What I Shouldn't Have Said in Cardiff

I was in Cardiff at the weekend as the guest of Llafur, the Society for Welsh People's History, at the invitation of Dr Martin Johnes from Swansea University.

Martin was giving a talk on changes in Wales in the post-War years (he recently published a book on the subject, Wales Since 1939), which was superb. Some of the developments he was talking about - the growth of material comfort accompanied by a rise in spiritual insecurity - are applicable to Britain as a whole, but other parts are specific to Wales: particularly the transformation of the physical landscape in the wake of the Aberfan disaster.

He was followed by Rhodri Morgan, former First Minister, whose personal reflections on Wales during that priod were fascinating. I've never heard him speak at length before, but he's hugely entertaining and funny and insightful. I was especially taken with parallels he drew between the mood of the 1940s (a determination never to return to the Hungry Thirties) and the creation of the Welsh Assembly half-a-century later, with a feeling that it could provide 'insurance against the return of Margaret Thatcher, against the return of John Redwood'.

And then I did my bit, a talk entitled The Gramophone Is in the Home, rambling through some stories about the early days of cinema, radio, record-players and television in Britain more generally. Which was okay, except that my laptop cut out halfway through and had to be rebooted, and except that I still haven't quite got the hang of speaking in public and misjudged the length of my talk.

This meant that I didn't have time to develop what was supposed to be my conclusion. That running right through all the developments in entertainment technology in the last century has been a struggle between an elite establishment, in thrall to a refined Western European concept of culture, and a mass of the people who would actually prefer to make common cause with American popular culture. And that the Left has - wrongly - sided with the elite on every occasion.

It's wrong, firstly, because if you seek to represent the people, you shouldn't be quite so keen to express contempt at their cultural expression. And secondly, because it means you're always on the losing side: despite Maynard Keynes's concept and creation of the Arts Council, the general public still preferred Hollywood to opera and ballet. There are a lot of people who would rather visit EuroDisney in Paris than spend a week in Provence, and I think it's worth acknowledging and trying to understand that, instead of just railing against American cultural imperialism.

It seems to me that, at a time when the internet is making the issue of participatory culture so significant, we should have moved on beyond simple denunciations of popular taste. As Luke Haines pointed out recently in the context of modern art, the relevant question isn't 'But is it art?' Rather, it should be, 'But is it good art or bad art?'

I'm reminded of a friend who was told in the early-1980s by a member of Militant that there was no objective difference between Dallas and the Sex Pistols. That sort of thinking fails to win converts to the cause.

However, I ran out of time, garbled a few random words and made a bit of a mess of coherent thought. On reflection, I would have better off stopping before that point. Instead of leaving much of the audience to conclude that I was attacking the BBC (I was kind of taking it as read that we all broadly approved of the Corporation).

On the other hand, there were a number of contributions from people that centred on how appalling is the fare that's being foisted on the public: all cookery shows and reality television. People don't choose this; it's all made solely in pursuit of profit. Which did sort of illustrate my point. These are the same condemnations that were made of Hollywood in the 1930s, American comics in the 1940s and rock and roll in the 1950s.

So, anyway, I was a bit annoyed with myself for lacking the craft and professionalism of Martin Johnes and Rhodri Morgan. It's all still new to me, and being on stage facing an audience isn't my natural habitat. But I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable with the idea.

I also ought to thank Christine Chapman, the Assembly Member who hosted the event, and the good people of Llafur, who were wonderfully welcoming and kind. I really enjoyed it all, despite cocking up the ending.