Walking out yesterday with the brother, daughter and dog, this sign might have taken us by surprise, had we not been Welsh, and therefore accustomed to such wonders. Whether or not Being Welsh is perceived as a… Read More
Posted on July 31, 2011 by richardgwyn
What is a picture of Joseph Roth, chronicler of the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire doing beneath this heading? Did Roth have a shotgun? Was he a hobo? In a way, the answer is yes to both questions, indirectly…. Read More
Posted on July 30, 2011 by richardgwyn
The first sentence of Tristan Hughes’ new novel goes like this: “ I was casting out from the eastern shore of Eye Lake, opposite the second island, when I snagged the top of my grandfather Clarence’s castle.” Imagine the… Read More
Posted on July 29, 2011 by richardgwyn
When you start doing something new, it makes sense to question why you are doing it. I started this blog two and a half weeks ago, a decision made on the spur of the moment, because I had… Read More
Posted on July 28, 2011 by richardgwyn
“Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don’t surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.” Huzzah! Never before, I suggest, has this ejaculation been used… Read More
Posted on July 27, 2011 by richardgwyn
I wake up early, make tea, return to bed, and start reflecting on the many, many books that I have not read, that I will in all probability never read. In an attempt to console myself… Read More
Posted on July 26, 2011 by richardgwyn
I just read Claire Keegan’s ‘The Forester’s Daughter’, from her 2007 collection Walk the Blue Fields. It is a story of smouldering regret and awful intelligence, and has the emotional punch of a novel compacted into forty pages…. Read More
Posted on July 25, 2011 by richardgwyn
The birthday card I received from Mrs Blanco this year shows a partly hidden figure reclining in an armchair, cats in attendance, dwarfed by an enormous bookcase that, it is suggested, continues into the vastness of infinity…. Read More
Posted on July 24, 2011 by richardgwyn
This is, in its way, a very contemporary film: a kind of visual equivalent of flash fiction. Based on thousands of hours of video recordings from a single day – 24th August 2010 – the editors have… Read More
Posted on July 23, 2011 by richardgwyn
What is this? A picture of a dog? But hey, it’s Blanco’s birthday, as well as mine – we share so many things; underwear, shirts, an inability to remember names – and you can do what you… Read More
Posted on July 22, 2011 by richardgwyn
The acrobats were packing up the show. They untied the high-wire, collected hoops, poles, buckets, horses, dogs, a lion, two seals, the bearded lady, sand, fire and water. They emptied all of these into one enormous bag, coloured… Read More
Posted on July 21, 2011 by richardgwyn
“To the south they discovered rail lines and slum soccer fields surrounded by shacks, and they even watched a match . . . between a team of the terminally ill and a team of the starving to death,… Read More
Posted on July 21, 2011 by richardgwyn
Ricardo Blanco’s BlogRichard Gwyn is the author of Ricardo Blanco's Blog
