Year: 2026
-
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 over a year and a half to reconnect with St Illtud. The weather’s often been…
-
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 a virtue, why is active travel – walking and cycling as the natural mode of…
-
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 ein tad a’i frawd yn encilio i stafell dawel yng nghefn y tŷ i orweddian…
-
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 school without the skills to read their way into coping with the everyday world. What…
-
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 for two reasons. First, it assembles a large number of her works, from around the…
-
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 ar hyd y llwybrau, eu hatal rhag syrthio ar greigiau, gofalu am eu hanghenion corfforol…
-
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 John’s reported assessment of her work after she died in 1939: ‘in fifty years’ time…
-
Who is Louis Mosley?
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 to note, though, that when he stood as a Conservative candidate in a London council…
-
Utopia 1516
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 year to think about utopian worlds, at a time when we’re faced with so many…
-
Gwynt Traed y Meirw
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 ddangos i ddynion beth yw gwynt Flooring mortals that way and thisTo show humanity what…