Robert Lloyd - a Sir Gar Blog of random news . . . and some Clecs!

Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. Website -   www.philevans.co.uk ................................. HOW TO REACT TO A NON-REACTOR… People are funny. I’m not talking ‘funny’ as in ‘they make me laugh’ funny. I’m referring to people’s quirks when they inter-act (or very often don’t) with other people in a normal everyday conversation. As tolerant as you are, I bet you’ve been annoyed by people whose behaviour made you promise to never spend another moment in their company. A friend of mine recently asked me if I knew what a ‘Non-Reactor’ was. I didn’t, but as soon as he explained what he meant, I knew exactly what he was talking about.  A veteran writer and long-time observer of human behaviour, he explained a ‘Non-Reactor’ is someone so wrapped up in themselves they’re incapable of reacting to anything you tell them with a polite “That’s very interesting” or “How awful for you!” “Tell me more!” is, naturally, not in ...

Three popular Welsh comedians are planning to add extra mirth to the inaugural Merthyr Comedy Festival in April. The ‘Comedy and Cwtshes’ event at Dowlais Theatre will be held on Saturday, April 14. Tickets are on sale now via Redhouse – and are going fast. The evening will feature classic stand-up comedy, with Phil Evans – the man with more pop than a bottle of Corona – in the vanguard of a three-part attack on the funny bones. The evening will also feature BBC broadcaster Gary Slaymaker and another seasoned radio performer in Aled Richards. “I always have to watch my words when describing Gary Slaymaker, but it’s fair to say we are three ‘big’ comedy performers in every sense of the word,” said Phil. “The Apocalypse has its three horsemen, but Welsh comedy has its three joybringers, who promise to bring lorry loads of laughs to the first Merthyr Comedy Festival.” Spread over two days and around 10 different venues in the town, the festival will showcase a huge range of co...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ Soup kitchens! What image pops into your head when you hear those words? A raggle-taggle group of whey-faced, shoeless Victorian children, holding out wooden bowls? Or the Great Depression of the 1930s when long lines of undernourished men and women in threadbare clothes, waited in the freezing cold for a free hot meal? Soup kitchens are consigned to history, along with rickets, scurvy and Betamax videos. Right? Wrong! In poor, inner-city areas they’ve never gone away. Due to recent events, including the financial crisis of 2007/8, they’ve spread . . . even to Llanelli. Every Sunday evening, the Sosban Soup Kitchen in Old Castle Road supplies poor, hungry people with a free hot meal. Run by Gary Glenister and his team of volunteers, it relies on soup and bread generously don...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ A false impression: When I was a lad, my gran warned me that watching too much television would harm my eyes. As young boys tend to, I ignored her and absorbed as much of the three channels our 17-inch telly offered. We were content with BBC One and Two and ITV, as there always seemed to be something ‘great’ to watch – especially on a Saturday night. The deterioration of TV programme quality since a mind-boggling selection of channels was thrust upon us – I don’t remember asking for them, do you? - will be the subject of a future article, I am sure . . . I had no idea my gran was a fortune teller able to look into the future as far as 2017. Because it’s only this year that TV started to harm my eyes - to such an extent, when I hear the theme music to certain shows I take th...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ A shock to the system:  It’s been announced that rail electrification between London and South Wales will stop at Cardiff Central – although no-one is prepared to predict at the precise time it’ll come to a halt. Having taken the train to Paddington and back on more occasions I can remember, there’s every chance it’ll be delayed because of a signal failure between Reading and Didcot Parkway, a cow on the line outside Swindon and the possibility of a nervous little train refusing to move out of the safety of the Severn Tunnel and on into Newport in case it has its wheels stolen while waiting in the station for two minutes. It’s okay. I have friends in Newport. They can take a joke. Well, you’d be exactly the same if you lived there. As soon it was announced rail electrif...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ WAS A £600 FINE HIGHWAY ROBBERY? I never understood what people meant when they said, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” until a week or so ago when I read about a Llanelli man who last July painted “Happy Birthday“ (plus his girlfriend’s name) in the middle of his street. The message came from the heart and the paint came straight from B & Q. Other paint suppliers are available, by the way. He must have done it when there was no traffic around, otherwise a passing lorry might have squashed his plans . . . and everything else. The man gave away his identity by signing it, “Love Dai”, followed by a drawing of a heart and a large ‘X’. Either he didn’t realise that painting words two-foot long on a stretch of tarmac is just as anti-social as writing them two-...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ Feeling low? The state of the world getting you down? Then let me try and cheer you up . . . What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A drummer! That’s a favourite joke among musicians - though not with those who hit a percussion instrument for a living. Musicians have a jokey definition of ‘Perfect Pitch’ - which is ‘throwing an accordion into a skip without touching the sides’. From the laugh-out-loud reaction that joke always receives, I was convinced that there’s little love around for the accordion these days. So, I was very surprised to read a report in this newspaper about a man with possible links to Port Talbot who the police want to interview about the theft of accordions with a total value of £150,000 from a music shop in Berkshire. The fact that...