Greetings. I am a Welsh-British person living in Finland. I was born in 1968 and grew up in a small place called Llantrisant in South Wales, which is about ten miles from Cardiff, the Welsh capital city. My wife is Finnish and my three sons have Finnish and British names. Iwan (b. 22nd November 2001) is named after Iwan Thomas. Akseli (b. 5th October 2003) is named after Akseli Koskela, a character from Väinö Linna's classic book Under the North Star. Edwin (b. 2nd November 2005) is a name we both liked, that is both British and Scandinavian, known in Finland due to Edvin Laine (sometimes Edwin Laine)[1] the director of the classic film The Unknown Soldier (1955 film), also from a book by Linna, The Unknown Soldier (novel). The boys have dual nationality. Although I went to a Welsh language school, my Welsh language skills could be described as, at best, rudimentary, it must be nearly 20 years since I last had a conversation in Welsh, sad but true. Even though I am Welsh I have three English grandparents, one from London one from Surrey and one from County Durham. My paternal grandfather was from Risca in Gwent. I suppose I'm a true Brit. I see being British as inclusive, and I liked the name Edwin because it is an Old English name, and we already had Welsh and Finnish names. I view the Norman invasion of 1066 as the greatest disaster Great Britain has ever suffered.
When I left school I worked at Hensol Hospital in South Glamorgan, -which is for people who have a mental impairment- as a nursing assistant and student nurse. I especially worked with people with challenging behaviours [2]. In 1991 I left to attend Cardiff University. Since then I have variously been a student, unemployed (one of the most depressing periods of my life), a student again twice (Masters and PhD, though I rapidly discovered that I am not cut out for academic research). I met my wife at the University of Huddersfield where she was an exchange student and I was a failing research student. I am currently working at the University of Helsinki as a laboratory technician, and have been surprised to find that not having a career has made me inordinately happy and given me the freedom to do other interesting things. I enjoy baking my own bread and occasionally brewing my own ale.
My politics
I suppose that on a political level I could be described as a libertarian socialist as I have strong views in favour of labour and social welfare, but equally strong views on personal liberty. I would describe myself as a radical, anarchism especially mutualism strongly appeals to me. I view the ownership of the means of production (ie capital and therefore capitalism) as little more than theft and think that a true free market can only be achieved by the abolition of private property, especially intellectual property (because it creates a monopoly). I think M$ Windows (monopoly) compared to Linux (numerous distributions lots of choice, a free market) and MP3 (proprietary, relatively poor codec) compared to Ogg Vorbis (free, excellent codec [3]) are good examples of this. All forms of nationalism are anathema to me, Welsh independence in the form of decentralist socialism as Plaid Cymru proposes appeals to my anarchistic tendencies, the question is how much decentralising of power?, without the abolition of government it is just replacing one coercivestate with another, as Danny says in Withnail and I, Why trust one drug and not another? I think this quote form the anarchism article sums up my beliefs well ..a harmonious anti-authoritarian society that is based on individual self-determination and personal involvement. In place of what are regarded as authoritarian political structures and coercive economic institutions, anarchists advocate social relations based upon voluntary association of free individuals in autonomous communities, mutual aid, and self-governance, and the concept of balanced reciprocity.
