I thought you all might like this ! I've just bunged it on here all on its own ... Dwi'n gwallgof!
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So ... if you've devoured the previous posts about how to play Bananagrams, now you are going to see an example game step by step, plus amazing top tactics by me! But first, you will want to admire my new (ish) brilliant Welsh bananagrams set! Notice the clever 12 x 12 arrangement, ensuring that no pieces have fallen down the back of the sideboard. OK ... so now I've flipped them all over and jumbled them all up, and I've picked 21 tiles to get me started ... here they are ..... I decided to go with that lot ... in another universe I might have dumped one or two of the Ws to get 6 extra tiles ... but I like a challenge. I need to make a grid and try to use them all up as quickly as possible ... let's see what I came up with ... note the unusual "double-trwyn" Maybe I could have jumbled them all around to try to get the DD in it as well, but I decided to "dump" the DD and get three more tiles and see if I could slot them in ... let's see what I got ... Try asking yourself what you would have done here... one tactic is to just try to slot them in somewhere quickly and get more letters ... or you can think a bit longer ... maybe even restructure part of your existing grid ... let's see what I did over the next few goes ... So far there hasn't been any restructuring, just adding to my basic framework. Notice that I allow mutated words like REOL ( RHEOL) ... after all, this is all in aid of helping your Welsh, and using and recognising mutated words is essential! That's my excuse anyhow... next slide please, Catrin.. .. Here we are one "go"further on .. I had D, O and I to slot in ... what would you do? And now here we are4 a couple of goes later ... Big changes coming up ... down there you can see that I've taken the big decision to break up the top right section with the top "trwyn" and "flin" section being broken up and the letters used in combination with incomimg letters to create new words elsewhere ... this is one of the exciting parts of Bananagrams ! You've got to be careful though when splitting up big groups not to leave behind and bits that aren't words ... if you get to the finish first but you have left duff non-words in your grid, you are out! By this time I have used 50+ letters ... with three players that would be pretty near the finish. Well, after that gripping development we will take a break ... the rest will come next time... so now here's a spot of music from Eilir Pierce ... Llaeth. There's quite a bit to say about Eilir Pierce actually .. but that is for another time ....
I thought you might like to see a couple of Peppa Pinc episodes ... maybe you've never seen it ( tragedy) or maybe you haven't realised that it's gettable in Welsh ( mega-tragedy). Anyway, here we go ... this one's called Y Fan Wersylla ... Smashing ! So here's another .... this is Marie Mul ... You can watch more of these on the S4C site. If only R S Thomas had lived in the Peppa Pinc era ... he would have learned Welsh a lot quicker! Hey ! I must write something about him.... a true icon. And talking of icons, here's Datblygu with Am ... a fine song .... Have you thought any more about my suggestion that I change the title of the blog to
LEARN WELSH IN 88 YEARS What do you think ? I have good reasons for doing it, you can read them on the previous ( I think) post. A while ago I put a strange-ish bit from Sianel 62 on here ... now here's another one ... you'll have a lot of fun trying to work out what they are all saying ... highly educational. Now remember you lot ... this is FANTASTIC FOR YOUR WELSH ! The thing is, when you talk to "proper" Welsh speakers, you have control over what you are going to say ...so you can keep it simple, you can use your pre-installed starters and general-purpose answers ... no problems! But ... if you can't follow and understand what they say, you're a bit stuck. So listening skills are vital ... and they're important as well. On an entirely different tack, I'm thinking of changing the title of this blog to the more realistic .... LEARN WELSH IN 88 YEARS Maybe a soppy, encouraging title like The Rocky Road to Welsh is a bit of a con ... plus, on a more practical note, there's billions of sites on the net that start with "The Rocky road to" .... but very few that imply that it will take you 88 years to learn something. if you have any thoughts about this ( or, in fact, any thoughts at all) you could comment on the "comment" thingy. That's all assuming that I can actually work out how to change the title in the first place. I do know how to do links though! Here's a few practice