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ What can we do with the selfie-obsessed? When I recently visited London for the first time in almost a year I couldn’t believe how tourist behaviour had changed. Instead of taking photographs of their family/friends in front of famous landmarks, most visitors were taking ‘selfies’ using ‘selfie sticks’. It doesn’t just occur in London. This ever-growing madness of taking selfies goes on everywhere . . . maybe in your neighbourhood. So be vigilant! Because selfie-takers are narcissists who don’t consider that taking pointless selfie-after-selfie of themselves in the same position is annoying to people around them. I know you like me to give you an example . . . A friend of mine went to see the “Peter Pan” pantomime at Cardiff’s New Theatre during the last week of the run. T...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ Sad but strange: When two well-known people die on the same day, the person who gets more coverage in the newspapers and the TV and Radio news is often the one who deserves it the least . . . in my humble opinion, I hasten to add. On February the 8th, an elderly man and a much younger woman, who were high profile in entirely different fields, both died. He was 87-year old Alan Simpson, one half of the legendary comedy-writing team of Galton and Simpson who not only created the first British television sitcom “Hancock’s Half Hour” in the 1950s but then went on to even greater heights in the 1960s with “Steptoe And Son” which regularly attracted 18 million viewers. American TV made their own version called “Sanford and Son”. The prolific Galton and Simpson also wrote films inc...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ WHAT’S ALL THE WHO-HA? Since Peter Capaldi announced that, after four years he’s leaving the role of Doctor Who once he’s filmed the 2017 Christmas special, there’s been much speculation about who should succeed him as the Time Lord. The fervour and excitement surrounding this story has been so great, questions have even been raised in the House. Not the House of Commons. The house of my mate Terry – a ‘Whovian’. No, he’s not half-man, half-vacuum cleaner. A Whovian is a dedicated Doctor Who fan(atic). They’re sometimes called other things - but this is a family newspaper. The questions raised by Terry – and the media - were the same ones asked when the previous two Doctors (David Tennant and err . . . cough . . . umm . . . wotsisname) admitted they’d had enough of being c...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ What age is it? This world has struggled through many different Ages. Millions of years ago we had the Ice Age, followed by (wearing a bearskin and thermal boxer shorts) the Stone Age, which was replaced by the Iron Age. The 18th Century was referred to as The Age Of Enlightenment because of advances in politics, philosophy, science and communications across Europe. That seems a very long time ago. Today, as I look at what’s happening everywhere from the White House to Downing Street to my street, I get the feeling that The Age Of Enlightenment has been replaced by The Age Of Stupid. Where to begin? Some time ago I wrote about the idiotic trend for grown men to wear shorts all year round, even when the temperature’s below freezing. What gets into them? Apart from hypo-therm...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ Battle ground. December! The most wonderful time of the year! Unless, of course, you’re a comedian appearing in a comedy club packed with people who think the most appropriate way to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus is to drink industrial quantities of booze before staggering into the venue and sitting as close to the stage as possible so nothing can get in the way of their enjoyment. Not that they intend being amused by the comedians they’ve paid to see. No, their enjoyment comes from being among a group of pals in Santa hats, loudly heckling, interrupting, swearing and generally behaving like chief guests at a moron convention. Lacking the ability to behave themselves in public and the talent and steel nerves it takes to stand on a stage and make an audience laugh ...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ How do we cope with all this? We live in a time where Donald Trump is about to become the most powerful man in the world, vegans want to scrap the new five pound notes because they contain tiny traces of animal fats (why not just ask for five one-pound coins instead?) and millions of TV viewers enjoy watching minor celebrities chewing on a dead kangaroo’s you-know-what, while locked inside a box of snakes. Some readers wonder why I get annoyed with people so dim I’m astonished they can find their way out of their own front doors to wander aimlessly along while texting on their stupid...err...smart phones, oblivious that pavements might just occasionally be used by other pedestrians. In my defence, there are weeks when I relate happy experiences I’ve enjoyed, recall the wo...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ................................ “SPACE INVADERS” “Please step back! You’re invading my space!” Chances are you’ve heard that being said sometime, on TV, in a film or in the street. Like many expressions, slang words and over-enthusiastic responses in common use today, it originated from the United States. It’s unfortunate there wasn’t a dock workers strike on the day the ship arrived here carrying among its cargo the expression that always sounds so peculiarly ‘wrong’ delivered in a British accent. “Hey buddy! That was so AWESOME!” Nevertheless, it landed on British soil and invaded the space once occupied by the perfectly serviceable, “I say, old chap! That was rather impressive!” which I used to hear all the time in pubs around Llanelli . . . don’t you know! I’ve never knowingly invaded anyone’s space – ...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ------------------------------------------ Jurassic Larks: On my 11th birthday, which also happened to be my pet dog’s 11th birthday, I was given a magic set, which included the classic ‘How to saw someone in half’ illusion. As none of my family volunteered to be my assistant – probably because I’d borrowed my Dad’s hacksaw to add an element of danger – my only option was to rope-in the dog. His name was “Stay”, which confused him whenever he was taken for a walk. But “Stay” had a cheerful disposition, ate almost anything put in front of him and was prone to expelling loud noxious gasses almost every hour on the hour. So, he fitted-in with my family perfectly. Anyway, as I approached the animal, he took one look at my cardboard wizard’s hat and the sharp-edged hacksaw blade glinting in the sunl...

