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I met Roger Cecil just once, in 2011. There was only one way of making initial contact with him, according to my instructions, that had any chance of success. You rang his number, twice, then put the phone down and…
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Micromuseums
Micromuseum is a new word for me. But that was the topic of a presentation to the Friends of the Glynn Vivian last week by Fiona Candlin of Birbeck College. It was the ideal talk – funny and self-deprecating but…
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Domenico Scarlatti and Basil Bunting
Under his full wig he looks like a successful but no-nonsense, even grumpy eighteenth century aristocrat or businessman. It would be hard to guess, if you didn’t know, that this is Domenico Scarlatti, the composer of the most inventive, quirky…
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Two Scilly visitors
On 22 October 1707 Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell was guiding his fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ships back towards the England coast after a failed attempt to defeat the French fleet near the Mediterranean port of Toulon during the War…
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Y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol
Dyma destun anerchiad i Gynulliad Blynyddol y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol a gynhaliwyd yn y Neuadd Fawr, Prifysgol Abertawe ar 8 Mawrth 2017. Bum mlynedd ar hugain yn ôl des i i Brifysgol Abertawe, neu Goleg y Brifysgol Abertawe fel yr…
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The socialist submariner
My friend J. asked me the other day whether as a child I’d read stories set in schools. I said I couldn’t recall reading any, despite being a greedy reader – unless you counted Tom Brown’s schooldays, a present from…
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George Ace, pioneer cyclist
Wandering among the memory theatres of Wales over the last year or two I’ve come across some fine institutions, some striking objects and some remarkable characters. In Tenby Museum they remember the happily named George Ace, a distinguished figure from…
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Philip Gross’s ‘Betweenland’
A while ago, I can’t now remember where, I saw a relief map of Britain as it might be a few centuries from now. Most of England was under water, though Wales and Scotland were largely intact. The queues at…
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Y Garn Goch
Bûm yna am y tro cyntaf rhywbryd tua diwedd y 1970au. Cofiaf ddilyn y lôn gul, droellog o wastatir afon Tywi, i fyny’r rhiw o bentref Bethlehem, cyn parcio’r car ar droed y llwybr. Cofiaf hefyd y waliau cerrig sychion…
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Phil Eglin’s wobbly jugs
Haptic art is alive. Marcel Duchamp’s pale followers have failed, over the last hundred years, to snuff out the pleasure of making things with your hands. Squeezing red acrylic paint out of a tube and trailing it with a finger…