Wales Coast Path, day 28: Amroth to Tenby
8:30am on a dark December Friday, and we’re driving west, three of us. Rain, unforecast, runs into us from the west. The stub of a rainbow over St Clears soon erases itself. At Llanddowror the Tâf has burst its banks and flooded dozens of fields, metres deep. Everywhere the land is bloated with the rains […]
The Home Rule All Round movement
To get a swift appreciation of the whole sweep of Welsh history for a current project, I’ve been re-reading John Davies’s great Hanes Cymru / A history of Wales (rev. ed. 2007). It’s a big book but the pleasure of reading it is even bigger. Especially when you pause in your reading to remember John […]
Hwyl fawr i’r byd cyhoeddus?
Ar ddydd Mercher nesaf bydd y Canghellor George Osborne yn cyhoeddi’r canlyniadau o’i adolygiad o wariant cyhoeddus. Mae’n argoeli bod yn achlysur tyngedfennol. Fel dywed William Keegan, y newyddiadurwr economaidd, yn gyson, daeth y Ceidwadwyr i rym, yn 2010 ac eto yn 2015, ar sail dau Gelwydd Mawr: taw’r llywodraeth Lafur, yn hytrach na’r bancwyr a’i […]
Moby-Dick and the poor devil of a Sub-Sub
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) is a book that, once read, will never leave you. Its themes are as close as a book’s themes can be to the essence of being human. Its symbol – ‘symbol’ is a poor choice of word – of the great white whale will stalk your imagination, waking or asleep, for […]
Two Svalbard flights
The most remarkable place on the planet I’ve visited, in the summer of 2005, is the Svalbard archipelago. Svalbard lies half way between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole, between 74 and 81 degrees north, far within the Arctic Circle. About 60% of its surface is covered with glacial ice, and ice […]
Peter Lanyon’s gliding paintings
If you want to escape from the madness of central London – a frequent need, in my experience – you could do worse than visit the Courtauld Gallery. It’s usually quiet, its home is a handsome and quirky corner of Somerset House, and its permanent collection is exceptional for its quality and holding power. You […]
Croeso, Ioan Tran, welcome!
A long bare road, Ioan bach, you’ve tramped, Dark months at sea, to meet us in this flash Of sudden day. You fled the lost land, and camped On deck through China, Red and Middle seas, dashed By Biscay storms to ground on Scottish stones. Picked up the accent, trekked south in Pennine rain (Millstone […]
British values
British values are back in fashion. They were introduced by Gordon Brown during Tony Blair’s Labour government: We can find common qualities and common values that have made Britain the country it is. Our belief in tolerance and liberty which shines through British history. Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty’. They surfaced […]
John Pawson’s visual inventory
Most of the books I’ve bought over the years lie on a table, sometimes for months, read or unread, before they find their way to the shelf. But there’s one, bought on impulse three years ago, that has never left the table. Every few weeks I pick it up and work through some of its […]
Iliad
National Theatre Wales’s recent production of the Iliad in Ffwrnes, Llanelli raises interesting questions about dramatising canonical texts not intended for drama. The Greeks are hot on the British stage at the moment. Two versions of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy appeared in London this year, and Euripides is in vogue too, with productions of Medea and […]