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Following the success of their previous exhibitions, contemporary art and design gallery are set to present their fourth pop-up gallery of 2010: winter #1.

The gallery returns to Cardiff's Morgan Arcade for the exhibition, but this time it will occupy the old solicitors' office in the arcade's first floor chambers. This exhibition space enables whole rooms to be dedicated to individual artists and designers.

Seren Jones: Long Hair, oil on canvas 2010. Image courtesy of the artist

project/ten is one of Cardiff's newest galleries, who champion the most contemporary and progressive art and design in the Welsh capital. They support emerging artists, each of whom have a link with Wales, by way of gallery spaces that are housed in temporary locations.

winter #1 also introduces the work of the collective's latest artist Molly Rooke. Rooke's practice as a printmaker is applied to her process of manipulating objects, mainly post cards, through varying degrees of alteration.

winter #1 runs from Thursday 9 to Wednesday 15 December 2010, with the exhibition launch on Thursday 9 December between 6-8pm.

Visit the for more information and to check opening times.

Saturday 27 November
Y Drwm, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Another veil of snow, and all has turned to ice. It's very, very cold. People phone: 'Is the reading still on? Are you going?' Of course! Try and stop me.

The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, is on the train from Manchester. The coldest November for decades would not stop her keeping her promise. The car takes the first icy hill in the helpful tracks of tractors. After the mile to Post Bach, the A486 is clear. Kites are aloft, flying in pairs and in fours, scanning the land for carrion.

David drops me at the library and goes to meet Carol Ann's train. Aberystwyth looks gorgeous, the town spread below, the great library building high above the sea, the curve of Cardigan Bay against miles of snow covered mountains. We take it in joyfully, then retreat for a warming bowl of broccoli and stilton soup, bread and cheese, in the National Library café.

The Drwm is drumming with life as we enter. The audience applauds, and I feel like applauding them too for coming through ice and snow to be with us. Fifty per cent of the atmosphere of every good poetry reading is created by the audience. The circular shape of the Drwm helps too, a cosy, enclosing arena that seats 100 people.

Rocet Arwel Jones introduces us eloquently, and Dafydd John Pritchard reads a special poem written in response to Carol Ann's The World's Wife. The perfect Welsh introduction. A full house, an audience alert to the movements between solemn and light moments. These are what a good audience gives to make a warm afternoon in a cold world. We rise to the occasion, enjoying ourselves.

There is no strain in communicating music, meaning and perhaps magic to such a gathering. Carol Ann reads some of her innovative new bee poems, the movingly beautiful elegies and remembrances to her mother, poems of war (Afghanistan, and older wars recalled). Her litanies come close to inventing a new form, using a historically sacred form to weave the ordinary with the epic.

The audience love John Barleycorn, listing old pub names, and her rebuke to Royal Mail for abolishing the poetry of county names in favour of postcodes only. Try replacing 'all the birds of Oxfordshire' etc with 'all the birds of CF11', or equivalent! Turn in your grave, Edward Thomas. I read mostly unpublished poems, a new Carol of the Birds, and a few old ones to mark the season of Advent.

Afterwards we linger to talk with old friends, people we've tutored at Ty Newydd, met at other gigs. Then an elegant bone china cup of tea and a slice of home-made lemon cake with friends in St David's Road, and off to the station for the little train which will carry Carol Ann across the icy map of mid-Wales, where, in the night, the temperature at Llysdinam plunges to -18 celsius.

Another typical Welsh gig, as Carol Ann would say.

Gillian Clarke
National Poet of Wales

Gillian Clarke is blogging for the Â鶹Éç during her seven-date poetry tour of Wales, which runs until 10 December 2010. For more information on the visit the Academi website.

The work of Welsh artist , who is set to represent Wales at the 2011 Venice Biennale, has gone on display in a new exhibition at the in Cardiff.

Tim Davies: 50th Year To Heaven features new and existing works by the Swansea-based artist and includes a commission that documents Davies' year long contemplation of the use of photojournalistic images as a witness to local and global events.

The work seeks out patterns amongst the ordinary and extraordinary - where the trivial is positioned next to the brutal, the usual alongside the unusual - within the framework of 365 days. Every day then acts as a witness.

