‘Deud llai’: troli Tesco ac un esgid damp

February 7, 2025 2 Comments
‘Deud llai’: troli Tesco ac un esgid damp

deud llai (Barddas, 2024) yw’r trydydd casgliad o gerddi i’w gyhoeddi gan Dafydd John Pritchard.  Roedd yr ail, Lôn fain (2013), dipyn yn llai fel llyfr corfforol na’r cyntaf, Dim ond deud (2006), ac mae’r gyfrol newydd yn llai byth.  Bydd yn ffitio’n i mewn i boced fach eich siaced heb drafferth.  Yn yr un […]

Continue Reading »

‘No Welsh art’

January 31, 2025 1 Comment
‘No Welsh art’

Peter Lord’s exhibition ‘Dim Celf Cymreig / No Welsh Art’ fills the whole of the largest exhibition space in Wales, the Gregynog Gallery in the National Library.  It needs such a big space because Peter’s personal gallery, built up over forty years of collecting, is unrivalled in size and scope among private collections of Welsh […]

Continue Reading »

Welcome back, Benito

January 24, 2025 0 Comments
Welcome back, Benito

On 20 January Donald Trump, having been sworn in at the start of his second term as US President, outlined in his acceptance speech his mission for the next four years.  Simply, he would put America first.  He blamed ‘the radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens’ for the broken […]

Continue Reading »

Owen Glynne Jones on Cader Idris

January 17, 2025 2 Comments
Owen Glynne Jones on Cader Idris

Owen Glynne Jones, everyone agreed, was the outstanding rock climber of his age. Born in London in 1867 of Welsh-speaking parents and educated in science and engineering, he made his name by pioneering new routes in the English Lake District, and from 1891 he became internationally famous for his climbs in the Alps.  A natural […]

Continue Reading »

The courage of Thomas Thrush

January 10, 2025 0 Comments
The courage of Thomas Thrush

Less than four miles from Kilburn, my brother’s home in north Yorkshire till his death last November, is the village of Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe.  It sits at the foot of the steep escarpment known as Sutton Bank, on the main road between Thirsk and Scarborough.  Sutton was the home in the 1820s of a remarkable but little-known […]

Continue Reading »

‘Mwy o sgwennwrs na darllenwrs’: yr argyfwng geiriau

January 3, 2025 3 Comments
‘Mwy o sgwennwrs na darllenwrs’: yr argyfwng geiriau

Yn ei nofel ddeifiol newydd Hunllef Nadolig Eben Parri mae Arwel Vittle yn anelu ei arfau dychanol at dargedau niferus yn y Gymru gyfoes.  Un yw pobl sy’n ysgrifennu a chyhoeddi.  Mae bron pob grŵp yn ei chael hi’n arw gan ‘Ysbryd Cymru Sydd’: cofiannau (‘gormod ohonyn nhw’), academyddion (‘digon o ddadansoddi a gor-ddadansoddi ôl-drefedigaethol […]

Continue Reading »

Farewell to Yorkshire

December 27, 2024 4 Comments
Farewell to Yorkshire

My parents used to tell me that when I was small I’d tell them that York Minster was, in my opinion, the best building in the world.  Of course, I’d not seen much of the world then, just bits of Yorkshire and Scotland. But I didn’t let that shake my boyish confidence.  After all, I […]

Continue Reading »

Myfyrdodau Mr Ebeneser Sgrwj ar ŵyl y Nadolig

December 20, 2024 3 Comments
Myfyrdodau Mr Ebeneser Sgrwj ar ŵyl y Nadolig

Roedden ni’n trafod amser y Nadolig y dydd o’r blaen, a sut mae e wedi newid dros y blynyddoedd.  Sut, er enghraifft, mae’r tymor yn dechrau – neu’n ymddangos i ddechrau – yn gynt ac yn gynt bob blwyddyn – llawer cyn diwedd mis Tachwedd.  A sut mae’n llyncu mwy a mwy o amser ar […]

Continue Reading »

The other Capel-y-ffin

December 13, 2024 10 Comments
The other Capel-y-ffin

There were two other people, a man and his wife from Caerffili, at St Mary’s church when I visited Capel-y-ffin last week.  They stood and shared my wonder at the wonky beauty of the tiny building, with its wooden bellcote, eighteenth-century pews and pulpit, and miniature staircase and gallery.  As we left, we took photos […]

Continue Reading »

The bee boy

December 6, 2024 1 Comment
The bee boy

On 12 December 1775 Gilbert White, the naturalist of Selborne in Hampshire, wrote a letter to his friend Daines Barrington in which he recalled a remarkable character who had lived in the village ‘more than twenty years ago’.  He doesn’t name the lad, and just refers to him as ‘an idiot boy’.  What made him […]

Continue Reading »