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In praise of… Newport In praise of… Newport
(about 4 hours later)
“I’ll be ’Port forever. Yes, it is my lifeblood,” sang Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin Chain in 2010 in Newport State of Mind, their YouTube parody of the US hit Empire State of Mind. Poor old Newport, industrially depressed and culturally confused (it has never really worked out whether it is Welsh or English), and now muddled with Cardiff by journalists heading for this week’s Nato summit, it gets a lot of flak from people who see it briefly when they change trains at its hideous new station. But it has an attractive cathedral, a Norman castle and a famous rugby team that in 1963 beat the mighty All Blacks. It was also the scene of the last big armed insurrection in mainland Britain – the Chartist rising in 1839. Above all, despite the collapse of its heavy industry and high levels of deprivation, it has kept its dark-hued sense of humour. As Goldie Lookin Chain sang, “Newport / Twinned with Guangxi province in China / There’s no province finer.” “I’ll be ’Port forever. Yes, it is my lifeblood,” sang Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin Chain in 2010 in Newport State of Mind, their YouTube parody of the US hit Empire State of Mind [see footnote]. Poor old Newport, industrially depressed and culturally confused (it has never really worked out whether it is Welsh or English), and now muddled with Cardiff by journalists heading for this week’s Nato summit, it gets a lot of flak from people who see it briefly when they change trains at its hideous new station. But it has an attractive cathedral, a Norman castle and a famous rugby team that in 1963 beat the mighty All Blacks. It was also the scene of the last big armed insurrection in mainland Britain – the Chartist rising in 1839. Above all, despite the collapse of its heavy industry and high levels of deprivation, it has kept its dark-hued sense of humour. As Goldie Lookin Chain sang, “Newport / Twinned with Guangxi province in China / There’s no province finer.”
• This footnote was added on 1 September 2014. Newport State of Mind was not the work of Goldie Lookin Chain. They produced a parody of that parody.