gwallter

  • One answer is: the grandson of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.  It’s no crime, of course, to be a descendant of a dangerous extremist, and doubtless Louis would deny all ideological connection with Oswald.  It’s interesting…

  • I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to read Thomas More’s Utopia, first published in Latin in Leuven/Louvain in December 1516.  It’s certainly one of those books you wish you’d discovered long ago.  But 2026 isn’t a bad…

  • There’s a blustery, cruel wind from the south-east, whipping along the streets and making the eyes water. As T.H. Parry-Williams wrote in ‘Gwynt y Dwyrain’ (The east wind), it seems to carry a message: Gan lorio marwolion ar ei hyntI…

  • At Tate Britain is an exhibition that’s received a great deal of critical praise.  That’s surprising, in a way, because it features two of the stalwarts of British art, whose works are familiar enough to most art lovers: J.M.W. Turner…

  • 1          Dryw Codi’n raddol y mae’r llwybr o’r traeth. A finnau yng nghanol fy negawd olaf o dringo’r llethr yn fy sgidiau rhedeg, bron ar unwaith bydda i’n ymladd am wynt, cyn bod y llwybr yn mynd yn fwy gwastad…

  • There’s been much talk, since Donald Trump kidnapped the President of Venezuela and declared that he would ‘run’ the country, of a reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine.  This set me thinking about what exactly is or was the ‘Monro Doctrine’,…

  • Mansfield Park isn’t, I suspect, the favourite novel of Jane Austen of those who value her for her cutting wit and comforting social outlook. Because, though not without its share of humour, it’s a far from comforting work.  It asks…

  • The Trump administration has just opened a new front in its intensifying war on the rest of the world.  It’s a typographical war, and it concerns a common font called Calibri. Personally, I’m quite fond of Calibri, and use it…

  • 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…

  • 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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