “scarcely credible such a frightful pub exists in Cymru”, following an incident at The Blue Bell in Conwy, where a group of people was asked to leave.

Her call for a boycott led to the pub’s tenants experiencing “xenophobic nationalist messages, calls to ruin our business, fake reviews and concerning hints at violence”.

The presenter retracted her statements after the landlord, Jared Dunn, clarified the situation. He said that a group of about 30 individuals had become “loud and intimidating to families and diners”.

Despite being repeatedly asked to cease their behaviour, they “aggressively carried on with chanting and singing”, Mr Dunn said.

The pub addressed the issue on social media, stating: ‘We don’t care whether you sing in English, Welsh, Chinese or Russian; if you’re asked to stop and you don’t, you’ll be asked to leave.’

Siân sought to calm the situation by releasing an extensive statement online, expressing regret for the mistreatment of pub staff.

Her statement said: “It goes without saying that I would urge people to get a grip and stop such hate behaviour immediately. I genuinely thought my original post was defending the Welsh language, and fairly tongue in cheek, hoping to start a conversation, hence the question mark and emoji.

“Clearly, I misjudged the situation, as well as the mood, and that did not happen. I was wrong and I stand corrected.

“What I was told about the incident now appears not to be the full story. At the end of the day, I was not there and should not have reacted so instinctively and defensively upon hearsay.

“For that, my sincere apologies. What kind of journalist am I?!”

One of the surprising things to emerge from all this is that Siân now describes herself as a ‘journalist’.

But I have come to realise that old hacks like me no longer have ownership of the word ‘journalist’.

In this world of mobile phones brim-full with assorted technology and apps, it appears that everyone can call themselves a journalist and happily reduce the currency value of the word.

Those of us who took part in recognised three-year apprenticeships or industry-recognised journalism courses no longer have ‘sole rights’ to be called journalists.

The average ‘Joe Journalist’ who sets himself up online today will not have completed his 100 words per minute shorthand test, exams in public administration and law and arduous theoretical and on-the-job training in writing impartial stories which are fair and accurate.

Probably, the most topical example of a social media journalist today is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by the name of Tommy Robinson and has now been given a worldwide platform by Elon Musk’s X.

Yaxley-Lennon has spent much of this week moaning about the mainstream media (usually traditional newspapers, TV and radio outlets) ‘ruining’ his family holiday in Cyprus.

Close observation of Yaxley-Lennon’s week on X shows him doing red-faced, ranting selfie videos on the way to and from the pool and gym. In one video, he both rants and chews his way through a lamb dinner.

On Tuesday, I counted some 47 tweets from Yaxley-Lennon’s X account. That figure is not exceptional, and he’s been averaging close to 50 posts per day for the duration of his holiday.

I have a tip for Yaxley-Lennon – and it’s one which (as a responsible, loving dad) I always followed on family holidays.

The tip? Switch the phone off. Spend some quality time with your family (if you care so much about them).

PS: Don’t video yourself chewing food with your mouth open. It’s not a good look.

Twitter: @rlloydpr

Email: robertlloydpr@rlloydpr.co.uk

IT’S a long story, but today I should have been working at the Palace of Versailles, a very long hop, skip and a jump from the Olympics city of Paris.

The team of volunteers preparing for next week’s modern pentathlon events at the palace will have to get by without me.

Regular readers will recall that I have a long love affair with the Olympics, having worked a volunteer at London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016.

Tokyo (2020/2021) was lost in the haze of coronavirus, but I was offered a place to join the team at Versailles for the Paris Games.

Sadly, the logistics and accommodation hoops were too difficult to jump through this time. I dare say, the modern pentathlon will go off without a hitch – even without my help!

But any Olympics is a good excuse for a trip down memory lane – and I was nudged this week by the excellent Swansea Past and Present site on Facebook.

They mentioned Jack and Pat Whitford (remember Whitfords, the shoe shop in Mumbles?), who represented Great Britain at the Olympics in the 1940s and ’50s.

Husband and wife Olympians are as rare as hen’s teeth, so it’s worth recalling their story.

Sadly, Jack and Pat are no longer with us. Jack died in 2023 at the age of 99. Pat died in 2020, aged 93. The couple were married for more than 70 years.

