July 2008 Archives

HARD HOUSE nights in Denbigh are usually a little hard to come by.

Luckily, nature provided the Vale's trendy young things with something just as raucous earler this week - a thunderstorm. After four days of searing summer heat, Clwydians were treated to several hours of thumping bass and crazy lighting, courtesy of the sky. Unfortunately, it also caused quite a bit of flooding.

Firefighters were called out to three seperate incidents after Monday night's storms unleashed over 25mm of rain over Denbigh on Monday night, and all of them centred around Lenten Pool. Residents have reported to us that some properties saw over a foot of flood water gushing through them, and it's also reported that the town's Holland House care home was also affected.

"Obviously it's a very unfortunate event but Lenten Pool is particularly prone to flash flooding, as it's at the confluence of a lot of hills in the area" said Denbigh councillor Colin Hughes, who spoke to me after he'd gone to the scene himself to assess the damage.

"A lot of people there are historially used to flooding and put up their own flood defences, but the weather almost seemed like a tropical phenomenom and was definitely not our typical British weather."

I'm no stranger to weird weather either, and three years ago managed to get caught in Carlisle when it suffered its worst flooding in over a century. In that case, the wall of water was so intense that it cut off an entire city for four days, and cost over £500,000 and months of hardship to repair.

Were you affected by the severe weather which hit the Vale this week? Share your stories by emailing me or calling 01745 345895.

P.S: Some of you weren't too impressed by my reference to part of the male anatomy last week. Don't worry, I've changed it now. ..

OBVIOUSLY I'm not one to condone crime but I've just had a brilliant idea to solve the Vale's problem with vandalism. Give the pens to people who can draw properly.

Stay with me on this one - I know some of you won't find this funny - but one Vale shop offering human hair extensions spent the entire weekend with the patch of window reading "hair" rewritten to say "p***s". Crude and tasteless perhaps, but I laughed so much I almost wet myself.

Most of you will probably be upset with the notion, and say that all graffiti is visual pollution and the mark of a deranged mind. Some of it probably is, but I doubt councillors in Bristol are desperate to call the cops every time another piece of Banksy brilliance adorns an alleyway somewhere in Clifton.

Another particular favourite of mine is Rhyl's Grange Hotel. Again, I know it's illegal to break in to the now very sad site, but anyone familiar with noughties Brit flick Teachers can't fail to find its impromptu rebranding as "The Gange Hotel" just slightly amusing. Especially given there's plenty of grass growing at the now abandoned hotel.

Real vandalism that adds nothing to our streets should be outlawed; in fact, anyone who wants to tag their name around Clwyd's towns should only be allowed to do so if they agree to have their initials tagged onto their testicles by means of a branding iron. But some graffiti - and it is only rare exceptions - is so creative or just downright funny you can't help but marvel at the masterpieces.

I appreciate that graffiti is a thorn in the side of just about every town in Britain but by taking the spray cans from the bank robbers and giving them to the Banksys we might just be able to make our bus stops that bit prettier.

A NOTE for all Llangollen bikers: I know you get a bad press but you have pretty much single-handedly restored my faith in the human race.

In particular the ones who hang around outside the railway station on their old Nortons and Velocettes. I hate to break into Hells Angels speak but you guys rock. In fact, if it wasn't for your love of impromptu spannerwork I'd still be in the Dee Valley right now, picking out dustcaps with my teeth.

And there was I thinking my biking days were over when I saw a dude far younger and trendier than me riding around on a mint Vespa scooter the other day, just like the one I used to crash. I'm older and wiser and know full well that each service costs a million pounds and that it won't run if it's a bit hilly, or breezy, or rainy.

Then he stalled it.

Ha, I know how to change gear properly, and I haven't ridden one for two years. Still, the sound of its raspy two-stroke engine made me want one so badly I briefly considered shoplifting to pay for the weekly RAC callouts.

It's definitely better transport than my beloved Raleigh Chopper, which let me down by blowing out its back tyre on the way to last week's Eisteddfod. Predictably, not one of Llangollen's cycle repair shops is open at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, so I was saved by a gang of gentleman racers who offered help me out. For fun.

I'm just lucky they hadn't read my story from a couple of weeks ago slating born again bikers, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered. Either way, given the enthusiasm the motorbike men had about mending my machine, I think they're entirely deserving of their own festival later this summer.

Chaps, I owe you all a pint.

To see the video click here

I WAS definitely in unfamiliar surroundings and in desperate need of Dutch courage, and without doubt looked ridiculous. Perhaps not the best time to point a camera at me.

Unfortunately our Visitor photographer had brought one along to Bellies 'R' Us, a new belly-dancing class that's hoping to bring a taste of the Nile to downtown Prestatyn. Worse still, the entire event was being filmed for the Visitor and Vale websites, so that my hopelessness could become stuff of online legend.

Bellies 'R' Us, run by husband and wife team Alan and Priscilla Jones, has been running for six weeks at venues around the town, hoping to give Denbighshire residents a taste of Egyptian belly dancing.

Unfortunately they hadn't reckoned on a slightly hamfisted newspaper reporter with two left feet, no sense of rhythm and his best Arabic gown (a faded Union Jack t-shirt). Their invitation to try out the techniques was going to be some night.

"Belly dancing is a very unknown quantity and makes most people think of girls dancing around tables in Cairo restaurants, but until people have actually come along and had a go it can be quite hard to really get a feel for it" said Priscilla, whose demonstration at the start of the session made it all look startlingly easy.

"We teach people a routine so that after a few weeks they can really feel as though they've achieved something. The most important thing is that people enjoy themselves while they're doing it."

