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Cardiff catch-up
What with one thing and another I haven’t written much about contemporary Cardiff for quite a while. It’s time for a bit of a catch-up, looking at 10 selected topics …
Cardiff’s lost buildings 3
Board SchoolsVarious locationsIn 1870 the Liberal government of William Gladstone (1809-1898) passed the Elementary Education Act, the first attempt by the British State to establish a basic public education system …
Streets rocked to sleep by the sea*
*From Under Milk Wood I’ve got some bad news for Cardiff. Ever-accelerating global heating is melting ice-caps and glaciers and rapidly raising sea-levels. Unless this process is stopped and reversed …
Pubocalypse 9
Pandemic fall-out is likely to mean that a lot of the pubs ‘temporarily’ closed during lockdown will never open again. The random, spontaneous social mixing intrinsic to a public house …
Welsh lives matter
Leader of Cardiff council Huw Thomas has supported the totally justified calls by the Black Lives Matter movement for the removal from City Hall of the statue of murderous slave …
Flora Cardiffia
I regularly used to drive up and down the M4 between London and Wales in the 1970s and 1980s, initially on a motorbike and subsequently in a car. When I …
Parish pimp
Other than parts of Cardiff Castle, the solitary building left in Cardiff city centre that predates the industrial revolution is the parish church of St John the Baptist. As such, …
Juxtaposition
Cold-blooded creepy-crawlies, battery-driven hot air and…wait for it…branches of Reptile Cymru and Totally Wicked… Picture: Dic Mortimer
Cardiff’s lost buildings 2
Convent of the Good ShepherdTŷ Gwyn RoadWilliam Burges (1827-1881) is recognised today as one of the greatest architects of the 19th century, if not of all time. The supreme exponent …
Women of the streets
There are numerous streets bearing female names in Cardiff, particularly in the inner city. Have you ever wondered why? It isn’t the result of any feminist, egalitarian or emancipatory principles, …