I thought it was grim. Tilda Swinton is one of those actors who seem to dwell in the twilight between jobs: her etiolated, starvation-form frame makes her a poster girl for heroin addicts everywhere and her portrayal of Eva (Kevin’s mother) was completely different to the personality that poured out of Lionel Shriver‘s novel. Instead of a ripped up, semi-psychotic woman, who has long since passed the edge of reason, we got monotonous staring into space, allied to a defeated acceptance of her role as a social punch bag.

She probably got the role on the basis of being a body double for Shriver, as well as emotionally straight-jacketed as a performer, which to my way of thinking completely misses the point of Eva’s essential vibrancy, drive and dogged determination to do right by her whacko son. Talking of whom: Ezra Miller and Jasper Newell (as 8 year old Kevin) were both excellent, particularly Newell, who for a youngster put in a startling performance as the deranged killer to be.

The rest of the cast are almost irrelevant, so little do they impinge upon the action and eventual calamity. John C Reilly is especially unbelievable as Kevin’s father, both in terms of his porcine joviality in the context of a clearly dysfunctional family; he contributes nothing other than to highlight one of the biggest plot holes in an otherwise excellent novel. I’m referring to the "accident" that resulted in Kevin’s sister having an eye removed. Surely even the most odd families would have had him carted off to a shrink after such an incident and the father’s denial is uncharacteristic of middle-class America, who resort to therapy at the drop of a hat, never mind the drop of a bottle of bleach into their little girl’s eye.

This is a dialogue free, art-house movie that has misery as its sole emotional engine. There are no highs, just lows, right up to an ending that is stunningly predictable, although satisfyingly complete, in the sense that Reilly gets his along with way too cute Ashley Gerasimovich for being a pair of plot damp spots.

There isn’t even any gore; the killing scene comprises Kevin slotting arrows in his bow and letting fly at targets unseen and it isn’t until Eva returns home that she finds his spree included his sister and much-loved father. This is revealed with a brief glimpse of their slightly bloodied corpses on the lawn: too little, way too late for modern audiences brought up on Mission Impossible.

Even then an opportunity for hysterics at the sudden realisation that everything but Kevin is lost to her was avoided in the headlong rush to portray her as emotionless, something that was entirely at odds with her supposedly amazing career as a travelogue writer.

The Eva of the novel is a powerhouse of emotion, and the reduction of her to a wet blanket driven by the needs of her psycho-son just didn’t ring true, but that’s the problem with reading novels before seeing the movie. The different media have different needs and consequently different outcomes. In the book, Eva’s revealing dialogue with her seemingly estranged husband made the ending both unexpected and chilling. In the movie, the ending is predictably inevitable.

The whole experience is depressing and unfulfilling, completely at odds with what I’ve come to expect from 21st century Hollywood.

Actually, I loved it and I hope you sensed the ironic tone of the previous paragraphs, which only served to illustrate what I believe will be the popular view of this work.

I’ll tell you why I loved it. I liked it on an artistic level. The unremitting misery of it was the strength of the movie and Eva’s struggles with her relationships, both with Kevin and his father provided a theme that should evoke a sense of, "Thank God my children are normal." Which it did for me, anyway.

Added to that, Swinton’s portrayal of Eva WAS unexpected – I had in my mind a strong, fiery woman, who went on a legal rampage after the event, protecting the last remaining vestige of her family with everything she could throw at the system and bankrupting herself in the process. What I didn’t expect was the beaten, withdrawn woman portrayed by Swinton, which added somewhat to the whole drama and to be fair to Shriver and to Swinton, is probably what the author had in mind in the first place.

The directorial restraint shown in the gore free killings, demonstrated for anyone to see that a sense of horror can be engendered by inference rather than the bloodily obvious and Lynne Ramsey is to be congratulated for creating a truly terrifying scene at the school, which contrasted wonderfully with the calm psychosis of Ezra Miller’s Kevin.

Regrettably, the ending is weak, but it always was going to be for those of us who had pre-knowledge. Seeing the still bodies of Franklin and Celia lacked the impact of the novel, but it was as good an effort as could be expected.

Not everyone will like “We need to talk about Kevin”, and many will be disturbed by it, but the performances are good, the sparse dialogue well thought out and the direction simply breath-taking. This isn’t a film to enjoy, but it is a work to appreciate. It will make you think and it might make you hurt, but it won’t make you cry or laugh, the usual stock in trade of Hollywood fare. This is because it isn’t and doesn’t try to be Hollywood and it investigates a different emotional set, ones you might not be altogether comfortable with, but nevertheless it tells it as it is: life without sugar or salt.

