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Stocking filler
Solution in January ACROSS9 …and please mince along the seafront (9)10 Odd errand pilot missed in transmission (5)11 Irate old queen gets lost in the country (7)12 Rather badly stained …
Rugger’s buggered
The 10th Rugby World Cup is over and South Africa have won for the fourth time, beating New Zealand 12-11 in a grim, graceless, grinding, grunting grapple in Paris. The …
Papaver palaver
Last summer a friend gave me some seeds from the clusters of Papaver cambricum, Welsh poppy/pabi Cymraeg, growing in her garden (formerly Meconopsis cambrica, the hardy perennial was renamed in …
Heath hell
I am no stranger to physical pain. During an injury-plagued decade playing Sunday League football I broke an ankle and a wrist, cracked a rib, dislocated a shoulder and tore …
Two Americans
As America gallops towards another civil war en route to the destruction of civilisation and ultimately the planet itself, there is very little cause to celebrate any aspect of the …
The nut case
Nuts are briefly in demand during mid-winter, but for the rest of the time they’re largely ignored by most people – apart from grievously over-salted peanuts sold as pub snacks …
Alban Arthan Llawen
Happy Winter SolsticeAlban Arthan Llawen Picture: Paganism
Brrr
By any reckoning, these are exceptionally low temperatures. Cardiff’s average December daytime temperature is 9°C but currently, at mid-day, it is 1°C – a massive drop from the norm. This …
Noson Guto Ffowc
Guy Fawkes Night (aka Bonfire Night) was a major event in the calendar up until comparatively recently. For kids like me, growing up in the rural Glamorgan/Gwent borderlands in the …
An African far from home
I have never been able to understand why more people don’t keep houseplants. They purify and detoxify air, they oxygenate, they recycle carbon dioxide, they humidify, they eliminate odours and …