Author: Andrew Green
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John Varley paints Cader Idris
The first thing you do, as soon as your book is published, is wonder what you’ve missed out. (That’s not quite true; the first thing is start looking for possible typos that have escaped the editing eye.) In the case of Cader Idris and the artists (and its twin, Cader Idris a’r artistiaid), I began…
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Ar ôl yr etholiad
15 Mai 2026, diwrnod hanesyddol yn hanes etholaethol Cymru. Diflannodd, bron, y Blaid Lafur a’r Torïaid o’r sin wleidyddol. Cododd Reform o ddim i fod yn wrthblaid swyddogol. Daeth Plaid Cymru i rym, gan mlynedd ar ôl ei sefydlu. Toc wedyn, lluniodd Rhun ap Iorwerth ei gabinet cyntaf. A’r tymheredd gwleidyddol wedi tawelu erbyn hyn,…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 8: Capel Curig to Bethesda
On the map today’s walk looks straightforward. The Trail leaves Capel Curig and moves east and then north to Bethesda, its final destination. Surely there should be no navigational problems this time? The worst we should face will be spots of rain. Some small rain has already fallen, the all-sun weather of the last few…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 7: Penmachno to Capel Curig
If yesterday was Mountain Day, today is the Day of the Three Rivers, Afon Machno, Afon Conwy and Afon Llugwy. And because the Trail, on the whole, follows the course of the rivers, the going promises to be much less challenging than yesterday’s. The other factor is that yesterday’s furious wind has dropped to a…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 6: Llan Ffestiniog to Penmachno
M has left us for Cardiff, so we’re now reduced to a trio. Our taxi turns up on time today, and takes us back to Llan Ffestiniog. We leave the village and drop down through fields to make for the Cynfal Falls, whose waters cut a gash of white though the dark stony ravine. The…
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Snowdonia Slate Walk, day 5: Tanygrisiau to Llan Ffestiniog
In my crueller moments I like to think that Dr Richard Beeching is still suffering in purgatory for his destruction of the Welsh railway system. He left it in such a state that you can’t travel by rail between the country’s two main concentrations of population without a long diversion into England. Despite that, C1…
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Meinciau coffa
Os ewch chi am dro ar hyd Llwybr yr Arfordir tua’r Mwmbwls o’r gorllewin, oni bai eich bod chi wedi codi yn y bore bach, dych chi’n rhwym o gwrdd â llawer o bobl – cerddwyr (hamddenol a phellter hir), rhedwyr, syrffwyr ac eraill. Hynny yw, pobl fyw. Ond byddwch chi hefyd yn pasio heibio…
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Port Talbot, the novel: Jon Doyle’s ‘Communion’
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 Port Talbot you’ll soon recognise many of the places that feature in the book –…
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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 in damages. He’d lost an important and generous patron, Frederick Leyland. In fact, by now…
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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, jazz heroes, Roger Federer and war movies. My favourite is Out of sheer rage: wrestling…