Backburner

To put what follows into context: The following words aren’t mine. They were written by the original and best Welsh-language blogger, Nic Dafis, last Saturday. I felt that Nic made excellent points, so here is my clumsy English translation of his original Welsh. Blame me for any poor phrasing, not him – and thanks to Nic for letting me do this. Diolch!

Should point out that opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Wibsite admin etc. But I suspect, in at least one case, that they’re not too far removed.

Morfablog, 20th March … Continue Reading

And on St. Patrick’s Day, the man who popularised the phrase Lord of the Dance, and who got scant credit from Mr Flatley for doing so, has his obituary printed in the Guardian. I think the iconoclast in Sydney Carter would have appreciated the irony.

More reminiscences and tributes, found around the web (and some by Lemly):

• This thread on Mudcat.
• A mention of ABC Television’s Hallelujah!, also seen in the Telegraph obituary (entry below).
  Hallelujah! is a folk revival dream ticket, which oddly, appears nowhere on this otherwise excellent site … Continue Reading

And it’s from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.

Sydney Carter, 1915-2004.
For someone whose songs were known by pretty much every schoolchild for the past three decades, his death has been strangely under-reported; Lemly found this thread tucked away on Radio 2’s folk and acoustic message boards.

Carter was prolific, and deserves to be known for far more than his overtly Christian work. I’ll console myself that, given his collaborators in the past, there’s a folk session and a half going on somewhere right now.

Don’t talk to me about heroes – most of these men seem like subs…

On S4C just now, we were treated to Dr John Davies, Welsh historian extraordinare, waxing laconic over the 100 Greatest Welsh People in the World Ever poll:

“Fourteen nominations for Rhodri Morgan. Twenty-one for Rod Richards. Fifty-nine for Ivor the Engine. Not sure what that says about us as a nation. I got six. Twice as many as Swansea Jack, so that must mean something…”

I suspect my nomination for Dave must have got … Continue Reading