Comedian Phil Evans made his debut on Swansea Bay TV today. He was interviewed in both English and Welsh. This is the English version.

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ------------------------------------------ The ‘C’ Word! It’s here then - even though none of us are ready for it. It suddenly arrived like an unexpected relative turning up on your front door step with a pile of suitcases and an expectant smile on his face, demanding two month’s free board and lodging - and a wad of your cash. I’m referring to Christmas - which, as any of you who’ve ventured outside your homes in the last week will realise, has begun. If I sound less than happy about it, allow me to explain why. A couple of days before Bonfire Night I walked into a well-known department store’s coffee shop and was surprised (nay, shocked, double nay, flabbergasted) to see that the staff behind the counter were wearing T-shirts bearing slogans along the lines of “We Wish You A Flat White Christmas” and “San...

The latest Phil Evans column from the South Wales Evening Post. Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. www.philevans.co.uk ------------------------------------------ Get ready: So, after a relatively mild Autumn, the Meteorological Office have (rather too enthusiastically, it seems to me) predicted that the whole of the United Kingdom will be hit by blinding blizzards, ferocious snow storms and 25ft deep drifts from mid-November in our worst winter for five years. But, as Jimmy Cricket says, “Ladies and gentlemen . . . there’s more!” It might keep snowing for 120 days, so there’s every chance we’ll all be buried under the white stuff until February. Jimmy Cricket didn’t say that. The Met Office did. So, if the milk in your fridge is running low and your bread bin is looking depleted, pre-empt the rush. The minute you finish reading this newspaper, nip down to your local shop and buy a small brown loaf, a pound of butter, some t...