Today, of course, the modern Conservative Party has moved on from this and now embraces a non-discriminatory stance. I’m glad about that, not just because many of my heroes such as Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Muhammad Ali and Colin Jackson – amongst others – are from ethnic minorities, but mostly because I would be uncomfortable with one of our national parties still discriminating against people on the basis of their skin colour.

Which is why I thought I’d check to see how our friends in Parliament are doing. There are several issues that have to be faced first. In many cases ethnicity is often a case of self-definition and isn’t necessarily obvious. However, the Government publishes a paper called “Ethnic minorities in Politics, Government and Public Life”.

This paper reveals that ethnic minority groups make up 7.9% of the British population, so if you round that up to eight people in every hundred, so you would expect in a Parliament of six hundred and fifty for there to be fifty-two MPs from ethnic minorities (although because of the way Parliamentary boundaries are skewed, the true figure would be seventy-eight) if there were any kind of proportionality to it all. There isn’t. Only twenty-seven MPs up to December 2011 described themselves as being part of an ethnic minority.

Of these sixteen are Labour and eleven are Conservative. None of the other parties has a member from an ethnic minority, including the very right-on Liberal Democrats. So, just 4.1% of the Members of Parliament come from an ethnic minority. Looking at the Party breakdown – sixteen from two hundred and twenty nine for Labour is 6.9% and eleven from three hundred and six Conservative MPs is just 3.6%.

This figure for the Conservatives is a big step forward from the two ethnic minority MPs they had in the last Parliament, but it really is not good enough, is it? But I’m not here to decry or condemn the Conservatives for being pretty rubbish at representing ethnic minorities, and let’s face it, Labour isn’t that much better. No, what I’d like to do is offer my praise to those constituency parties who have been brave enough to stand up and be counted. Below is a list of those constituencies represented by MPs who have declared themselves to be part of an ethnic minority:

• Bethnal Green & Bow
• Birmingham Ladywood
• Birmingham, Perry Barr
• Bolton SE
• Bradford West
• Bromsgrove
• Ealing Southall
• East Surrey
• Feltham & Heston
• Gillingham & Rainham
• Glasgow Central
• Hackney North & Stoke Newington
• Leicester East
• Maidstone
• Newcastle Central
• North West Cambridgeshire
• Preston
• Reading West
• Spelthorne
• Stratford upon Avon
• Streatham
• Tooting
• Tottenham
• Walsall
• Wigan
• Windsor
• Witham
• Wolverhampton SW

Regrettably, none of these are in Wales or Northern Ireland, but with ethnic minority populations of just 2.1% and 0.8% respectively and a very small number of MPs, that is not surprising.

So, a lot to do, but nevertheless it is improving. Here’s the historical numbers of ethnic minority MPs.

1987 – 4 Lab – 0 Con

1992 – 5 Lab – 1 Con

1997 – 9 Lab – 0 Con

2001 – 12 Lab – 0 Con

2005 – 13 Lab – 2 Con

2010 – 16 Lab – 11 Con

The recent election of Seema Malhotra (Dec 2011) (pictured) has increased the Labour total to 17 and the overall total to 28, which is still only a bit over 6.5%.

I will try to dig out the number of ethnic minority candidates each of the parties selected to see if they are having a go and it would be interesting to compare this with the likelihood of them winning the seat in which they were stood.

But… still no Liberal Democrat MPs come from ethnic minorities. I’ve written to Nick Clegg to ask him about this and I’m really looking forward to his reply.

In an amazing scientific experiment, Samoa’s government has extended the lives of their citizens, made 0.273972602739726% of their population a whole year younger and given a large section of their population a day’s pay for absolutely nothing. Now this is what I call government action.

By the simple expedient of moving the international dateline a little bit to the right, Samoa has achieved wonders. If you were a Samoan scheduled in the great book to shuffle off this mortal coil on March 31st 2012, you will now die on April 1st 2012. And while some unkind souls might regard this as a foolish jape of international proportions, it’s no joke to those who have booked their plots and will now find the sands of time have not run out yet. I only hope no-one has arranged their funerals a day early.  It could be embarrassing.

Of course, for those who were born in Samoa on December the 30th, life gets a little more complicated, because this year you don’t have a birthday. That means you will remain at your present age for another year. This isn’t fun for those who are about to achieve their majority and have some hot Samoan property just waiting for the moment to arrive, only to find out that wait has just been extended for a year. This is not to mention bus passes. Imagine if you were due to pick up your bus pass on the 30th December… It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Of course, the big winners are those who were due to work on the 30th December and now do not. They get a whole day’s pay… absolutely gratis. Not a great thing for employers, of course, but hey… there are always winners and losers.

