I have been avidly following the story of Threatin this week, a big American rock band responsible for the smash hit 'Living is Dying'. Never heard of it? Well, Threatin are actually just a dude named Jered Eames who faked his way to a European tour. Seriously. You can read the full expose at Metal Sucks, but the short version goes like this:

It was half term this week so I had a few days off - which was probably harder work what with Marianna home all the time too! I was hoping to get a lot of writing done but it just didn't happen. Anthony fell down the stairs on Thursday and sprained his ankle, so any hope of getting some time to myself over the weekend went up in smoke.

We had a little party at my mum's on Wednesday evening for Halloween - you can see the pictures HERE - and Saturday was pretty busy, with a daffodil bulb planting session in Pontnewydd Park in the morning followed by our monthly councillor ward surgery. In the afternoon I took Marianna back up to Mt Pleasant Hall for Holy Trinity Church's Christmas Bazaar. I spent about £12 and came back laden down with goodies.

The vicar at Holy Trinity, Canon Harald Thomas, was my chaplain when I was Mayor (as well as delivering many fondly remembered assemblies back when I was in primary school) and is generally just the nicest guy. He played the part of Father Christmas for the children - Marianna hasn't stopped talking about her chat with Santa since. :)

Today has been really quiet, just chilling at my mum's and suffering Marianna's choice in viewing material. I did manage to get out for a bit in the afternoon though, to go and help David put up some lamp post poppies around Pontnewydd Village. Thankfully David was the one climbing the ladder. I'm missing Remembrance Day this year as I'm going to a friend's wedding, so it helped me feel a little less guilty about it!

TBA

Anthony reviewed a couple of items from Jacamo's AW18 range.


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Detroit: Become Human is the latest PS4 release from French game developer Quantic Dream. Set in 2038, Detroit has become the manufacturing centre for CyberLife androids - used for everything from childcare to university lecturers. You follow three android protagonists: Kara, a housekeeper android determined to save her child charge from her abusive father; Markus, a one of a kind prototype destined to lead the android revolution; and Connor, a prototype detective android tasked with locating and deactivating 'Deviant' androids who can think and feel.

It's totally immersive and is really forming the basis of my fannish life right now - so many options, so many outcomes! - so here's a 30 Day Tag adapted from one I found on Tumblr.

My Top Ten tracks of the month!

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Love How It Hurts - Scouting For Girls (2011)

Scouting for Girls, their debut album, came out over ten years ago now. Man, I feel old! I love all their stuff but this one just pips the others to the post as my favourite. It peaked at #17 and was one of the last of their singles to chart.

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Salt Sweat Sugar - Jimmy Eat World (2001)

Nostalgia central! Bleed American remains the only album I have ever gone out and bought solely on the strength of a written magazine review. It was well worth taking that pocket money risk though and Jimmy Eat World went on to do pretty well in the UK during the early 2000s.

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Life Is a Highway - Rascal Flatts (2006)

Rascal Flatts covered this 1992 track by Tom Cochrane for Disney Pixar's Cars soundtrack. Marianna has wanted a YouTube rotation of Disney songs this month and this is definitely one of the better offerings!

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Nancy Mulligan - Ed Sheeran (2017)

One of my favourite Ed Sheeran tracks, Nancy Mulligan peaked at #13 on the UK singles chart in 2017 and #3 in Ireland. This vid has Open Champion Irish Dancer, Hannah Redlich, entertaining some re-enactment WW2 troops.

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Girls Lie Too - Terri Clark (1970)

More country with Terri Clark; this one topped the US country chart back in 2004 and starred Shaun Silva as Captain Jack Sparrow in the video.

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My House - Dr Syntax ft. Tom Caruana (2012)

The song for everyone who has ever lived in shared digs! Dr. Syntax is a UK rapper from rural North Oxfordshire, renowned for his clever lyrics and commentary on middle class problems...

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Das Geht Boom - Harris & Ford ft. Lisah (2013)

I love Austrian dance duo Harris & Ford because cheesy Eurodance is always where it's at for me. This one spent eight weeks in the Austrian singles chart in summer 2013, peaking at #25. Anthony's most hated of their tracks is Tick Tack (Boom Bang) (2014) so I've made sure to play that a few times this month too...

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Hamma! - Culcha Candela (2007)

Speaking of cheese, it don't get much better than Culcha Candela's break through hit. It reached the top spot on the German chart, in addition to #3 in Austria and #13 in Switzerland. In German, generally speaking, something is the hammer (der Hammer) if it's really good. So the song is just a guy telling a girl that she's the best. Especially in that outfit.

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Wildes Ding - Culcha Candela (2011)

This was one of my favourite getting ready to go out songs back in the day. Now it's the background track to doing some laundry... Ah, adulthood.

