Prime Welsh sport

Distinctive

A great afternoon and a unique baseball occasion.

It’s exactly a hundred years since Wales first played England. The distinctive brand of the game was the sport of choice for large tracts of Newport, Cardiff and Liverpool. In its heyday crowds of 12,000 watched major matches. Cricket has edged it out but the baseball still prospers with new ventures in youth baseball in the three cities.

It was the dominant sport of Grangetown in my childhood. I was about 12 before I saw my first game of cricket. I spent this afternoon sitting next to John Jervis. He has been chairman of the English Baseball Association for 40 years. Norman Parselle of St Michaels Newport is the ever-young captain of Wales. They scored a convincing win over England. But there were some good performances from the English players that gave their travelling supporters plenty to cheer about.

British baseball is not to be confused with the American version, which has been derived from it. In the war, a local Cardiff team played an American team made up from the soldiers billeted in the Wood Street barracks. It was one innings on American rules. The second on Welsh rules. Cardiff won.

Welsh baseball is as distinctive a part of Welsh life as cynghanedd or laver bread. It should be cherished and promoted.

Resignation-itis

Martin Shipton let the cat out the bag this morning on Good Morning Wales on Rhodri Glyn Thomas’s freak resignation.

He said ‘Let’s not beat about the bush. This is about......' (something else). No other explanation makes sense. All my contacts with Rhodri have shown him to be a thoroughly competent minister in a very successful one-Wales Government. I knew him well in the peace movement before he went into politics. I like him and respect his talents.

He made a crucifying embarrassing mistake, which will be repeated on YouTube for eternity. Forgetting a cigar momentarily is a very venial offence.  Neither is a resigning matter even in our neurotically correct times of an incontinence of resignations. Those of us who have never frequented the Eli Jenkins pub or the other fleshpots of Cardiff Bay live in ignorance of the details of this story.

I’ll say for the first, and almost certainly the last, time, perhaps Martin Shipton knows something that we do not know.

Dore dull

The Assembly is headed down a couple of blind allies on Dyslexia.

A recent report says, “Further research, funded by an independent body, is urgently needed to establish who benefits most from different types of non-conventional support for example the Dore programme, the Raviv Method, Brain Gym and tinted lenses.

The Assembly report says, “"All the different types of support that
demonstrated to them had clearly identifiable benefits." This has not been shown to be the case: for example, Dore and Brain Gym both lack a plausible mechanism of action and any good research to show effects beyond placebo.

Dore has recently gone into administration after charging up to £2,000 per ‘cure’.  The Assembly should not be giving credence to treatments that has no reputable evidence base.

Comments

[Adam Johannes]

Dear Paul Flynn,

I was wondering if you would be interested in signing an EDM regarding a friend of mine:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36380&SESSION=891
He was involved in quite an inspirational drive to unionise a call centre:

"Every night, all around the country, in the 21st century factories known as call centres, some 750,000 workers will breathe a collective sigh of relief as they get the signal that their shift has finally come to an end."
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10390

And has been sacked for routine trade union work.

Regards,

Adam Johannes

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Adam Johannes. I will do that. I have heard many accounts of the misery and strain of working in these places.

[Kevin Ward]

Re: the baseball. Good stuff, Paul. You might be interested to know that Wales under-14s take on their English counterparts in Liverpool on August 3.
Wales are captained by Ellis Harrison, from the St Michael's club in Pill, and also feature James Ward (who happens to be my son, so I'll be there!)

[Adam Johannes]

Thank you, it is EDM 2038

[paulflynn]

Thanks Kevin. I am putting down an EDM today in praise of British baseball. I will mentiuon the match on August 3. I hope it goes well. It's a long to go unfortunately but I hope it goes well.

[Jon]

Thanks Paul - blogged this post and report here http://holfordwatch.info/2008/07/20/paul-flynn-and-welsh-assembly-report-on-dyslexia-anddore