France were only persuaded to adopt the international date line when they were told they would be “better than GMT”.

One of the big losers in this are American Samoa, who are being left out in the cold a whole day behind their big brothers. So, like the Americans in World War II, they will be late for everything. Any football matches arranged between the two countries will now be more than a game of two halves, it will be two days instead.

“We’ve got to remember that over 90 per cent of our people emigrate to New Zealand and Australia. That’s why it is absolutely vital to make this change,” said Prime Minister Tuila‘epa Sailele Malielegaoi, in a moment of startling irrelevance, surpassed only Hugo Chavez who moved his country 30 minutes just because he could, and he did not have the excuse of having an amazing name like Tuila’epa Sailele Malielegaoi to fall back on. As an aside, can I just put my hand up and propose that all Western Europe adopt Samoan style names? They are SO much better than ours.

Of course, this whole moving through time thing is not without precedence, and we are not talking Cardiff’s own Doctor Who here. France used to be on Paris time, which is only nine minutes ahead of GMT. But the country is now GMT+1. They were only persuaded to make the change when it was pointed out that they would be “better than GMT”

Now the change has been made, the Samoans start celebrating the new year earlier than anyone else in the world, which some say is the real reason they have done this. Everyone loves a party and none more than the Samoans who are fully expected to change back at one minute to midnight tomorrow… or is that today? Then they can start the party all over again.

Next week in Read Write: why Switzerland will be better off as a Caribbean island.

I peered over the fence and this monster… I kid you not… it was nothing short of a great big, hairy monster of a dog came lolloping towards me. I had never seen such creature before. He whimpered, barked again and repeated his whimper. Then in a moment of doggy supplication, he offered his huge head to me, tongue lolling out his mouth, itself as big as some poodles, red-rimmed eyes pleading. Being something of dog lover, I knew instantly that he was no threat, he just wanted to talk to his new friend… and have his head scratched. So, scratch it I did. Satisfied that the new human was indeed a friend and could easily be bent to his will for head scratching purposes, he loped off to have a drink of water, great slavering gulps that dried his bowl in a moment. One last “woof” and he flopped to the floor, content that all was good in the world.

Over the ensuing years there were many woofs, many head scratches and quite a few cuddles. His name was “Gandalf” and we became friends. Phil and Angela, my neighbours, and owners of Gandalf were kind enough to permit him free rein of all the other properties in the close, so we could share in the head-scratching, cuddly, hairiness that came as part of the deal with Gandalf. Then one day, around Christmas 2011, the barking stopped.

I wasn’t at home much around Christmas, so I did not have time to catch up with the comings and goings of the close, and it wasn’t until the closing Friday of the year I discovered that Gandalf was no more. I’ll spare you the details, but it transpired the old thing was a victim of bone cancer. He was seven, and wolfhounds do not live much longer than that, but it still came as a shock. The picture above isn’t Gandalf, but it illustrates what a lovely animal wolfhounds are.

Seven, even in doggie years, is no great age, except for these great hounds. For them it is a terminus, a full stop when their big old hearts can beat no more, almost as if the head-scratching, hairy bigness of them had all become too much. They are the tallest of dog breeds, but rarely live beyond the six to ten year age span, with seven being a pretty consistent average. (Now for the science) Dilated cardiomyopathy and bone cancer are the leading cause of death and like all deep-chested dogs, gastric torsion (bloat) is common; the breed is affected by hereditary intrahepatic portosystemic shunt. All of which translates into a life of loving cut short by genetic predisposition to dying before a decade is out. Somehow, that doesn’t seem fair.

Wolfhounds have been around for along time. They may well have been introduced to Ireland as early as 7000 BC, but in all that time, no-one has found a way to extend their lives. Perhaps they haven’t looked. I think they should. It’s too late for Gandalf, but perhaps some geneticist somewhere can identify the DNA switches that make them what they are: great big, precious lumps of head-scratchy happiness, that leave you just when you’ve gotten used to them.

Goodbye Gandalf. RIP.

The history of the tragedy is well documented elsewhere, but briefly for some 50 years up to 1966, millions of cubic metres of excavated mining debris from the National Coal Board’s Merthyr Vale Colliery deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above the village of Aberfan. Huge piles, or ‘tips’, of loose rock and mining spoil was built up over a layer of highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs, and several tips had been built up directly over these springs. Although local authorities had raised specific concerns in 1963 about spoil being tipped on the mountain above the village primary school, these were largely ignored by the NCB’s area management.

