Voice of Gwynedd heroes part 2 - Ian Stephen Hunter Franks

This is the only entry in this blog posted in English thus far - & it's likely to be the last. I break a long standing habit in deference to the subject of this piece - Ian Stephen Hunter Franks. I reckoned that I'd be safer doing the thing in a language he can understand - just to make sure that he doesn't complain to his local councillor that I've violated his human rights or something

Ian stood for The Voice of Gwynedd in the Deiniolen ward in the recent county council elections. He did very well, & garnered a princely of 72 votes, coming third in a three horse race. Maths isn't my strongest subject, but I reckon that this is around 12%.

Although begrudgers & cynics might argue that this is amongst the weakest individual performances in the whole election in Gwynedd, I am neither a cynic nor a begrudger & would like to take the opportunity to congragulate Ian on doing far, far better than I expected him to. I reckoned that he'd be doing well if he managed to get a vote for each year of his life. He excelled that considerable feat by 17 votes.

Anyway, it's impossible to keep a good man down for long, & he proceeded to produce a wonderful blog, which may be viewed here. Unfortunately Ian isn't a very productive blogger, in fact he's a very lazy one, & he's only come up with six rather short pieces since he started blogging on May 6. This is a pity, when I first came across his blog I envisaged many hours of harmless fun trying to follow his meandering musings.

Anyway, his first blog shows commendable spirit & he makes no bones about intending to fight the good fight once more in 2012. It seems that he intends to keep a close eye on the candidate who was actually elected (Len Jones, Plaid Cymru, 322 votes or 55% of the total).

He's also got a strategy designed to ensure even greater success in his next electoral outing. Last time round he set about gathering votes by getting the father of Gwynedd Voices' founder & well known serial liar, Aeron Maldwyn, to tramp around the streets of Pentre Helen with him trying to draw people's attention to his undoubted attributes. As successful as this was, it wasn't quite enough to get Ian elected, but it was enough to persuade seventy two good people to put their cross next to the right name.

So, judging from the blog it seems that the strategy next time round will also involve keeping a beady eye on the successful candidate & acting as a sort of unofficial councillor in the meantime.

It seems that he's unhappy at Len's rather good attendance record at council meetings. Thankfully he hasn't bothered to use the freedom of information act to enquire about the attendance record of some of his fellow Voice of Gwynedd members who were councillors last time round - he'd be in danger of choking on his G&T.

In fact, undaunted by the verdict of the electorate it seems that he's going to act as a sort of unofficial councillor dealing with unspecified but apparently important concerns expressed to him by various electors during his campaign. He's apparently going to sort matters out by using the many contacts that it seems he's built up over the decades and seeking the support of the new Voice of Gwynedd councillors.

As things turned out an urgent matter needed sorting out the other week. Ian's mate, fellow Voice of Gwynedd supporter & proposer in the recent election had a little misfortune. Somebody painted a slogan on his house - for the second time. I'll pause here to write a word or two about Johnny.

Johnny is an ex UKIP candidate, but for a politician he's unusually open minded. He also seems to like the BNP. As one would expect under the circimstances Johnny is a man of strong opinions, especially regarding the Welsh language it seems. He thinks that since Wales is part of the UK, the Welsh language should be replaced by English - & he doesn't think much of the role of Welsh in education.

He made the news a few years ago when someone daubed the words LEARN WELSH YOU ENGLISH TWAT on his Clwt y Bont cottage following some self publicity exercise or other on his part.

Anyway, it seems that his house has been painted for a second time. This time the graffiti was BWTHYN Y BUGAIL MG. Johnny changed the name of his house from Bwthyn y Bugail to Shepherd's Cottage when he moved there. MG presumably stands for Meibion Glyndwr - a grouping of persons unknown who set English owned holiday cottages alight back in the eighties.

Oddly, Ian didn't use his many contacts to try to resolve the situation. It seems that he didn't bother even to seek the support of the superb new Voice of Gwynedd councillors either. What he did was to phone his local councillor - one Len Jones & ask him what he intended to do about the paint job on 'Shepherd's Cottage'.

Now, this is truly bizzare. It's quite understandable that if Johnny lived in a council house & needed his door repaired, or a slate replaced on his roof that he's ask Ian to report it to Len - Len is rather good at getting this sort of thing sorted. Likewise if the dustmen kept forgetting to collect Johnny's bin, or if the council withdrew his council tax twice from his bank account every month, Len would be the man.

But when it comes to trying to appeal to anti colonialist wall daubers who harbour an admiration for pseudo terrorists, surely Ian should get his own party leader, Clynnog's Owain Williams on the case rather than a respectable constitutional local politician like Len Jones.

After all, when an Englishman by the name of Jack Nix opened a club two miles down the road in Penisarwaun in the sixties it was promptly bombed. According to rumour Owain asked for the matter to be taken into consideration when he got himself into a spot of bother over another explosion. I somehow think that Owain's words would carry rather more weight in these circles than would Len's.

But then who am I to question the judgement of a man such as Ian Stephen Hunter Franks.