Images taken from Tim Davies' exhibition, 50th Year to Heaven

Davies already has an international reputation as an artist. He was the winner of the Fine Art Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod in 2003 and was selected for the inaugural Artes Mundi in 2004. In 2008 he was a Major Creative Wales Award recipient from the Arts Council of Wales. He is currently the Head of Fine Art at the .

Tim Davies: 50th Year To Heaven runs until Sunday 16 January 2011. For more information visit the .

Friday 26 November

Snow! Just a veil in Ceredigion as we set off for Carmarthen, a completely white world as I write at Blaen Cwrt on Friday morning. Serious snow, crisp and deep and even.

Though only November, it's very cold. For me and Menna Elfyn, sharing the stage tonight, it's just 10 days and 28 degrees Celsius between tropical Kerala and frozen Carmarthen.

There are similarities too. A warm, intelligent audience of readers and writers, a bilingual event, poetry and debate. This time it's in Trinity – now known as Trinity St David's. The banner is resplendent, the bookstall set out, Menna there to welcome me. The room is soon buzzing with talk and arrivals.

In a way it's a homecoming, county of my father's and grandfather's birth. In nearby Llangynog, my great-grandfather and nine of his children are buried. The room fills, an audience of Trinity-St.D students, past students and staff, townspeople, and brave pilgrims from snowy Pembrokeshire and upland Carmarthenshire. Oh, and a very small dog in a handbag.

Later I meet people from my past: a teacher, a theatre student who 'did my poems' for her GCSE in Bath, and attended Poetry Live, people who've enjoyed courses at Ty Newydd. Poetry usually draws its audience from the wide stage of poetry. Afterwards people say: 'You won't remember me...' But I usually do.

Menna reads first, weaving between Welsh and English so the audience experience both the pleasures of meaning and sound, whether Welsh speaking or not. I read recent poems, most written to commission or at someone's request.

The audience questions the Muse versus the Commission. I say that there is usually a queue of ideas and an untapped oil-well of creative energy, so putting the two together will usually make a poem happen. Nobody knows where a poem comes from anyway.

Sometimes it's as if you dreamed it, and it has nothing at all to do with you. Or you research a subject and find a new field and a fresh vocabulary. A commission and a deadline make good discipline for a writer.

We discuss translation. I believe translation is very important to the culture of a multilingual world. Without it we would not share the Bible, the Koran, Chekhov, Pushkin, fairy stories and ancient mythologies, and the world would not have Shakespeare.

When you translate a poem you must make a new poem. You keep the meaning and lose the music, so you must make up for the loss by making a new music in the translation. It's better than nothing. Menna and I have translated many of each other's poems, so we know what is lost, what is gained. Someone once called it 'unfaithful beauty'.

I stroke the dog in the handbag, and we drive home to a very late supper of, not poetry (RS Thomas had Poetry for Supper) but ravioli and a mug of tea.

Gillian Clarke
National Poet of Wales

Gillian Clarke is blogging for the Â鶹Éç during her seven-date poetry tour of Wales, which runs until 10 December 2010. For more information on the visit the Academi website.

is looking for young people from across Wales to join the National Youth Theatre of Wales (NYTW) in 2011.

Teams from NYTW will be scouting for some of Wales’ most talented young actors, designers, stage managers and technicians in the new year. are available, and the deadline for completed applications is Monday 6 December 2010.

A series of workshop-auditions for the youth theatre (aimed at young people aged 16-21 years) will be being arranged in locations throughout Wales during early 2011.

Membership of NYTW includes an intensive training and rehearsal period during the summer, plus the prospect of large-scale public performances in some of Wales’ most well-known venues. In 2010, the youth theatre toured to Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold and The Riverfront in Newport with the production No Other Day Like Today.

For more information visit the website.

There's a great article on the Â鶹Éç TV Blog at the moment by Rachel Knight, the co-producer of hit family drama Merlin.

In her blog article, Rachel describes working on the production, from watching the behind-the-scenes magic to working on different locations in both France and Wales.

Richard Wilson as Gaius and Colin Morgan as Merlin

Though the castle used for the mythological Camelot is , situated on the southeast edge of the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, there are many Welsh locations used in the filming of each series. As Rachel says:

"We're fortunate that there are so many fantastic locations on our doorstep. From the ruins of Neath Abbey, to the wilds of Trefil, Merlin just wouldn't be the same without them.

"They need to be pretty spectacular to stand up to the Château, but I'd say they more than hold their own."