Early on the morning of Friday, 21 October 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a subsidence of about 3–6 metres occurred on the upper flank of colliery waste tip No. 7. At 9:15 a.m. more than 150,000 cubic metres of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. The slide hit the local school and one hundred and sixteen children were killed. In all one hundred and forty-four people died in the incident and it has left a scar on the memories of those of us who remember the day.

I’r rhai a garwn ac y galarwn o’u colli

These are the names of the 116 children who died that day. Remember them.

Amiette Smith
9 years old

Andrew Rees
14 years old

Angela Vaughan Hopkins
7 years old

Angela Williams
8 years old

Anne Catherine Lee
8 years old

Annette Hughes
9 years old

Anthony David Hill
8 years old

Anthony John Sullivan
10 years old

Anthony Joseph Watkins
10 years old

Anthony Wayne England
8 years old

Arthur O’Brien
8 years old

Avis Elizabeth Sullivan
9 years old

Barbara Eileen Murray
9 years old

Brian Davies
8 years old

Brian Michael Gough
9 years old

Carl Minnett
7 years old

Carol Anderson
9 years old

Carol Ann Carpenter
9 years old

Carol Williams
10 years old

Catherine Elizabeth Evans
3 years old

Cheryl Mortimer
8 years old

Christine George
10 years old

Christine Prosser
9 years old

Corwyn Thomas Reakes
10 years old

Daphne May Fudge
8 years old

David Morgan
9 years old

David Paul Roberts
7 years old

David Trefor Davies
10 years old

David William Williams
8 years old

Dennis Arscott
8 years old

Desmond Carpenter
10 years old

Dwynwen Griffiths
9 years old

Edward Clive Mumford
11 years old

Edwin Davies
8 years old

Edwina Bartlett
9 years old

Eryl Mai Jones
10 years old

Gareth Davies
10 years old

Gareth Evans
3 months old

Geoffrey Derek Needs
10 years old

Gillian Gough
8 years old

Gillian Irene Jones
11 years old

Graham Williams
8 years old

Howard David Prosser
9 years old

Howell Lloyd Evans
7 years old

Ian Dougall
9 years old

Jacqueline Powell
8 years old

Janet Jones
9 years old

Jean Launchbury
10 years old

Jean Winifred Evans
11 years old

Jeanette Lynne Brown
10 years old

Jennifer Haines
8 years old

Jill Elizabeth Parfitt
9 years old

John Anthony King
9 years old

John Islwyn Jones
10 years old

Joseph Wilkshire
8 years old

Julie Jeannine Regan
9 years old

Julie Price
8 years old

June Margaret Williams
10 years old

Karen O’Brien
8 years old

Kay Bowns
10 years old

Keith Williams
9 years old

Kelvin David Andrew
10 years old

Kevin Thomas Jones
9 years old

Layton Kerrie Reakes
9 years old

Linda Anderson
10 years old

Linda Hodkinson
8 years old

Lorraine Rosa Isobel Richards
10 years old

Lynn Harding
9 years old

Malcolm Andrew
8 years old

Maralyn Carol Howells
9 years old

Maralyn Minnett
10 years old

Martine Anne Short
9 years old

Maureen Mary Evans
8 years old

Megan Olwen Robbins
10 years old

Merrill Barnard
11 years old

Michael Collins
10 years old

Michael Jones
13 years old

Michael Fitzpatrick
7 years old

Necia James
9 years old

Norma Mumford
10 years old

Pamela Heaman
10 years old

Patricia Probert
12 years old

Paul Davies
8 years old

Paul Jones
9 years old

Peter Collins
10 years old

Peter Williams
10 years old

Philip Mumford
9 years old

Randolph Tudor
10 years old

Raymond John Collins
14 years old

Richard Phillip Goldsworthy
10 years old

Robert Breeze
10 years old

Robert Coffey
14 years old

Robert Garfield Jones
9 years old

Robert George Minney
10 years old

Robert Orville Jones
8 years old

Roger Colin Summers
7 years old

Roger Dyfrig Hayes
9 years old

Royston Barrett
10 years old

Royston Carl Davies
9 years old

Royston Hodkinson
9 years old

Sandra Leyshon
9 years old

Sandra Pauline Donovan
10 years old

Sharon Lewis
9 years old

Sheila Fitzpatrick
13 years old

Stephen Vaughan Hopkins
10 years old

Susan Jones
9 years old

Susan Mary Crotty
10 years old

Susan Meredith
8 years old

Sylvia Frances Richards
9 years old

Terence Malcolm Davies
10 years old

Thomas Probert
7 years old

Trevor Timothy Gray
9 years old

Valmai Mary Owen
8 years old

Victoria Marie Symonds
10 years old

Vincent Clark Parfitt
13 years old

Yvonne Drage
11 years old

ABERFAN

An unknown village in the vale,

Secluded from the noisome world;

Within its borders, children played and sang,

And, from the hills behind, their echoes rang

While Aberfan lay still, in deep content.