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House Trained Dog - Lenny Henry & Gina Yashere (2005)

Spoof of Snoop Dogg's 2004 mega hit Drop It Like It's Hot for the second series of The Lenny Henry Show.

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It's been a pretty busy week, all told. I've finally managed to get all the junk cleared from the house, and I've been working throughout the week on the back garden. There is about two meters at the bottom still thick with nettles, but the rest has been done. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be moving on to the front garden.

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday about my back to confirm I hadn't done anything serious. It's been a lot better this week anyway, and only really hurts when I'm getting up. On Wednesday I had Resources & Business overview and scrutiny committee then, when Anthony was out at Community Council (and the pub...) in the evening, I moved a bunch of bookcases about downstairs. I was very pleased I managed to do it singlehandedly!

On Tuesday I went to Barry Island with Marianna and my family. It was really good fun - we even went on the fair!

We had a meeting of the Northville Underpass steering group on Thursday. It was the one thing I most wanted done way back when I first campaigned for election in 2012, and now movement is finally within sight... After that I went up to the Civic Centre for the first regular meeting of the local Labour Campaign Forum.

Friday saw Dave and I talking with the groundskeeper at Pontnewydd Park. Since the council gave up up on park upkeep beyond the bare minimum parts of it have fallen into disrepair, especially the tennis courts. Terry had some photos of the park in the 1980s when it was beautifully maintained and in constant use. We're going to try and get some volunteers together to start recapturing some of that former glory.

Yesterday was Cwmbran Big Event, so we went to help out on the Labour and Cwmbran Community Council stalls. It was a gorgeous day and we had a good time, even if my feet were killing by the time we got home. We decided to follow the healthy living theme and walk there and back, but obviously it's too far for Marianna so we dug out her pushchair. She has not grown any lighter since last time I had to push her...

Today we're just spending the day at my parents', with Marianna rewatching her favourite Disney films for the 5000th time.

Had a really positive walk around Pontnewydd Park with @David_R_Daniels this morning. Would love to see it recapture some of its former glory! pic.twitter.com/gXQ6hiBM9H

— Jessica Powell (@jess__powell) June 8, 2018

I reviewed the spring fever Japan Candy Box, Jason Starr's new novel 'Gotham: City of Monsters', and wrote about the first letter I ever had printed in a magazine.



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I've been having a massive clear out this week and came across an old issue of Sneak magazine from November 2004. I'd kept it because it represented the one and only time I wrote a letter in to a teen magazine.

That summer Dragostea Din Tei (Ma Ya Hi / Numa Numa) had been a smash hit across Europe and I was desperate for anything I could get on the Moldavian band behind the song, O-Zone. I downloaded all their songs on LimeWire - remember that? - and did postal swaps with girls in Russia and Romania for pictures and posters. I even read all the badly translated fanfic I found on their fan forum.


What I really wanted was some coverage in a homegrown magazine that I could just pick up on the newstand. I wanted every teen girl's favourite weekly Sneak to print me a poster. So, I decided I was going to write in and, in hope of my letter attracting their attention, doodled over a brightly coloured envelope for maximum impact.

This ended up also being my first experience with a tough editor. The letter they printed bore little to no resemblance to anything I had actually written and, worst of all, they didn't even mention O-Zone!

(Or Dan Balan. I'd have settled for a picture of Dan Balan.)


It did win star letter though. But did I get the promised Sneak goody bag? Did I ****

A total washout all around, I think you'll agree!

Still, enjoy a few scanned pages to help you relive 2004... Across town Anthony would have loved this issue; not only was there a poster of Ben McKenzie to pull out and keep, there was also an O.C. wordsearch. (One day I will tire of mocking Anthony's unironic love for and annual rewatching of The O.C. That day is not today.)








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So, on the downside, my back hasn't improved much. On the positive side, I've managed to get a doctor's appointment for Monday afternoon, and my mum gave me a hand to do some of the sorting I had originally planned to do this week. We took six black bags full of stuff to Cash 4 Clothes, and then another load of toys, etc, to the St David's Foundation distribution centre on the Forgehammer Industrial Estate. We rearranged all Marianna's furniture to try and make a bit more space, and started sorting through all the junk in the spare room too.

Anthony wasn't much use as Wednesday morning we ended up having to call emergency because he threw his back out and couldn't move. They just gave him some painkillers and told him to try not to stay in bed...

Yesterday we had our monthy councillor advice surgery in the morning. It was so hot and sunny we sat outside and enjoyed it! I spent the afternoon comping and watching trashy true crime shows. A very productive afternoon, I feel. :)

Pontnewydd councillors, Marianna, and Zai our PCSO at advice surgery yesterday morning.

