Never mind the bullocks

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 11:44 AM | add or read comments (0)

LAST Monday new Elin Jones made her Royal Welsh debut as the rural affairs minister for Wales.

Naturally I was keen for a quick word. “You’ll have to be quick,” someone told me. “She’s going on holiday tomorrow for four weeks.”

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Royal Welsh post mortem

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 6:12 PM | add or read comments (0)

BACK AT work. The car’s been cleaned and scrubbed and, relieved of Llanelwedd mud, is now functioning almost normally.

Last week’s Glastonbury-style Royal Welsh is fading into history, though I suspect we haven’t yet heard the last of it just yet.

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The old girl's battered but not beaten

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 5:35 PM | add or read comments (0)

THERE’S a danger of becoming weather-obsessed at this year’s Royal Welsh, but after a day like today, you can’t really avoid it.

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Shambo is becoming a freak show

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:53 AM | add or read comments (0)

HAD another tow job this morning. Arrived nice and early, got waved straight into an advance car park and then slithered to an indignified halt on light mud.

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Rich pickings from the show that survived the odds

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:07 PM | add or read comments (0)

WHAT an improvement! This afternoon the sun shone, Welsh Cobs made light work of heavy ground and 42 breeds of sheep presented one of the finest sights in the livestock showing calendar.

After the travails of the first two days, the Royal Welsh was back on form.

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PR locusts and wonder horses

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 8:04 AM | add or read comments (0)

UNFURL the flags and sound the klaxons: I’ve made it to the Royal Welsh showground on time without a single bribe being offered.

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Traffic improves: queues now down to three hours

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:17 PM | add or read comments (0)

TWO issues have dominated this year’s Royal Welsh: Shambo and shambles.

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Mud and mayhem at Llanelwedd

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:49 PM | add or read comments (0)

IT’S 7.40pm, the last of today’s copy has been filed - but I can’t be bothered to leave the Royal Welsh showground just yet.

Might as well let the tractors haul a few other stranded mugs from the mud before they get round to me.

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Unvieled at last: the FUW's star attractions

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:13 PM | add or read comments (0)

GREAT news: Mavis the Cow and Shaun the Sheep's Land Rover have finally arrived at Llanelwedd.

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Black and white forecast for the show

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 7:11 PM | add or read comments (0)

A HIGHLIGHT of the pre-show build-up was, surreally, the officially opening of the new British Charolais Cattle Society pavilion on the showground, adjacent to the cattle ring and next door to the Welsh Black stand.

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Not a striptease in sight

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 6:36 PM | add or read comments (0)

WHAT a difference a year makes. Last year's Royal Welsh basked in temperatures in the high 30s, emergency fans were installed in the livestock sheds, icecreams melted in the shade - and Welsh Black bosses got hot under the collar when a naughty young lady dispensed with her top in the cattle lines.

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Following the leader

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 4:45 PM | add or read comments (0)

IMITATION is the most sincere form of flattery, I suppose. This summer another newspaper is to copy Farm & Country’s concept for a show sheep competition. Not that I want to make an issue out of it, of course.

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Howling for better weather

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 6:14 PM | add or read comments (0)

FINALLY there’s an end in sight to all this incessant rain. At least that’s what Linda Roberts, secretary of the Flint & Denbigh Show, reckons.

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Don't put that in your f---ing video

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 5:25 PM | add or read comments (0)

A COUPLE of weeks back RSPB Cymru invited me on one of its guided cruises around Puffin Island, off Anglesey.

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Violence of the lambs

• Posted by Andrew Forgrave at 6:20 PM | add or read comments (0)

“OKAY, we want to put New Zealand on the movie map,” said the country’s filmmakers.

“We don’t just want to be known as the place where they made that hobbit stuff and a film about a giant ape.

"Ideas, anyone?”

Awkward silence. Finally the penny drops. “I know,” says one, “let’s make a film about sheep.”

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