The people lived on coal, black diamonds

Deep hewn by skilled and gallant men.

They knew the risk they ran.

The early morning kiss and tender smile,

So shyly given before the sun broke o’er the hill,

Might always be the last.

Yet down the mine they went.

They toiled below the ground

In lurking darkness.

Their songs and chat accompanied

By menacing sounds of water,

Dripping, dripping, dripping.

They read the signs, ominous and dark

And scrambled skillfully away

Before the roof fell in.

They did not always win.

Entombed were many men

And up above stood women

Praying, waiting, weeping,

Not daring e’en to hope

Much less despair.

This was their lot.

The mine became a tomb

And, in the place of warmth to cheer the heart

It spoke of cold, the chill of death

The insufferable winter in a life of spring.

Then came the day.

The hills of God stood firm.

The man-made heaps of slag

Began to move.

Weight immeasurable,

Force irresistible,

Crushing all before.

A farm, the homes of men below,

And, in their cruel and senseless spate

They could not even wait

For little children to escape.

The Junior school was crushed.

Pant Glas with all its hopes,

Its dreams, its noble expectations;

Pant Glas, built by the toil of men below

To open up new worlds for young ones up above;

Pant Glas – how fair a name! -

Was buried ‘neath the slime and mud

Brought from the mine.

The bud of life

Was utterly destroyed.

The mine had won again,

And seemed to mock

All human striving

To build for children the promise

Of a fairer and a kinder world.

Alas! was it all in vain?

Merthyr Vale – the Martyrs vale!

Why should the martyr be a child?

Why claim the young for sacrifice?

Wherein lies guilt and blame?

On whom should fall the shame?

We do not know.

We only know

That Aberfan no longer

Lies secluded in the hills of Wales.

It is the centre of the world;

The world in which the tales

Of human courage, human grief are told,

Deeds of valour wrought,

Nobility achieved, but never sought,

A world of sorrow and of cruel fate

Made splendid by the simple, now the great.

For generations yet to come,

When tales are told

Of courage, human pity,

Noble grief, majestic sorrow,

When men recall

The heroism of frantic men

Undaunted in the face

Of ruthless, blind and senseless slag,

With simple pride and uplifted heart

Then shall they say to every man:

“This was the glory of Aberfan”

The late Reverend Dr. Emlyn Davies of Aberfan

29 October, 1966

And of that tactical genius, “Sir” Robert Howley, we all knew… Really we did. Stan is that rare combination of humility and hidden depths. The mastermind who plays his cards close to his chest. The dynamic chess master whose strategy was so arcane, not even the finest rugby minds could fathom it, until it was fully unleashed. Then it was too late, and a red tide swept over the RWC.

Then there’s Edwards, the only Englishman since David Duckham good enough to be Welsh. We’ll forget that his parents didn’t have enough money to drive to Cardiff for his birth, safe in the knowledge that we know they wanted to.

Finally… Finally. The Master. We may have called him Cement Head. We may have derided him with references to Gatlandball. But we all knew, that deep within that affable kiwi persona beat the heart of a true Celtic warrior. He is a general, a wartime planner of unparalleled guile and genius, a god amongst men. Move over Carwyn, W.D. Gatland is ready to take the torch.

These men are ready to be legendary. Just two more games. Of course.. If they fack it up…

A heart attack at 79 is not an unusual occurrence, and given he had an attack five years ago, only surviving because of the prompt actions of those custodians of the nation’s health the NHS, it would be safe to say he was living in overtime.

Following an operation after his attack, to put stents in, he went on to lead a perfectly normal life for those five years, living in Skegness – a funny old holiday town that characterises everything good and bad about the British seaside, and travelling to holiday destinations around the globe with bewildering frequency.

I met him in Skegness and enjoyed his company immensely, despite a bit of an Indian accent that could vary from transparent to impenetrable and transient deafness that seemed to be more a matter of convenience than impediment. He struck me as a warm man who loved his many children with as much love and pride as his small frame could offer.

