Sosban fach yn berwi ana tan
I see that the BBC has been told there will be no increase in its license fee plus it must look after the World Service and S4C. Good. It should increase the funding to the World Service, which is one of the few things foreigners like about Britain and which pitches its journalism on a comparatively high intellectual level.
What to do about S4C, meanwhile, is simple: close it down. Virtually nobody watches it – well, actually, LITERALLY nobody watches it. A recent survey showed that almost 200 of its programmes had zero viewers. What an epic waste of money just to assuage the sensibilities of some of those miserable, seaweed munching, sheep-bothering pinch-faced hill tribes who are perpetually bitter about having England as a next door neighbour. S4C has become a state funded sinecure for the utterly talentless, the dregs who cannot even get a job at HTV (Cymru); a corrupt political sop of not the scantest interest to even Welsh people. Bin it, Johnny Bach. Bin it.
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john baily
October 20th, 2010 4:04pmYes Rod but when would you then stop?Wales is completely unable to pay ANY of its bills and after northern ireland is the most taxpayer dependent "country" in the world.The taxpayer being of course English
teledu
October 20th, 2010 4:08pmSpot on Rod, spot on.
Are you by any chance related to Ann Robinson?
EyeSee
October 20th, 2010 4:18pmAt a recent Ice Hockey match against a Cardiff team, the sound of bleating sheep was played instead of music as they stepped onto the ice. This brought strong objections from the visiting team (despite things like 'Gay Bar' having been played before at such events). I wonder what would happen if we were to refer to them as 'miserable, seaweed munching, sheep-bothering pinch-faced hill tribes?'
adrian drummond
October 20th, 2010 4:35pmAs an Englishman who once had the misfortune in having to work for the BBC in Wales for a few months and got to know first hand how racist Welsh nationlists working for the BBC could be, I could not agree more. This is besides the fact, that in contrast to their London colleagues, they were completely useless.
David Ossitt
October 20th, 2010 5:04pm“What to do about S4C, meanwhile, is simple: close it down.”
Rod this does not go far enough, it is high time we found something useful for the natives in Wales to do, I think that I have the ideal solution.
Extreme times call for extreme measures; it is high time that we closed down Wales as a country, and reopened those damp inhospitable 8,000 square miles as a penal colony; this would permanently solve the problem of too little space in the existing prisons and at the same time provide useful employment and source of income for the indigenous population.
The wall that would be needed at the border would provide much needed hard labour for those inmates who have committed crimes of violence, murderer’s, rapists, and paedophiles could be given the extra punishment of making them learn the Welsh language.
Dafydd Pritchard
October 20th, 2010 5:23pmAh, yes, the latest inhabitant of that rather crowded piece of land where the English gather to make racist remarks about the only nation it now seems is fair game.
How pathetic.
Even the Welsh in the title is wrong - so much for journalistic integrity.
dearieme
October 20th, 2010 5:31pmAs an economy measure, the World Service will now broadcast in Welsh.
Hettie
October 20th, 2010 5:49pmI am really worried they will reduce the quality of the World Service and duplicate news services with the main BBC output, like Radio 4. I have given up on Radio 4 News. We need a campaign to protect the World Service from mainstream BBC.
Woodbine ' Seacole y Cwm' Willy
October 20th, 2010 5:58pmWhat, and kill the Beeb's longest running soap?
gareth
October 20th, 2010 6:06pmYikes - that's quite an attack Rod. As one of those miserable. . . tribal types. . . I'd like to put a couple of things to you. HTV has long ceased to exist, so keep up. . . while S4C has, whatever its faults (and there are many), over the years, managed to find, in this land of the utterly talentless, a surprising number of performers who have done pretty well (given that they're so shit) and without S4C would perhaps have floundered with the 'dregs'. The welsh indie music scene barely existed before S4C came along and gave those "sheep-botherers" a chance to pick up a guitar instead of sheers. Perhaps Gruff Rhys of Super Furry fame will give you the lowdown. Mind you, with that hair of yours he might mistake you for a sheep and **** you up the arse. You'd deserve it mind - get a comb or some sheers. Pinch-faced, really that is rich coming from you. if ever there were a waste of face space.
As for the comment from John Baily - might I point out that the English have been more than happy to raid our country for its coal, steel. . . and anything else that could come from our land that might proves useful to you lot. But never mind eh. Now that we have nothing to give you other than, er, wool, maybe you can cast us off into the Irish sea.
And to think that this cretin was once the editor of Today.
Rod Liddle's Welsh Cousin
October 20th, 2010 6:16pmThe statistics you quote are British wide figures making them irrelevent to judge a Welsh-language channel and the Welsh in the title is nonsense. Even an S4C employee could write better stuff than this. But then what would you expect from the bitter mouth of a ignorant racist little-englander with nothing better to do than peer begrudgingly over the garden fence while muttering to himself that anything beyond his comprehension must be shite.
Clwyd Griffith.
October 20th, 2010 6:17pmMinority hating is so much fun, isn't it? Everybody ought to be a white male English speaker. Rod Liddle here displays once again the racial hatred that is sadly all too common when the intolerant, bigoted and ignorant speak on such matters.
John Bull
October 20th, 2010 6:39pmSpot on Rod, those damn Welshies, speaking thier damn lingo, who do they think they are?! If I had my way Rod I'd shoot the lot of them. Or put them in gas chambers, would you help me turn the gas on Rod?
Thirladean
October 20th, 2010 6:43pmS4C shows Magners League rugby which our own branch of the Corporation (BBC Scotland) ignored till it consented to show some matches on its Gaelic Channel, BBC Alba. Both channels can be agreeably watched with the sound turned off - usually the best way to watch rugby on TV anyway.