Read the rest of the article on the Â鶹Éç TV Blog.

You can learn more about Merlin and Arthur in early Welsh literature on the Â鶹Éç Wales Arts site, and read about the connections between Wales and King Arthur on the Â鶹Éç Wales History website.

There are free art classes up for grabs next month at , as its popular Saturday Art School returns for both adults and children.

The university has been running the art classes for the past four years, with over 320 young people and more than 240 adults having attended courses in drawing and painting, textiles, photography, TV/video production, fashion, ceramics and drama.

Participants at a previous art school class at Swansea Met

A young woman at a previous art school class at the university

The workshops will begin on Saturday 4 December at Swansea Met's Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media. A children's workshop will be held on Saturday mornings between 9.30am and 12.30pm, while an adult's workshop will be held in the afternoons from 1.30pm until 4pm.

Both courses run for ten weeks. Those who wish to attend the Saturday Art School should call 01792 481285 or email brett.thomas@smu.ac.uk.

Actor Matthew Rhys has been in his native Wales this week to promote his new book Patagonia: Crossing The Plain, and is in Swansea later today signing copies.

Cover image of Matthew Rhys' book Patagonia: Crossing the Plain/ Croesi'r Paith. Image courtesy of Gomer Press

Rhys will be appearing at Waterstones in Swansea between 1-2pm, Siop TÅ· Tawe in Swansea between 3.30-4pm, and Cover to Cover between 4.45-5.30pm.

Patagonia: Crossing The Plain is a photographic account of Rhys' month-long journey on horseback while filming a documentary on Patagonia, and the Welsh settlers who made it their home having journeyed from Wales in the late 19th century.

Read an article on the book featuring an interview with the actor on the . And for more information on the Welsh in Patagonia visit the Â鶹Éç Wales History site.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the death of legendary Cardiff-born children's writer Roald Dahl, and there are currently two programmes on Â鶹Éç iPlayer that feature the author.

In the Â鶹Éç Radio 2 programme How Roald Dahl Shaped Pop, David Tennant tells the tale of the stamp Dahl left on the world of pop music.

Kelly Jones of Stereophonics explains how he found inspiration for songs such as I Stopped To Fill My Car Up in Dahl's grisly, suspenseful short stories, and Kate Nash reveals how Dahl's fantastical children's books have influenced her own storytelling style, stirring her to invent surreal characters and magical places in songs like Mariella and Little Red.

Plus, Tennant reveals how a song about Willy Wonka gave a Rat Pack legend his only US number one. and listen to it on Â鶹Éç iPlayer.

Also, in the latest episode of Country Tracks Ellie Harrison visits Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, home for 36 years to the author. She meets the Dahls' family friend and vice chaiman of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, Amanda Conquy.

The episode is available on Â鶹Éç iPlayer until the morning of Sunday 28 November.

A major new national initiative for the visual arts is set to include two Welsh galleries, the in Swansea and in Llandudno.

aims to broaden and deepen engagement in modern and contemporary art across the UK. The galleries involved in the Plus Tate network will join together to exchange ideas, knowledge, skills and resources, as well as programmes and collections.

It is also hoped that they will collaborate to explore new ways of increasing generated income, staff training and placements, as well as sharing audience research and joint business models.

Mostyn, Llandudno. Photo: Hélène Binet

Glynn Vivian gallery atrium. Photo: Graham Matthews, © Glynn Vivian Art Gallery 2004

Welsh Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones AM, said: “I am very pleased to see two Welsh galleries involved in the project. I hope it will lead to benefits to both the local communities in Swansea and Llandudno, and to opportunities for Welsh artists.

"This is a great example of arts organizations from north and south Wales working in partnership to share expertise, skills and make excellent use of resources.�

This has all been pertinent this week, for cooking and indulging have both raised their heads.

Twice a year I take part in 'A men's meal'. Peter Hain, the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and his now retired political agent, Howard Davies, join me in treating our ladies. We go on rota for starters, main course and pudding and we gather in the home of whoever has his turn at the main dish.

I was on starters and I was guided by the advice of cooking guru Angela Grey. I went for stuffed field mushrooms with leeks, garlic, butter, cream cheese, goat's cheese, nuts, cranberries and parsley all thrown in at various stages, before or after the singe in the oven. It was a resounding success, may I add, although huge dollops of wine coloured the opinion I have no doubt.

