gwallter

  • The news of Paul Flynn’s death in February 2019 met with widespread dismay.  Surveys tells us regularly that MPs rank lower in public estimation than almost any other group in society, with the exception of bankers, but here was an…

  • It’s a commonplace that the UK has the least well-balanced economy in Western Europe.  While London and its region, dominated by financial and allied services, continue to grow and thrive, the rest of the country is bogged in post-industrial depression,…

  • In the Leopold Museum in Vienna, a long wall is covered with small panels that show photographs and short lives of dozens of cultural figures who were active in the city at the start of the twentieth century: Freud, Mahler,…

  • The Heart of Wales line train leaves me at the station in Ammanford.  It’s still, sunny, and warm, the second day of summer time, with an extra hour of daylight walking.  My plan is to cross Mynydd y Betws and…

  • Where we start happens to be in south Cardiff, but could be anywhere in the world in 2019.  Apartments are stacked in Duplo’d piles, each block with a ‘concierge’ and a primary colour.  Sheds, with metal roofs shaped in shallow…

  • Faint o weithiau dych chi’n gyrru’n gyflym ar hyd yr A470 o Lanelltud tua Dolgellau, gan anwybyddu’r lôn fach i’r chwith, yn syth ar ôl croesi afon Mawddach, sy’n arwain at Abaty Cymer?   Y dydd o’r blaen ymwelais â’r Abaty…

  • Here comes Tommo the TeethMr White, the dentist’s dream.Flashes ‘em at every man jack,Everywhichway. In the courtroom he sits,An intern for the defence team.While Counsel jerks the jurors’ tears,he just grins. In the crem up at Morriston, a mum weeps…

  • Yr ysgrif fyrraf gan T.H. Parry-Williams yn ei gasgliad Lloffion (1942) yw ‘Y tu mewn’.  Y fyrraf, ond nid yr ysgafnaf.  Mae iddi ddau fan cychwyn: sylw ar ddau air Cymraeg (‘perfedd’ ac ‘ymysgaroedd’), a delwedd weledol: … aeth modurwr…

  • How healthy are the visual arts in Wales?  Not just in the sense of how many or how good are the artists, but other, more contextual questions, such as:  How are they valued?   How are they supported?  How are artists…

  • Killed by a shell, a year short of his fortieth birthday, on 9 April 1917, at the start of the Battle of Arras, after seventeen years as a prose writer and a mere two years as one of the twentieth…

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