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Port Talbot has waited a long time for the novel it deserves. Now it has one: Communion, the first long work of fiction by Jon Doyle, who was brought up in the town, and still lives there. If you know…
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Whistler in Venice: etchings
By 1879 James McNeill Whistler was 45 years old and in a bad way. He’d won his libel case against John Ruskin’s accusation that he’d ‘flung a pot of paint into the public’s face’, but was awarded only a farthing…
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Geoff Dyer grows up
Geoff Dyer is one of those authors who never writes the same book twice. He’s produced around twenty of them so far, on a kaleidoscopic range of subjects, including the history of photography, India, Soviet film, the First World War,…
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St Illtud’s Walk, day 8: Afan Argoed to Margam
It’s taken four bus rides, via Swansea, Port Talbot and Pontrhydyfen, but by ten o’clock I’ve reached the visitor centre at Afan Argoed, where C. and I ended Day 7 in July 2024. I can’t really explain why it’s taken…
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On active travel
Who could object to ‘active travel’? Who could possibly deny its health, environmental and economic benefits? Who could be in favour of being unfit or overweight, or encouraging unsafe roads, traffic jams, potholes and pollution? So, if it’s so obvious…
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Mae Sion Trefor yn pendwmpian
Mae gwedd y dyn hwn yn fy atgoffa o Wncl Jack, yn ei hen dŷ yn Howden, Swydd Efrog ddwyreiniol, nôl yn y 1960au. Wedi i’n mam-gu glirio’r ford ar ôl pryd mawr canol dydd a dianc i’r gegin, dyma…
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After reading
Is reading dying? On Radio 4 there’s a thoughtful series of three programmes by James Marriott that poses this question. He’s not so much worried that functional literacy is failing, though it’s certainly a problem that so many children leave…
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Gwen again
If you don’t know the art of Gwen John and your mind is open to her subtle talent, the National Museum’s exhibition, Gwen John: strange beauties, will be a revelation. If you do, it will still be a revelation. That’s…
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Tywyswyr iaith
Yn hwyr yn y ddeunawfed ganrif tyfodd proffesiwn newydd yng Nghymru. Ei swyddogaeth oedd gwasanaethu’r ffrwd o foneddigion, y rhan fwyaf ohonynt o Loegr, a ddymunai ddringo mynyddoedd y gogledd. Tywyswyr oedd y rhain. Eu tasg oedd arwain yr ymwelwyr…
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Three faces of Gwen John
I’m looking forward to seeing the big Gwen John exhibition at National Museum Wales in Cardiff. Few people now ask ‘Who is Gwen John?’, though it’s taken more than half a century for the world to catch up with Augustus…