gwallter

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

annual archive

hear about new blogs