Run with Eric [Search results for Wales] 

I may have allowed my fervour towards an opt-out organ donation system to take over the blog this week, so please accept my apologies if it's not as diverse as you have come to expect. It's a fascinating issue, though, and I hope that you will read it and become as passionate about it as I am.

And I've included two quickies after it as well. Generous, that's me.

Hart's in the right place
Commercial breakdown
Who You Gonna Call?

Leave it to Wales to inject some hope into the state of healthcare provision in the UK. Leave it to Wales. And it seems the British Government is quite happy to do just that.

In the interest of fairness, I should say that this isn't always down to Westminster being rubbish – well, sometimes it is – but the Welsh Assembly being brilliant. Thanks to the Assembly, Wales has free prescriptions and free hospital parking. Good, innit? And now it may have an opt-out organ donation system ahead of England as well (not that it's a competition or anything), allowing every dead person's organs to be used for donation unless they specifically request they are not, instead of the current process of getting organs just from registered donors. When it comes to healthcare, the Welsh Assembly pulls out the stops the British Government seems happy to leave in.

Seeing Edwina Hart, Health Minister of the Welsh Assembly, refuse to dismiss the possibility of an opt-out donation system is more than encouraging – it's inspiring. Often, the Welsh Assembly seems braver than its bigger brother; more adaptable to new ideas and readier to make controversial decisions, especially in healthcare. This may be because any outcry in Wales is smaller than in England – the Welsh, as a rule, aren't big on political activity (look at that turnout: a quarter of the Welsh population actively wanted a devolved parliament) – and it may be because the Assembly's jurisdiction is simply smaller, but the fact is that on a political level, healthcare in Wales looks rosy.

And in this case, it has taken some balls – ironic, since Edwina Hart (presumably) doesn't have any. She has essentially overruled the Assembly health committee's decision not to apply for the right to adopt an opt-out system in Wales. Rejecting a committee's recommendation is a statement of intent and then some: the aptly-named Hart has told politicians that a change in organ donation is going to be discussed whether they like it or not.

Personally, I can't wait. Like TV licensing chiefs, I love hearing people's excuses, sad as they are. "We have a right to keep our organs when we die." "It's wrong to take from a dead person even if it might save a life." None as yet have beaten the excuse raised by John Reid, supported by many and picked up by a writer in The Telegraph a while back (sadly, I can't find a link but rest assured it was probably Simon Heffer because the man's an idiot): "I am not giving my organs to the state." No, you're not. You're giving them to a dying person who needs them to live. Listen to yourself: surely you cannot believe what you are saying. Leave 'the state' out of it, you tit, and stop dragging politics into this simple case of life and death.

Chairman of the spurned committee, Conservative health spokesman Jonathan Morgan (boo hiss) accused Hart of ignoring "the hypothetical reasons why presumed consent could prove difficult to introduce". Hmm, not overly specific. That sounds like a pretty poor excuse to me: an excuse for an excuse, even. And the conclusion to this article – "It is possible to make a case for an opt-out system that favours the living over the dead, but it is not consent and let us not pretend that it is" – is absolute nitpicking.

People may be coming around to the obvious benefits of a system that presumes consent to donate your organs after death unless you deliberately opt out. Prospects aren't as bleak as the future for thousands of patients under the current system. Gordon Brown has given the thumbs-up to an opt-out system, and a "UK Government taskforce" – whatever that may be – is due to report on the matter in a few months. If Wales can lead the way, the rest of Britain may follow. We can only hope. Maybe in just a few years, all of Britain will be able to enjoy an opt-out organ donation system, free hospital parking and prescriptions without charge.

Then again, maybe not.

Everybody's talking about it: Lloyds TSB is ready to take over Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). Halifax is just the first stop on "the journey" Lloyds TSB keeps promising us, and we can all look forward to them picking up Nationwide, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester at various stations nationwide (including Bradford and Leicester, presumably) on the way to oblivion.

And all the repercussions of the Halifax-Lloyds merger are being considered: job losses, market shares and even the name of the new merger (I propose Lloyds TSB: Bank of Scotland, Halifax, or LTSB: BOSH for short).

One thing people haven't thought about is the adverts. Merging the incredibly irritating "Hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh, hoh hoh, hoh hoh hoh hoh HAAAAAH" Lloyds TSB tune with the even more irritating Halifax song-and-dance adverts could be the most damaging symptom of the recession. It's bad enough that Thomas from Leeds singing "Something tells me I'm into something good" has taken on ironic quantities usually reserved for standing ovations at the Liberal Democrat party conference, without badly-drawn women with big noses elbowing him out the way and yodelling melodiously at the tops of their voices.

