Planet - The Welsh Internationalist

Excerpts from Planet 210

From Blacklist to Oscar Shortlist: Paul Turner, MI5 and the BBC

Hedd Wyn director Paul Turner had been affected by political blacklisting within the BBC. Colin argues that concern about blacklisting continues to blight the media in the UK.

Painting the ‘Distressed Areas’: Maurice Sochachewsky in the Valleys

Peter Lord on the overlooked work of Sochachewsky. He reflects on how his depictions of the Welsh coalfield during the Depression were part of a wider phenomenon of fervent artistic interest in the poverty of the area.

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Machynlleth is currently experiencing a sharp rise in poverty and the ‘restructuring’ of the Centre for Alternative Technology. Helen Pendry argues that the town offers an insight into a disturbing conflation of neo-liberal austerity measures with an ethos of sustainability.

A Sustainable Future for Wales?

Hannah Hughes on her experience organising The Wales Environmental Leadership conference and how the entrenched differences between academia, government and community groups make a collective response to climate change such a challenge.

Challenges to 21st-century recycling

Monmouthshire recycling professional David Roman explores what can be learnt from the work of the Zaballeen – Coptic Christians traditionally responsible for rubbish collection in Cairo.

Do We Need an All-Wales Police Force?

Huw Evans details the argument for an all-Wales force in a post-devolution era: ‘the professional policing community is now saying that the current structure is unsustainable’

Love is Soaked in Memory

Steve Gough on the tragic story of his friend Tom Hyndman, Stephen Spender’s ex-lover and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who died battling alcoholism in Cardiff

‘Germany, my Beloved Land’: Gareth Jones and the Nazis

Teresa Cherfas examines controversial revelations that have emerged about the young Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones, who was killed in mysterious circumstances, a couple of years after exposing the famine in Soviet Ukraine.

Painting the ‘Distressed Areas’: Maurice Sochachewsky in the Valleys

Peter Lord on the overlooked work of Sochachewsky. He reflects on how his depictions of the Welsh coalfield during the Depression were part of a wider phenomenon of fervent artistic interest in the poverty of the area.

Welsh Keywords: Bardd

In this issue’s ‘Welsh Keywords’ article, Diarmuid Johnson contrasts the cultural role of the ‘bardd’ with that of the poet in the mainstream Western European tradition.

Intermission

A review article of Owen Martell’s new novel ‘Intermission’ and a profile of the book’s protagonist, jazz musician Bill Evans, by Daniel G. Williams

Focus 210

Mike Parker on politics

Steph Power on opera

Sara Rees on art

Anthony Brockway on music

Reviews 210

Clare Morgan reviews Bird Blood Snow

Gareth Miles reviews Hands Off Wales

Diarmait Mac Giolla Chriost reviews Call Mother a Lonely Field

Tiffany Atkinson reviews Warriors