Welsh secret weapons

With this year's World Cup taking place in the Land of the Long White Cloud, it would be a brave rugby fan who bets on anyone but the All Blacks to lift the Webb Ellis trophy.

Apart from having the home advantage, New Zealand's national team can rely on the haka. The power of this war dance to discompose opponents has long been noted, with the All Blacks occasionally being asked to perform it in the dressing room, such is the power of this display to persuade opponents that the outcome of the forthcoming match is a foregone conclusion.

What was slightly less impressive was the All Blacks' reaction to the Welsh team's decision to respond to the haka by standing their ground and staring the All Blacks down. Unfortunately the latter's petulant outburst, that the nasty boys in red weren't playing fair, didn't exactly match their fearsome reputation as rugby's hard men.

Still, the Welsh boys can relax; let the Kiwis do their little dance unopposed, for we have a weapon far more terrifying than a Maori dance. What can it be, this thing that strikes fear into foreigners from around the world? Yes - it's Welsh names!

When at university in South Africa, one of my acquaintances mentioned that her maternal grandmother hailed from somewhere in Wales. In response to my questions she admitted that not only was she unable to pronounce the place name, the terror of “all those consonants and no vowels” had led her to forget it entirely.

A few days later she brought in the offending name, written on a folded piece of paper. Obviously, like Voldemort, it was considered too terrifying to repeat in public. I opened the note and saw the full horror for myself: Aberdare.

What is it about Welsh that causes the brains of otherwise intelligent people to turn to mush?

A friend of mine recently visited Hay-on-Wye, not expecting that this small border town would contain quite so many Welsh signs, but seemed charmed rather than alarmed by the experience. He is very much in the minority.

Discussing the new series of Torchwood with another well-educated friend last week, she revealed that she didn't enjoy it as much as Doctor Who (another BBC Wales production) because of “all the Welsh names.”

There were actually only two main characters with Welsh names in Torchwood – the formidable Gwen Cooper and a character, killed off at the end of last season, called Ianto Jones. I think that most of us can cope with Gwen and Jones but in case, dear reader, you find the thought of saying “Ianto” about as appealing as diving headfirst into a pit full of vipers, here's a guide to pronounciation: yan-to. There! Not that difficult, is it? If you really want to sound authentically Welsh, shorten the second syllable so that it doesn't sound like “toe”.

Currently I'm planning my own Welsh drama series, following DC Llinos ap Iorwerth from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychllwyndrobwll-llantisiliogogogoch as she tries to solve the murder of Llanelli-based rugby player, Llelli Llewellyn, on the Froncysllte viaduct.

If that doesn't sort the men from the boys, I don't know what will.

The semantics of Semtex

One Welsh word that never fails to make me laugh is “carcus” (pronounced carr-kiss). Unfortunately it means “careful” so I can't help worrying that one day I'll be walking on the maes at the National Eisteddfod and someone will shout, “Carcus!” at me, meaning don't fall down that hole/step in that gargantuan cowpat/walk slap bang into the Chief Druid and I'll be laughing too hard to avoid disaster.

Yet the English spoken in Wales can also throw up some brilliant words. I'm especially fond of “tamping”, which means incandescently furious.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am tamping.

This situation can be blamed on a pusillanimous British government that chose not to pursue the Libyans for compensation after they sold Semtex to the IRA just in case it interfered with trade – specifically oil. The Americans were compensated, but for the Brits who lost relatives or experienced members of their family being maimed in the IRA's decades long campaign of terror – nada.

I have no desire to annoy my American friends by claiming that the attack on the Twin Towers was anything less than appalling, but what they don't seem to realise is that many countries in Europe have experienced years and years of terrorism. Spain has the ongoing problem of ETA and Germany had to deal with the Red Army Faction during the 1960s and 1970s, to name but two examples.

In Britain we had to battle the IRA; I attended school with a girl whose boyfriend was left a paraplegic after the Guildford pub bombing. The IRA hung over our lives like a noxious cloud in a way that I can easily recall. On the day of my graduation from Mountview Theatre School (July 20th 1982), London was in lockdown after an IRA bomb exploded in Hyde Park. Courtesy of that nice Colonel Gaddafi, no doubt.

Yet, it's not just the Libyans that are to blame; the IRA was able to continue its campaign for as long as it did with the assistance of American money. How many of Boston's Brahmins were encouraged to part with hundreds of thousands of dollars after being seduced by a Sinn Fein charm offensive featuring a load of sentimental old tosh about “the auld country”? The Kennedys alone probably funded at least a decade of murder and mayhem.

Putting it crudely, wealthy Irish-American families like the Kennedys paid for my mate's boyfriend to be permanently confined to a wheelchair. Pity they couldn't have stumped up a bit extra and paid for a state-of-the-art wheelchair.

Now, I know that I am to political comment what Katie Price is to gentility and good taste, but once every few years an issue emerges that is so outrageous that even I feel equipped to stand up and be counted.

Americans, you are not the world authority on terrorism or its tragic results. In fact when it comes to pontificating on the issue I have one very well chosen word for you.

Carcus!