This Must Be Stopped.

Here's an interesting one: a millionaire being chased out of his 52-room mansion by ghosts.

Obviously my heart goes out to Mr Rashid and his family, but some of the supposed supernatural activity does sound a bit... well... natural. Sounds of tapping on the wall? Voices? Mysterious figures? Ghostly presences taking the forms of their children? Is there not the slightest chance this crazy activity could be less due to Casper and his mates and more attributable to their children?

Rashid doesn't sound like he's the sharpest tool in the box. "The ghosts didn't want us to be there," he said, "and we could not fight them because we couldn't see them." I have this vision of Rashid charging around with an axe swiping at thin air. That might explain the blood stains.

Actually, yes, "unexplained blood stains on bedclothes" was another puzzle. Apparently the house dates back to the Norman period; I reckon the stains date back to a normal period. It's not much fun coming of age when you're a young girl, but I'm sure Rashid's seven-year-old daughter doesn't appreciate a national story being made out of it. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd been the one who told her dad it was a ghost in the first place, rather than her own body. Obviously she's a bit young to be experiencing that rite of passage at the age of seven, but they did call the blood stains "unexplained" and besides, it's never easy to tell your parents about that kind of thing – I should imagine "unexplained" isn't the half of it.

Alternatively, it's a bunch of racist landowners frightening off the rich Rashid family by dressing up as ghosts Scooby Doo-style (I heard the programme's become very politically aware these days). "Paranormal experts were unable to solve the problem." Strange, that.

My money's on an insurance claim. And so is his.

Well hung, innit? I'm hanging like a parliament. Hang this. Etc. The jokes everywhere are from the news of a hung parliament, as the British public - well, 65% of it - went to the polls and voted for no one in particular.

Some of us were foolish enough to stay up all night to watch the results come in, and for a more in-depth, more drunken look I recommend trawling through my old tweets at www.twitter.com/weekspotblog. But for those of you with lives to lead (I did update so many times I broke Twitter and was told to stop posting), here's a summary of how no one bar the Greens can be happy with this result.

And fair play to the Greens. It's a fantastic outcome for the single-issue nutters.

Anyway, here goes: the Top Ten 'Oh Fucks' of the night:

1. Oh fuck. The Liberal Democrats had a shocker last night, and this is where it all started to go wrong. Clegg's collective had been making promises of a genuine challenge to Government and 110 seats. Instead, they lost five MPs, and currently stand on a paltry 54 (16 constituencies are still to be announced).

Again, it all started here. The LibDems' no1 target seat saw a 6.9% swing AWAY from the yellows and into the hands of a gleeful Tory party. No doubt for Doughty; no paradise lost for Milton.

Clegg considers his career options

2. Oh fuck. The Conservative Party actually had a pretty bad night of it as well, despite what this terrifyingly blue map of the UK might aver. Seriously, if they just counted votes in England, not Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well, the Tories would walk it.

But they won't be at all happy with failing to reach a majority, and it was in constituencies such as this that they fell. It really looked like the Blues would take Tooting, but despite a healthy 3.6% swing against them Labour and Sadiq Khan MP held on. 'Yes we Khan' were the chants. Yes we Khan. +10% turnout too. Good work, Tooting.

Not Tooting his own horn here

3. Oh fuck. Labour had to endure a torrid night (this was a particularly painful one to lose - just 54 votes in it), and what will really hurt is losing some big names. Two former home secretaries, Charles Clarke and Jacqui Smith, were among the casualties and although Clarke is anti-Brown and anti-Balls, he's an old head they didn't want to see go.

How fucked? This fucked

4. Oh fuck. Labour weren't the only party to say goodbye to some prominent figures and again, this was the beginning of the end for the LibDems. Lembit Opik, he of Cheeky Girl fame, lost his seat in Montgomeryshire as the Tories made another gain - this time, with a massive 13.2% swing. Cheeky.

5. Oh fuck. Evan Harris also went - a massive blow for the LibDems. There were only 176 votes in it.

6. Oh fuck. The British National Party didn't win any seats, which is great news, but I wish I could be more optimistic about half a million voters putting an X by their name. I can't. It's disgusting.

Interestingly, the BNP actually lost 1.7% of the vote in the constituency where Nick Griffin plumped his fat bonk-eyed arse.

Understatement?

7. Oh fuck. Essex has a lot to answer for. Chavs, white stilettos and Jamie Oliver aside, the county has a nasty habit of being pretty right-wing in its voting habits. The constituency that best summed up its extent of fail last night was Basildon South & Thurrock East, where they successfully got rid of a Labour minister, voted in a Tory and gave more than 2,500 votes to the BNP. Well done.

