Archive for 2023
Cymru ar goll yn ‘Union’
Bûm yn gwylio cyfres ddiwethaf David Olusoga at BBC2, Union, a wnaed ar y cyd â’r Brifysgol Agored. Rhaid dweud bod y cymhelliad y tu ôl i’r cynllun pedair rhaglen yn un i’w ganmol: i esbonio sut y daeth y ‘Deyrnas Unedig’ i fod, a sut datblygodd y syniad, a’r realiti, dros y canrifoedd. Y […]
Perils of physics
Who would have thought that anyone could write a novel about theoretical physics that it would be impossible to put down till you’d got to its end? But that’s exactly what Benjamin Labatut has done with When we cease to understand the world, published by Pushkin Press in 2020. Labatut is as universalist as his […]
How to destroy a bus service
Cars and other private vehicles worsen global heating, endanger our bodies and health, poison our air and wreck our neighbourhoods. Yet, instead of trying to encourage us to make less use of them, governments in the UK are busy doing the very opposite. The UK government, cynically and absurdly, even declares that it’s fighting a […]
The 20mph revolt
I usually float through the sewage and green algae of political debate in the UK buoyed up by a comforting belief: that here in Wales people are in some way insulated from the worst of the reactionary and cruel madness that now passes for politics in Westminster. Comforting, but, I fear, quite wrong. The extreme […]
St Illtud’s Walk, day 4: Penlle’r Castell to Pontardawe
No buses go anywhere near Penlle’r Castell, so C and I are lucky this morning to catch a lift by car. It’s a bright autumn day, with good visibility and little threat of rain. We’re back on the high moor in the middle of windmill land, and the path takes us through another turbine colony, […]
Wandering in Meirionnydd
In 1939, just before the outbreak of war, a woman called Hope Hewett published a book about her journeys alone on foot around Merioneth. She has a genial and charming authorial voice, recounting her travels in the company of Jack, her faithful terrier, as they criss-cross their way across the county. Today Hope and her […]
Amddiffyn y rhestr fwced
Rhyw wythnos yn ôl, ar y rhaglen radio A Point of View, clywais i’r llais digamsyniol – a’r acen ddiog, lusg – o’r nofelydd Will Self. Yn ei ddarn ymosododd yn chwyrn ar y bobl rheini sy’n cadw ‘rhestrau bwced’ o’u dyheadau i brofi pethau sylweddol, neu ymweld â lleoedd arwyddocaol, cyn eu bod yn […]
The wrong trousers
Buying things is something I’ve got out of the habit of doing. I make an exception for essentials like food, of course, and for books (though really books are just as essential for the mind as food is for the body). It’s partly because consuming more and getting more things seem morally and ecologically dubious. […]
St Illtud’s Walk, day 3: Pontarddulais to Penlle’r Castell
The excellent X13 bus runs all the way from Swansea to Llandeilo, but today C. and I take it just as far as Pontarddulais. We aim to climb Graig Fawr and explore the hills beyond, as far as Penlle’r Castell, and maybe beyond. The Met Office promises a cloudy but rainless day; it’s warm enough, […]
Laurence Sterne in the printer’s shop
Any reader of Tristram Shandy soon appreciates that its author had an unusually strong interest in the physical appearance of his books, and specifically in playing with the conventions of the printed word. The ‘star witnesses’ are the Black Page, inserted to mark the sad death of Parson Yorick, the Marbled Page (unique in each […]