Archive for 2014
Vivienne Williams
Still life as a genre has a long history. Pictures of plenty – fruits of nature arranged by human hand – are common on Roman painted walls and mosaics. Renaissance artists picked out collections of food, natural and prepared, from the incidental details of medieval paintings and placed them centre stage. The golden age of […]
Y lle gwag
Tua milltir o’n tŷ ni, ar ymyl y brif ffordd i lawr i’r pentref, mae lle gwag. Rhyw erw o dir gwastad rhwng dau dŷ. Gefeilliaid yw’r tai – adeiladau golygus wedi’u gosod dipyn oddi ar y ffordd, â bargod eang, a theils coch yn gorchuddio’r rhan uwch o’u waliau. Yn wreiddiol, mae’n amlwg, gardd […]
Nightwalking
The literature of walking is large. It’s grown quickly in recent years, in part as an offshoot of the ‘new nature writing’. Most of it, though, is concerned with walking in the light of day. Nightwalking has received much less treatment. Frédéric Gros, in his recent A philosophy of walking (2014) fails to mention it. […]
Delft in four colours
Orange Orange is the Dutch colour. But to see it in Delft you need to lift your eyes above the roads and canals to the tops of the buildings. Big bright orange pantiles run in vertical rows down the small hipped roofs of many houses, each of which is different in size and height from […]
Bombs over Iraq, then and now
1920s The Ottoman Empire collapsed after its defeat in the First World War, and the victorious British took control of Mesopotamia. In April 1920 the League of Nations granted them a mandate, effectively imperial rule until the country was ‘mature’ enough for independence, to administer the whole area, now renamed Iraq. Even before the mandate, […]
Parliament: a Martian sends a postcard home
My dearest brothers and sisters, You have dispatched me to London at an opportune time. The North Britons have but lately decided in a plebiscite not to withdraw themselves from their ancient yoking or ‘union’ with the South Britons – but only by a hair’s breadth. What contagion can possibly have taken hold of almost […]
Wales Coast Path, day 51: Aberaeron to Llanrhystud
Another Aberaeron start, but this time we’re walking to the north. 10 September, and it’s another perfect day. Neither of us can remember such a summer’s end: warm, still and sunlit. Aberaeron, so careful of its landward appearance, turns its back on the sea. Admittedly the shore is shingle, but the monotonous concrete wall and […]
Wales Coast Path, day 52: Llanrhystud to Aberaeron
In the early morning sun the T1 bus bowls down from Aberystwyth to Llanrhystud. We thank the National Assembly twice over: for our free bus passes, and for the campaign by Elin Jones AM to replace the bus routes suddenly abandoned by the wicked Arriva. The coast road has ruined the centre of Llanrhystud, but […]
Wales Coast Path, day 50: New Quay from Aberaeron
Mid-September and the last of the summer is holding its breath. It brings blue skies, a fine breeze, a languid sea, and a kindly sun that warms the skin without burning it. I’m back with C. for three more days of gentle coastwalking in mid-Ceredigion. For no good reason we start walking from north to […]
From empire to environment: inside the Brangwyn Hall
It was a Monday morning a few weeks ago and I was taking some photos of the outside of the Brangwyn Hall. A motor caravan had parked in the bay in front. A man leaned out of its window and kindly promised to move out of the way and let me perfect my Leni Riefenstahl […]