There is a safeguard against stress too, in that, however lacking I am on this kind of artistic foody flair and creative and colourful adventure, Howard is worse. On each occasion we all feel that his wife made his course, but we can never prove it. He also has an innocent smile, one that would fox Interpol, which disarms us completely. His wife, also named Elaine, tutors him so well as to how he prepared the course that he sounds so convincing when he describes it.

I also spoke this week, on the programme, to Michael Winner, the renowned film director who is now a fearsome food critic for the Sunday Times. He was a joy to speak to, surprisingly full of common sense, about food preparation and presentation. He had no time for artistic designs on plates; saucy squiggles immediately irritated him.

He takes no prisoners in his write-ups and I don't know how he can be in a convivial photograph with restaurant or hotel owners and staff, and then lambast them in his report. I just take the coward's way out. When the waiter asks me if everything is all right, I usually reply: "Fine thank you," even it's not. I just don't go to the place again. Not the best policy at all, I suppose.

I've had my moments, mind. I remember, in my education days on a scholarship visit to America, being hosted at a dinner party by a sophisticated lady in New York. She'd once been married to a Welshman who, in her words, was good for only one thing. Whatever, I didn't press her as to what his Celtic prowess was.

In each individual cutlery arrangement on the table, there was a knife, fork,spoon and something that looked like a medical instrument. As it turned out, it was a scoop to get the marrow out of your lamb bone. It was a long night for me, I can tell you. Yuck!

I also recall something similar in a restaurant in the south of France. Elaine and I didn't recognise anything on the menu, but we took a stab at it. Panic took hold when the waiter took away my knife and fork and, yes, another medical instrument turned up. I didn't recognise the shellfish when they arrived. Not oysters, not mussels, not cockles even, but something new and sinister.

Elaine said: "Look, call the waiter, tell him you've made a mistake and change them, or you'll be up in the night." No, pride, cowardice and the need to avoid a fuss took over, so I ordered four pints of lager and a mountain of bread and I got into a rhythm of 'bread, shell fish, lager; bread, shell fish, lager; bread, shell fish, lager...' It worked a dream, and I wasn't up in the night.

It's funny, Elaine and I think we are of peasant stock: bread and potatoes, simple fayre. Mind you, 'simple' can be great. Some of the best meals I've had have been at various rugby clubs, organised by outside caterers out of tureens, £15 a head. Actually, the best beef I've ever tasted was from an outside caterer at a carvery in Bettws Rugby Club, Ammanford.

So there we go, I know my place...and it's usually fulsome.

Roy

Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the Â鶹Éç First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free Â鶹Éç First Click advice line on 08000 150950.

A watercolour painting of Conwy Castle in north Wales by the celebrated artist JMW Turner is expected to fetch up to £500,000 when it goes under the hammer next month.

Conwy Castle by JMW Turner. Image: Christie's Images Ltd. 2010

The pencil and watercolour, which is being sold by a private collector, is based on drawings that the young Turner made in his Hereford Court sketchbook. The sketchbook contains seven drawings of the castle, all from differing angles, and as a result several paintings of the castle were painted - one of which can be seen in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Auction house Christie's will auction the piece in their Old Masters & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings & Watercolours sale on 7 December in London, with the guide price of £300,000 to £500,000.

In a recent auction earlier this year, a painting by Turner of Flint Castle sold for over £540,000. Browse an on the Â鶹Éç North East Wales website.

Between reading with Paul Henry at the Wyeside, Builth, and my gig with Menna Elfyn at Trinity, Carmarthen next week, I fly to India for the Hay Kerala Festival.

We pass over Mosul, Baghdad, Basra. I disobey the air hostess and lift my blind. I want to see the world, snow-capped mountains south of Turkey, the sunrise.

At Doha I wait four hours for the flight to Thiruvananthapuram. The language is Mayalam, and I determine not to use the shorter, British name. The terminal is full of white-robed, bearded men with mobile phones, each wearing a plastic identification tag on a ribbon, their black-veiled wives like drifting, elegant columns. They are on their way to Mecca for the Hajj, the biggest pilgrimage in the world.

After touch-down in Thiruvananthapuram – I’m learning to say this – I step from the building into an oven, dizzy after 24 hours awake. I share the car with Miguel from the Phillipines and Jorges from Mexico.

