Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 May 2006 12:25:36
I was noodling about in the archive of the C2 pages on BBC Cymru's website - C2 is their popular music magazine - and read an old article telling of the sad death of one half of bizarre Welsh pop due Rheinallt H. Rowlands some while back.
Anyway, if I've read it correctly, RHR's song "Merch o Gaerdydd" was/is used as the theme tune to a popular radio show called "Y Talwrn" - literally "the cockpit", it being a weekly battle between two local teams of poets to compose pieces in various metres and on topics set by the chair. This is true. I know it sounds bizarre, but this does happen - it's on the radio at a peak time and has been going on for decades.
How do I convey the cultural discord between this show and its choice of theme music? Well, imagine if Radio 4 decided that the Shipping Forecast would no longer be introduced by "Sailing By" but by something by the Scissor Sisters. Or "Round Britain Quiz" started with Gorillaz - this is the sort of oddness we're talking about.
Of course, it would even better if Talwrn opened to the strains of Datblygu's "Can i Gymry", but I suspect I'm in a minority on that point.