This is not a movie of Ben, but if he’d been offered the part I am sure he’d have accepted!

This is Ben

I think he’s the most beautiful Labrador in Cardiff, Wales, UK, the world!

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I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to the arts, never quite “getting it” when it comes to telling a story through song. But last night I went to see Les Miserables in the Wales Millennium Centre and it was truly fantastic.

Story telling through song is a bit beyond me, but some of the well known numbers were beautifully delivered and quite moving. But I was blown away by the lighting and scenery. They were fantastic, the only word I can use for them, truly fantastic.

The overall effect was also pretty amazing as I spotted many people wiping away tears at the end of the performance, and I was one of them. I might be a philistine but I know when I’ve seen something good.

“Don’t worry darling, you can stay in bed, it’s a bit cold outside” – words I never heard from my parents yet words that have been spoken in many a home this week no doubt.

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What ever happened to the notion of “getting on with it”?

A little snow falls and we all come to a standstill. “It’s all about Health and Safety” some say. “Rubbish” I reply. It’s about risk avoidance: schools and/or councils don’t want to be liable for kids breaking their limbs in school yards whilst being supervised.

They prefer instead for the little darlings to break their limbs playing unsupervised in parks and pavements, whilst throwing snowballs at passing buses and cars.

The idea of closing schools when there is no serious risk is ridiculous. If the school in the highest village in Wales, with 18 inches of snow around can be open every day and be proud of the fact that the kids walk in as opposed to travel by car, then at least someone is setting an example of making the right effort.

I know it looks lovely, especially first thing in the morning, but it gets into your turn-ups and freezes, then after a while it can get dirty and turns to slush but worst of all it sometimes helps you to land with a bump. But despite the negatives, I think it’s pretty fair to say that we all still love the Snow.

And the reason I love it most is that it makes people smile and even gets strangers to talk to each other.

People who would never give you a first, let alone a second glance, smile and often say “Good morning” as you pass them in the street. Smiles are all around and people start to play in a way that we’ve not done since the last good dump of snow.

Ben my Labrador loves it too!

Image via Wikipedia

Christmas isn’t the same now; my children are no longer kids and the days of Father Christmas are long gone. But the memories persist and pevery year we talk about one long-departed Christmas ritual that used to take place in our house.

When the kids were small I bought a Santa suit, beard, hat and all the trimmings. The plan was to pop out as they were upstairs having their bath on Christmas Eve and for my wife to bring them downstairs in their pyjamas to sit in the front room, with the curtains open. At the same time, I was in the back alley of our house changing into the costume.

When the time was right I’d shuffle under the weight of my sack past the front of the house and – surprise, surprise – my wife saw me and alerted the kids. Screams of excitement, noses pressed to the window as they peered out at the fat old man in their garden.

He stopped, looked at his watch and pointed to it, before pointing to the kids and then upwards suggesting the little loves should go to bed. They were gone like a shot, mainly because my wife had told them that Santa couldn’t do his stuff if they were still awake.

When I came back in, the boys were abed and my wife and I settled to finish the packing of pressies. But after a few minutes we hears noises from upstairs: the kids weren’t asleep.

Now as it happened we had an external fire escape on our house, and there was a “landing” on this stairs outside the kids bedroom window. So I got the gear on again, went up the fire escape and tapped on the window. The curtain was pulled back, a little face appeared, screamed and disappeared again.

A moment later the other littler face came to check, also screamed and that was the last we heard from them until 5 the next morning.

That was without doubt the best moment around Christmas, we kept it up until the boys were 10 and I even did guest appearances for friends who wanted their kids to see Santa.

Magical memories.

I’m in Marks & Sparks, Carol singers are at the escalators singing and I feel as grumpy as can be.

Seasonal Negative Attitude Disorder is what I put it down to, hopefully it’ll clear in a few weeks.

There’s a fair bit of recruitment activity being discussed in our house at the moment as my son looks for his first steps in a career. He’s keen to work in Cardiff and with a Marketing and Business Management degree is, I would hope, reasonably employable. He’s applied for a few jobs and is attending interviews this week. But the recruitment experience has astounded me.

One area he’s explored is Recruitment, and he is waiting for an interview for a recruitment company where he will focus on the Welsh-medium education sector.

Having been invited for an interview, he was given nearly a week’s notice. In a follow up call the same day that the meeting had been arranged, he was told that if he came “for an interview Tomorrow, he could start work next week“. This he refused to do as he was working for a marketing company and did not want to disrupt the completion of the project he was working on.

The recruiter’s advice was to “throw a sicky”, and then he could still start his job “next Monday”.  My son’s got some principles and refused. So an interview was re-arranged for this morning. He was there on time, scrubbed up nicely, and was ready to give it his best shot.

Sadly, the interviewer had gone out, even though the meeting had been confirmed last Friday afternoon and he is unlikely to be available until Wednesday. By which time of course my lad will be back with the marketing agency finishing the project.

All this made me wonder: I’ve used agencies in the past, and always wondered what I got for my 15-18%, but what I never imagined before was how much damage they could be doing to my brand.

The results of a deliberate attempt to harm

Whilst sometimes sport can thrill it too can sometimes disappoint. Rugby has always been a great game for me and now for my sons too, but sometimes it can be ruined by stupidity.

Last weekend one of my clan was leading a team at the annual Aberaeron 7’s, a small weekend festival in the most fantastic setting on the West Coast of  Wales. He’d gathered a team of mates who had travelled from Merthyr, Coventry and Birmingham to play in the competition. They came becasue they love playing rubgy and love all that normally goes with it.

Around the country other ad-hoc teams were coming together for similar reasons and with the intention of having a good time. And with a Youth Festival and a Women’s tournament too, it has always had the makings of a good weekend in Aberaeron.

But not everyone approaches the game in the same way. The last few months have seen acts of savagery perpetrated by “Stars” around the world. Some of the most respected men in rugby have been cited and found guilty of the most horrendous foul play and brought the game into disrepute.

Sadly, some of that nastiness cascaded down to Aberaeron 7’s last weekend. When I saw my son the morning after the tournament he could only hobble. His left knee had been stamped on, deliberately. He told me that he’d been tackled and as a ruck developed he’d protected his head with his arms only to see someone stamp – deliberately – on his knee. He didn’t see the face, or the number of the stamper. He then could only hobble off and miss the rest of the game.

The result is not life threatening, but it is uncomfortable and limiting. Ordered to rest for 2 weeks, lots of bruising and a feeling that maybe, just maybe the game isn’t the matching of man-on-man that I’d told him it was for all those years.

As for the stamper: he gets away with it and will no doubt do it again whilst representing the people of Kidwelly. I wonder if they are as proud of him as I am of my son?