ones ... If you want to see my previous " sianel 62" post click on this link ... http://therockyroadtowelsh.weebly.com/blog/film-hanner-cant If, instead, you want to look at two very different versions of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's " Sbia ar y Seren" then click this link ... http://therockyroadtowelsh.weebly.com/blog/a-suggestion So now, on this rainy morning, it's music time with Llwybr Llaethog and Caru Ti Dub ... In this second Bananagrams article I'm going to show you how to get a Welsh Bananagrams set so that you can start playing for yourself. A strange thing happened ... I googled " Welsh Bananagrams " not expecting anything really, and here's what came up ... Just so you know, here's the numbers of each letter I used .... I worked them out by using the published Welsh Scrabble frequencies and multiplied them up .. remembering to take account of there being no blanks in Bananagrams. I then did a bit of rounding-off and mucking about till I got a reasonable set of 144 letters.... which was this .... a14b3c3ch1d9dd6e11f4ff3g4h3i10j1l4ll1m3n11ng1o9p1r10rh1s4t3th3u4w7y10 The J is a waste of bloody space mind you .... Next time I do a bananagrams thing, it will be a "sample game" with tactical advice etc . But now, here's Elin Fflur and Al Lewis doing Hafan..... poor old Al looks like a tiny 6th-former standing next to her and her 20-mile legs! Still, at least he's been let off from wearing his uniform ... but he'll be worried about getting his Geography homework done when he gets home I expect! Not only is that a rather ramshackle home-made Welsh Bananagrams set, it's MY Welsh Bananagrams set! Presumably it's been taken from my previous much-missed * Welsh blog .. the one that strangely disappeared off the face of the internet. It's a sort of "ghost picture." Well, it's saved me rearranging it all back into a square again! More alert viewers will have noticed that the tiles have got Scrabble values .. that's only because I used some of them for Scrabble as well... In the same search I found my "sample game start" which is up at the top there,with my 21 starting tiles made into as preliminary grid... I expect I dumped the other 3 ..... and the final "finished game" picture. What happened to all the others I've no idea. Since all that I've actually made a new set, without Scrabble scores on them, out of high-class card. I used a 12-tile x 12-tile grid with each of the tiles measuring 18 by 20 mm. I then lettered and coloured in all the rectangles and cut them out to get 144 tiles. Here he is on his own, minus the "Ames Room" effect ..... * Well, much-missed by me .... here I am trying to recreate it .... sort of ...
You all know how fantastic interviews are for your Welsh !! It's no use knowing how to answer lots of questions in Welsh if you can't understand what they are asking!! So this is just the sort of practice you need... in the relative comfort of your own house rather than the draughty, rain-soaked streets of Wales. That was an interview with Spoonidols ... featuring a very youthful-looking Dyl Mei ... and underneah there's an interview with a more grown-up version of him ... he's the one on the left there .... Well, the Dyl Mei theme has run out as he seems not to be popular enough to have had many interviews put onto youtube! We will shift on to Gorky's Zygotic Mynci ... here in as incredibly young-looking lot .... ..and now we move on to Duffy ... a real find this one .... she's a really clear speaker too ! ..and now here is GZM with Mewn Rhywogaeth .... A mysterious empty "ghost post" appeared here and I don't know how to get rid of it so I will have to put something in it ! As the excellent Y Ffyrc say in one of their songs ( bylchau), if you've got holes they must be filled in ( rough translation). I know ... I'll put on one of those scurrilous Welsh comedies ... how about a nice episode of C'mon Midffild !!!!! Sorted !! And while we're in "comedy mode" how about a really " so bad it's good" song from Rapsgaliwn !! Pam lai ... Mae Hei Mr Urdd .. Mae dim geiriau gen i ! Is Scrabble too slow and boring for you ? Do you get totally pissed off waiting for all the other idiots to make a word? Do you find all the point-adding a right pain? Is your dinky rack of letters always tipping over? Do you find it difficult to remember all those obscure and, frankly, useless words? If you have said YES to some of those questions, Bananagrams is the word-game for you. I am going to show you how to play it, and what's more, you can play it in Welsh ! It's flaming Terrific For Your Welsh ! So, in this bit, which I like to call part 1, I'm going to show you the nuts and bolts of how to play it in English .... because