The drive to the hotel is noisy, the horn, and everyone else’s horn, honking every two seconds as we dodge pedestrians, dogs, bicycles, motor bikes, motor rickshaws, lorries, cars along the route. It runs between palm forests lined with brilliantly coloured villas side by side with slum-dwellings, shacks, sheds, shops, factories, the hugger-mugger life of the people at the roadside.

In a few days I get used to the clutter and begin to see the detail, egrets picking beside tethered cows, a flight of hoopoes over the yellow waters of the Karamana river, old women hacking coconuts at the roadside, an impeccably uniformed child walking to school. Kerala, despite the obvious poverty, has 100% literacy.

I love my cool room at the hotel, a little house in a tropical garden of giant palms and banana leaves like the paddles of giant boats. I share my garden with chipmunks, lizards, kites, crows, crickets, a little black snake.

The festival at the Kanakakunnu Palace is a wonder, thronged with people thrilled to have it in their city. I have three events – In Conversation with Indian writer CP Surendran; a six-minute spot at the Gala Reading; and a stage discussion on bilingualism with Menna Elfyn, Paul Henry, and two Indian poets, one who writes in English, one in Mayalam.

We are joined by a young poet, Soni, who’s become my friend through email. He is invited to read a poem he wrote last night at the close of the day. It’s a lovely poem. He’s in a wheelchair, and we use the angel-wings of four beautiful men (they are all beautiful here) to fly him up the steps into the venue. At all events audience participation is lively. We conclude that the true international language is poetry itself.

Back in Wales emails fly in from my new friends, new readers, and a message and a new poem from Soni. What a wonder the web is! It brings us together like the angels who bore Soni in his chair into the bardic circle.

Gillian Clarke
National Poet of Wales

Gillian Clarke is blogging for the Â鶹Éç during her seven-date poetry tour of Wales, which runs until 10 December 2010. For more information on the visit the Academi website.

Tuesday 23 November 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest children's writers to have heralded from Wales - Roald Dahl.

Dahl was born on 13 September 1916 in Llandaff, Cardiff to Norwegian parents Harald and Sofie Magdalene. His acquaintance with Wales may have been brief, but his time spent at the family's sprawling Victorian farmhouse, Ty Mynydd in Radyr, sparked Dahl's love of the natural world and countryside, and was regarded by the Dahl children as a kind of rural paradise. The family also spent holidays at the seaside resort of Tenby on the Pembrokeshire coast.

Dahl briefly attended Llandaff Cathedral School in Cardiff before his mother sent him to St Peter's boarding school in Weston-super-Mare, and then to Repton School in Derbyshire when he was 13. Sofie Magadalene eventually moved the family from Wales to Bexley, Kent in 1927.

Roald Dahl, with his pet goat Alma, outside his home Gipsy House © RDNL, courtesy of The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

While I could bombard you with a list of mundane facts about how his bestselling books continue to delight both children and adult bookworms to this day, I'm not going to.

Having recently read the latest biography published about the author, Storyteller: The Life Of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock, I'm going to share a couple of the lesser known stories from the life of this intriguing man. Sturrock was asked to pen the book by Dahl's daughter Ophelia, and was given access to private papers and letters.

Image © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Life in the RAF, and as a secret agent

At six foot five, Dahl wasn't a conventional height to fit into the cramped cockpit of a , or any other aeroplane used by the RAF. But his love of flying, and his exceptional ability, promised a great career in the service.

After completing his training, Dahl faced his first action serving in World War Two. In September 1940 he had to journey from Fouka in Algeria to meet his squadron, at a secret location in the North African desert.

Perhaps due to his relative inexperience, Pilot Officer Dahl failed to navigate his way to the base and airstrip, and as the darkness approached he had no option but to attempt a forced landing. The attempt was unsuccessful. His had hit a boulder on descent at 80 miles per hour, and Dahl hit the front canopy of his cockpit and was seriously injured.

He was discovered two miles away from 80 Squadron's base. His overalls were so badly burned and his face so disfigured that he was almost unrecognisable as an RAF officer, and was initially mistaken by the doctor at the base for an enemy Italian.

This plane crash was to plague Dahl's health for years to come. He suffered frequent headaches and even blackouts after the accident, and suffered with chronic back problems - and resultant spinal operations - for the majority of his adult life.