I reviewed MiniatureVictoriya dollhouse miniatures on Monday and posted an overview of May in Fandom.



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My back continues to be my major preoccupation. It started to ease up a bit Thursday and Friday, then Saturday it just seemed to be back to square one. :( The plan for next week (half term) was to sort out the house and repaint a couple of rooms but, sigh, I don't think I'm going to get very far with it.

Thankfully there wasn't much on this week. I had my first meeting about learning overview and scrutiny committee, to fix the dates for a few preliminary meetings, etc, and I had a full board meeting at Bron Afon. Anthony had his community council AGM and was appointed Vice Chairman.

Other than that I watched a lot of TV, wrote a few short stories, and generally wallowed in self pity...



I haven't posted much - read: any - this week because I've been too busy feeling sorry for myself. I will doubtless backdate content... at some point.



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The big thing this week was officially finishing as Mayor. It's been such a life changing year - I've always suffered with a lot of social anxiety and wasn't sure how I'd hold up having to go out and meet new people, day after day. It has been hard at times, I can't deny, but I'm so glad to have done it. Especially as it turned out to be the very last chance I would have gotten!

You can read the speech I gave to full council about it on Tuesday HERE. Or watch it via the webcast HERE.

All the nominations made at Labour group last week were accepted and agreed too, which meant I could stop stressing about them. Normally I wouldn't put myself forward for anything, but my family nagged and nagged about how if I never tried I would never know, so I filled out a few application forms and crossed my fingers. I ended up being voted in for Chair of the Learning Communities Scrutiny Committee. It was really hotly contested and it means a lot that my colleagues were willing to let me have a go at it.

The committee chairs were then all put in a ballot for 'presiding member' - the replacement for the Mayor to chair full council - and I won that too. I did suggest that we took it in turns, like on a rota, but there was no appetite for that, hehe.

After council we went to Bob Jones' funeral. Bob was a former Mayor and an active member of Pontnewydd Labour Branch, so I've spent lots of time with him at meetings and events over the years. The church service was really moving and then the crem was so packed it was standing room outside only. Anthony stayed out afterwards with some of the guys from Cwmbran Community Council, where Bob had been serving as Chair, but I was still feeling raw from working myself up over council AGM and my granddad's funeral, so I went home to get Marianna early.

What else did I do this week? Hmm... On Monday I went to a seminar on the pressure on children's social services in the borough. (Constantly growing, probably the same as everywhere else in the country.) Thursday I had Audit and Ethics Committee at Bron Afon - my last one, in fact, because I'm going to switch to staffing & HR which I feel is much more my natural home. (I don't know why I always end up on audit / finance!)

The main point of this week was that it was to be a fresh start. I was off Friday through the rest of the weekend, so the plan was to start sorting out the house. Except Friday morning I was sorting through the understairs cupboard and pulled something in my lower back. What I've actually spent the weekend doing is shuffling about like an old woman and looking at the piles of junk I can't face bending down to sort out.

Ah well, I have loads of free time now. The schedule being pushed back to next week is not the end of the world. :)

Me and Hywel Davies, the Mayoral chauffeur and support officer. I couldn't have done any of it without him!

I posted a clipping from the South Wales Argus on Monday - our litter pick made the grassroots section. On Wednesday I went with the Top Ten Fandom Blogs, and on Friday I posted my Top Ten Tracks for May.

I also set up my very own TinyLetter this weekend! I used to run a few fandom newsletters so it should be fun to give it another go.



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Reverend Canon Harald Thomas (Chaplain), Me, Alison Ward (Chief Executive of TCBC), Stuart Evans (Deputy Mayor)
I made it! It's been an amazing year - surreal at times, sure, but something that I know will stay with me forever. I did about 250 official engagements, and have written about some of them that made the local papers in my 'In the Press' series. Below is the speech I gave at council today about my year in office... (It can also be viewed on the council webcast HERE.)

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Torfaen Deputy Mayoral Chains
It has been a real honour and a privilege to serve as Mayor this last year. I have met so many inspirational people, seen some of the truly amazing work going on in our community, and attended all kinds of weird and wonderful events. I've officially opened not one but two toilets, embarrassed myself countless times over in the name of charity, and blown the starting whistle at the Men's Roller Derby Associations' world championships.

(If, like me, you didn't even know the sport existed before hearing that, I highly recommend you check it out. It's great fun to watch!)

There has also been a more solemn side to the role. I attended the funerals of two former Mayors during my time in office - Doug Davies and Ann James - and, of course, this afternoon we have the funeral of another former Mayor, Bob Jones. I think that sense of upholding tradition, of being a civic representative, most hit home for me at remembrance events. Remembrance Day was especially moving, and I would like to thank my fantastic Mayoral cadet, Seren Gunningham of Torfaen Sea Cadets, for all her support.