In his own way, he was an extraordinary man. The bare facts are: he arrived in Britain from India in 1949, aged 17, and then set about educating himself. He eventually qualified as Chartered Accountant and not only set up his own practice, but taught Accountancy at the City of London Polytechnic. He married a Yorkshire girl and together they had two sons and six daughters, all of whom did him proud. Can you imagine that though: 17 years old, 4000 miles from home and barely speaking the language? Amazing really: I would have been terrified.

A lifelong socialist, he was determined to integrate himself into the British way of life and gave his first daughter a British first name, only pronounced it with the Indian long “A”, but equally importantly passed on his values of fairness, justice and a work ethic that took his children a long way.

While I only knew him slightly, I was taken by him and had no little admiration for the way he set about life’s merry-go-round. Arriving in a strange land, with a foreign tongue, marked by skin colour and religious differences… virtually everything against him, he made a tremendous success of his life, made a difference to the lives of others and leaves behind a legacy of six lovely daughters, two great sons and a marvellous wife. I’ve retained his anonymity, but those who count know who I mean, and that’s all that matters.

I wish I knew him better.

RIP.

Welsh is easier to pronounce than an English reader might imagine. There’s an excellent explanation of how to cope with Welsh pronunciation on Linguata’s site: http://www.linguata.com/welsh/welsh-pronunciation.html

In short, here are some useful tips:

1) Stress falls on the last syllable by one. There are a few exceptions – like the word for Welsh itself “Cymraeg” where the stress is on the first syllable.

2) Consonants: there are no letters k, x or z in Welsh and the Z sound is not used at all.

3) There are a number of digraphs (double letters that have a single letter sound). Of these only ng and si are treated as double letters, the others are regarded as being a single letter. The digraphs are:

•  Ch
•  Dd
•  Ff
•  Ng
•  Ll
•  Ph
•  Si
• Th

4)There only two Welsh consonants which are doubled and these are: N and R

5) Most Welsh consonants sound like their English counterparts, with a few exceptions: These are:

• C is always pronounced like it is in CAT, and never as in NICE. So the Welsh word for DOG = CI is pronounced “KEY”
• DD is always pronounced like TH in THE
• F is pronounced as a V as in VERY
• FF is pronounced as F in FARM
• G is always like the G in GET not PAGE
• NG is like the NG in SONG mostly, although occasionally as in FINGER – there are exceptions like BANGOR with is pronounced BANG-GOR
• S is usually like the S in SISTER – a strong sibilant, as opposed to the S in THOSE. If the S is before ia, ie, io and iw it is pronounced as SH as in SUGAR
• TH is pronounced as the TH in THIN, not as in THOSE

There are some consonants which do not have an English equivalent:

• R is rolled or trilled RRRR as in Harry – it’s never pronounced like the R in CORNER. So the Welsh word to stay (AROS) is pronounced as “ARR-ros”
• RH is a breathy versions of R with your tongue in the top of your mouth
• CH is one English speakers seem to have problems with, but think of a Scottish LOCH, not an English LOCK and you’ll get there
• The big one… LL – this is unique to Wales. The easy way to pronounce it is to put your tongue in the last position of the letter L (EL), hold it there and emit a sharp breath. Job done. One tip – try to emit your breath out of the right side of your mouth; you’ll sound more “Welsh”.

6) Vowels: single vowels in Welsh have a pure sound – much closer to continental vowels than their English counterparts.

• A broad generalisation is that vowels in the many common monosyllabic words are short before consonant clusters, e.g. ffordd (road), bwrdd (table), pump (five, pronounced pimp), before (unvoiced) consonants c p t, and before m and ng; long before the voiced consonants g, b, d, f, dd and before ch, th, ff, and s. They are also long in open-ended monosyllables such as da (good), tŷ (house) and de (south). Here are an important group of vowels:
• A – Can be as in MAP, or long as in TARDY
• E – as in LET
• I – can be as in DIM, but can take on the EE sound of DEEP
• O – can be the same as COT, or somewhere between COAT and CAUGHT (pob = every, is an example of this).
• U – in South Wales this is similar to the EE version of I, in North Wales they also use it as EE, but it’s pronounced in the back of the throat.
• W is a bit like a Lancastrian saying COOK or COOL
• Y usually sounds like the I in HINT, or the E in HERE. There is an another pronunciation, which is like U in FUR, or the ER in PAPER.

