Aberaeron and beyond

Bit of a catch-up of the past week’s events. Spent last weekend (and a bit of the week) down West Wales. We stayed at the Harbourmaster Hotel in Aberaeron. The suite we were in occupied the whole of the top floor and had wonderful views of the harbour and the sea. The price you pay for old fashioned charm? Whacked my head a few times on the wooden beams!

Spent Monday morning on Penbryn beach. It’s owned by the National Trust, and you can only get there by walking through the woodlands, Lost-style. This, combined with the fact that it was a Monday morning in October, meant that we had the whole beach and the beautiful blue sky all to ourselves.

As we left the heavens opened though, so we retired to Newquay for lunch, and partook of one of the great holiday traditions: eating fish & chips in the car.

Restaurant Notes

It seems an age ago, but it was only last week, we went with Jon and B to the Felin Fach Griffin near Brecon. The food there was superb. I had Wild Mushroom Tagliatelli, Welsh Venison & Sticky Toffee Pudding (not all at the same time). Faultless.

The place has a very comforting atmosphere with a roaring fire. Not surprising that it has won a string of awards. Well worth the trip – but book a table beforehand.

TV Notes

The new BBC spinoff from Dr Who started on BBC Three last night
Torchwood. It’s a more adult-orientated series about a secret group tracking aliens on Earth and features Captain Jack from the recent Dr Who series. The series is set in Cardiff, and the headquarters of Torchwood are located under the Wales Millennium Centre. Lots of shots of Cardiff landmarks, and jokes about being Welsh are scattered throughout. And to prove its aimed at adults, they occasionally say f***.

It’s shown on Sunday nights at 9pm on BBC Three. A more than adequate substitute for those who are missing their Dr Who fix.

But is it Art?

Stopped off at the Chapter Arts Centre in Canton last week for a meal after work before meeting some friends. It seemed to be populated by a very “right on” crowd, the sort who knit their own yoghurt (© Alexi Sayle) and who singularly seemed unable to smile or laugh about anything. I was expected a menu made up of purely quinoa and beancurd, but there were actually some meat dishes on the menu. Very informal place, but with good, cheap food.

The main exhibit at the Chapter at the moment is a gallery given over to a work by Simon Pope. It’s an entirely empty, whitewashed gallery with a single inscription on the wall: “you are invited to recall, from memory, a walk through a gallery space.” OK, this is final proof that I’m turning into my dad, but come on, what a load of bollocks.

Needless to say, the media has finally caught up with what you are able to do with an Arts Council grant, and has been giving the artist, Simon Pope a good kicking.

Living Notes

A recent survey by Channel 4 drew up a list of the worst places to live in the UK. Merthyr Tydfil came 3rd and Blaenau Gwent came 9th. The survey was based on 5 criteria: crime, environment, lifestyle, education and employment. The rest of the top ten:

Hackney, London
Tower Hamlets, London
Merthyr Tydfil
Newham, London
Islington, London
Middlesborough
Nottingham
Strabane, N Ireland
Blaenau Gwent
Manchester

But on the plus side, Blaenau Gwent has some of the cheapest house prices in the UK, it’s on the doorstep of the Brecon Beacons, the train line is being built and its home to Ebbw Vale RFC.

Rugby Notes

Ebbw traveled to Bedwas on Saturday and came away with another hard fought win. This one was too close for comfort. It could have been a 40-pointer if the early chances had been taken, but in the end we had to settle for a 19-16 win. It was one of the dirtiest games of the year, with the second half being full of niggles. Bedwas gave away a string of penalties, some of which we bizarrely ran and other, more difficult ones resulted in missed kicks.

We say 3rd in the table as the top 4 all won.

Scorers: an interception try for Simon Hunt, with the rest of the points again coming from Sam Mills (who should have had plenty more)

Highlight: Neil Edwards again was excellent, and the scrum on occasion looked like a force to be reckoned with.

Lowlight: halfbacks were poor, and failed to get the back line going. Its worrying than a series of passes to get the ball out to the wing sometimes looks beyond us. And Nio Aiono got get another yellow card, his third of the season, which will probably lead to a ban for him.