In truth, there are more people I need to thank than I can possibly fit into this short speech. Everybody who invited me to an event, and everyone who supported my charity appeal: the money will be split three ways between Lincoln's Legs, Torfaen Mind, and Cyfannol Women's Aid. I specifically want to thank my Chaplain, Reverend Canon Harald Thomas; my Deputy Mayor, Stuart Evans; my Mini Mayor, Marianna; and my consort, Anthony Bird - who complained about the initial draft of this speech because he wasn't mentioned.


I would also like to thank Chris Slade and everyone in the office for making up for my lack of organisational skills, my mum for babysitting above and beyond the call of duty, and Hywel Davies for everything. I literally would have been lost without him. I think I speak for all of us when I say that Hywel has been a real driving force in the role of the Mayor, and in the two decades he has been in the job he has shown nothing but dedication and professionalism of the highest standard.

I personally can't wait for his memoir!

Because this really is the end of an era. When I was first elected to the council in 2012 I was quite dismissive of the idea of us needing a Mayor. It seemed outdated and unnecessary, and I struggled to see the point. Over the years however I changed my mind - not, sadly, because I was getting paid £50,000 like some people assumed after the budget savings went public, but because I could see that it did matter to people. Actually serving as first Deputy and then Mayor was a real eye opener to how important the office still was to many members of the public, and the positive impact it had on people's lives.

What to you is just an afternoon of shaking hands and handing out certificates can be a really special memory to those involved. I have been incredibly touched to see how much it meant to people that I - or, perhaps more accurately, what I was representing by wearing the chains - attended their event.

Being apolitical for the year was a little lonely at times. You're not at group, and you don't see your colleagues as much as you usually would in committee, or the members' room. But it also gives you a unique ability to represent the authority without all the political baggage you would usually have. When you are elected you become the people's representative to the council, but as Mayor you become the council's representative to the people. I really hope going forward that we work to maintain that civic engagement with our residents and neighbours.

Sitting for my official Mayoral portrait

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It felt very strange handing over the chairship of the council to the new Presiding Member - not least because it was me! The PM has to be chosen from committee chairs, so at Labour group I went through two rounds of voting to be selected as the nomination for chair of the learning communities scrutiny committee and then chair of council.

Today those nominations were accepted and agreed, so I'm looking forward to a whole new challenge!

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Parts of this speech were quoted in the Pontypool Free Press (17/05/2018).

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This week has mostly been about winding things up and getting organised. I want to write to all the groups / organisations I visited during my time as Mayor to thank them for the invite and helping to make the year special, so I've been stocking up on note cards, writing paper, and stamps. I feel like I finally have a use for all the stationery I keep buying! It's all ready to go now and I'll start actually writing them out next week.

On Tuesday we went to a 100th birthday party in Blaenavon - there must be something in the water up there - and then I had finance committee and school governors at Maendy. Of course I didn't check my email before going so I had to be like, oh yeah, I totally knew I was chairing today. (I'm the Vice Chair.) It was fine though and we managed to get through the AGM by 7pm.

After that we had a little 'retirement' party for Marianna as she had served her last day as the Mini Mayor! I officially finish at the Council AGM next week but, as I'll be the last Mayor, it's just going to be an ordinary business meeting so there's no point in taking her. Instead we bought her a cake with candles, and the Moana dress she has been asking for. The only problem was that she kept thinking it was her birthday... :)

I went up for pre-council briefing on Friday morning, then went to my granddad's funeral. I didn't think I'd be too bad but I cried floods once it actually started. (In fact, I'm crying a little now, just writing about it.) So on Saturday we all just took it easy and I went through my email inboxes. I have five now for different things - work, blog, comping, etc - and they were all full of junk.

From the vaults! My brother Rhys with our maternal grandparents.

All I've had all week is SEO people emailing me to try and get me to include their links on my site. I've nothing against this and will sometimes edit a post - if it's relevant. But they've clearly not even given the page a cursory once over before insisting that their new infographic / article / whatever is a perfect fit for my readers. Ads for 1:1 scale furniture on a post about 1:12 scale doll houses? The same link you asked me about last month and I said no? Passive aggressive 'if you want to miss out on this awesome content that's fine' spiels?

No, no, and no.

Is anyone else inundated with this kind of thing? It's so annoying.

In other news, I mostly posted stuff I had saved in drafts because I didn't feel much like writing this week. So there was a review of Commaful, the much hyped flash fiction site, and a guide to the best multifandom fanfiction archives on the web. I also posted a listicle of the top ten patron saints of random causes, and wrote a review / giveaway for Britta Lundin's new fandom-centric YA book, Ship It.



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