8. Oh fuck. Every time I switched over ITV's coverage was absolutely God-awful, from Alistair Stewart constantly interrupting everybody like he's king of the fucking world to filming outside a pub where David Cameron was drinking. It's a pub - just go inside!

9. Oh fuck. Jeremy Vine's house of wank was the reason I kept switching over in the first place.

10. Oh fuck. Last but not least, I was very sad to see this man lose his seat. Richard Taylor is a doctor who ran as a single-issue independent in 2001 to keep Kidderminster Hospital open, and absolutely slammed Labour's junior minister David Lock into the ground. He then held on in 2005 to become the first independent MP to retain his seat since the 1970s. He's such a hero that the LibDems didn't put up any opposition against him on either occasion.

Unfortunately, the Tories did and this time round they won. Bastards.

So, what a bust that was. Here's to a hung parliament seeing some good change put through. What? It could happen.

Oh yay. OK, then, one piece of good news: bag of balls David Heathcoat-Amory, 17 years in power, lost his seat in Wells, Somerset. He literally owns this constituency. It was pretty damn satisfying seeing him lose control of it.

Huw Davies is a young writer and sub-editor pursuing a career in journalism, spending his time reading articles, writing articles and watching Neighbours. He recently completed a postgraduate diploma in magazine journalism at Cardiff University, a course so rigorous he developed pneumonia.

Huw is now sub-editing at Haymarket's Medical Imprint, while also maintaining a weekly Premier League predictions blog on fourfourtwo.com. Occasionally, he gets one right.

Before this work began Huw wrote for a wide range of publications, including G2, Psychologies, The Big Issue Cymru, The South Wales Echo, One In Four magazine and The Essex Chronicle, who still owe him a phone call.

His most successful work was arguably for Cardiff University’s award-winning weekly student newspaper gair rhydd, editing the Editorial & Opinion section and writing fortnightly columns under the pseudonym Rasputin. Huw won four Cardiff Student Media Awards, including Best Interview for a one-to-one with Welsh rugby hero Shane Williams and Best Opinion Writer two years running. The judges were impressed with a selection of articles written under the guise of Rasputin on subjects ranging from education reform to links between his beard and international terrorism.

The fourth award came with a feature in gair rhydd, which more importantly won him the coveted Student Journalist of the Year award from leading mental health charity, Mind.

Huw confronted his problems with obsessive-compulsive disorder to search for the truth about the condition in a piece that judges called a "down-to-earth take on living with OCD", "imaginatively written from first-hand experience". Huw accepted the award at Kingsway Hall Hotel in London, where he met Mind President Lord Melvyn Bragg, who has giant hands. The piece also saw him shortlisted for Best Diversity Writer at the Guardian Student Media Awards.

Having graduated from Cardiff University with the postgraduate diploma in magazine journalism and a BA Hons in English Literature, somehow finishing second in the year and achieving a First despite spending most of his time playing snooker (much to the amusement of anyone who saw him try), Huw is settling into working life and wondering whether he should update his blog more often.

Shortlisted, Diversity Writer of the Year, Guardian Student Media Awards 2009
Runner-up, Best gair rhydd Section (Editorial & Opinion), Cardiff Student Media Awards 2008

You are looking for opinion writing that either a) shows versatility and good research or b) tells you something special…So Huw Davies’ ability to blend personal experience and some decent research findings just topped my bill.

Huw Davies and Chris Croissant deserve congratulations for putting together such a diverse and original set of articles.

A gripping and well-written feature which managed to be informative, non-self-pitying and witty.

Huw writes with both authenticity and rigour, balancing personal experience and thorough and creative research in his feature with a high degree of professionalism... This was a strong example of the voice of someone with personal experience breaking down the stigma surrounding the condition.

Huw Davies – ah Huw Davies again – makes the OCD spread so much fresher by approaching it from a personal point of view.

Keeping The Faith, Keeping The Facial Hair (November 2007)
Why is it excusable for the authorities to treat Muslims (and me) as potential terrorists?

Living With OCD (August 2008)
A look into obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as featured in The Guardian's G2 supplement

Living With An Obsession (February 2008)
My original look into obsessive-compulsive disorder

Williams the Conqueror (March 2009)
An exclusive interview with Welsh rugby legend Shane Williams

Blair. Fair. (February 2007)
The Government's firmness towards Catholic adoption agencies spells good news for gay parents

Poor Old John Prescott (June 2006)
Leave the big guy alone

Bland Designs (May 2008)
The ambitious plans for Cardiff University's Students' Union building make absolutely no sense

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation (February 2008)
Underqualified graduates have overly theory-based degrees to blame

Highlight Of The Year Or A Right Summer Balls-Up? (June 2008)
Whoever organised Cardiff University's Summer Ball doesn't seem to care about the students

The Rise And Rise Of Moral TV (October 2007)
Programmes need to stop preaching

Phantom Power - Super Furry Animals [2003]

Well, for the millions of you reading this, I'm sure my #11 will be something of an anticlimax after this. What a story. I feel overshadowed.

