Columnists, comment on Welsh news, sport & lifestyle

Brunstrom’s Heddlu debate turns shambolic

ANOTHER week, another shambles at the political protest group run by Richard Brunstrom, North Wales Police. Read

The First Word: built for comfort and not speed

HAVE never been caving, white water rafting, snowboarding or thrown myself off a bridge with a piece of elastic tied to my legs. Read

Turf wars: The final cut

IN Hollywood the final cut can mark the difference between a good and bad movie – in gardening, the script is all about lawns. Read

Women’s Own: One of my other great loves

“We were hoping for a table with a view,” we told her. “That’s going to be difficult,” she said, frowning. “It’s our policy to iron tablecloths while ON the table, so we really can’t set a new one up now” Read

Mind Matters: In the name of pride

My brief online adventure may have left me with a sense of too little too late but, on the positive side, at least I haven’t carked it before finally signing my body parts away Read

Nonsense talk fails to disguise grim truth

IT’S not only the economies of the world that have been battered by the credit crunch. The English language, which was already on its knees and begging for mercy, has also taken a bit of a beating. Read

One worry I can bury for good

“DON’T worry, be calm”, said my late mother as I tended her grave at Barry’s beautiful cemetery. Read

Where’s Harry Potter when you need a solution to economic crises?

FAR be it from me to spoil the love-in, but it would be foolish to conclude that the problems facing the Welsh economy will be solved by the summit that took place on Thursday. Read

The Insider: The advent of time wasting

THE paperless office, remember that? And the rise of multi-channel digital TV. The pre-eminence of Nintendo and PlayStation. Read

Madonna could pay a high price for her divorce

DOES marriage work for powerful women? In showbiz circles, it doesn’t seem to. Read

Determination helped us to survive

LAST Friday morning, chatting over breakfast with Nick Molloy, I learned he’s found a publisher for his book. It’s called “Confessions of a Male Stripper”. Unlike most books with that kind of title, it’s not ghost-written, nor tarted up with fictional incidents. That should make a change. Read

Don’t get personal with Bob Dylan

LAST weekend a friend of otherwise outstanding wisdom and mental buoyancy told me he couldn’t really see the point of Bob Dylan. Read

Rhodri Morgan says Wales can weather the financial storm

As economic news once again dominates the headlines First Minister Rhodri Morgan focuses on the challenges facing Wales Read

BBC winds of change carry huge opportunities for Wales

BBC Wales Controller Menna Richards reflects on the BBC’s quick-step out of London Read

‘Untouchables’ sneer at the justice system

JUST four little words. But they offer a more depressing insight into our society than a shelf full of sociological tomes. Read

When your kids outbank you

RAISING children in the credit crunch is all about credibility. Read

To behave like Victoria Beckham is to lose sight of what men actually like

WHAT’S the point of celebrities? It’s a question I ask myself many times most days. Read

Who created these mad systems?

WHAT a mess the case of the Afghan’s million-pound council house has become. Mother-of- seven Toorpakai Saiedi, 35, receives £170,000 a year in benefits – a staggering £150,000 of which is paid to a private landlord for the rent of their seven-bedroom house in West London, nearly five times the rent for a similar property in the same road. Read

It feels as if we’re in 1929 all over again

IT’S become the mantra of every political and economic pundit: “Not since the Great Depression...” Read

Financial bubble has burst our hopes for future

NOW the last thing anyone – Robert Peston included – wants to do is to talk up the mess in the global finance system from an innocent credit crunch to a recession, let alone – whisper it – a depression. Read