Yet his exuberance towards flying, and the notion of it being a source of freedom and liberation, is present in many of his works - for example in Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator, or James' flight in the peach. It also spurred him onto recovery after his accident, retaining the hope that he would fly again despite his horrific injuries.

Dahl, eventually invalided from his flying duties in the RAF, also fell into the world of espionage while working as an assistant air attaché in Washington. In a role used to promote the British war effort in America (and counter to Nazi propaganda), Dahl found himself ensconced in the world of the British Security Coordination (BSC) - which represented both branches of the British secret services in the USA: MI6 and the Special Operations Executive.

During this period of his life he spent time socialising with, and gleaning information from, the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt - whose wife Eleanor was a fan of his literary work. He also found himself in circles that included Hollywood actors, authors and influential American celebrities, and would have known of another BSC member, and later writer, Ian Fleming. (Dahl would later write the screenplays for two films loosely based on Fleming's work: the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and children's favourite Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.)

Family tragedies

The Dahl family - Roald, his wife - the actor Patricia Neal, and their young children Olivia, Tessa and baby Theo - divided their time between Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire and New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s, due primarily to Neal's acting commitments.

Dahl, though, was tiring of this division. He began to loathe and also fear New York, thinking it a dangerous place, and wished to spend his time solely in England. His attitudes towards the city seemed almost prophetic, as his only son was to be involved in an horrific road accident in December 1960. Listen to a clip taken from Â鶹Éç Radio 4's Book of the Week programme recounting the accident:

The baby's skull shattered. It was a miracle that he survived, but months of hospital visits and ill health for were to follow, as cerebrospinal fluid had built up in Theo's head, pressing on his brain and causing him to go blind.

The internal drainage tube set up to drain the fluid blocked, and continued to do so repeatedly in the following months. Dahl identified that a defective valve was causing the problem, and set about creating a better alternative with paediatric neurosurgeon Kenneth Till and Stanley Wade, an expert craftsman/engineer. Together they created the , which was first fitted successfully on a child in 1962. Before it was superceded it was used on almost 3,000 children.

Just two years later the Dahls were rocked by another tragedy. In November 1962, Dahl's eldest daughter Olivia contracted measles. It escalated to measles encephalitis, a rare inflammation of the brain, and she died at the age of just seven. In a chilling parallel, Roald's eldest sister Astri had also died at seven, having never recovered from a burst appendix and the resultant peritonitis. Both Roald and his father Harald had each lost their dearest child.

More heartache was to follow. In February 1975, while three months pregnant and filming John Ford's Seven Women, Dahl's wife Pat suffered a stroke and three masssive haemorrhages. She was in a coma for three weeks and the situation looked bleak. But Pat regained consciousness, and from then on the author was relentless in his actions to help his wife's recovery, determined to get her back to fitness and back into acting.

Roald Dahl in his writing hut, circa 1990 © Jan Baldwin, courtesy of The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

From reading Sturrock's biography, I've learnt that Dahl was a complicated man. Argumentative and volatile, he was an incredible storyteller, was extremely generous (he loved giving gifts) and often loved the company of children more than adults. As Donald Sturrock himself puts it:

"He was like a firework: unpredictable, volatile and exciting. He could delight you, but he was  dangerous, too. Get too close and you would likely be burned. However indignant and hotheaded he might appear, his intemperateness could rapidly be defused by humour or kindness. You never quite knew what he would do next."

Let us know your thoughts on Roald Dahl - and what your personal favourite book by the author is. For me, it has to be the wickedly funny, and perhaps grotesque, The Twits.

Additional links

• The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre:
• The official Roald Dahl website:
• Roald Dahl on the Â鶹Éç Wales Arts website

It's all go at the Mostyn art gallery in Llandudno, with no less than three new exhibitions opening this weekend, plus a new video installation as part of their ongoing Love Film video series.

Alex Katz
The work of renowned American artist Alex Katz will go on show at Mostyn this Saturday as part of ARTIST ROOMS, a new national collection of modern and contemporary art established by Anthony d'Offay, and jointly owned by the Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.

In this first exhibition from ARTIST ROOMS to be shown in north Wales, 20 small paintings by Katz that span his career - as well as a free standing work, Green Table, 1996 - will be on display in this rare opportunity to see examples of the artist's work in Wales.

