Author Archive: Andrew Green

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Kathleen Jamie’s ‘Cairn’

August 23, 2024 4 Comments
Kathleen Jamie’s ‘Cairn’

The old Athenian playwrights were expected to follow their three tragedies for the festival of Dionysus with a lighter ‘satyr’ play.  The idea, it seems, was to take the edge off the horrors and traumas of the earlier dramas.  Kathleen Jamie, after publishing a trilogy of collections of lengthy essays on the large themes that […]

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Still life, still alive

August 16, 2024 1 Comment
Still life, still alive

‘Still life’ is a paradox.  Can something that’s still or unmoving be alive, especially if it’s a dead creature or an inanimate object?  The French equivalent, nature morte, is equally stark in its self-contradiction.  But the term isn’t the only paradox.  One of the reasons why the still life has had such a long history, […]

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Delweddu pont: Pontypridd a’r artistiaid

August 9, 2024 0 Comments
Delweddu pont: Pontypridd a’r artistiaid

Mae llawer o sôn yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, a gynhelir yng nghanol Pontypridd ym Mharc Ynysangharad, am ‘bontio’ rhwng siaradwyr Cymraeg a’r mwyafrif o’r trigolion lleol sy ddim yn medru’r iaith.  Perthnasol iawn yw’r metaffor, o gofio bod Pontypridd yn cynnig esiampl wych o adeilad sydd wrth ei wraidd. Dyw’r gair ‘gwych’ ddim, mewn gwirionedd, […]

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Shakers

August 2, 2024 6 Comments
Shakers

If you live in Swansea and you’re serious about paint, then Rabart in Gendros is the place for you.  Llanelli may be Tinopolis, but Rabart is the metropolis of paint tins.  It has thousands of them, stacked high with every type and colour of paint you might feel a desire for.  You don’t need to […]

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St Illtud’s Walk, day 7: Resolfen to Afan Argoed

July 26, 2024 8 Comments
St Illtud’s Walk, day 7: Resolfen to Afan Argoed

Another nine-mile walk over hills between valleys, this time Cwm Nedd and Cwm Afan. It’s too complex and time-consuming today to take buses, our favoured means of transport, so C and I are reduced to the two-car trick, leaving one at our destination, the Afan Argoed Visitor Centre, and taking the other, via Pontrhydyfen and […]

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Cornelius Varley again

July 19, 2024 0 Comments
Cornelius Varley again

I’ve been revisiting the miraculous drawings made by Cornelius Varley when he spent time in Dolgellau in the summer of 1803.  The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century was an age of wonder for watercolour painting in Britain, but I think it’s a shame that Varley’s name isn’t celebrated as widely […]

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On shoelaces

July 12, 2024 0 Comments
On shoelaces

We like to think that, even if our politics and economics show few signs of movement towards improvement, we live in an age of continuous technological refinement.  Digital inventors now deliver tools like artificial intelligence that dazzle us, jaded though we are by constant stream of wonders. But back in the analogue world some of […]

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The silent election

July 5, 2024 2 Comments
The silent election

Has there ever been a general election studded with so many good jokes?  From the very start, when Rishi Sunak destroyed his blue suit while standing in the pouring rain to announce the election, to the news that the even more hapless ex-MP Craig Williams had used his insider knowledge to place a £100 bet […]

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Tro ar fyd: ‘Trothwy’, gan Iwan Rhys

June 28, 2024 0 Comments
Tro ar fyd: ‘Trothwy’, gan Iwan Rhys

Un o’r llyfrau ar restr fer Llyfr y Flwyddyn eleni yw cyfrol fach anarferol gan Iwan Rhys, sy’n dwyn y teitl Trothwy.  Wn i ddim a fydd ganddo obaith o gipio’r brif wobr.  Os yw’r beirniaid yn chwilio am gyffro ac antur, efallai ddim.  Ond yn ei ffordd dawel, gywrain mae Trothwy yn gadael argraff […]

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Build, build, build

June 21, 2024 2 Comments
Build, build, build

It began with an act of destruction, the demolishing of an existing house.  Then came the tractors, carting trailer-loads of earth away.  Hundreds of loads, over many weeks, if not months.  The result: a very large hole in the ground.  Next, the concrete.  Huge trucks, loaded with long pipes, started arriving.  Workers assembled the pipes […]

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