To make up for some sparse blogging in the last few days, have a pictures and text extravaganza:

If you wish to do this Letter Meme, comment, and I’ll give you a letter. Then, post 10 words starting with that letter which are important to you in your journal.

gwyn:
Go on then Flash, assign me a letter. I’ve been sorely lacking on the blog-inspiration front of late and maybe I just need a meme to get back on track… Unless I get an X. Regards

techiebabe:
I award you a “W” – prompted by your middle name. Enjoy!

I thank you, Flash. And thus it begins…

West Country

The bit of England I’m from. Green, verdant, rainy, green, rainy, verdant Somerset. Home to cider, The Wurzels, the Quantock Hills, and almost completely free of football teams, what more could you ask for? And the accent has got to be one of the best on the planet. Along with south Wales, natch.

Wales– When you’ve got a name like mine people assume you’re Welsh. Gwyn means white/fair in Welsh and I’ve recently taken to translating it as Guero in Spanish. Gwyn’s a bugger to pronounce if you’re a native Spanish speaker though. Oo-eeen is the usual, but last night I met a tapatia round Victor and Jana’s who could pronounce it perfectly and who spoke French like a native too. Anyroad, back to Wales, of course me Mum’s Welsh with O Levels in it and everything, and I went to University there for the best part of 4 years. Wales has a lot going for it in terms of natural beauty. WWII and decline in heavy industry scarred a fair section of it, and you wouldn’t find me out in Neath after dark, but overall if you haven’t visited Cymru, hie thee hither. Bring waterproofs.

Wine. Not just the grapey stuff ((Red) Zinfandel with its peppery overtones, please, Sommelier). Vino in Mexican Spanish refers to tequila too, and what with my wife’s academic endeavours the agave-based beverage plays a fairly large role in the house. Todo con medida, nada con exceso. come fruta y verduras, your home may be at risk if you do not keep up the payements…

Web Design. I design web pages. Just like this one you’re reading here. Tell your friends. Here’s my latest creation, which I’m pretty proud of but haven’t run past the clients yet.

Well lit photography

For reasons I still can’t fathom, my camera (I?) sucks at taking photos in low light conditions. First off, it can’t autofocus then it tries to shorten the shutter speed so unless you’re careful with the tripod you get blurry messes. If you set it up manually it forgets the settings every 2 minutes and you have to start again. Hence my predelictation for outdoor photos on sunny days. Happily I’m in the right country for that kind of thing.

Wrestling (Mexican Lucha Libre)

Like some crazed surreal violent pantomime. I defy you to go and not love it. Absolutely nothing like it’s soulless, brash, commercial American counterpart. I’m heading there again on Tuesday if last night’s organizing with Victor, Berta and Javier holds up in the cold, harsh, sober light of day.

Whistling. Have you noticed that when you whistle to yourself, someone else will start whistling shortly after once you finish? For some reason I can also remember the first time I managed to whistle a tune, I was 6 or 7 and walking to Kingston School and it was the theme to the Mr. Men. I’m not forcing you to read this, you know…

Waldo’s mart– Mexico’s answer to Poundland/99cents store, with everything costing a nice round 13 pesos. For some reason this is the only place in Guadalajara that sells decent chocolate and it’s where we got our fine set of Scooby Doo coffee mugs. How much you ask? Why, 13 pesos each.

Words– Love’em. I’m not a huge conversationalist, but I’m fascinated by language. There’s a post about my favourite words if you fancy it. An interesting thing about Spanish is there are very few words beginning with W. The sound exists but you use ‘gu’ to write it. Most W words in Spanish are imports from other languages. Hence the W section of the dictionary being half a page on ‘El Walkie-talkie, ‘Whisky, ‘el Windsurfista and a couple of others.

Mexico. Cos if you invert the W it’s an M, and in case you never noticed I adore this country, the good and the bad. And that’s not something I say about many places. While I’m at it, don’t forget, no buying American products tomorrow (May day) which should annoy Bush and show how important mexicanos are for the gringo economy. Another thing that’s going to piss him off no end will be the imminent legalisation of small quantities of drugs for personal use in Mexico, showing common sense prevailing in Mexican politics. Nice one, Vicente.

I asked Sita for her favourite 10 Ws and off the top of her head she said: Whodunnit, witch hazel, whatever, wannabe, wetback, wine, whining, whether, window, weeping willow. And then the word ‘was’ she says, because you can’t live without it. Bless her, that’s more interesting and intriguing than all mine combined. She should get a blog…