Phantom Power is a wonderful record from start to finish. For a 10-song concept album in which every song used D-A-D-D-A-D tuning - surely the worst idea for a concept album ever - to be turned into a 14-song masterpiece virtually flawless in its creation and implementation is quite something.

In a way, it represents the Furries taking many new steps. For one, it's the last time they ever really made any dent on the charts, effectively cutting off quite a lot of MOR listeners to their sound. I'm sure Gruff Rhys and his merry mentalists couldn't care less, but a fall in mainstream success often spells a change in a band's approach.

This time, the band allowed themselves to be much more technical about the album's production (reflected in its title, a reference to a tool often seen on mixing desks). They engineered the album themselves and had endless discussions about things I won't pretend to understand. Gone, it seems, were the days of making poorly-produced shoutfest B-sides just for the fun of it.

They did get to play with guns though.

Yet the band are right in calling the album "a little more human" than its predecessor Rings Around The World. There's a sentimental warmth to songs such as Sex, War & Robots, and not just because of its pedal steel guitar. "If tears could kill, I'd be a long time gone," croons Huw Bunford over a languid melody.

Yes, Huw Bunford. Bunf. It's the first time a song of the guitarist's had made a Furries studio album, but more noticeable is his vocals being used instead of Rhys'. It was the catalyst for everyone having a go on Love Kraft, with each band member bar Guto Pryce - he's shy, bless him - taking the lead at one stage. Again, a new sound, and one that works really well, on Phantom Power at least (Love Kraft's not all that).

But to my mind, though this album shows a band at their stage-sharing democratic best, it's brothers Dafydd Ieuan and Cian Ciaran's record. Daf is given a huge amount more freedom with his drumming, from the heraldic announcements of the gorgeous Father Father instrumentals to the frantic drum solo outro of Valet Parking.

Cian, meanwhile, is the man behind Slow Life, one of the greatest offerings of the Furries' career - a seven-minute semi-improvised experiment (the rest of the band just jammed over the top of his pre-prepared mix) that weaves seamlessly between techno and folk-rock then mashing the two together. What a finale.

I should probably write more about the songs themselves, but I doubt I'd do them justice. Suffice it to say the album is eclectic as the Furries ever are, but with an often gentler, more countrified sound. True, Out Of Control and Golden Retriever are steeped in '70s rock 'n' roll and I don't even know what The Undefeated is, but the general atmosphere is laid back to the point of falling over, and in a damn good way.

Lyrically, it's, uh, diverse. The band claims Phantom Power is about broken relationships and war, and I suppose that's partly true. But it doesn't do justice to the sheer number of subjects tackled, nor the intense amount of feeling they manage to generate on topics such as the Falklands War (The Piccolo Snare, an incredible track with some of the most beautiful close harmonising you'll ever hear) and the Chernobyl disaster's effect on North Wales (Bleed Forever).

Oh yeah, and a song about a dog. With Golden Retriever and outpourings from the soul about pan-European road travel and pet tortoises called Venus and Serena, it's good to see the Furries didn't lose their sense of fun with this one.

Even against the brilliance of Radiator and Rings Around The World, Phantom Power could just be the Super Furry Animals' best album. And if that's not enough, it's certainly one of the best albums released this decade. SFA OK.

(Wow, I managed to make a spectacular album really boring. Just listen to it.)

Spotify link.

This is where I break down the unattractive reader-author barrier and get personal. Call it unprofessional; call it a desperate cry for help. I call it both.

I'm flying to Madeira tomorrow, and in the hubbub of planning I may have to resort to an abridged post next week. But I'll still be reading the news, and it's fair to say some of it caught my eye this week.

Rest assured that if you read all the news stories in the Beijing piece (I got a bit link-happy), you'll have enough of other people's writing, at least, to tide you over for a bit.

Beijing: King of the Bling but reputation suffering
Prophet Muhammad novel postponed
Women on the warpath (supposedly)
Ronaldo plays the waiting game

The lights, the noise, the spectacle – and yet what I’ve been drawn to most about the Beijing Olympics is the politics.

