Anyone else want to form an "Anton" fan club?

A bit rich of our First Minister whose Government has ruined Wales to bitch about a missing announcement.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28282600

It really is trivial and says a lot about carwyn and his priorities. It's also a bit rich claiming ARE are unprofessional when carwyn, as first minister, should be aware of where the else border is.

Were from Wales, I dont care about England, Carwyn is right, if you want to be in Wales go back to england jantra

I don't know what you are trying to say here.

NB I'm from Ely then Canton if that helps

They obviously had the work experience kid running the Twitter feed.

That's no way to respond to any customer, let alone the guy who is giving your company £100 million a year in public subsidy.

Oh, and Carwyn was right. Where were the bloody Welsh announcements?

I can understand the subsequent response from Arriva. Apparently the through-put of trains is too great to do full bi-lingual announcements at this station. Given they do have full announcements in English and Welsh at Central, Swansea, Newport and others with automatic announcements, it does seem they take their Welsh language responsibilities seriously.

Carwyn probably shouldn't have tweeted in the first place - unless he never uses the train he is probably aware of Welsh announcements at all the other stations, and should have guessed there was a legitimate reason.

But the initial response was outrageous. Although not surprising. The quasi-monopoly situation with the railways means that rail staff often give terrible service - they forget that they are there to serve customers. I've had loads of poor experiences in London and imagine the staff aren't much better in Wales (although I do find the train conductors/ticket sellers generally courteous).

Perhaps focussing on the bilinguality issue helped to take his mind off the piss poor state of the second busiest station in Wales.

So let's get it clear - an employee of a second-rate train company who gives a rude response to a reasonable and polite complaint somehow deserves a knighthood? I don't think so.

I hope the guy isn't sacked but he - and other ATW staff - need to be taught some basic lessons about customer service. It's an example of the appalling attitude those of us who use Arriva have grown used to.

I would hardly call Deutsche Bahn a second rate company

I think Carwyn's initial tweet was anything but professional. There are more appropriate channels for an AM or First Minister to seek clarification about the non use of Welsh at Queen Street Station. By all means tweet expressing your dissatisfaction and that you'll be seeking reassurances via the proper channels about what went wrong, but if you tweet in such a flippant manner then it is sour grapes to call foul when an equally flippant remark is given back.

What I want to know is whether Carwyn really believes the border has been moved and if so, as First Minister, shouldn't he be aware of any change in his nation's border. So either he is an incompetent first minister who doesn't know the state of his nation, or he is a juvenile who shouldn't be trusted with running the nation. Perhaps those calling for the ATW member of staff to be sacked will call for this incompetent or juvenile first minister to be sacked too, as he is clearly not fit for office.

Jantra - I hope you don't use the same reasoning in your dealings with your customers.

As I said, Carwyn's initial tweet was probably somewhat unwise. And, yes, a little bit "flippant". But he is the customer. The ATW representative should be respectful to the customer even if the customer is being a bit flippant and a bit sarky. Its called customer service. It's what I had to provide at PC World when I was faced with people who shouted at me about a problem caused by their own misuse of their equipment, or a technical fault of the equipment not of the store's making. We couldn't always offer them the solution they wanted, but we always dealt with them respectfully and politely.

The fact of the matter is that too many people working in public transport have no concept of customer service. Bus drivers who shrug why you ask why the bus is 25 minutes late. Train station staff who back-chat when you ask why they've allowed 20 people to try their credit cards on a ticket machine they know and have reported to not be accepting cards (the staff in question were standing around chatting, when they could have been informing people of the problem, or have stuck a little note on the machine). Or social media people who respond to a customer with thinly veiled contempt. Public transport is getting my money in fares, and in tax-payer funded subsidy, and their employees should remember that.

Jantra, sometimes I cannot help but feel you become a parody of yourself. Is your dislike of Welsh Labour and the state so engrossing that it biases your views in everything involving them?

What I find interesting about the exchange is the way that ATW assume that Carwyn is offended by the use of the English language. To be fair I think most Welsh speakers accept the use of English they would just like the announcements also made in their mother-tongue.

I'm by no means an inward looking Welshman but it bugs me when Celtic identity is interpreted as just anti-Englishness.

As a Welsh speaker, I think ATW do pretty well with regards to the Welsh language. I also find it interesting that Welsh-speaking Carwyn chose to tweet in English when ATW tweet bilingually. Still, Anton should have killed him with kindness and given an honest and polite reply. Sadly, Anton will go down in EPIC PR fail history and Carwyn has still won.