Enjoying myself wouldn't be a problem - I used to salsa dance in a previous life. But I had just over an hour to get into the Egyptian groove, rather than the four weeks of practice usually required to polish off something as sophisticated as the Veil Dance, the night's chosen offering. In truth, I was terrified.

Hollie Cope-Jones, one of the Visitor's resident receptionists, had come along with me wearing a genuinely Egyptian dress she'd brought back from one of her holidays, and really looked the part as she picked up her veil. Meanwhile, I'd gone to rather less trouble with my outfit, and suddenly began to regret my penchant for pints and pizzas. Belly dancing? More like paunch dancing in my case.

I'm more used to working with the Vale than the veil, but after lots of swaying, standing on my feet and trying not to trip over the other dancers, I think I actually started to pick up some of the class techniques, and did actually begin to enjoy myself.

"It wasn't tricky to learn the techniques and I really enjoyed the class. I think it's something where practice definitely makes perfect. It wasn't what I expected but I thoroughly enjoyed it" said Hollie.

Just as I begun to get a feel for the dance, the class came to a close. Hollie and I hoped we'd managed to not look completely hopeless, but what did Priscilla think?

"I thought you did really well" she said. "Even though it's basic instruction it can be quite tricky to pick up in such a short time, so it's important to work within your own limits. It's amazing what people can learn after coming for a few weeks."

To see the video click here

Bellies ' R' Us takes place in Prestatyn every Wednesday from 7.00pm and on Fridays from 2.00pm and costs £4 per class, including tea and biscuits. For more information and details of venues, contact Alan and Prescilla on 01745 730023.

A MILTON KEYNESIAN by the name of John Yates has entered the running for my own self-styled award of Best Interviewee Who Doesn't Actually Live In My Patch (or BIWDALIMP - I always was one for acronyms).

Alongside Lembit Opik, who's a cheeky chap, and Ernie Edwards, who got abducted by aliens, John is definitely a BIWDALIMP through and through.

Why? Well, anyone who single-handedly launches a campaign to redesign a flag three centuries old and recognised the world over has got to be worth a natter in my book. That's exactly what John did with the Union Flag at last week's Eisteddfod in Llangollen, easily making him the most interesting interviewee since this time last week.

I'm not totally convinced by his idea - it looks a bit like the German Embassy's attempt to design a Jimi Hendrix record sleeve - but I thoroughly admire him for answering a question which nobody actually asked. It's quite comforting to think of him toiling away in his shed into the wee small hours, sketching out new flag designs over a cup of Earl Grey. How thoroughly British.

Other potential BIWDALIMPS include the hardcore fuel protester currently racing around North Wales with his message blu-tacked onto the rear window of his blacked-out, V8 Range Rover Sport. Unless it's Wayne Rooney feeling the pinch at the pumps, I cannot think of any vehicle more stupid to make the point. I await his phone call any day now.

Meanwhile John has garnered the support of Clwyd South's MP Martyn Jones and - allegedly - Her Majesty the Queen. I would laugh but it's BIWDALIMP candidates just like John who invented penicillin and the jet engine and the Triumph Stag.

And what, pray, does John's fantastic flag actually look like? Well, you'll have to read this week's Your Vale article to find out.

ALONG with Robert Mugabe, Bob Geldof and that gangster girl off Big Brother, the accounts manager at Welsh Water is now on my list of people I'd like to have beaten with sticks.

After all it was he - presumably sat in a plush Cardiff office - who authorised a man in a van to come and cut all my running water off, turning my lovely Denbighshire flat into a unhygenic hellhole in a matter of hours.

Annoyed? You bet, and I was even more furious when even after the outstanding bill (left by someone who'd lived there long before me) had been cleared, they still refused to turn it on again. Thanks to red tape, I was left without any water whatsoever for four whole days.

I was amazed by how much I could take water for granted, but with no clean plates left to eat off and my sink busy developing its own ecosystem, I was almost left hoping that Bono and Midge Ure would turn up, hold a benefit concert in my honour and raise the funds for me to get reconnected.

Only last night, with my flat verging on becoming uninhabitable, did my landlord and I finally get the taps gushing once again, but after so long languishing in my very own health hazard, I'm a bit nonplussed with whoever it is who calls the shots with water.

Anyone from BBC's Watchdog reading?

IT'S PART of my job to ask questions. Most of them are usually fairly awkward, and ones which the county council/local MP/drug dealer (delete as appropriate) usually prefer not to answer. Yet this week I ask one with particular trepidation.

What the hell's happening in Corwen?

There, I said it. Although I run the risk of offending an entire town, I'm only asking because of all the market towns, pretty villages and charming stretches of countryside I cover, very little seems to come from Corwen.

Not that nothing's going on, of course. Every week I receive updates on the town's very own answer to Lewis Hamilton, rising F3 star Hywel Lloyd, there's never a shortage of lively events taking place at the town's schools, and the town is steaming forward to the arrival of the Llangollen Railway. But if I cover these every week these every week Your Vale would end up looking like a cross between Autosport, Steam Enthusiast and a school newsletter.

At the moment both the newspaper and website are dominated by Denbigh, Ruthin and Llangollen stories, with Bala not far behind. It'd almost seem rude not to get Corwen a little more involved.

So, in my best Lord Kitchener style, I ask for Corwen's finest to put their best foot forward and tell me your stories. Your newspaper needs you!

P.S: Site statistics have just come back for June and our most popular article was the UFO sightings in Bala. It's good to know someone else thinks flying saucers make good stories...