You can’t change the weather but you can adapt and change your form of transport…
In the village of Penywaun, a few miles north of Aberdare, most of the village lanes and side-streets are snowed under making driving conditions very difficult.
That’s where four legs come in much handier than two legs or even four tyres.
Out of sight out of mind at Hirwaun Industrial Estate… we photograph the informal landfill site.
Building and household waste, electrical equipment such as fridge and vacuum cleaner, clothes, you name it, it’s being dumped in this corner of Hirwaun Industrial Estate.
According to WorkNotPlay : “This video was made entirely of photographs. We used a lot of make-up and airbrush, both on the artist and the background to create visual effects. It’s basically lazy stop-motion, cut to the excellent remix by the Incoherent Mumble Train, featuring fantastic facial expressions by Calendar Girl, with airbrush by Superalot.”
Every year, around 114,000 smokers in the UK die as a result of their addiction
Smoking kills around six times more people in the UK than road traffic accidents (3,439), other accidents (8,579), poisoning and overdose (881), alcoholic liver disease (5,121), murder and manslaughter (513), suicide (4,066), and HIV infection (234) all put together (22,833 in total - 2002 figures).
Smoking causes thirty per cent of all cancer deaths (including at least 84% of lung cancer deaths), 17% of all heart disease deaths and at least 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema.
Stopping smoking reduces this excess risk – stopping before age 35 can reduce a smoker’s health risks to the same as those of a life-long non-smoker
To save on unnecessary use of heating, they have decided to hold all their Constituency meetings in a Telephone Box in Mountain Ash.
Dr Richard Wyn Jones from Aberystwyth University claimed some of the credit for Plaid Cymru’s innovation in Cynon Valley. “I would have preferred a small four-person tent as I advise in my recent book, but a telephone box is a good start.”
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You have to dig deep and hard to find any news story concerning Plaid Cymru holding a good old-fashioned public meeting in Aberdare. This was taken from the Aberdare Leader, March 10th, 1977
Plaid in Public
Plaid Cymru are holding a public meeting in Aberdare this saturday as part of a nation-wide campaign, following the defeat of the guillotine motion on the Devolution Bill.
The speakers will be Mr Dafydd Elis Thomas, MP, Mr Phil Richards, prospective parliamentary candidate for Aberdare, and Mr Harri Webb, the poet and former librarian at Mountain Ash.
The meeting takes place at the Palladium, starting at 2pm.
On the eve of the Welsh Assembly elections the Cynon Valley is an interesting ‘political laboratory’ to observe how elites operate. Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) would be particularly amused working in this ‘lab’ as many of his theories concern how elites function.
The current Labour Assembly Member in Cynon Valley faces no opposition, instead there is a pretense of opposition, a ’show’ put on for the ignorant masses : the occasional gesture here, a brief letter published there, a chattering blog yonder, and maybe even a trifling press release as dessert.
If you blink, you will miss it.
It is Democracy-Light and it might look and sound like democracy, but it is not the real thing and ultimately it leads to dissatisfaction and an alienated electorate who see no reason in voting.
This is a desired feature of the system. The lack of interest in democracy leaves the elites - and Vilfredo Pareto would agree - to squabble amongst themselves.
The Aberdare Blog ‘limousine’ took at least half an hour to de-frost this morning.
It’s brrrrrr….. blinking cold in Aberdare today, near freezing temperatures for most of the day.
We spent a few hours brainstorming for a suitable image and phrase to describe the weather this week, and we came up with “a witch’s tit” and a snapshot of the Aberdare Blog-mobile windscreen.
Dear Reader, we spare no expenses in the quest to bring you only the very best from Aberdare.
Today is Buy Nothing Day 2006. It’s a day to switch off from shopping and live more. It’s a chance to opt out of the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy albeit for just one day in the year. And most importantly it is a day to ask yourself serious questions and reflect on how you live your life.
Here’s a challenge… Choose a day of Voluntary Simplicity.
Opt out of shopping, spending, buying, consuming for just one day.
The trial of Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi High Tribunal for crimes against humanity was marred by so many procedural and substantive flaws that the verdict is unsound, Human Rights Watchsaid in a 97-page report released today.
“The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair,” said Nehal Bhuta of Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The tribunal squandered an important opportunity to deliver credible justice to the people of Iraq. And its imposition of the death penalty after an unfair trial is indefensible.”
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty as inherently inhumane punishment and says that executing Hussein while other trials are ongoing will also deprive many thousands of victims of their day in court.