Backburner

The leader article in this month’s Third Way (‘that necessity for all thinking Christians with money to waste’, as its reviews editor once put it) is, lo and behold, the beginning of Rowan Williams’ Swansea University lecture.

And nestling at the bottom of the editorial is the footnote that the lecture transcript is now available on archbishopofcanterbury.org, which sure enough, it is, here. So given that you can now actually read what the man said, and given how close I’ve been to becoming a Low Anglican version of BBC Four recently, I faithfully promise this’ll be my last post … Continue Reading

At best, I’m agnostic when it comes to rugby. Yes, I know that doesn’t fit with me being raised in the Gwendraeth Valley, the secret location of Wales’ national fly-half factory as immortalised by Max Boyce. To the despair of my late father (a life-long Llanelli supporter, a lifetime debenture holder at the old Cardiff Arms Park) I showed neither the inclination, nor particularly the aptitude, to excel at the sport. At school, my father was briefly in the same First XV as Carwyn James, famed Scarlets and British Lions coach. In his teens and twenties, my dad played … Continue Reading

When people meet me and realise I’m Welsh and that I speak Welsh, then once we’re past the jibes about rain, sheep, dirt and druids, they almost always say one of a set range of phrases.

1. “Oh. I thought Welsh was a dead language.”
Not much I can do about people thinking that, really. I’m not sure how those people would answer the question: if there’s a Welsh speaker standing in front of you, does that make the Welsh language a) dead, or b) alive? Please tick one box only.
Apart from that, and depending on who’s saying it, I … Continue Reading