I am besieged by official letters telling me to ‘ACT NOW!” Usually in capitals to increase the urgency and sometimes in very large envelopes - I suppose to make them seem more important. One weighed so much that I fear the spine of poor Annie, our ever cheerful post-lady, will be lop-sided ever after. Despite this she still smiled as she handed over my census form.Incidentally, have you noticed how the majority of postmen (both male and female) are happy? Considering their lot - out in all weathers, carrying heavy loads, working to deadlines, awful management, poor pay - you’d think they'd be all as miserable as sin and only stay in the job a couple of weeks before exclaiming ‘blow this for a game of soldiers.’ But no, they go on and on. Smiling like the sun, even in the rain, and always ready to offer up those little courtesies that make life bearable.
Of course they complain - but they do so happily. Very few are sour and po-faced. So what is it about the postman’s lot? They are all very fit and I suppose that helps and seeing the rest of the world at seven o’clock in the morning must give you a comforting feeling of moral superiority.
But back to ‘ACT NOW.’ The heavyweight census form came in separate booklets in English and Welsh. Now I have nothing against the Welsh language. I even spent two years learning some of it at evening classes and I once played the Wicked Witch of the West in a performance of Snow White in some learners’ pantomime. I can still sing ‘Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go’ in Welsh (Hi Ho, Hi He, I ffordd y’r gwaith a’r ni). I have given a Welsh culture class at a school in Norway and had the students performing in Welsh and acting out a version of that great rugby song, ‘Sospan Fach.’ (Which means - and not everyone even in Wales knows this - ‘Small Saucepan’)
So I am not, you see, anti-Welsh. I have done my bit for the language. But I am certainly not up to completing my census in Welsh. Or any other form for that matter.
I shudder to think what it costs to send a Welsh Language census form to the ninety per cent of the population (and probably more) who will choose to respond in English. For many Welsh speakers will still choose to use the English version. More than two and a half million twenty-page booklets will go straight in the bin. All in the name of political correctness. The cost of translation into Welsh is appreciable and the cost of printing in Welsh is also elevated because most printers do not speak the language. But this is what the Welsh Language Act decrees.
It is madness. Why can we not opt how we wish to receive our government communications? When I go to a cashpoint the machine asks me, thoughtfully, in which language it should address me. Besides English and Welsh it offers other choices: French for instance, or German. So why not the government?
It would be a simple matter to register a preference. It could be done at the same time as the electoral register update? “Do you wish us to communicate with your household in: English only, Welsh only, or English and Welsh?” And we could tick the appropriate box. If there was doubt then the default position would be English and Welsh.
Still, now that I come to think of it, we might then demand another choice entirely. We might demand a form in English, properly thought through, and not in some form of hurry-up officialese.
For instance, seeing the words ‘ACT NOW’ you could be excused for filling in the form then and there and posting it off. Instead the small print says to complete the form on 28th March. But even acting on 28th March is wrong because the forms asks for details of people staying overnight on 28th March. Which means (because you never know who might turn up on your doorstep at two minutes to midnight, do you?) that it is impossible to complete the form accurately until 29th March.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m a baby-boomer and therefore on my way out. Responding to other requests to ‘ACT NOW,’ I claimed two pensions this week, one from the government (another binned booklet in Welsh) and one from a provider of ‘financial services.’ Or in my case disservices. Had I only listened to my inner self and put the money under my mattress I’m sure I couldn’t have done worse. Still I have ordered a small annuity and had it indexed. If now I can only manage to live until I'm 120 I feel sure I can extract my revenge.
