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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…
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The Cyfarthfa Philosophical Society
The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the rise of local ‘literary and philosophical institutions’ throughout the British Isles. They aimed to bring together like-minded people to discuss issues of the day. The label…
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The shock of the cold
The year of Covid has changed many social habits, for good and ill. Some habits are quite new and unexpected. One of the most recent in our area has been the rise of cold-water sea bathing. I tend to go…
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The Last Bard: loops of an invented tradition
By now the ‘invented tradition’ is itself a tradition. Since Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger published their edited collection The invention of tradition in 1983, we’ve become familiar with the idea that rituals, histories and beliefs that seem age-old were…
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The revolutionary gaze of Constance Mayer
In a room a woman, about thirty years of age, sits alone. The room is plain, with two bare walls, dark and grey. Its furniture is sparse, just a chair and a round table with round brass handles. The woman…
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Some books I read in 2020
One of the very few consolations of Covid lockdowns has been that more people seem to have read more books during 2020. In the first half of the year fewer print books were sold, since bookshops were often closed, but…
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Henry de la Beche defends slavery
If you were a financial beneficiary of a Caribbean sugar plantation dependent on slave labour, how would you react to the movement to abolish slavery? Fight the movement aggressively in order to defend your interests? Keep your head down and…
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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…
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Richard Owain Roberts’s ‘Hello friend we missed you’
Hello friend we missed you is Richard Owain Roberts’s first novel. Published by Parthian, it was nominated for this year’s Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ prize. It duly won the award in October 2020 after a readers’ vote. In the book…
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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…