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Bu farw Edward Lhuyd, un o’r ysgolheigion Cymreig mwyaf, yn ei ystafell yn Amgueddfa’r Ashmolean, Rhydychen ar 30 Mehefin 1709, yn 49 mlwydd oed. Pedair ar ddeg o flynyddoedd cyn hynny, yn 1695, argraffodd e gynllun uchelgeisiol iawn i baratoi…
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John Ballinger
There’s something faintly ridiculous about the phrase ‘librarian as hero’. But just occasionally librarians come along who, if not exactly heroic, at least have the capacity to astonish their successors with the number and breadth of their achievements. John Ballinger…
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Biscuits: gwallter’s top ten
In 1968, at the height of the student rebellion, Alethea Hayter published her influential book Opium and the English imagination. In it she traced the critical role laudanum had on the creative work of Coleridge, De Quincey and other leaders…
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A walk to see Melangell
It’s an airless morning in the dog days of August, and the temperature is already around 23 degrees. I’m setting out from Lake Vyrnwy on a pilgrimage – a walk over the hills to the church and shrine of St…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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Emily Dickinson’s ‘What care the Dead’
When I’m distracted or glum I often reach for the poems of Emily Dickinson. I’ve an old copy of Thomas H. Johnson’s complete edition, published in this country by Faber. It’s less of a book and more of a box. …
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Six Classical
Things were different when we reached the sixth form. Before then the teaching principle our school followed was ‘punch as many nails of knowledge into their dense skulls as possible, and some of them may stick there’. ‘Turpe nescire’ –…
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John ‘Walking’ Stewart, an extreme pedestrian
In his time Foster Powell was known for mighty feats of pedestrianism. But his achievements pale in comparison with those of a rather younger contemporary, John ‘Walking’ Stewart (1747-1822). While Powell’s stage was mainly limited to England and Scotland, Stewart…