The centenary of the birth of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas is being marked by a host of events across Wales, including tours, art shows, film screenings, plays, lectures and poetry readings. The highlights include a Dylan Thomas Festival in Swansea between 27 October and 9 November and exhibitions at Swansea Museum and the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
Dylan Thomas anniversary
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas in Swansea in October 1914, although the poet is more remembered for his death in New York in 1953, overwhelmed by debts and drink.
Socialists in Scotland often complain that the ruling class have robbed Robert Burns of his radical politics and have turned him into a harmless face on a shortbread tin. It is worse in Wales - Dylan Thomas is now a face on a beer mat used to sell 'Dylan's Ale'.
I enjoyed Sarah Ensor's review of the books about the Roman Empire (October SR) as it is said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.
In 146 BC the legions of Rome destroyed the city of Carthage, because the Carthaginians were stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, in the form of an 'innumerable number of war elephants'. However, after the victory not a trace of these terrible creatures could be found.
Some of the tribunes of the plebs claimed the people had been tricked into the war, in order to 'satisfy the greed of the patrician class'. The Senate had another explanation for the missing elephants - they said the Carthaginians had eaten them all in order to promote dissension among the plebeians.
