We had not realised that The Guardian was a bilingual newspaper so we were surprised, as others may have been, that in response to Jim Perrin’s Country Diary entry for 28/03/2014 two comments were posted in Welsh. As there was no English translation this might have been seen as discrimination. Apart from the failure by The Guardian moderator to edit comments not in English (Jim Perrin’s Friends in High Places?) was it a ‘first’ to have comments in a language unlikely to be spoken by the majority of The Guardian’s readers?

And then there is the on-going question of Jim Perrin’s deceitful invention of multiple aliases: in any event, we believe — and have print-outs not yet shown on our site — that, by using pseudonyms, he has previously planted comments as double bluffs. Could this be another example? Who is ‘Welshbarbarian’? Who is ‘DrudwyBranwen’? Continue reading →

We said in the previous post that Jim Perrin writes for the Guardian as a Country Diarist. Although he is English he is paid by them to be  ‘THE Country Diarist for Wales’! It is a mystery that they do not ask someone who is Welsh…

Visiting Wales in 2013 to deliver ‘The William Condry Memorial Lecture’  was another English diarist, Mark Cocker, who has himself on occasion posted diary entries from Wales; he is renowned both as an ornithologist and author and the details of his remarkable career may be found on-line. He lives in Norfolk and his diary entries are mostly posted from that part of the country. They are finely observed and written in an unpretentious, painterly style with here and there highlights and memorable colour. Continue reading →