Including aviation is a breakthrough

There is exciting news today, for the future of our planet, as a new climate change bill last night made its way successfully through parliament, being voted in almost unanimously with 463 votes for and 3 against.  The inclusion of international aviation and shipping to the bill is a great breakthrough and only came at the last minute due to pressure from a number of Labour backbenchers and campaigners. (more…)

Young Dylan Thomas

Had he still been alive, and not died at the age of 39, today would have been Dylan Thomas’s 94th birthday.  So Happy Birthday, or Penblwyd Hapus, as the Welsh would say.  It is fair to say that Dylan Thomas is Wales’s most famous poet and writer, and I feel like I should be patriotic and say he is my favourite writer and I love every word he wrote.  But I have not read much of his work, only the script of Under Milk Wood, as most of you will have done, at secondary school years ago. (more…)

Should women travel alone?

There were many occasions when I was travelling from Wales to Brisbane and back that I faced some dangerous and hazardous situations. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how I survived unscathed (physically at least). Being a woman alone was enough to put the fear into many of my friends and family, on my behalf, that I wouldn’t even make it to France without being mugged, raped or worse. So was I wise to head out into the world unknown, alone, as a ‘vulnerable’ young woman?

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