Llanfyllin
“In the noble art of banter I bow only to the men of Llanfyllin.”
The small market town of Llanfyllin is located near the fabled 'point of no return' (the English border) and as such is one of the last places you can lawfully marry your favourite sheep before entering the real world.
Origins[edit | edit source]
Intially an open prison for incarcerated hippies, Llanfyllin has one of the oldest Workhouses in Britain. The Workhouse was built in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher and used to teach 30 - 40 year old men and women to grow up, get a job and accept that the sixties are over. Each year the now decommissioned Workhouse holds a yearly hippie festival to commemorate the men and women who lost their souls there to advertising and conformatism. As to how Llanfyllin's remote location became the choice are for such a prison is unclear. However, the two best theories suggest that:
- The government felt that being in a valley the hippies wouldn't have the will power, or lower body strength, to scale the hill sides and escape.
- A critical mass of hippies gathered there after confusing cloud cover for marijuanna smoke - leaving the government an easy target (a theory supported in the Alfred Hitchcock film How Green was my Valley with its Pink Floyd soundtrack Obscured by Clouds').
The hippies' leader, King Sizerizla, organised a massive jam in the ramshackle headquarters they built for themselves (The Cross Keys) in 2000 and pressured the government to free them; visit this website for more information.
The town is named after St Myllin (the patron saint of speech therapists) who was an ancestor of Winston Churchill. It was Churchill's experience of growing up in a town full of yoghurt weaving hippies that led to his declaration that vegetarianism is the last refuge of the scoundrel - unwittingly precipitating the outbreak of World War 2 by mortally offending the sensibilities of the German National Vegetarian Party led by Adolf Lentilburger Hitler.
Llanfyllin has rarely occupied the world stage since - although it is the birthplace of astronaut Buzz Aldrin (a hippie name if ever there was one).
Modern Day[edit | edit source]
Llanfyllin now has the fourth biggest population in the whole of Wales. Demograpics suggest a 30% Hippy, 20% Foreign (England) and 50% Sheep population; meaning that Llanfyllin has at least 12 non-indigenous people living in the town.
All 12 non-indigenous people are descendants of the Lake Vyrnwy pirates who terrorised shipping at the end of the 18th Century. The true story of this period is told in the locally produced film Selling the Moon - a documentary account of how the Madchester Ship Canal was diverted from Liverpool to Llanfyllin by the IRA (Irlam Republican Army). Liverpool remained a coastal backwater with seven tax paying citizens.
Llanfyllin is unique in British legal history in having retained the death penalty to the current date. Aside from the capital offence of setting fire to the town's naval dockyard, the death penalty can be imposed on anyone referring to Llanfyllin as a 'village'. The town's ancient gallows were cut down for kindling in the wood shortage of 1974 - executions are now carried out by ingestion of a lethal cocktail, with some offenders requiring several trips to the bar before they expire.
Latterly, the town has become famous for it's locally produced cheese Myllin Green made from organic hens' milk. On tasting this delicacy the Welsh horror writer Steven King declared it to be "real bad gunky". Sold under the counter in the Spar this is the cheese your parents warned you about.
Llanfyllin Spar is the only department store in Wales and is the reason electricity was invented. The Spar is so massive that its gravitational pull is dragging the city of Borth inland.
Pharmacology[edit | edit source]
“It's all good shit, man.”
The legal high known as Woof Woof (K-9-methylmeth-bonio) has become very popular in Llanfyllin. Sold as dog food, and strictly not for human consumption, it has become an alternative to kitten huffing. Woof Woof can lead on to harder drugs and has a number of side affects such as uncontrollable urges to go walkies and getting a cold, wet nose. Some users have gone barking mad - although in Llanfyllin this can be hard to spot as the Town Square is a designated lunatic asylum under the 1983 Mental Health Act.
The prevalence of Woof Woof use can be estimated by urine testing lamp posts and other street furniture. A spokesman for Dyfed Powys Police has warned that users risk being collared if found under the influence.
Cuisine[edit | edit source]
The Hedgetarian movement is the dominant culinary force in Llanfyllin. Adherents only eat things that live, grow or are found in hedges - such as pizza boxes and empty cans of special brew. Many a drunken hippie has woken up after a night in a ditch to find himself lightly gnawed around the ankles.
The local green community run hedgetarian courses at the Workhouse - always ending with the tradtional styrofoam and roadkill barbecue.
Politics[edit | edit source]
Taken from the Welsh word polutychs ( meaning 'many blood sucking creatures' ) politics is never far from the horizon in Llanfyllin. Until deposed in the recent election the sitting MP was the liberal television personality Slobodan Molosovich - who was tireless in his campaign to build a Powys wide strategic missile defence system in case that big round yellow thing should ever appear in the sky again. His replacement is the Conservative Glyn Gareth Gwyn Gwillam Jones-Edwards-Davies - who was elected on the promise that he would not jilt any nice Welsh TV weathergirls.
Many locals are supporters of the Sons of Montgomery apTowers - a shadowy group who want all the pubs in Llanfyllin to become Wetherspoons houses so they'll never have to go home for breakfast. Ever.
The other political grouping is farmers. They vote conservative in support of the traditional rural way of life - sheep, inbreeding, feuding, red diesel in the Range Rover and having bald heads and sticking out ears.
There is no truth in the rumour that Llanyllin hosts the secret headquarters of the Zionist One World Government - there is no evidence for this at all and no conspiracy or cover-up. No definitely not. In fact, turn off your computer and deny you ever heard of the internet. Or ceefax.
Education[edit | edit source]
Llanfyllin is at the forefront of the radical non-interventionist education policy being introduced by Powys County Council. A benefit of this is that there are no problems in the local schools - they've all been closed.
Higher education is provided by the Llanfyllin Institute of Social Mindrot
(motto: Dim Ysgol Am Byth) where you can take degrees in subjects such as Remedial Welsh Catering, Tractor Studies, Creative Drinking, Ovine Toxicology and Self-Actualization Through Macrame. Students from Llanfihangel are encouraged to take distance learning courses as it's uphill on the way home and the bus won't arrive until Tuesday week.
Climate[edit | edit source]
Llanfyllin is Wales' most sub-tropical town. This happened by accident when an AA road atlas was left overnight in the local stone circle creating a latitude wormhole. The town now has a similar climate to Kingston, Jamaica and is famed for its exotic plant-life with a thriving market in locally grown herbs.
In the local patois (Wenglish) the weather is normally described as 'scorchiau' and definitely 'dim rainiau'. This contrasts to the rest of Wales where people have to leave their taps running to avoid localised flooding.
Due to global warming Wales will have become a desert the size of Belgium by 1st March 2015.