Penobscot © Alex Katz, DACS, London/VAGA, New York 2010. ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Acquired jointly through the d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund, 2008

Cairo Stencils: Chant Avedissian
Chant Avedissian is a Cairo-born artist  whose colourful stencilled images provide a visual tour of recent Egyptian popular culture.

Portraits feature famous celebrities and politicians, especially figures from the 1950s and 60s, with Avedissian having captured on canvas singers such as Om Kulthoum and Asmahan, actors Shadia and Hind Rostom and statesmen including Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Image from Chant Avedissian's Cairo Stencils

Ground Level: The Hayward Curatorial Open II
Ground Level explores how contemporary art practice, mapping and cartography collide, bringing together international artists who perform their own cartography. It has been curated by Kit Hammonds, winner of the 2010 Hayward Curatorial Open, a platform for innovative curatorship in the UK.

Artists' work that features in the exhibition include: Maria Thereza Alves; The Atlas Group; Ricardo Basbaum; Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon; Center for Land Use Interpretation; Simon Evans; Yolande Harris; Christian Philipp Müller; Eyal Weizman and Stephen Willats.

Christian Philipp Müller, 2562km 1993/2005 - part of the Ground Level exhibition

NoMad: Eva Koch
As part of the ongoing Love Video series at Mostyn, Danish artist Eva Koch's NoMad (1998) begins screening at the gallery on Saturday.

In NoMad, Koch filmed people walking back and forth on a narrow pier jutting out into the sea to a mosque outside Mumbai. She filmed only part of the scene, showing neither the mosque nor the place where the pier meets the shore. All the viewer sees is the space in between the starting point and the final destination, and people walking towards an unseen goal.

The artist herself will give a talk at Mostyn at 2pm on Saturday afternoon.

Still taken from Eva Koch's NoMad

For more information on any of the exhibitions, and to prevent any wasted journeys to the gallery, please .

A new exhibition featuring works by celebrated British artists such as Henry Moore, Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud and Jacob Epstein has opened at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

Laura Ford's Elephant Boy

At the Edge explores British art from the second half of the 20th Century, drawing on sculpture, painting and print works from four public art galleries: Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Preston.

Works by other artists in this exhibition include John Bratby, Elizabeth Frink, Andy Goldsworthy, Patrick Heron, Carel Weight, Lyn Chadwick, Howard Hodgkin, Leon Kossoff, Tristram Hillier, John Bellany, Ken Kiff, Cornelia Parker, Laura Ford and many others.

At the Edge: British Art 1950 to 2000 runs until 22 January 2011.

There are a number of other exhibitions currently on at the centre. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year focuses on the most creative visions of the natural world, and the exhibition was selected from a record 43,135 submissions from 94 countries.

The second season of The Box is still running, and there's a ceramics exhibition, Japanese Pottery: The Rising Generation from Traditional Japanese Kilns. The centre is the only UK venue to host this touring exhibition from the Japan Foundation.

Plus next Saturday, 27 November,Ìý the artists in residence at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre will hold an Open Studios event, where members of the public can meet and talk to the artists about their work. The current artists are Heather Phillipson, who works mainly with the moving image; Riikka Makikoskela, a sculptor from Finland, and Soozy Roberts, who has been developing short video works during her time in Aberystwyth.

For information on all the exhibitions, visit the .

A new exhibition showing the work of renowned photographer David Hurn opens at the in Cardiff Bay this evening.

David Hurn's career as a photographer has spanned 55 years. He has caught a myriad of subjects on camera, from capturing images of the Soviet invasion of Hungary to working on photoshoots of films including James Bond and Barbarella. Hurn also has an affinity with Wales, having portrayed the country and its people in his series of books.

The exhibition, so the press release says, is "born from Hurn's will to prove that he is not dead as some may assume, but is instead observing and photographing every day".

This has resulted in an exhibition which pairs examples of the photographer's early and late images, and aims to bring the passage of time to life, and enhance the commonalities and dissimilarities often overlooked in the cycles of time.

The Beatles during filming of A Hard Day's Night on a train platform, 1964. Photo © David Hurn/Magnum

Image of a tableau case - National Museum, Cardiff, 2006. Photo © David Hurn/ Magnum

There's an interesting twist though. A 'second opening' of the exhibition on 3 December will show the results of handing the curation process over to the public.

