Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 2 Nov - 8 Nov 2015
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	139	191	129	181	108	155	156	1,059	151
Unique Visits	128	152	123	159	107	148	147	964	138
First Time Visits	120	146	115	149	104	145	141	920	131
Returning Visits	8	6	8	10	3	3	6	44	6

Guy Fawkes: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist

Remember, remember the Fifth of November.
Gunfire, treason and plot.

That was the rhyme we used to sing as we watched our annual bonfire consume Guy Fawkes in effigy - actually a pair of old jeans, a pullover stuffed with newspapers and a balloon for a head with eyes and mouth drawn on.

Guy Fawkes Night, the fifth of November was something we looked forward to as  kids. Weeks before we'd make an effigy,known as a Guy, by tying old clothes together, adding a head usually made from an old bag or a balloon. And then we'd push this made up man around on a cart and say, 'Penny for the guy' to people who went

past. The tradition was that people would then give you a penny or two and you'd save all this money, using it to get fireworks or sweets. And then on the fifth of November the guy would be thrown on a bonfire that we'd spent weeks building. Into the fire we'd also throw potatoes, wrapped in tin foil, and then we'd scoop these from the embers and chow down. Those potatoes from those far off day tasted better than any potatoes since.

Ahh good days....the tradition continues to the present day, though in these overly safety conscious times it's not as much fun.

Who though was the real Guy Fawkes?

Protestant England in the early 17th century was not a good place to be if your were a Catholic. Priests had to perform mass in secret, and there were draconian laws that forced Catholics to publicly worship in Protestant services and swear loyalty to the monarch and the Church.

In 1605 Catholic dissent was at an all time high and groups around the country started plotting to overthrow James VI and restore their religion. The situation was a powder keg and Guy Fawkes was just one of the men ready to light the fuse. Interestingly  although Fawkes was a zealous Catholic, he  had been born  in York in 1570, into a respectable Protestant family. As a young boy he attended Church of England services but when his father died, his mother remarried a Catholic man. It was then that Guy Fawkes converted to Catholicism. The conversion created a zealous young man who in his early 20's travelled to Spain and joined the Catholic army to fight against the Protestant Dutch. Fawkes was a successful soldier and by 1856 he was an officer in the Spanish Forces that captured Calais. It was at this time that he changed his name to Guido to have a more Catholic sounding name and he petitioned the Spanish King to support a rebellion against heretic King James of England. The request was refused.-

It is odd that Guy Fawkes in the man we remember from the gunpowder plot since he was not the leader - that role was taken over by Robert Catesby,a gentleman from Warwickshire who had come up with a scheme to blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament. If all went to plan it would be an audacious blow by Catholics against the Church of England - not only would many members of Parliament be in the building but King James, his wife and son, and all his ministers would also be present. The ensuing chaos would, Catesby hoped, allow James's Catholic daughter, Elizabeth to take the throne.

For the plot to work Catesby and his supporters needed an explosives expert who was not known to the ruling elite. That was where Fawkes, now based in the Netherlands came into the picture. A man, Thomas Winter, was sent across the sea to locate Fawkes and soon as he was told of the plot, Fawkes, still reeling from the Spanish King's refusal to launch an attack against England, agreed to be a part of this attempt to bring down the English monarchy.

In May of 1604, Fawkes was back in England where he met with Catesby and the other conspirators at the Duke and Drake Inn near the Strand in London. All of the men were sworn to secrecy as the details of their plot were hammered out.

Fawkes had by far the riskiest part to play - It was his job to secure enough gunpowder and smuggle it into Parliament. It may seem crazy today but during the period anyone could rent a space in the basement of Parliament and by 5th November Fawkes had managed to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into the cellar. Though by now a mistake had been made when, just days before the 5th, fellow plotter, Francis Tresham wrote to his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, a Catholic due to attend the state opening, warning him to stay away. Monteagle handed the letter over to the King's spymaster, Robert Cecil.

The cellars were searched, the gunpowder found, and Guy Fawkes was captured and questioned by the King himself, and when asked why so much gunpowder was to be used, Fawkes replied, 'To blow you Scotch buggers back to your own native mountains.'

