Rural crime survey

The NFU is encouraging farmers and growers to take part in the government’s Commercial Victimisation Survey and record the nature, extent and costs of any crimes against your business.

Agriculture has been reintroduced as part of the survey, after successful efforts from the Union, and it is an opportunity to make Government and the Home Office aware of the extent rural crime affects farm businesses.

The results will be used to monitor crime trends, identify what actions need to be taken to reduce crime and find out what support would be most helpful to farm businesses.

NFU land management adviser Rupert Weaver said: “This survey is a perfect opportunity for farmers to make Government aware of the serious impacts rural crime poses to farm businesses.

“As the NFU has already highlighted in its Rural Crime Report, rural crime affects a huge number of farmers, their businesses and family life.

“There is increasing fear in rural areas due to increasing crime, resulting in significantly lower than average satisfaction levels with the police.

“There is also a lack of official statistics relating to rural crime, partly due to underreporting, and a significant response from the farming community could provide the relevant authorities with the data they need to act on this problem. The NFU would encourage all farmers who receive the survey to participate.”

Businesses randomly selected to take part in the survey, ran by the Home Office with independent researchers Ipsos Mori, will receive a letter and a subsequent ’phone call between September and December 2017 to conduct an interview.

Dylan

Many Welsh patriots will say that there is no other writer whose work can exhilarate like that of Dylan Thomas although, there can be little doubt, he produced his best work when he was considerably less than sober.

“No one whose vision of this life can fill anyone with the same sense of awe and appetite. No one whose words can make their mouths water as much, or whose images demand such mouthing. The combustible mixture of sly parochialism and exotic sensuality, underpinned by a roiling pagan intelligence, has a vitality and immediacy that can hit you like a slap on a cold day.

“To emulate its dark magic of Welsh poet and playwright, Dylan Thomas, you would have to drink from the same enchanted waters that Dylan himself did, strike the same infernal pact with whatever Welsh devil he met at the crossed paths of the swirling life he had. The stories and the legends are legion, of course. The bookshops are stocking up, the hotels undergoing spring-cleans and the pubs preparing to welcome guests keen to follow in the footsteps of.

“From time to time, admirers of hellraiser Dylan descend in droves on South Wales not just from across the UK, but from the US, Europe and the far east to walk the same paths that he walked a century ago -the Welsh government and the British Council Wales organised a series of cultural events and education initiatives across North America, India, Australia and Argentina to further spread the word about Thomas - and Wales - and the centenary of his birth.”

Jeff Towns, who runs Dylan’s Bookstore in Swansea, reinforcing the poet’s global reputation says: “The Americans took Thomas to heart after his death in New York, especially after the likes of Richard Burton and Bob Dylan made their admiration for him clear. He was elevated to an icon alongside the likes of James Dean and schools across the world spread the word even further.”

Towns, such a fan that he sports a tattoo of the Thomas line: “Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,” said Continental Europe came to love the writer not for his roistering image and rock ‘n’ roll early death aged 39, but simply for his poetry.

“I’ve always found that Europeans, especially Scandinavians, took to him without the prejudice that he has faced in England and Wales. They are more interested in the work on the page rather than the man.”

But Thomas’s reputation has not always been as solid in Wales as in other parts of the world. One theory is that as a non-native speaker he was considered not Welsh enough in Wales - but was regarded as too Welsh by the English.

Towns also believes that his reputation as a womaniser and drunken slob upset the puritanical element in Wales.

However, the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, is a big fan, revealing to the Guardian that his favourite character from Under Milk Wood is the blind Captain Cat, who dreams of his long-gone shipmates and lost lover Rosie Probert in Thomas’s play for voices.

The First Minister chuckled as he pointed out how Thomas’s fictional village in Under Milk Wood - Llareggub - spelled out something rather rude backwards. ‘That shows the devilment of the man.’ (Contributed).

Welsh menu

The NFU in Wales has welcomed a move by the pub company J. D. Wetherspoon to support the Welsh farming industry with the launch this month of a new Welsh menu today.

The new, bilingual, menu showcases a range of food and drink from suppliers across Wales, as well as meat from Welsh farms - amongst the meals are Welsh Dragon sausages, Welsh beef and ale pie and Welsh Celtic Pride beef cottage pie.

The menu is available across all 50 of J. D. Wetherspoon’s establishments in Wales whose regional manager for West Wales, Richard Bond, says: “We are proud to serve a stand-alone menu in our pubs offering the best of Welsh food and drink, alongside our regular menu.

“I see it as a wonderful opportunity for our pubs to offer superb Welsh-produced products.”

Union president Stephen James remarked: “I’m really delighted to hear that Wetherspoon’s has taken this step. In doing so, they are complementing the plethora of other independent pubs and restaurants across Wales who already prioritise providing their customers with Welsh produce - this increased backing can only be a good thing for the Welsh food and drink industry.

The latest Wales Tourism Business Barometer results show that a strong majority (87 per cent) of businesses that serve food and drink to their customers say that they offer Welsh produce.

This is great news for Welsh food and drink with businesses offering customers a wide range of Welsh produce, including meat, milk, eggs, alcohol, vegetables, baked goods, seafood and soft drinks.

Self-catering operators also state that their guest welcome packs include Welsh food and drink, with notes or labelling highlighting the Welsh produce. Comments from the industry include ‘Offering these products is something that helps Wales stand out, while supporting the local economy’ and ‘It gives visitors a sense of place - people want to try the local produce when they visit an area - it’s important for tourists to try local produce and to know where the food comes from.’

No measurements needed!

A reader of this column recalls the time when cawel cig eidon Sir Benfro (Pembrokeshire beef cawl) had a regular place on the dinner table. The ingredients she says were a savoy cabbage, a couple of sliced onions, beef marrow bones (optional), stewing beef, turnip, carrots, potatoes. Sliced leeks in circles, parsley chopped.

Quantity is up to you! Everything is cut up and put into the pot in the above order. Add the washed leeks about 10 minutes before you are going to serve this. Boil for a few minutes and then add the parsley. If you want to give it a little more kick, add Knorr leek soup (optional). This can be made with a ham hock a leg of lamb or chicken. This, she says, was a meal that was prepared for the farmers dinner (lunch) before going out again to the fields. The meat was removed and served after the cawl with dumplings and some of the vegetables from the cawl.

There are no measurements!

Trial run

A Texan announces to the crowd in an Irish pub: “I’ll give $500 to any man here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back-to-back.”

The room grows quiet. No one takes him up on his offer, and one man even leaves.

Half-an-hour later, that same man taps the Texan on the shoulder. “Is that bet still good?” he asks.

The Texan assures him it is. The bartender starts lining up pints of Guinness, but almost as fast as he can pour, the Irishman chugs them down, easily finishing all 10 pints.

The pub’s patrons cheer as the Texan reaches for his wallet. “If ya don’t mind ma askin’, where did you disappear to right after I made my bet?”

The Irishman replies: “Oh, that? I went to the pub across the street to see if I could do it!”