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Breakfast.

After a quick shower, Stephen went into the dining area of his house. The house was on the student village and was shared by eight students. They each had their own bedrooms with showers and they shared the other facilities. The dining and lounge area was an L shaped room with the cooking area slightly separated. Stephen prepared his cereals and a fresh orange juice and sat down to watch some early morning news. He left the volume fairly low so as not to disturb the other house mates that had returned. It was difficult to decide what to watch nowadays as there were over one hundred channels available on the cable network. CNN was still the most popular news service, but ITN had also expanded to a truly international service and was a close competitor. Many of the other local and regional channels carried news too but Stephen chose CNN. It appeared that the whole world was still celebrating the new millennium. I suppose it was inevitable really.

To be quite honest most people were amazed and delighted that most of the petty wars that had been the hallmark of the 90's seemed to have ceased. The UN had taken on a massive global policing role, and that, together with the huge food shortage and other problems had eventually made most nations realise the futility of war. There were still many problems and those in the Far East seemed to dominate the remaining conflicts.

Stephen retuned to the Welsh news channel and watched for a while to the reports of the expected actions that would occur later that day in the Owain Glyndwr Assembly at Machynlleth. It had taken enormous effort to convince the Westminster government to hold the referendum but it was held. The early failure of the EU Committee of the Regions had led people to realise that true subsidiarity really was required, with decisions being taken a low level but with all parties considering the greater good of all the community. Plaid Cymru had presented the case for the assembly well and had at long last realised that to succeed it must become a party for all the people of Wales. It needed to represent the urban and rural areas and all people whether English, Welsh or EU in origin. The party was disbanded now of course. It had completed it's aim. There were now four parties based in Wales, representing most aspects of traditional political opinion.

The siting of the Assembly at Machynlleth really had been a master stroke. All the people of Wales had been forced to recognise the difficulty of North South travel. The rail line to Shrewsbury and the links both ways along the Cambrian Coast had been greatly improved. Machynlleth to Shrewsbury now only took one hour and it was barely 15 minutes down to Aberystwyth. To the north, the link now extended through to Caernarfon and on to the north Wales line to Holyhead. Going south, the line still ended at Aberystwyth, but this had developed into a very major centre. The population now exceeded 25,000 and there were around 7000 students. The University still dominated the town, but the effect of the Assembly was important. Several new light manufacturing companies had opened and there was a substantial base of companies operating in the new information market.

The new airport at Caersws was small but had some very strategic connections. The links to Brussels, Paris and Berlin ran every day with services to other centres operating once or twice a week. The Taxi flights inside Wales and to Birmingham, London and Manchester were very active. Many of the civil servants were located either in Cardiff or Wrexham and even with today's modern telecommunications physical travel was still important.



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