Jack was part of the British gymnastics squad at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.

Jack had been selected to compete at the 1948 London Games (as team captain), but he couldn’t compete after breaking his arm.

Pat did represent Great Britain at the 1948 London games – and remarkably (as the Evening Post recorded at the time), she was one of seven Swansea gymnasts in a team coached by Jack’s brother, Arthur.

Speaking in 2018, Jack and Pat’s daughter, Ros, said: “They did a lot of their training in a gym which had been built in dad’s back garden.

“It was called The Sketty Gym, which was where they met. Swansea was a small place back then, and everybody knew everybody.”

In 2012, the couple were invited to attend the London 2012 Olympics.

Pat proudly wore her team jacket from 1948, which sparked a lot of interest among gymnasts and sports fans.

What a remarkable couple! Jack and Pat’s story should help inspire the next generation of Olympic gymnasts and athletes.

Any takers for trying to beat that 1948 record of seven Swansea gymnasts in an Olympics team?

Time for the youngsters to start training for Los Angeles 2028!

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IN the ‘club’ of people who regularly contribute to this fine newspaper, they are two of my favourite people.

Evening Post readers have long been admirers of the work of award-winning freelance photographer Joann Randles. And they also enjoy reading the work of Jim Young, better known to many of us by a small hatful of ‘aliases’ – Jim The Poet, Jim The Swim, The Pebble Banksy and The Pebble Poet.

Now, the photographer and writer have teamed up to produce a short YouTube documentary called The Pebble Poet.

Grab yourself a coffee or a tea (after you’ve finished reading your Post, of course) and settle down to watch it. It’s a delightful combination of words and well-crafted video.

Jim, now 75 years young, is a regular fixture at Rotherslade Bay beach, Gower, where he swims most days – whatever the weather.

Visitors to Rotherslade will often find some of Jim’s short poems, etched on pebbles and left on benches.

Many of Jim’s poems are in the form of a ‘haiku’, a short, un-rhymed, verse form of poetry which originated in Japan.

As Jim says in Joann’s film, “I write almost a poem every day; they flow out of me. I am dead scared of stopping. It’s like tapping a furnace for molten metal. I’m afraid to stop in case I can’t start up again.”

Jim is also a keen user of the social media platform we now have to call ‘X’. You can find him by searching for @BaitTheLines

To view the video on YouTube, search for The Pebble Poet | Full Documentary on the Cover Images channel.

There is a short link to the documentary here – https://shorturl.at/55Ocw

Enjoy!

• Finally, I’m looking for some assistance from readers who know a thing or two about fish and chip shop cuisine. Looking down the menu board at The Roma in Penclawdd this week, I was puzzled by the offer of Irish Curry or Chinese Curry. The staff were too busy to be disturbed with such trivia, but I did wonder: what’s the difference between Irish Curry and Chinese Curry? Answers to my email please!

Twitter: @rlloydpr

Email: robertlloydpr@rlloydpr.co.uk

Underground educators in war-torn Myanmar are using community storytelling to recapture their histories and celebrate ethnic identities, thanks to a project led by an Aberystwyth University academic.

Dr Yi Li, a historian of modern Southeast Asia, is working with community educators in Myanmar’s marginalised ethnic schools and community schools for refugee children on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border.

Education in Myanmar has been significantly interrupted since the military coup d’état in February 2021 and the continuing conflict between the military junta and the resistance forces.

It is estimated that only 22% of eligible students are enrolled in high school level studies in the country.

Dr Li, from the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University said:

“The education crisis in Myanmar is particularly acute in ethnic autonomous areas such as the Karenni region, where a third of the population has been displaced with no access to formal education, and students and teachers are unable or unwilling to attend military-run schools.

“Our project is cooperating with an existing community-based network to continue providing emergency education to grassroots schools and informal classrooms in the conflict zones with limited resources.”

The year-long project aims to combat political instability and cultural fragility in Myanmar by encouraging teachers to make use of community storytelling as an educational approach. 

The project team has run an online teacher training programme for community educators based in Myanmar or exiled in Thailand, and facilitated a four-day educational workshop in Chiang Mai University in Thailand. 

