Friday, March 24, 2006

Why Llanelli Scarlets are the “Cup Kings of Wales"



The Llanelli Scarlets have long had the tag of “Cup Kings of Wales” having lifted the Welsh Cup 12 times in 17 final appearances. This is almost twice as often as the cup has been lifted by any of the other top clubs in Wales (Cardiff 7 times, Swansea 6, Pontypridd 2 and Neath 2).

So, how have the Llanelli Scarlets achieved this amazing record? Well, maybe the colour they wear holds the clue. According to a recent experiment, if all else is equal, the opponent wearing the colour red is more likely to win. (I think we have to accept that, given the recent run of disastrous results for the Welsh national side, all else was probably not equal in their case!).

However, in the various Welsh cup finals over the years, it could be argued that the two teams have generally been of a roughly equal standard (for that season at least) given the competition to get there and the Scarlets have won on 71% of occasions.

In a recent article in Nature, Russell Hill and Robert Barton of the University of Durham, describe how they studied 4 combat sports during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games: boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling, where contestants were randomly assigned either red or blue colours. They found that, across the four disciplines, contestants wearing red won significantly more fights.

A deeper analysis of the data showed the colour advantage tipped the balance only when competitors were relatively evenly matched.

The influence of colour on such contests may have its roots in our evolutionary past. In the animal world, red is thought to be related to fitness, aggression and high levels of testosterone.

Male mandrills, for example, have red colouration on their faces, rumps and genitalia that they use to communicate their fighting ability to other males.

"Whether red suppresses the testosterone of the opponent or boosts the testosterone of the individual wearing red, we don't know at the moment.” Dr Barton told the BBC News website.

Watch this space to see if the Scarlets, Cup Kings of Wales can overcome the yellow (what yellow?!) Wasps at Twickenham on April 9th.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Dressing like "Old People"



Entertaining some octogenarians to tea one afternoon, I found myself reflecting on “the way old people dress”. There is definitely a distinctive way in which many older people dress and it’s definitely very different from the way I and most of my contemporaries do.

So, I began to worry, now I’ve reached 50, how on earth I could possibly manage the drastic transition from my current stripey jeans, red boots and purple sweater to the traditional ‘old people’ look and when (and how!) would I make that vast transformation? Would I make it all at once (risking the mirth of my friends) or make it very gradually, adding first the button-up cardigan, the embroidered blouse and then maybe the A line skirt? And would it feel natural when I did so? This was all very worrying. I couldn’t imagine myself at all dressed like elderly ladies I see in the street … how could I look like that and still be me?

So, how and when did my elderly relatives make their transition to “old people’s clothes”? When, for example, did my late father start wearing battered tweed jackets, checked viyella shirts and muddy coloured ties? Suddenly, it dawned on me that he didn’t. I had got it all wrong.

“Old people” haven’t made some marked switch of wardrobes. They are simply wearing a mildly (and heavily individualistically) evolved version of what they were wearing when they were in their 30’s – maybe even in their 20’s, i.e. they are not wearing “old people’s clothes” but rather “evolved 1950’s style” clothes just as I (when I reach 80 plus) will be wearing my own individualised version of “evolved 1980’s style” clothes. Only, by then, people my age will see the latter as “what really old people wear”! Ouch!

So, my theory now is that there comes a point in most people’s lives (maybe when we are in our early 30’s) when we unconsciously stop bothering to follow the wild swings of fashion (if we ever did so) and the style of that particular decade stays with us (in rough and vaguely recognisable format) for the rest of our lives.

That’s a relief. I now know that clothes (like everything else) won’t feel “old” when I get there – they’ll just be normal for me.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

St David's Day














March 1st - St David's Day.

A good day to reflect on Wales and the Welsh.

Today, HM the Queen (of England) opens our new national assembly building, called the Senedd - the Welsh word for a parliament with the same Latin root as the word Senate. There was a flurry of objection (from within Wales - who else would give a damn) to the use of this particular word, because it suggests a level of sovereignty that Wales has not yet achieved. The Welsh Assembly doesn't (yet) have law-making or tax-raising powers, and is limited to setting the policy for and administering its own public health, education and transport services. But it will soon be able to draft laws specific to Wales for ratification by the Westminster parliament, and this constitutional arrangement has the capacity to evolve into full formal legislative power or (just as effective and rather more British) into a situation where Westminster would no more deny that ratification than Queen Elizabeth can fail to sign duly passed acts of the UK parliament. But is Wales a separate enough nation to require its own legislature?

Full national independence for Wales would until recently have been quite difficult to countenance. The country isn't big or rich enough to support the full trappings of a nation state, particularly a welfare state, while maintaining the same standard of living for its citizens. But Wales could surely survive as a sovereign member of the European Union, particularly a Union which took over responsibility for many of the more expensive aspects of large nation state government, as many of its member states seem happy for it to do. It is much easier to yield to Europe a sovereignty that you haven't, in practice, ever had.

And that might be the best future for Wales as a separate nation, assuming that's what it really wants to be. Unlike Scotland, Wales hasn't really been a politically separate nation state since the middle ages, when the defining characteristics of a nation state were rather cruder. The mediaeval Welsh, for a variety of reasons, never had the opportunity to evolve from a feuding collection of princedoms into a larger political unit with a common legal framework and the administrative machinery to go with it. They were effectively absorbed into an English state which had already been annexed by a Norman aristocracy.

Culturally, however, Wales has retained many of the differences it had at the time it was finally subdued by the English king. The most obvious cultural survivor is the language - the Welsh spoken in the 13th and 14th centuries is broadly intelligible to modern Welsh speakers, just as the French spoken by the Kings of England at that time would be to modern French speakers.

The 12th century commentator Giraldus Cambrensis, himself of mixed Norman and Welsh origin, wrote a book listing his countrymen's good and bad points, and many of these are recognisable today. Writing c. 1191, he applauded the Welsh for their religous fervour, individual military prowess, frugality, universal hospitality, lack of deference to authority, poetic and musical skill (especially their talent for multi-part harmony). He castigated them for their inconstancy and a tendency to internal strife and betrayal of their fellow countrymen rather than uniting against outside threat, rendering the Welsh too easy to subdue. But he also pointed out that while the Welsh might appear easy to subdue at a superficial level, eradicating or assimilating them would be very difficult. And as they welcome Elizabeth II to open their assembly building in Cardiff today, you'd have to say he got that bit right.