Random Stwff

I am visualising the likely reaction of unfortunate English speakers who might think there was now a ford on the motorway!

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Sorry, should have been “ar y ffordd” (autocorrect).

Here’s the footer of an e-mail sent to my employer’s office in Bristol. :slight_smile:

Assistant Area Engineer West
Peiriannydd Ardal Cynorthwyol Gorllewin

South Wales Trunk Road Agent
Asiant Cefnffyrdd De Cymru

Unit 12,
Llandarcy House,
The Courtyard,
Llandarcy, SA10 6EJ

We welcome correspondence in Welsh and will deal with Welsh and English correspondence to the same standards and timescales.

Croesewir gohebiaeth yn y Gymraeg a byddwn yn ymdrin â gohebiaeth Gymraeg a Saesneg i’r un safonau ac amserlenni.

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Hi All.
Just in case anyone is missing my actual voice on here or Slack. I have decided to catch a bank holiday lurgy. My wife is gutted that I’m not answering her back all the time :smiley:

Surely lurgies are as essential to Bank Holidays as bad weather, aren’t they?

Hope you feel better soon John :slight_smile:

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Hey @tatjana. Did you have a TV series called Počitnice v Lipici (The White Horses) when you were a child? It was a massive success here. Dubbed into English. We also had loads of other mainland European stuff, which we lapped up. I don’t think we were quite up to speed with kids TV, other than 50s type puppet stuff, which to be fair, we also loved.

This one I presume.

No. I was 1 year old at the time and even when I was older I never heard of this series. Obviously it was produced for foreign countries and was never shown in our country despite I know all of the Slovene actors in it. I’m a bit sad I didn’t hear a word in Slovene, neither in German but pure English through the whole episode. It states that it was German/Yugoslav cooperative production what is of course true, but Triglav Film (Slovene production house) was pure Slovene so I’d rather refer this series as German/Slovene production though and the actors are also all Slovene at our end (take away the German ones).

So, no, I didn’t see it. Now I’m interested in if anyone has some other (movie or series) secrets to tell. What we in our beautiful country didn’t see and you did?

Oh, I know in Germany they often broadcast our Kekec but this one we know all too well too. Might be you did watch it too after all.
This tune is the most famous and original tune from the movie.


Enjoy!

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Didn’t get my first tv until 1970 or 71. It was a 3rd hand 1953 Coronation TV. So I never saw the series as I had left family home by then! Was it about horses for The Spanish Riding School in Vienna? I went there in about the same year as I got the TV and knewabout it because I was keen on dressage and had read a lot. Also the horses sometimes came to Horse ofnthe Year Show or/and International Horse Show in London.

No. The series goes on in our (Slovenian) own stud farm Lipica which horses are autochthonous breed of horses from Karst named “Lipicanec” (Lipizaner). If one falsly thinks they’re Austrian breed exclusively breeded in Vienna Riding School, they’re wrong, however we a few years ago had to do a lot of work to prove the breed is our own and not Austrian. Vienna Riding School however had (at least in the past) got these unique horses from Lipica and many say they’re really the best and most elegant for dressage.

Ah, shame you didn’t get to see it in Slovenia. I think that it was subtitled back into Slovene, which is weird, but must have ended before you were old enough to watch :frowning: There were only 13 episodes, but we had loads of repeats. Anyway, I have a feeling that the originals were lost so only the English dubbed versions survive. Sorry, I didn’t mention that the name White horses was of course not a translation of your title (Holiday in Lipici?) Anyway, it was about a holiday at a Lipizzan horse farm. So, yes, clearly a Slovene breed.

I don’t remember the 2nd programme.

Oh, I did know they are Lipizaners. We always refered to them as such. Unfortunately in those days Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia so I hadn’t realise Lipizaners were Slovenians! Gorgious horses!

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In 2013 12 episodes of the Series have seen the light on DVD but obviously it was actually never made in Slovene but rather German language later dubbed into English but DVDs have Slovene Subtitles. Despite it says that you can order a copy, the DVD is obviously not for sale anymore and the links on that page don’t work anymore. From the kind of introduction the reader can read that the series really wasn’t broadcasted in our country but those at the sea-side region or those who could “catch” the Italian TV stations, could watch it and so this particular man - poet Miran Zorn - obviously could watch it that way. I don’t doubt it was dubbed into Italian language also as Italians dub more or less everything.

All data, including on what media the series was recorded you can find here including original cast crew. According to the data there the series was made in 1965 so even 2 years before I was born. Many of this crew died already unfortunately including Bojan Adamič who has written the music for the series.

What concerns other programme it might be it never reached UK though and was broadcasted only in Germany outside Slovenia as the whole story could very easily be associated to their culture and happenings aswell.

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OK, after checking 60s kids programmes, I’d say that the “Tales from Europe” programmes that we imported were French, German, Dutch(?) and Czech. These were mostly one-offs.

There were a couple of slightly longer-running productions some of which were French or British/German, but the massive one was the Magic Roundabout animation series, which lasted over 10 years and obtained a cult following.

Edit:
On 2nd thoughts, plenty of the programmes were from the Eastern Bloc countries. Also of course, we imported stuff from America and Australasia.

We imported many things from allover the World I believe but, if I refer a bit to Welsh, I don’t recall there would be anything imported apart from SuperTed which was dubbed anyway.

On the other countries - there were many cartoons imported mostly from Czechoslovak Republik, Poland and Croatia and many were dubbed but many weren’t but rather subtitled though. Later on there were many cartoons, movies and documentary series imported from UK and the more modern times the more from America aswell.

The most famous cartoon/animated programs for kids (and adults to have some fun for that matter) surely were

“A je to” from Czecho-Slovak Republic (this one doesn’t need dubbing at all)

“Profesor Baltazar” (Proffessor Baltazar) from Croatia (dubbed into Slovene only in late 90s)

Miš Uszatek (Bear Earl) from Poland (not always dubbed what I really liked in deed)
https://youtu.be/YMxunc-ch08

And of course Thomas the Tank Engine but I never knew it was actually Welsh animated series. It was dubbed into Slovene from the start and I thought the orignis are from Netherlands or somewhere there. We called the series “Lokomotivček Tomaž” and here’s one episode for the taste and the same episode in Welsh.

“Tomaž gre na ribolov”

Tomos yn Pysgota

And I could go on and on of course.

Enjoy …

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By the time I got a TV, I was 30ish and not really into children’s programmes, but I did know about Magic Roundabout! What I did not know was that it was imported! It was mentioned in terms which caused me to think it totally British, in fact, totally English!! Of course, I did not get a colour TV until later!

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Well it was dubbed into English of course.
I can’t remember whether they made a big deal about it having been imported or not. I was vaguely aware that it was French, but I’m not sure how I knew. :slight_smile:

Well, I don’t know about Magic Roundabout but here’s one of “Professor Baltazar”'s cartoon obviously also dubbed in English and this for probably aimed for UK TV to be presented to the children. As this particular cartoon talks about true friendship in better and worse I’m giving it to you here.

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I have been thinking… as a child, well, I would have known for sure it wasn’t British! I might have thought Italian because of the Spaghetti! If I’d seen the credits, I would have been bemused by the names! I’d have watched any other available episodes, hoping for more clues! Oh, the English was not the variety used in England. Aside from ‘streetcar’ there were lots of ways of putting things that just were not ‘British’!! :laughing:

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Is anyone watching the Family Farm?
Gareth Wyn Jones & Kate Humble
BBC Wales

Excellent outdoor views and insights.

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Yes, but in English of course, and no mention of dogs trained in Welsh!

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