As soon as the people of England heard a plot against the King had been foiled, they celebrated by lighting bonfires across the country and the modern day bonfire night comes from this. There is one place in the country that refuses to celebrate bonfire night though -  St Peter's School in York refuses to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes as a sign of respect for its former pupil.

With Fawkes captured he was tortured into revealing the names of his co-conspirators. All of the conspirators were soon captured and killed, their heads placed on spikes outside the House of Lords. Fawkes was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered but on the 27 January 1606 he escaped the intense pain of his execution by leaping from the gallows and breaking his neck. His corpse though was hacked into pieces.

Only days before Fawkes died, a bill was introduced into Parliament calling for the 5th November to be a thanksgiving day for the failure of the gunpowder plot. Because Guy Fawkes had been the one caught in the Houses of Parliament, this became known as Guy Fawkes Day. Was he a freedom fighter or terrorist? That is a matter of opinion but today his face, used as a mask in the movie V For Vendetta, is the face of worldwide protest. 

And today when I look at the smug faces of David Cameron, George Osbourne and their vile ilk, I think maybe Guy Fawkes had the right idea.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot
For I see no reason why,
Gunpowder, treason and plot should ever be forgot.

The complete Literary 007 - Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz Book Review

As far as James Bond continuation novels go this is one of the most faithful in both characterisation of Bond and that flow which Kingsley Amis termed, The Fleming Sweep - Author Anthony Horowitz was aided in his task of bringing James Bond back by Ian Fleming himself - Horowitz explains in his afterword that prior to writing the novel he was given access to many of Ian Fleming's papers. Amongst these papers were several outlines, written by Fleming, for episodes of a proposed 007 TV series. One of these outlines saw Bond placed in the extremely dangerous world of Grand Prix.

'I was quite surprised that although Bond had memorably played bridge in Moonraker, golf in Goldfinger and baccarat in Casino Royale, he had never, in any of the novels, taken part in the much more lethal world of Grand Prix. Better still - and this was really exciting for me - Fleming's outline contained a scene with Bond meeting Bill Tanner and M at the Secret Service HQ.' Anthony Horowitz

Horowitz was able to use parts of the scene in the second chapter of his novel, which means of course that a small part of this new Bond was written by Fleming himself. Horowitz of course has already taken on iconic characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty to great success, and now he tackles James Bond. Of course it could be argued that his Alex Ryder series is basically teenage James Bond but that's an argument for another time.

In Trigger Mortis (dreadful title, that) we find Bond still shacked up with Pussy Galore following the events told in Fleming's Goldfinger. Indeed this new novel is set just two weeks after  Goldinger's

plans to rob Fort Knox fell apart thanks to the intervention of Bond and the delightful, Miss Galore.

She waited until Bond had finished his egg, the lit two cigarettes - not the Morlands brand which were specially made for him and which he preferred, but one of her own Chesterfields. She passed it across and Bond inhaled deeply, reflecting that the first cigarette of the day definitely tasted better when it came from the lips of a beautiful woman.

The Bond of this latest book is classic Bond - chauvinistic, heavy smoking, hard drinking. Horowitz certainly has a good grip on the character and the book carefully follows the blueprint set out over several Bond novels by Fleming himself- we even get the classic style, though ridiculous , scene where the bad guy, this time a Korean named Sin Jai-Seong but known by his Americanised name of Jason Sin tells Bond what he intends to do, the full details of his diabolical plan are laid out to a seemingly doomed 007. Big mistake there Mr Megalomaniac because we know that Bond is going to somehow escape from this latest brush with almost certain death and be able to thwart your dastardly schemes.

'I wonder? Am I acting out of vanity. Am I, perhaps a little too pleased with myself? I do not know - but I suppose I must be as there can be no other reason to explain everything to you. Even so I must be brief.'

Pussy Galore though only plays a small part in this book and the main Bond girl is an American secret service agent with the wonderfully Flemingish name of Jeopardy Lane. But Pussy Galore does have a satisfying arc - in Goldfinger she was a lesbian who was turned by Bond, (never having met a real man, you see) but in this book she finds that her attachment to Bond is only fleeting and she soon leaves him, going off with another woman.