The programme and workshop enabled the trainees to experience storytelling and place-based learning, and demonstrated how community storytelling could capture their own histories in the oral tradition, as well as lead to the creation of alternative teaching materials that celebrate ethnic identities.

Dr Li added: “By training teachers to explore community storytelling as an alternative learning method, and engaging cross-generational community participation, we aim to preserve endangered local memories of many ethnic communities, independent from the junta’s discourses.”

The project team is producing a teacher’s handbook with syllabus and advice for place-based storytelling training methods, intended for release in English and Burmese later this year.

In addition, the project team is working on an illustrated storybook containing community stories narrated through the workshops that have taken place to date.

Dr Li is working in partnership with Tharaphi Than, Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Northern Illinois University; Surajit Sarkar, Curator at Kerala Museum, Kochi (India) and Jyothi Thrivikraman, Assistant Professor at Leiden University College the Hague, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (Netherlands).

The project has been funded by a Knowledge Exchange Award from Aberystwyth University and Humanities Across Borders.

Photo:  Credit: Karenni Praru

CAN I ASK IF OVERUSED EXPRESSIONS HAPPEN FOR A REASON?

There are many expressions that people use, that when you pause to think about them, are completely meaningless.

A prime example is a six-word sentence that, if there was a competition to find the most pointless six-word sentence of all time, would win the top prize. Which of course would have to be something equally pointless.

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard your friends, colleagues and relatives use it occasionally and you may well be ‘guilty’ of it, too.

And it’s this . . .

“Can I ask you a question?”

Whenever anyone says that to me, I want to say (politely, naturally!), “You do realise that by pre-empting asking me a question by asking me if you can ask me a question, you’ve already asked me a question?”

By the time they’ve mulled over and absorbed the logic of the question I’ve asked them, they’ve usually forgotten the question they’d asked me if  they could ask me.

One of the most pointless sentences of modern times – and one I just can’t buy – has to be “Everything happens for a reason”.

Really?

People often use that expression to comfort themselves or the people around them when something bad occurs.

I understand that. But when you look around the world, at what’s happening in conflicts and natural disasters – how can anyone honestly believe they happen ‘for a reason’?

The line “Can I ask you a question?” turns up in films and TV dramas as often as “Try and get some rest!”

Whether it’s romantic dramas, thrillers, westerns, cop shows or soaps, the line invariably pops up somewhere.

I’m suddenly reminded of a story I read years ago about a group of successful Hollywood writers who decided, as an in-joke, to always put “Try and get some rest” in all their scripts.

Then they’d have an annual get together and toast the writer who’d managed to shoe-horn the line into the most unlikeliest scene.

Maybe something like…

“Great King of Thebes. I have just slain the three-headed Hydra . . . battled the Cyclops . . . and destroyed the Thracian army!”

“Well done, Hercules. Now try and get some rest!”

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Holiday Costs Skyrocket, Leaving Parents Bewildered and Broke!

In a shocking twist, holiday prices have once again shot through the roof, leaving families across the country unable to afford quality time together.

It’s no secret that during peak school holiday periods, the price of a getaway can be a jaw-dropping two to six times higher than usual.

It’s a blatant act of exploitation that has the majority of the public up in arms. And who can blame them?

Desperate to make magical memories, many parents find themselves drowning in debt, burdened with exorbitant interest rates for the mere privilege of borrowing money for a much-needed break.

It’s an additional expense on top of an already-inflated holiday budget.

Gone are the days when families would embark on adventurous trips to Porthcawl and Barry Island during the miners’ fortnight.

Those old, musty caravans, where the whole clan had to trek half a mile for a toilet visit and endure a chilly shower, are now a distant memory.

Let’s not forget the arduous task of lugging around water butts just to have a cup of tea, coffee, or squash. And, to top it all off, it seemed like it rained more often than not!

But, believe it or not, those two weeks in Wales taught us valuable lessons in outdoor survival and even prepared us for the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh Award.

While I can’t say I miss those challenging times, I’m sure many of our readers would agree that they were truly character-building experiences that have left us with incredible stories and memories to share with the younger generation.

So, let’s raise our glasses to the good old days of adventure and resilience, and hope that one day, affordable family holidays will be within reach again!”

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Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy.

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