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Ar ddechrau mis Rhagfyr digwyddodd rhywbeth rhagorol yn Abertawe. Mae trigolion y ddinas wedi hen arfer disgwyl clywed newyddion o fath gwahanol. Dirywiad, wedi’r cwbl, fu ei hanes ers blynyddoedd maith – ei economi yn methu, pob corff cyhoeddus bron…
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Peter Finch: Wales’s Mr Poetry
In front of me is a 24-page pamphlet published by ‘second aeon publications’ in 1971. It’s held together with a couple of rusting staples and contains seventeen short poems, typewritten and photocopied. Back then, that’s how you produced a skinny…
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Dust and roses: Philip Pullman’s vision
The rose field, published in October, completes Philip Pullman’s massive ‘Book of dust’ trilogy. More than that, it completes the whole cycle of ‘Lyra’ novels that Pullman began thirty years ago with Northern lights. It seems to me that it’s…
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Kyffin in Bangor
This is the edited text of a public talk given in Bangor University on Wednesday 19 November 2025 about the eleven oil paintings by Kyffin Williams housed in the University. The talk was followed by a guided tour of the…
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Things from Carmarthenshire
We’ll call him Dai Stoneface. He stares out at us with dark, gouged eyes. Someone has flattened his nose in an ancient fight, the same with the ears. Could he have been a professional boxer? Even the mouth is belligerent,…
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Bob Dylan in Swansea, in 17 tracks
1 It’s my first time in the Swansea Arena auditorium. The building opened more than three years ago, but its usual diet of lesser comedians and tribute bands has never held much appeal. But tonight’s different: the first of three…
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Aber, prifddinas llên
Ar 31 Hydref cyhoeddodd UNESCO fod Aberystwyth/Ceredigion wedi ennill statws ‘dinas llenyddiaeth’, gan ymuno â rhai cannoedd o leoliadau eraill ledled y byd a gydnabyddir am eu ‘ymrwymiad i ddiwydiannau creadigol a bywyd diwylliannol’. (Does dim ‘dinas’ gonfensiynol yn yr…
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Monarch or president? Out of the cave and into the light
It might strike you as perverse, that anyone should make the case that what we need in the UK is to establish a post of President. Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump, with every day that passes, disgraces his office and…
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Two (or three) naughty boys in Jesus
On a visit to Cambridge last week, the first for over fifteen years, we stayed in one of the guest rooms in Jesus College. We were free to roam the courts, and to eat breakfast with the students in the…
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Heaven in Trieste
It’s unlikely, for a number of good reasons, that after my death I shall end up in heaven. But if it happens, and if – an even more remote possibility – St Peter offers me a choice of where exactly…