An excellent Bond novel then that feels a lot like Fleming. In fact the only thing I didn't like is the title, Trigger Mortis (which refers to the fail safe device on a USA Vanguard rocket). It's just my opinion but I think Mr Sin would have been a far more Bondian title. I asked Anthony Horowitz about this and he did  consider titling the book, Mr Sin, but in the end he went with the actual title. He didn't say why - perhaps Mr Sin would sound too similar to Colonel Sun.

It matters not...this Bond novel is quite excellent.

Tonyrefail's Workman's Club: A shoddy way to treat the dead

Working on Dark Valleys, my forthcoming book, I was led to the remains of an old graveyard next to the Workman's Club in Tonyrefail. Next door to the club stood the Ainon Welsh Baptist Chapel and it was here that 22 year old Jane Lewis who was murdered back in 1862 was buried...in fact Jane was the first person to be buried in the chapel which at that time had just been built.

Jane's story, which will be fully covered in Dark Valleys, is a sad and mysterious one - indeed to this day the identity of her killer remains a mystery. And it was her gravestone that brought me to the car park of the Workman's Club - back in 1995 the club purchased the old chapel and graveyard and proceeded to demolish the old building in order to construct a car park for the patrons of the club. Several of the stones were retained from the graveyard and these were placed behind a children's play area next to the car park - Jane's stone remains there set into the ground.

However many of the other stones that remained behind have been vandalised and the entire area is awash  with litter and dog mess. These stones are very old, but nevertheless this seemed to me to be a very shoddy way of treating the dead. It shows a total lack of respect, even recognition, for people who have lived and gone before us.

Thinking this was clearly not right, and not knowing what happened to the remains of the people buried here when the chapel was demolished, I went into the Workman's Club where I was told the council were responsible for the ground next to the car park, which included the children's play area as well as the old graves.

A call to the council found the council disputing ownership and I was given a land registry number for the plot of ground - CYM474273. I then contacted The Welsh Baptist Union and spoke to a lady, Bonnie Davies who tracked down the original sale for me. Yes, she informed me:  'The Ainon Chapel had belonged to the Welsh Baptist Union but on the 20th January 1995 it was sold to the Workman's Club, Tonyrefail. The sale specified the chapel and graveyard, which made the club responsible for the remains buried therein.'

I again visited the club but could not find anyone to speak to that had anything to say, I failed to speak to anyone on the committee of the club. Being a club, the Workman is owned by its members and each night in order to visit the pub these members walk past these shattered and discarded gravestones. I hope they don't get too much dog shit on their shoes.

Thinking that the local newspaper should cover the disgraceful way these old gravestones are being treated, I went to the local press. But as I banged on about the old graves I could sense the reporter on the other end of the line, gazing vacantly at the ceiling. The reporter was no doubt thinking, 'Old graves! Haven't you got anything about living people.Or funny shaped potatoes. Funny shaped potatoes always sell papers. Why we had one that looked like  a cock.'' 

The reporter said he'd  get back to me and I went for a shit, taking a copy of their newspaper with me. And so as I stood there, stained pages of the newspaper swirling into the abyss of the flushing system, I decided to publish this to the internet, in the hope that something is done. For these gravestones may be old, the people they commemorated stricken from memory, but this is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that should be felt by:

Rhondda Cynon Taff Council - for not policing this situation, there is a children's play area next to the car park with only broken gravestones and mounds of dog shit separating one from the other.

The Workman's Club - who may have ultimate responsibility.

The Welsh Baptist Union - for allowing the sale of such a building and graveyard in the first place. People once prayed here, got married here and buried their loved ones here.


The people buried here were promised everlasting remembrance....well, they got it until there was money to be made by the construction of a car park. Then they became a part of the land to be developed.

I'd like to know what happened to the remains buried here when the car park was built? Where were they reburied? Where they exhumed with respect? Or where they simply bulldozed into tiny bone fragments and then used as landfill?


Something needs to be done...this is a stain on Tonyrefail itself.

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POSTSCRIPT: Since the posting of this article I have been informed that the human remains from the chapel have been buried in a communal grave in Trane cemetary, Tonyrefail. Whatever the feelings about one large plot for all are, then surely the stones should have been removed to the new cemetary and a memorial erected. The Welsh Baptists Union told me, 'this wouldn't happen today but sadly in the 1990's it did.'