Author: Andrew Green
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Selling body parts in Little Hintock
After a visit to Dorchester we stayed on New Year’s Eve in a B&B high above Bradford on Avon. At midnight all the guests stood outside as fireworks blazed in distant towns and villages. The house, several centuries old, was full of books available for us to read, and one that took my eye was…
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Falling water and Coleridge
‘The mad water rushes thro’ its sinuous Bed, or rather prison of Rock with such rapid Curves, as if it turned the Corners not from mechanic force, but with foreknowledge, like a fierce & skilful Driver; great Masses of Water, one after the other, that in twilight one might have feelingly compared them with a…
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Tranc sebon
Allech chi ddim dweud bod diffyg sebon, yn ei ystyr fetafforaidd. Er bod rhai yn dadlau bod ein cymdeithas wedi colli pob arwydd o ymostyngiad, mae seboni yn weithgaredd poblogaidd o hyd, yn arbennig yn y byd gwaith. Ac wrth gwrs mae operâu sebon yn rhygnu ymlaen, er bod rhywun yn synhwyro nad oes gan…
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The religion of inequality
The other day, for no apparent reason, I pulled off the shelf my old second-hand copy of R.H. Tawney’s book Equality. It still has a ragged and discoloured dust jacket, with a tea stain on the front, and it was well used before I bought it, for £1, on a date, unusually, I failed to…
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A brief history of austerity
John Naughton observed the other day that neoliberal economists and their current weapon, austerity, have gained an unassailable intellectual hegemony. To claim that austerity is self-defeating and should be stopped is to be regarded as either foolish or mad. Ed Miliband, leader of a political party that was established – absurd idea! – to represent…
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Wales Coast Path, day 20: Burry Port to Kidwelly
A cold, still morning in Burry Port. The sun, they say, will shine all day. The four of us are the only people in the car park without dogs to share our walk. Feeling inadequate, we hurry on to the path, joining it at the point where the huge Carmarthen Bay Power Station once stood.…
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Wales Coast Path, day 19: Loughor to Burry Port
Loughor is a frontier town. Now just an extension of ‘greater Gorseinon’, it was once a place of more importance. The Romans planted an auxiliary fort on its headland, commanding the mouth of the river. The Normans built a small castle on the same spot, with the same intention – securing the invaders and depressing…
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With the co-operation of William Hazell
Alun Burge’s new book William Hazell’s gleaming vision (Y Lolfa, 2014) is an important work, at once a celebration and an archaeological excavation. It uncovers an era and a culture almost forgotten today, and restores to both the place they deserve in our common history. Thanks to two generations of talented historians the labour movement…
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Starlings and Coleridge
“Starlings in vast flights drove along like smoke, mist, or any thing misty without volition – now a circular area inclined in an Arc – now a Globe – now from complete Orb into an Elipse & Oblong – now a balloon with the car suspended, now a concaved Semicircle – & still it expands…
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Bigism
The Big Mac, which celebrates its fortieth birthday this year, must have started it. The obsession with bigness. By now we take it for granted, without a conscious thought. Everything you get is going to be big, by default, unless you make a special plea for small. Even then you might get something that’s only…