Welcome once again to another episode of the Wonderful Life of Archon!! Today I am mostly drinking Dandelion and Burdock and playing computer games.
Today's film recommendation is They Live. I would love to tell you all about why this film is so great but unfortunately, it would be difficult to do so without ruining the film for you. Suffice to say it is a Science Fiction-Horror film about a migrant construction worker who stumbles upon a terrible secret about the true nature of our modern capitalist society. I wont tell you what the secret is or how he stumbles upon it. Just watch the film and find out. Trust me!!
Lately, I have been reading about The Welsh Wars Of Independence, a fascinating book but quite a heavy read.
I bought the book some time ago courtesy of a book club but as I already have rather a lot of books, it ended up sitting on one of my bookshelves gathering dust. However, I recently have been trying to learn a bit more about how it was that Albion, Caledonia, Cambria and Hibernia evolved into the modern nations of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
My motivation partly comes from watching a documentary about the legendary Welsh freedom fighter Owain Glyn Dwr (interesting fact of the day: had he and his English allies won the fight for Welsh independence then, England and Wales would have been divided into three Kingdoms, with England split into a Northern and a Southern Kingdom and with Wales extended to include much of what is currently the English Midlands).
Also, however, a small bit of my ancestry comes from Wales so its interesting to learn a bit more about Welsh history.
That said I don't actually see myself as being English or Welsh. I see myself as British. I see such terms as Welsh and English as being out of date terminology and due to my firm support of the concept of pan-Europeanism, I hope one day that terms such as British and French will also become out of date being simply replaced with the term European.
I don't believe that we should be trying to split the human race up into smaller and smaller sub-divisions. I believe that humanity should band together into larger and larger units until one day we have all banded together in one great big global nation; one human species united under one worldwide, democratic government with a common interest in promoting human unity, eco-friendly industry, worldwide peace, elimination of oppression, hunger and disease, promotion of free trade and free movement of peoples, the ability to regulate industry on a global scale so that regardless of where goods are produced, the workers will have the same basic human rights, the goods produced will be subject to the same standards of quality and the waste products of production will be dealt with according to the same eco-friendly regulations.
Of course, a worldwide nation such as this will never happen, so I will have to set my hopes on the creation of larger socio-political units from the conglomeration of existing nation states (such a as pan-European state).
If we follow the other course and split the human race up into ever smaller and smaller nation states based on racial / ethnic divisions we will end up with lots and lots of tiny, weak countries which wont be able to stand up to the growing might of the multi-national corporations.
The nation state is being superceded by the corporation as the dominant unit of social organisation and its time to put aside petty rivalries and recognise that without a united humanity we will soon be little better than cattle for our corporate overlords to feed upon. Race, ethnicity, nationality etc are illusions, which can only serve the purposes of those who wish to divide us and rule over us.
However, I have strayed somewhat from my discussion of The Welsh Wars Of Independence.
The history of Wales gives an example of the dangers of disunity. For centuries the Welsh devoted most of their energy to fighting each other and consequently the English were able to follow a policy of divide and rule.
Unfortunately, early in the morning as I ride the train on my daily commute, I must confess that I do find it a bit hard to keep my eyes open let alone concentrate on the myriad intrigues of the numerous different Welsh kingdoms (Gwynedd, Perfeddwlad, Meirionnydd, Powys, Ceredigion, Deheubarth, Brycheiniog, Dyfed, Morgannwg and Gwent being the main ones) which were frequently at war with each other (with one kingdom being absorbed into another one minute and then independent again the next) and frequently at war with England (both prior to, and for some time after, the Norman conquest).
To make matters even more arduous, many of the leaders of the various Welsh kingdoms seem to have the same names (e.g. many of them were called Gruffudd, Rhys, Maredudd or Owain) and they all seem to have intermarried and keeping track of the constantly shifting alliances is proving to be quite a headache.
Even once the Normans had conquered England, they were slow to conquer Wales due to the difficulty of the terrain (not suited to the Norman preference for horseback warfare) and the low economic productivity of the land. Hence, the Normans generally restricted themselves to taking border lands (the Marches), building defensive castles and conducting the occasional (and mostly half-hearted) raid into the Welsh hinterland.
The King of England was mostly happy to accept token gestures of homage from local Welsh leaders and it appears to have been a favourite hobby of the English kings to play the Welsh off against each other by awarding disputed lands in Wales to one particular Welsh leader in the knowledge that such an action would spark off skirmishes between the recipient of the lands and other local leaders who believed that they had a claim to the lands. Like I said earlier, a policy of divide and rule!!!
One thing is clear, both prior to and after the Norman conquest, Wales was a land divided amongst numerous local warlords who spent as much of their time fighting each other as they did fighting the English, who paid homage to the King of England and fought at his side one minute and then burned down his castles the next, who fought each other with the aid of military assistance from the English (and subsequently the Anglo-Normans), and the Hiberno-Norse (i.e. Irish-Vikings - the distinction between the Irish and Vikings was a marginal one at that time due to Viking settlements in Ireland; cities such as Dublin were basically Viking cities created by Scandinavian invaders as bases for raiding and trading and some Welsh leaders traced their ancestry back to the Hiberno-Norse).
Meanwhile, here's Siouxsie & The Banshees with their cover version of Dear Prudence (the film quality is a bit blurry but this is partly because it is meant to be that way)...