I'm going to use videos, and they're in blasted English. So here we go ... some neat, entertaining videos which will show you how to play Bananagrams ..... this first one tells you all about it but it's a silent movie for some reason ... no doubt it heps you to concentrate.. ..... ! See all the advantages there folks ... You do your own thing in your own time... no waiting. Your grid of words can be changed around anytime. No points, no adding up. You don't really need obscure words ... well, hardly ever. Speed is the thing! No rack of letters to tip onto the floor. No board for the cat (or dog) to knock over. This second one is a lot more formal and "serious"... but it's only 90 seconds long . One extra thing ... many people think that only taking 1 tile from the bunch is a bit slow.... and I agree .... taking 2 makes the game that little bit zippier ! .... So you're getting the hang of it ... now watch this, my favourite bananagrams video... it not only tells you what to do, but they really show you what fun it is, and they also shows you a few ways to cheat as well... look out for those !!! OK ... I hope you liked those ... my next bananagrams article, when I get around to it, will show you how to assembe your very own Welsh bananagrams set! Oh yes. It will be cunningly entitled Welsh Bananagrams 201.... But now, for your entertainment and education, we will have a listen to a The Joy Formidable song that I haven't heard of before, Tynnu Sylw .... if you don't know about them, well, they mostly sing in English..... check out Whirring, and The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade ... a remarkable band ! Brilliant ! Mae ‘na rym
Sy’n dod a ni at ein gilydd nawr Mae ‘na rym Sydd ond yn ein tynnu ni lawr Mae’r cyswllt wedi dal Y gafael yn gyfartal Anghofia hyn, anghofia’r holl Ddyfaru gynt. Ai dyma’r wers i mi Fy mhen yn llawn o hyd A ‘mreichiau’n syrthio i lawr i’m ochr gwag A welai’r lloer o bell Ei law ar gael i’r gwell Mae heno yn tynnu a’r awr Pryd ddaw y glaw man yn ei ol I dynnu sylw o’r hyn sy’n fy nghof. Pryd ddaw y glaw atai yn ol I olchi’r dagrau yn ol tua’r mor Allwn chwilio On fe gollom yr harddwch yn y foment hon Allwn chwilio Ond mae’r gorwel anweledig dros y fron Yn tynny sylw Troi Gweld mor bell Mor bell mae’r teimlad Wedi mynd ar gefn y llun Diflannu yn y cynnwrf hyn Llithro I ddiwedd y ffordd Yn dryloyw yn y pwll where I see myself. Sorry about the unrotated image ... it said it had rotated it, and it looked the right way up on the preview, but it isn't ! A while ago I wrote about SGLEIN ... it used to be a Welsh radio programme, and every so often various talks from it would be collected into a book ...a bit like The Best of Woman's Hour in a way. I got one of these collections very cheaply from the 2nd-hand bookshelves in the visitor centre at Chirk Castle a while ago. I was more interested in the chunk of Offa's Dyke nearby but the castle was also impressive. One of the most fascinating and remarkable things about this excellent collection was the little "personal statements" by the various authors..... so I put a few of them at the end of the post as a "for instance." I suggest you click the link to have a look at them, and then come back here ... off you go then ... http://therockyroadtowelsh.weebly.com/blog/sglein OK ... I hope you enjoyed that little excursion into the past ... I hope you were diverted by those little pieces that each of the authors wrote ... now I'm going to show you some more of them, and I hope you find them, er, diddorol, rhyfedd, hudol .... there are loads, you see, so I'm only doing a few at a time. ... dyna ni .. ISLWYN FFOWC ELLIS, Llanbedr Pont Steffan "Ghost writer" Lleifior Dau. Yn wahanol i Clinton, gwrthododd fynd i'r Ty Gwyn. MEG ELLIS, Waunfawr. Enaid aflonydd? Un sy'n troi a throsi. MEGAN MORRIS, Bangor Er byw yn Gordon Terrace, Ceredigion yw ei hymerodraeth. ALED LLOYD DAVIES, Yr Wyddgrug Y Doctor parod ei Gyngor Eisteddfodol. T. LLEW JONES, Pontgarreg "... ac os o gryfder y cyrhaeddir pedwar ugain mlynedd ... " ROBIN WILLIAMS, Rhoslan Robin Hwd Bro Dwyfor. JOHN GWILYM JONES, Bangor Little John yr Orsedd ym Mro Dinefwr. ELIN MAIR, Llanuwchllyn Un o famau fro mwya diwylliedig. JOHN OGWEN, Bangor Bardd. Tae o'n Llydawr byddai'n Fardd Mawr. Un sy'n rhy hoff o Git Cat a Gwin Riwbob i gyrraedd llawr ucha'r Twr. Well, I hope you found that diverting ... plenty more to come I think... And now, the music is going to be Cate le Bon with the lovely Mas, mas ... ... As many of you probably know, Cate has a sideline in magic and has made a fortune with her "Big Egg" trick which to this day has totally mystified everyone who has seen it... including many professional magicians.
