The Photocopier of Doom
In the near future, I promise to start blogging again about matters other than the situation at Carmarthenshire Archives, the subject of my last two posts and of a remarkable and gratifying response from individuals and online communities around the world. But while I’m waiting for responses to the letters I’ve sent to the Keeper […]
Carmarthenshire Archives: An Update
In my previous post, I presented the situation at the archives as I understood it, and noted that I had not received any reply to the email that I sent to Carmarthenshire County Council a fortnight earlier. Perhaps coincidentally, I received a detailed email from Jane Davies, Senior Cultural Services Manager, some six hours after […]
Carmarthenshire Archives: Farce or Greek Tragedy?
A warning: if you’re in search of a short and cheerful read, I suggest you leave this post now and click on something like Buzzfeed instead. On the other hand, if you have a few minutes to spare to read a woeful tale of institutional failure, threatening access to – and the very existence of […]
Mea Maxima Culpa
Like most people, I don’t particularly enjoy being proved wrong. But in the particular instance I’m blogging about this week, I’m absolutely delighted to admit that I’ve been well and truly in the wrong – and hope that I’ll be proved even more wrong in the future! In the conclusion of Britannia’s Dragon, I bemoaned the […]
What Writers Can Teach Museum Curators
‘Nothing!’ cries an enraged legion of museum curators, their spectacles quivering with righteous fury. ‘Nothing at all, you idle coffee-addicted scribblers of words that nobody wants to read! Adverbs, in particular.’ But hear me out. In a way, we’re both in the same business. We’re both story tellers. We’re both trying to get ‘ordinary people’ (sic) interested […]
The Birth, Death and Rebirth of a Royal Dockyard
(Cross-posted on my Welsh naval history site , britanniasdragon.com) I spent the weekend in Pembroke Dock, attending the launch events for the bicentenary of the foundation of the Royal Dockyard in 1814. The yard was established to take advantage of the tremendous deep water harbour of Milford Haven, and was intended to be exclusively a […]