Today's film recommendation is They Live. I would love to tell you all about why this film is so great but unfortunately, it would be difficult to do so without ruining the film for you. Suffice to say it is a Science Fiction-Horror film about a migrant construction worker who stumbles upon a terrible secret about the true nature of our modern capitalist society. I wont tell you what the secret is or how he stumbles upon it. Just watch the film and find out. Trust me!!
Lately, I have been reading about The Welsh Wars Of Independence, a fascinating book but quite a heavy read.
I bought the book some time ago courtesy of a book club but as I already have rather a lot of books, it ended up sitting on one of my bookshelves gathering dust. However, I recently have been trying to learn a bit more about how it was that Albion, Caledonia, Cambria and Hibernia evolved into the modern nations of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
My motivation partly comes from watching a documentary about the legendary Welsh freedom fighter Owain Glyn Dwr (interesting fact of the day: had he and his English allies won the fight for Welsh independence then, England and Wales would have been divided into three Kingdoms, with England split into a Northern and a Southern Kingdom and with Wales extended to include much of what is currently the English Midlands).
Also, however, a small bit of my ancestry comes from Wales so its interesting to learn a bit more about Welsh history.
That said I don't actually see myself as being English or Welsh. I see myself as British. I see such terms as Welsh and English as being out of date terminology and due to my firm support of the concept of pan-Europeanism, I hope one day that terms such as British and French will also become out of date being simply replaced with the term European.
I don't believe that we should be trying to split the human race up into smaller and smaller sub-divisions. I believe that humanity should band together into larger and larger units until one day we have all banded together in one great big global nation; one human species united under one worldwide, democratic government with a common interest in promoting human unity, eco-friendly industry, worldwide peace, elimination of oppression, hunger and disease, promotion of free trade and free movement of peoples, the ability to regulate industry on a global scale so that regardless of where goods are produced, the workers will have the same basic human rights, the goods produced will be subject to the same standards of quality and the waste products of production will be dealt with according to the same eco-friendly regulations.
Of course, a worldwide nation such as this will never happen, so I will have to set my hopes on the creation of larger socio-political units from the conglomeration of existing nation states (such a as pan-European state).
If we follow the other course and split the human race up into ever smaller and smaller nation states based on racial / ethnic divisions we will end up with lots and lots of tiny, weak countries which wont be able to stand up to the growing might of the multi-national corporations.
The nation state is being superceded by the corporation as the dominant unit of social organisation and its time to put aside petty rivalries and recognise that without a united humanity we will soon be little better than cattle for our corporate overlords to feed upon. Race, ethnicity, nationality etc are illusions, which can only serve the purposes of those who wish to divide us and rule over us.
However, I have strayed somewhat from my discussion of The Welsh Wars Of Independence.
The history of Wales gives an example of the dangers of disunity. For centuries the Welsh devoted most of their energy to fighting each other and consequently the English were able to follow a policy of divide and rule.
Unfortunately, early in the morning as I ride the train on my daily commute, I must confess that I do find it a bit hard to keep my eyes open let alone concentrate on the myriad intrigues of the numerous different Welsh kingdoms (Gwynedd, Perfeddwlad, Meirionnydd, Powys, Ceredigion, Deheubarth, Brycheiniog, Dyfed, Morgannwg and Gwent being the main ones) which were frequently at war with each other (with one kingdom being absorbed into another one minute and then independent again the next) and frequently at war with England (both prior to, and for some time after, the Norman conquest).
To make matters even more arduous, many of the leaders of the various Welsh kingdoms seem to have the same names (e.g. many of them were called Gruffudd, Rhys, Maredudd or Owain) and they all seem to have intermarried and keeping track of the constantly shifting alliances is proving to be quite a headache.
Even once the Normans had conquered England, they were slow to conquer Wales due to the difficulty of the terrain (not suited to the Norman preference for horseback warfare) and the low economic productivity of the land. Hence, the Normans generally restricted themselves to taking border lands (the Marches), building defensive castles and conducting the occasional (and mostly half-hearted) raid into the Welsh hinterland.
The King of England was mostly happy to accept token gestures of homage from local Welsh leaders and it appears to have been a favourite hobby of the English kings to play the Welsh off against each other by awarding disputed lands in Wales to one particular Welsh leader in the knowledge that such an action would spark off skirmishes between the recipient of the lands and other local leaders who believed that they had a claim to the lands. Like I said earlier, a policy of divide and rule!!!
One thing is clear, both prior to and after the Norman conquest, Wales was a land divided amongst numerous local warlords who spent as much of their time fighting each other as they did fighting the English, who paid homage to the King of England and fought at his side one minute and then burned down his castles the next, who fought each other with the aid of military assistance from the English (and subsequently the Anglo-Normans), and the Hiberno-Norse (i.e. Irish-Vikings - the distinction between the Irish and Vikings was a marginal one at that time due to Viking settlements in Ireland; cities such as Dublin were basically Viking cities created by Scandinavian invaders as bases for raiding and trading and some Welsh leaders traced their ancestry back to the Hiberno-Norse).
Meanwhile, here's Siouxsie & The Banshees with their cover version of Dear Prudence (the film quality is a bit blurry but this is partly because it is meant to be that way)...
VIEW 23 of 23 COMMENTS
mc_dove:
argh, you're so right, i should have made some ginger tea before i left. thanks for the idea! hope your holidays went well. 
sky:
happy new year to you too xx