That Welsh pop music programme on't radio .. Gareth Gwynne's Little Welsh Rock Programme" or whatever it was called, was very interesting... all the usual suspects were referenced ( that's "dragged up" to you) , and it was pretty funny too. Well... there was one startling revelation that I could hardly believe. Oh yes! He said ... I kid you not ... that in his box set of Datblygu CDs ( Wyau, Pyst and Libertino) there was ... wait for it ... have a stiff drink ready .... there was ... A booklet with all the lyrics translated into English !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beth yn y Byd !!! Briwsion !!!! Rarglwyd !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have written at length about the dire lack of what I like to call "the words" for Welsh songs, which I have proved completely with a terrific and ingenious bar chart made of actual Welsh CDs and CDs in English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. I also developed a stunning theory about it ... I think, wait for it .. that the writers of Welsh-language songs don't want us poor Welsh Learners to know what they are singing ... they want to keep their language to themselves. Hah ! Of course, I could be wrong. So ... I was utterly stunned to hear that Datblygu, of all the bands in the world, should have ... I'm going to write it again.. included a booklet of English lyrics. I had to go onto the net to see if this was true... after a bit of a lie down... ... you see, I bought Wyau and Pyst, but not Libertino....us Northerners can't really afford the massive lump sum required to buy box sets of things...and if it ever got out that we had such things we would be shunned and ostracised by our fellow Northerners.. so I haven't got that amazing booklet. I feel a right fool now! Anyway, here's what I found in a review by James W Roberts ... The grainy photo of David R. Edwards on a ramshackle stage in front of six punters speaks volumes. The leader of Datblygu chose defiance as a career option and stuck to it, thankfully producing five albums, three of which are available here in one lushly packaged box with translated lyrics booklet. Datblygu's legacy is well documented and 1988's Wyau is where their uncompromising aesthetic was set. The album has shards of No Wave clattering amidst the eerie claustrophobia of Edwards' commanding and strangely graceful rant. Released two years later, Pyst continues the bleak, social analysis of Edwards, with the band's sound fleshed out by the funeral strings of Mas A Lawr and the poppy Fall-esque Cymryd Mewn Sioe. With a myriad of unique styles and sounds lurching from the chaotic to the sparse country tinged beauty of Ugain I Un, Edwards' beguiling lyrics prove a gem for Welsh and non-Welsh speakers alike. Datblygu's swansong Libertino brims with vitriol and seemingly a clash of every musical sound the band ever witnessed. Edward's rants are superb, increasingly stirring as the music gathers momentum on Gazpacho, or the eloquent synth-driven Can I Gymry. Musically, Libertino possesses more focus than Wyau and Pyst, including the excellent political surrealism of Maes E and Hei George Orwell. This reissue is a superb introduction to a band that don't simply fulfil a quota, but emerge as on of Britain's most inventive and unique bands. It also serves as both necessary posterity and a blueprint for the future. So .. it's true !!! But there's a big but ... maybe my theory will still hold true ... perhaps a clever trick has been played. Could it be that these so-called translations are nothing of the sort ... merely a load of old tripe that have nothing to do with the actual Welsh lyrics ... the review doesn't actually say that the Welsh words were there as well. What a brilliant thing to do. As it happens, I've worked out what quite a few of Datblygu's lyrics actually are, so all I have to do now is get hold of the translations and expose the entire April Fool sort of thing to the waiting nation. What scoop for the Western Mail. And here's another thing ... what sort of word is" lushly " ? I'll have to ask for the bloody thing for my birthday, if I ever reach it, and package the 3 CDs separately in old GZM sleeves to avoid detection. It's the only way I'm going to find out the truth and get my own copy of the magic, almost mythical booklet. I suppose a bit of Datblygu music will be good now ... helbulon ... and just in case you haven't noticed, I do actually love them really ... yes, I'm a soppy old Hector ! and now ... some old-fashioned typewriting for you .... oh, those good old days eh !!??
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Author I'm 376 years old,104 metres tall and own 54 pairs of binoculars. Apart from that, I'm pretty normal. Archives
October 2019
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