Apparently I am nowhere yet out of the woods, but I don't feel bad, so I'm not noticing what is ailing me. I intend to keep on top of it regardless!

Hahaha...reminds me of the "Taxi" episode with rev Jim ... "what does the yellow light mean?" ..."sloooow down!"

For short, they just call it Whopperllgwyngyllgogerychwyrn.

Last edited Sat Jun 13, 2026, 11:23 AM - Edit history (1)

Vowels are VERY expensive in Wales, and the very first episode of the Welsh version of Wheel of Fortune that started 35 years ago has yet to wrap. One of the contestants, barely out of high school at the beginning, is now a grandparent, and they still haven't gotten to the final round.

Probably true also.

I feel fine, and, according to their readouts, I am not fine.

I will keep in close touch, and do what they tell me. You see, I have this really hot girlfriend, even married her some 44 years ago, and I'd really like to stick around with her for a couple of decades more, if possible.

I hear some cool jokes over here. A guy from Poland once told me this one (I have posted it before, fair warning):

A polish guy was walking along the beach on the Baltic near Gdańsk, and found an old oil lamp on the beach. He picked up, and rubbed some of the debris off, when a genie appeared. The genie explained that he had three wishes, and the genie would grant him all of them. He asked anything? and the genie confirmed: anything. OK, said the Polish guy, for my first wish, I wish for the Chinese Army to invade Poland. The genie gulped, but said, OK, I am required to grant you that wish. And for your second wish? The Polish guy said he wanted the Chinese Army to invade Poland again. The genie shook his head, but said, alright, and for your third with? The Polish guy said he wanted the Chinese Army to invade Poland a third time. The genie was not happy with this, but was bound to grant the man's wishes. However, he said he begged the man WHY, as a Pole, he wanted the Chinese army to invade Poland three times in succession? The man answered, "for the Chinese army to invade Poland, on the way they would have to lay waste to all of Russia on the way three times."

Another Pole, back in the Soviet era, told me that if fleas had bio-luminescence, then Moscow would look like Las Vegas.

The Poles are not overly fond of the Russians, as a generalization.

I am half Polish so I certainly understand 😄

I am certain you’ll be as good as new very soon and can look forward to a couple more decades with your lovely wife!

I am half Polish, and the other half German.

And my maternal grandmother came from Poland - in 1912 she made the journey as a 15-year-old with only a friend, she was the eldest in her family. And she was born a twin, but her twin died when they were only 7. The part of Poland that she came from was occupied by the Russians and though she was a very kind and generous person, she continued to hate the Russians for the rest of her life.

I made a special trip to go there. Perhaps I saw visiting Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as a right of Welsh ancestry passage. Being Welsh is fun.

as a foreign exchange student. Great people. Difficult language. I did not meet too many people who spoke fluent Welsh. Maybe 3?

I stayed at a B&B, once, and the couple took me to the local British Union for drinks. I was, at the time, active duty military and I felt very welcome'

They also treated me to a full Sunday Roast dinner. It was lovely.

I love the Welsh. And the Scots. I haven't much experience with home grown Irish.

the UK. Always got along with the Welsh and Scottish folk... the English were sometimes a little harder to like. I only did a week in Ireland so didn't really get a sense of the folk there. And though it's totally anecdotal, every single French person i met was a total ass. Though this was the early 90s and i was at the time a dreadlocked backpacking traveler with piercings... and totally "skint"! Sometimes i was not well received.

...but it's still a considerable portion of the populace. I believe there are laws mandating bilingual signs and such. Also, speaking Welsh is a sort of identity choice and perhaps for some, a political signifier -- Plaid Cymru, a left party, seeks local empowerment and independence from Britain.

That makes sense to me -- if I could speak a different language to distinguish myself from the trumpists, besides all the plotting and harmonized hymn-singing, I'd be alllll over that!

For the year ending 30 June 2025, the APS estimated that 27.2% of people aged three years or older were able to speak Welsh. This figure equates to around 836,800 people.

Almost half of all Welsh speakers consider themselves fluent, while 20% are able to speak a fair amount. 56% of Welsh speakers speak the language daily, and 19% speak the language weekly.

And have you ever heard anyone actually pronounce it? At the time I went with my parents and my Dad's mother who I was very close to. Though she was a world traveler, my Dad wanted for her to see Ireland since she'd never been. And I really loved Wales as well.

It should become a Tic Tok challenge.

Just fill your mouth with rocks, and say, "Fourscore and seven years ago......"

Tourists were debating how to pronounce the name of the city of Manchaca. (It's "Man-Shack," for the record. Go figure.) They go to a restaurant, ask how the place is pronounced, and the cashier says "Dar-ee-queeeeeeen."

Burger Kings in Wales or Dairy Queens in Texas?

Or maybe someone from Texas visited Wales, and the Welsh modified it for local consumption, although the number of Texans who know where Wales is not what one would call overwhelming.

Well before Burger King was founded in 1953 and entered the UK market in 1973. I couldn't find a year for Wales specifically but it was more recent.

It was probably 2005, and even then 90% of Wales had not the slightest clue what it was.

European countries with 0 Burger Kings include Iceland, Serbia, and Ukraine.

Google says there are many Burger Kings in south Wales and very few in the North.

But it was about Nacogdoches.

They would certainly have given the Welsh and the Finns a run for their money.

Only the town the travelers stopped in was Waxahatchie (pronounced Wocks-a-hach-ee, IIRC), and the server replies in her slow southern, Texas drawl, "Dairrr-eee Queeeennn."

Get under the table and take a leek.

I don't understand why you should get under the table, but that's the way I heard it.

but I've never been to Wales.

Although you’ll love this story: when my younger daughter was in law school in the States, her class was once asked to read parts of some judgment out loud. The case had to do with Volkswagen. The passage my daughter was asked to read contained the full formal name of VW: Volkswagenaktiensgesellschaft. She read right through it like it was nothing. Her whole class and the professor all went “WHOA!! How did you do that?” She look at them and reminded them, “I’m German!” Her English was so good by then that most of them had forgotten where she was from.

At the World Cup a few years back, when it was held in Brazil, she got fed some kind of semi-allowed Amazonian herbs that are available nowhere else. They seemed to have performed wonders on her linguistic proficiency.

Lamont Cranston really learned the power to cloud men's minds so they could not see him. All that stuff about "the orient' was just a white cover story.

I still have the souvenir train ticket. Beautiful country. Great joke.