7) Some vowels (I and W) can double up as consonants in some words. An example of this is the I in ARIAN (money) and IAITH (language) which sound like the Y in YARD. In the word GWYN (white), the W is pronounced like the W in WATER, so you would pronounce the word as GWIN.

Thanks to Graham Rooth at Linguata for all the tips above.

Some useful Welsh Phrases.

Cymru = Wales

Cymry = Welsh [the people]

Cymraeg = Welsh [the language]

Lloegr = England

Sais = an Englishman

Saeson = English [the people]

Saesneg = English [the language]

Saesneg (adj.) = English-language, English-speaking

Saesnig = English [from England]

Cymru am byth! = Wales for ever!

Y Ddraig Goch ddyry gychwyn = The Red Dragon will show the way

Bore da = Good morning

Prynhawn da = Good afternoon

Noswaith dda = Good evening

Nos da = Goodnight

Helô or Hylô = Hello

Sut mae? (Northern Welsh) = How are you?

Shw mae? (Southern Welsh) = How are you?

Croeso = Welcome

Hwyl = Bye

Hwyl am rwan/nawr = Bye for now (North/South)

Dal ati!, Daliwch ati! = Keep at it!, Don’t give up!

Nadolig Llawen = Merry Christmas

Blwyddwyn Newydd Dda = Happy New Year

Penblwydd Hapus = Happy Birthday

Cyfarchion y Tymor = Season’s greetings

Pob lwc = Good luck

Dymuniadau da, Dymuniadau gorau, Pob dymuniad da = Best wishes

Llongyfarchiadau = Congratulations

Cofion cynnes = Yours (salutation at the end of a letter)

Cariad = Love, Darling

Dw i’n dy garu di = I love you

Hen Wlad fy Nhadau = Land of My Fathers (also the anthem)

South Africa dealt with both easily. They never look flustered in defence. Not once did we try to work space for our wide men, not once did we create an over lap and more often than not, we blew good ball either through making a wrong decision, dropping the ball, or falling victim to South African aggression.

Priestland in particular did NOTHING and I mean absolutely nothing to enhance our scoring chances in the 22. He had a relatively good game elsewhere on the park, but seemed to have no idea what to do once we were in scoring range. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the lad, even though he is a filthy Turk. No, the blame must rest entirely with our attack coach who seems to lack the wit and imagination to create a plan of attack that extends beyond getting into position to create chances. Once there, we do nothing other than batter away.

If you look at the way the Saffers created space when attacking us and you’ll see the real difference. They opened us up with precision, while we tried to beat them to death. That we almost succeeded is probably more to do with their decline than anything we did.

It WAS a good performance from Wales, but we really must focus on creating openings when we’re in try scoring range rather than doing the same old, same old. One definition of insanity is to keep repeating what you’re doing and expecting a different result. Let’s have a bit of variety FFS and use our two most potent weapons – GEORGE NORTH! and Shane Williams.

When you think of it this way, World Cup-related video games are no different. They’re not for the hard-core sports game fans, who undoubtedly buy all the yearly rehashes without question. World Cup games are generally for the casuals, who become fans of the sport for six weeks (or however long their team is in the tournament) because it’s a big event. So when creating a merchandise game for such events, these people should be considered the primary audience before the core fans.

It’s on this understanding that sports game fans avoid the World Cup games every four years, and instead play the yearly releases. These games often enjoy a much larger development budget, yearly improvements to the mechanics (bringing the game ever closer to real life), and a vast array of clubs and international sides which should last any anyone until next year’s mechanic and roster update shakes things up again.

However, rugby hasn’t enjoyed yearly game releases like other sports, so fans who’ve long wished for a game to play have been left in the lurch. In fact, there hasn’t been a rugby game since 2007 (EA’s Rugby 08), and even that game was only released on PC and PlayStation 2, the latter of which had already been made obsolete by its successor. So Rugby World Cup 2011, developed by HB Studios, is the first rugby game ever released in this console generation, and as a result walks a fine line between appeasing the hard-core rugby fans who will be expecting to play it for many months to come, and the casual gamers who only have a passing interest in the sport.

Unfortunately, it’s not very successful on either front.

For starters, the game is hard. Really hard. And I don’t necessarily mean in a challenging and rewarding sense (though persistence does make this game more enjoyable), but in the way that the game simply throws you into a match and expects you to know all the controls, having obviously read the instruction booklet from cover to cover, and remembered the six or seven different (and largely incoherent) control schemes for different states of play.

