politics
Plague: a Martian sends a postcard home
My dearest brothers and sisters Five years have passed since I wrote to you about my last visit to Earth. You will remember that I ended my report by counselling you not to send me on a third mission to that hapless planet, or at least to that insignificant part of it known as the […]
Pos poblogrwydd Boris
Yn gyson mae’r cwmni pôl pinion YouGov yn tracio bwriad pleidleisio pobl ar draws Prydain. Dangosa’r canlyniadau mwyaf diweddar (4-5 Ionawr 2021) fod y Blaid Geidwadol a’r Blaid Lafur yn gyfartal (39% yr un). Sut ar y ddaear y gallai hyn fod yn bosibl? Ystyriwch yr hyn sy wedi digwydd ers i Boris Johnson ennill […]
The art of the political apology
Most politicians are egotists. (All right, I can think of a few exceptions, but as a general rule the proposition stands.) The bloodstreams of those who reach positions of real power contain dangerously high levels of egotism, or they would not have succeeded as they have. One of the results of such self-regard is that […]
Nôl i normalrwydd?
Pob heol yn wag ac yn ddistaw. Ceir yn segur y tu allan i dai eu perchnogion. Y rheini yn celu y tu mewn i’w cartrefi. Ychydig iawn o bobl i’w gweld yn yr awyr agored. Gallech chi blannu eich traed, pe baech yn dymuno, ar hyd y llinell wen yng nghanol y ffordd, a […]
Kate Bingham and the rotten state
If the case of Dido Harding has become a prominent symbol of the degradation of public life in the UK, few until recently were aware that it has a close second, in exactly the same field of Covid policy: the case of Kate Bingham. Boris Johnson appointed Kate Bingham in May 2020 as the chair […]
The Republic of Wales
A few days ago a distracted weather presenter on Sky News, missing out a few words of her script, uttered the phrase ‘Republic of Wales’. The news spread quickly round Twitter. There was wide agreement that the phrase had a highly appealing ring to it. So, too, the Welsh version, Gweriniaeth Cymru. Since then I’ve […]
Coleridge’s ginger wine
Some think that the Notebooks are Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s masterwork. In them he would jot any thoughts that occurred to his omnivorous, lightning-fast mind, wherever he was. Snatches of poetry, quotations from other writers, jokes, lists of works he would write (most remained unwritten), apothegms, descriptions of landscapes, recollections, fragments of philosophy, memos to himself […]
Openreach: what’s it good for?
It sounds so positive as a name, doesn’t it? Openreach. Open reach. Imagine an arm extended in friendly welcome or offering a helping hand to someone in need. An organisation, surely, that exists only to add to the sum of human happiness. ‘Connecting you to your network’, says the website, ‘we believe everyone deserves fast […]
Cymru annibynnol: un arall o blaid
Pwy ydych chi? I ba wlad ych chi’n perthyn? Am flynyddoedd, os digwyddodd rhywun holi – a gwrthod derbyn tawelwch, neu’r ateb ‘dinesydd y byd’ – fy ateb fu ‘Prydeiniwr’. Albanes oedd fy mam. Daeth fy nhad o Swydd Efrog, a bues i’n byw yn Lloegr tan yn 21 mlwydd oed. Cymru fu fy nghartref […]
Dido Harding: a failed state in microcosm
I thought I recognised the name Dido Harding, when her name popped up on the news recently. After all, Dido isn’t the commonest of names. There’s Dido, the excellent singer, and Dido Twite, the heroine of Black hearts in Battersea and other stories by Joan Aiken. And, of course, the original, wonderful and tragic Dido, […]