China has made it fantastically clear that it doesn’t want any trouble. At all. That means no complaints, please, be they about human rights, pollution or just good old fur. You have to wonder what would have happened if Tommie Smith and John Carlos had made their famous Black Power salute in these Olympics. Presumably they’d have been shot by a sniper from the Chinese government.

Protests about China’s…interesting past, present and probably future history with human rights abuses have come from everywhere, and it is fascinating to see how they are handled. Treatment from Chinese police (or Nepalese allies) towards people protesting about human rights issues seems to depend on where you come from, and reports abound about violence towards protestors.

The Chinese authorities saw this coming (guilty conscience any?) and made the ‘necessary’ precautions, but it’s fair to say they’ve raised a few eyebrows. My particular favourite is the protest pens, which have to be one the most inspired inventions in the history of the Olympics or some sort of ironic joke. Want to protest against our government’s practices? Apply for permission first, and if you’re lucky enough to get it, you can do it in an area cordoned off for troublemakers such as yourself. You can’t protest anywhere else. Human rights issues? What human rights issues?

These political problems, and the tragic death of an American tourist to the Games,

have cast a dark cloud over the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Look, there it is. You can see it. Smog has been an issue for China ever since it realised its pollution problems were at serious odds with blue-sky thinking, and even its most drastic measures to reduce it – including the destruction or relocation of cars, factories and people – don’t seem to have worked (though the gaffer tape has). Of particular interest to me were the American cyclists who wore masks to combat the pollution, and then had to apologise for insulting the Chinese. If they find that insulting, they should really avoid watching The Dark Knight. China doesn’t come out of it all that well.

All in all, it’s going to be a memorable Olympics, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

Probably for the best.

On Saturday BBC Online reported that, according to the Police Federation of England and Wales, “increasing numbers of violent women are stretching police resources”. They were backed up by police in Scotland and Northern Ireland – for balance purposes, you see – saying, “anecdotally”, that they have also seen an increase in female violence.

“Anecdotally”? You have to be careful of using that kind of evidence in a news story. In fact, is it even a news story? Or just some drunken pub talk from officers off the beat?

Chairman of the Police Federation, Paul McKeever, said, “Clearly there is an increase in the number of women who use violence in their everyday life and when they are out drinking on the streets around the country”.

Clearly. And clearly that’s not a generalisation at all. To be fair, statistics do partly back him up: there has been a 25% rise in crimes committed by girls between the ages of 10 and 17 in the last three years. The next sentence in the report: “Men and boys are still more likely to be involved in violent crime, however.”

Men and boys are still more likely to be involved in violent crime, however. That’s an important sentence. And when your only evidence for “increasing numbers of violent women” is for one particular age group, almost certainly matched by an increase in crimes committed by their male counterparts, and backed up by anecdotes, you’re on shaky ground.

But maybe I’m being naïve. Maybe my non-prediction last week of an increase in female violence has come true and they’ve exploited newly lax laws to attack everything and everyone in sight. Dear God, soon they will overwhelm we poor men, beguiling us with their feminine wiles, charming us into a dark alley and then stabbing us fatally with a five-inch stiletto heel (sorry, I’ve been in Essex too long).

Or, alternatively, this is a poorly-researched non-story that borders on sexism, for which the police and the BBC are equally culpable for a) bringing it up and b) reporting it.

It will be interesting to see the reaction Cristiano Ronaldo gets from the Manchester United fans at the start of this season. Having flirted with a high-money, high-profile move to Real Madrid, he has now committed his future to Manchester United.

Well, I say future. A year, at least. He insists he will “play for United with all [his] heart and soul”, but he’s openly admitted it’s still his dream to move to Madrid, and the smart odds are on the Madeiran w(h)inger sunning himself in Madrid this time next year (William Hill’s offering 5-6).

His 42 goals last season will probably ensure he gets a better reception that Emmanuel Adebayor did at the Emirates a week ago, but it will be hard for United fans to shake off a sense of mistrust towards Ronaldo, especially after some ill-chosen words this week. Alex Ferguson might not have helped matters by saying, “The boy has been through some troubled times in terms of the approaches from the people in Spain” – is choosing between two offers to do what you love for insane amounts of money really “troubled times”? – and then Ronaldo himself put his foot in it attempting to defend himself against claims he’s a money-grabber. “If it was just a question of money,” he said, “I would never leave Manchester United.” That both leaves the door open for a move in the near future and implies he’s been motivated by money this time round – after all, he wants to play for Real and he’s demanding £140,000 a week at United. Not a fantastic defence, all told.

He knows he’s got time yet to play for Real – he’s only 23 – and it’s good, I suppose, that he’s being quite so honest about it, but I’m not sure United fans will see it that way.