Also depressing that this has overtaken the controversy about sacking Alun Davies last week. And any Cymro Cymraeg will tell you that Carwyn and Welsh Labour will always have the Welsh language at the bottom of the list.

Back to ATW - they still have some problems. All automated announcements on board their trains are still in English only, while their buses here in north Wales have bilingual announcements. The Carmarthen station sign only has the English name of the town there and they need to correct the station announcements for Port Talbot Parkway, Leominster and Llanhilleth in Welsh as they're all wrong.

Wow! Personally, I think they should close the borders for this 'infringement'. How very dare they?

I agrees that Carwyn was being a twat! Lets send a sarcastic tweet and then get offended when one comes back.
People use English for station announcements because nobody pay attention to the dull monotonous bi-lingual ones.
Often been at central when the long Rhymney automated one starts in Welsh and the guard talk over it to shout "THIS IS THE RHYMNEY TRAIN!" to the drunk hoards
On the motorway the bilingual signs "lets teach Welsh" are never used when there is an accident etc.
It would be like the police trying to evacuate an area and repeating the message in Welsh.
Good on the bloke from Arriva for standing up to "Jones the Waffle".

Cambo

i've tried many times, see my post in the other thread. the spam filters have gotten the better of me.

I know logic often goes out of window when the Welsh language is concerned - but that it a ridiculous sentence.

'People' don't choose the language of station announcements - the train company does.

It always amazes me that the anti-Welsh zealots always claim to be speaking on behalf of some ill-defined 'people' or 'majority'. Opinion polls show consistantly that the overwhelming majority of people in Wales, Welsh and non-Welsh speakers alike, are in favour of government action to support the language.

would you say Carwyn's actions are supportive?

How are you SO bothered by this?

I'm not

Is that why the majority of people in Wales in a recent poll think Welsh language should be a priority for cuts?

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/majority-wales-say-welsh-language-6719694

A loaded question in one poll. I can list you the polling data if you want - but it's really not worth getting into the arguement.

We live in a democracy. You anti-Welsh language and anti-devolution people, if you're so confident the 'people' and the 'majority' support you - start your own political party and see how you do. No, I thought not.

answering your own question Ash?

I don't think anyone is coming across anti language here Ash, more like people are incredulous that our first minister would act such a plonker on twitter.

I think you are being the zealot, I wasn't diss'ing the Welsh Language in that sentence, I was making a point when you need to communicate with people quickly and impart information precisely then perhaps its best to to it in English. Plenty of other Opportunities for Welsh to be used.

Would you like all Air Traffic Control instructions over Welsh Air space to be in Welsh?

I find some Welsh speakers incredible biggots. (case in point; your reply!, surprised you did not reply in Welsh)

All Welsh speakers speak English, but not all people in Wales speak Welsh.

I think Polish is Wales second most spoken language now, is it not?

No Zach it is not -

Census Results:

Polish - 0.6 per cent or 17,000 people
Welsh - 19 per cent or 562,000 people

Or to put it in other terms 33 Welsh speakers for every Polish speaker.

Zach, his reply hardly displayed "zealotry". I'm not a Welsh speaker, nor a fan of the "promotion" of Welsh (I prefer "protection", because "promotion" sounds too activist for me). But, asking for public announcements on services funded to a significant extent via grants from the Welsh govt's block grant to be bilingual is not exactly a revolutionary call. It does not infringe upon the rights of English monoglots.

In this case, it seems Arriva had a good case for not doing them in Welsh - too many announcements in quick succession given the limited platform numbers. And they do have bilingual announcements at other stations - rightly. But they have less excuse for not having them on trains where the speed at which its clapped our bangers travel mean there is plenty of time for bilingual announcements on board!!

I disagree fairly strongly with some Welsh language campaigners' proposals. Implemented in full they would be a threat to English monoglots - far more jobs than is curently the case would be open only to those who spoke Welsh. I do not think the rights of Welsh speakers to speak their language should be so great as to effectively compel non speakers to learn Welsh in order to obtain gainful employment. Nor do I think Welsh should become our primary national language - there is great benefit of it being English in my view.

And I disagree with planning restrictions that only allow Welsh speakers to buy in an area. Or stopping houses being built because of the impact on the Welsh language (I even saw this used in objections re: some developments in Cardiff.. although thats enterprising NIMBYs I guess).

To me, those kind of hard-hitting policies are closer to zealotry. And sometimes are tinged with bigotry too - the implication can sometimes be that if you don't speak Welsh (or want to) you somehow aren't fully Welsh.

Responding in an exasperated way to your flippant comment is hardly zealotry though. And neither is wanting some basic provision in Welsh.