Harry
October 20th, 2010 6:46pmRod..you are such an ignorant human being...
David Ossitt
October 20th, 2010 6:51pmDafydd Pritchard
“Even the Welsh in the title is wrong - so much for journalistic integrity”
But how would anyone know it was wrong, it is not as if the whole world wanted to learn Welsh.
Of course Mr Pritchard you are biased in favour of the Welsh; your Christian name is the giveaway.
Eifion H,
October 20th, 2010 6:57pmSpeaking as one of those seaweed munching, sheep bothering pobol (people), I suggest we should all unite and s..g Rod Liddle (fyny ei tin) up the arse! I'm sure he'd enjoy it :)
james Murphy
October 20th, 2010 7:03pmSpiffing invective Rod! And against our humourless hyper-sensitive Welsh cousins too - never a bad thing, gawd bless'em! My, but you're a good hater - always a sign of the spirited and intellectually independent-minded! PS - I have a nice holiday home in the Gower Peninsular that I would be more than happy to let you have rent-free. Fire extinguishers supplied.
Llyfa fy nghoncers
October 20th, 2010 7:14pmBtw, It's
Sosban fach yn berwi ar y tânDo some research before making yourself look like a tit.
rod liddle
October 20th, 2010 7:26pmUh oh. There's a lot of people with a surfeit of ws and ys in their names posting.
Just to answer one of them - and to remind the others that it was ever so slightly tongue in cheek - Gareth: if the most we can thank S4C for is that it is kept going (via our money) and helped bring to prominence the SFA (hugely overrated, alongwith Gorki's), then can't we live without it? The Arctic Monkeys managed somehow, didn't they?
rod liddle
October 20th, 2010 7:29pmJohn Bull, you can turn the taps on yourself, you hysterical little muppet. They can speak whatever language they like, you idiot. And so can you. Just don't expect the rest of us to pay for it. Do you think, for a nanosecond, that S4C would exist in a free market? A free market is not the be all and end all, I'd concede. But it can be indicative.
Kittler
October 20th, 2010 7:34pmWhat a ranting and abusive bunch you immigrants are and after stealing this island from the Celts to. Anglo Saxons go home, best before you likewise, find yourselves crowded out.
John Adlington
October 20th, 2010 7:45pmI used to read you avidly. I will no longer read you nor the Spectator as long as it employs you.
jane bull
October 20th, 2010 7:50pmRod,
I adore reading your blog, the comments are the best part of it, so many people hate you yet the same old names write in week in week out to be shocked by you. A bit like the old maid seek out nudists to be scandalized by them. Keep up the good work
merlinthepig
October 20th, 2010 8:01pmRod, I believe in a previous posting you said something to the effect that the cry of "waycist" is the last refuge of the scoundrel (and the first, I think). QED when one looks at the Welsh native postings here. The tendency is probably excerbated by the fact that such a large proportion of that country are employed by the public sector, where actively seeking out reasons to be offended is par for the course.
Llywelyn Fawr
October 20th, 2010 8:42pmJames - Can you give me the address of your holiday home? As we say here in Cymru, we like to keep the home fires burning.
Tarquin Liddle
October 20th, 2010 8:46pmThose who think this column is motivated by Rod's disgust of the money "wasted" on S4C need to be aware of the real reason behind Rod's attack on Wales.
Sat 25 Sept 2010 Cardiff City 2 Millwall 1
Suck it up, Rodney. Suck it up...
Mr Ed
October 20th, 2010 8:53pmSo we should subsidise people abroad who don't even pay a licence fee, but not S4C?
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to discriminate here. I think both the BBC World Service and S4C are equally useless. They both need axing (along with much of the rest of the BBC, most of which is in England). The ethnicities involved don't matter to me, but the economic viability does.
On that note, though, I must observe that your days as a BBC employee show through here. You flatter a group of politically correct ethnicities, but then slag off a British ethnicity in a way we know you never would with a politically correct ethnicity.
Don't get me wrong, you can do what you like - free speech and all that. It's just that this kind of behaviour is... so very BBC, don't you think?
Awen Iorwerth
October 20th, 2010 8:57pmThanks for being labelled as irrelevant. I won't bother paying my taxes or paying my licence fee if I'm that insignificant. And I'll stop treating my patients as it doesn't seem to matter if I'm part of this society or not. Much easier for me, thanks. What's your role?
Falldog
October 20th, 2010 9:21pmHmmm... so much dross, where to start? Mr. Ossitt, if you were as erudite as you make yourself out to be, you would know that Dafydd's surname is also a "giveaway" and while we don't expect the "whole world" to want to learn Welsh - even though it is one of the oldest languages in Europe, and which, due to English oppression, was almost wiped out. If you are going to use it for your toe curlingly embarrassing article, though, you should at least get it right. As for the rest of your drivel, I refuse to comment as to do so would qualify it unduly. In closing, I would like to point out that Mr. Baily is labouring under the misapprehension that only the English are taxpayers. Of course, given the English penchant for myopic viewpoints and unfounded arrogance, this is hardly surprising. Good evening, gentlemen - and I use the term advisedly and perhaps a little ironically.
Tom Jones
October 20th, 2010 9:39pmI see that Twitter has obviously rallied the few remaining Welshmen intelligent enough to string more than two coherent words together. Now you've flushed the bastards out Rod, perhaps you'd care to finish them off with your Remington 20 gauge.
What an ignorant pillock - I agree with you Dewi