The fact that there’s no training mode to learn these controls — an essential feature in every sports game, especially one that hasn’t had a release in four years — is downright shameful, and players with little patience will put the game down before they’ve even finished their first match. Having a mode which eases players into the controls and how the game plays is essential, and is sorely missed from Rugby World Cup 2011.

That said, the game is rewarding once you’ve learned the controls, and is scalable depending on how much of a challenge you want. In the normal and hard difficulty, turning over the ball is as difficult as it seems in real life, your CPU opponents are good at attack and defence, and the strategic options, whilst limited to four per match (out of a selection of eight in the whole game), bring some challenge in the harder difficulties.

The easy mode, in contrast, is good for those who just want to win without too much difficulty, which is great for younger players and casuals. Though they’ll still need to learn the controls before they see success.

As for the actual game content, the success of the online mode will determine how long you’ll be playing the game. I can’t stress enough how important online play is to this game’s longevity, and whilst I’ve hardly been able to play online due to the fact that barely any other games journalists were around in the pre-release stage, I’ve managed to play two full online matches with someone who got the game early, and it was by far the most challenging, fair and rewarding part of the game. Dare I say it, but I might return to play more matches in the near future, should anyone be there.

As for offline, I’d normally say that mode would be enough to keep most players happy, but within two and a half hours I’d already given every mode a try, and within four or five I’d gained a comprehensive understanding of every mode the game had to offer: a warm-up tour (consisting of a few short tours of both the southern and northern hemisphere sides with the team of your choice), international tests (a one-off match between two sides), a place-kick shootout (as described — really, it’s just a tacked on feature that no-one’s ever going to play) and, of course, the World Cup tournament itself. Quite frankly, it’s simply not enough for a £45 game, and unless you take it online you won’t be getting your money’s worth.

Outside of the matches, Rugby World Cup 2011 gives you a selection of options expected from any modern sports game. Rules can be adjusted to suit the player’s tastes, and various visual cues (such as a yellow line indicating the offside position) can be toggled on or off too. Added to this, players can also be renamed, which is a godsend considering the dire state of team licensing in this game.

Of the twenty nations competing in the tournament, only ten actually have licensed kits and real player names. Sides like the All Blacks and the Wallabies as we know them are missing from the game, replaced with generic New Zealand and Australia, whilst their squads consist of randomly named players. For people who will be putting a lot of time into the game, going through the effort of renaming each and every unlicensed team’s line-up shouldn’t be too bothersome, but would be heart-breaking for the casual out to seek glory as their national team.

Lastly, the other major complaint is the graphics. The game looks like something from 2006, back when the Xbox 360 was barely a year old and the PlayStation 3 hadn’t even been released. Player faces look a little cartoony, whilst the rest of their model looks more like geometry than an actual person. Meanwhile, the stadia look like they were ported straight from the sub-HD PS2 game Rugby 08, complete with low-res blurry crowd and all. A few years ago, this would’ve been acceptable, but this is 2011 — we’re coming up to the end of the console generation — and it’s really underwhelming.

All told, Rugby World Cup 2011 is a mixed bag for both its audiences. The thrill-seeking casuals will be baffled by the game’s controls, quickly lose patience with the amateurish presentation, and won’t really get the experience they’re after. Those who’ve been yearning for a rugby game for a long time will get more out of the game, since they’ll have the patience to learn the controls and insert the proper roster for their national team, should it not already be there. However, even they’ll feel a little short changed by this game; the lack of modes gives you three to six hours of gameplay at most before you’re simply going through the motions, whilst the only truly engaging mode relies entirely on how many people will actually bother playing online.

Whilst there’s been a substantial number of people asking for a new rugby game these last four years, Rugby World Cup 2011 is not the game they were asking for. It’s decidedly mediocre, and with this in mind, I find it hard to recommend the game to all but the most hard-core rugby fans. But even they should download the demo from Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Network first, just to be sure that this is the right game for them.

Pros

- Rewarding once you learn the controls and crank up the difficulty.

- A decent approximation of the sport in video game form.

- Squad editing is welcome, due to the lack of licensed content.

- At least there’s an online mode which has the potential to flesh this game out.

Cons

- Not having all the official teams and kits is really disappointing.

- A chronic lack of content is not worth the £45 price tag.

- Pretty rubbish graphics for a 2011 game.

- Lack of training mode is this game’s biggest sin. Without it, many players will give up before they’ve even had a chance to complain about the rest of it.

Score: 5/10

Publisher provided a copy of the game for reviewing purposes. Rugby World Cup 2011 will be available from August 26th 2011 with the RRP of £44.99 on PlayStation 3 (version tested) and Xbox 360.