People have been encouraged to find pairs of and then submit them to Flickr for this project - you can browse . Hurn will also give a talk at the gallery on 3 December.

For more information, visit the or .

National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke continues her tour of the country next week, heading west with events at Carmarthen and Aberystwyth before wrapping up the tour in Swansea in December.

Two sell-out events in Abergavenny and Skenfrith opened the tour of Wales in September, and since then Clarke has called at Betws-y-Coed and Builth Wells. The poet is writing a tour diary for the Â鶹Éç Wales Arts website - read her entries to date.

Gillian Clarke. Photo: Poetry Live

On Thursday 25 November, Clarke will be joined by Menna Elfyn in a bilingual event at the Halliwell Centre at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen.

From there she goes to Aberystwyth on Saturday 27 November. Y Drwm at the National Library will provide the stage for two national poets, as Carol Ann Duffy is to read alongside Clarke.

The tour will then conclude at the in Swansea on Friday 10 December, with the Poet Laureate once again joining Clarke for this final event.

For more information on the tour, visit the .

Mid Wales artist Eleri Mills is set to raise the profile of Welsh art in America after winning a Creative Wales Ambassador Award, one of 19 prizes worth £330,000 that were handed out by the last night.

The Creative Wales Ambassador Award is made by nomination - in this instance, the . Mills will take residence in a workshop space at the centre in the summer of 2011, and in 2012 she will be a visiting artist at Columbia University, New York. Following this, her work will be featured at the SOFA (Sculpture Objects & Functional Art) New York 2012 exposition.

In addition to the Ambassador award, Creative Wales Awards of up to £25,000 are available for Welsh artists every year - supported by Arts Council of Wales and Lottery funding.

The winners of the Creative Wales Major Awards (up to £25,000) were: David Cushway, Lowri Davies, and Paul Preston - all Applied Arts & Craft; Sean Edwards, Helen Sear, and Bedwyr Williams - all Visual Arts; Eddie Ladd and Tanja Råman - both Dance; Michael Harvey - Drama; and Wiliam Owen Roberts - Literature.

The Creative Wales Awards (up to £12,000) were awarded to: Lucy Gough, Alan Harris, Philip Ralph and Gerald Tyler - all Drama; Michael Rafferty and James Slater - both Music, Ingrid Murphy - Applied Arts & Craft and Holly Davey - Visual Arts.

The prize giving came on the eve of the draft budget announcement by the Welsh Assembly Government, in which the arts in Wales are expected to face large spending cuts.

Sherman Cymru's latest production takes Shakespeare to an unusual theatre space in Cardiff Bay, as the company prepares to stage Measure For Measure this week.

Ifan Meredith who plays Angelo and Kezia Burrows who plays Isabella. Photo: Sherman Cymru

The Provincial, an impressive old bank building in Bute Street in Cardiff, is the setting for the new production of the bard's play, as the Sherman Cymru building in the Cathays area of the city is closed while it undergoes a £5.4 million refurbishment.

The 12-month closure period has allowed the theatre company the freedom to pick interesting new sites in south Wales in which to perform their productions.

With a cast of just eight, many of the actors will double-up on certain roles, and will also play different genders in the play. This new take on Shakespeare's play is set in modern times, but is set to remain faithful to the themes of the play, including power, sex, justice, morality and gender equality.

Kezia Burrows stars in the play as Isabella, having recently appeared in Â鶹Éç Cymru Wales drama Crash, while co-stars include Arwel Gruffydd, Ifan Meredith, Eiry Thomas, Gwynfor Jones, Anita Reynolds and Joe Northwood. The production will be directed by Sherman Cymru’s Associate Director, Amy Hodge.

The cast of Sherman Cymru's Measure for Measure

Measure For Measure runs at The Provincial, 113-116 Bute Street, Cardiff Bay from 18 November until 5 December. For more information visit the .

A mural by Mildred Elsie Eldridge that was formerly on view at a hospital in Oswestry, and which has been in storage for the past decade, will go on show shortly in Wrexham.

The Dance of Life mural was commissioned by the Hospital Management Committee of the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in 1951 for the dining room of the then new Nurses' Home.

The Dance of Life mural by Mildred Elsie Eldridge. Image courtesy of Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust

Following the relocation of the dining room in 1999 the mural has been in storage. It has now been loaned to for display in their new Creative Industry Building, which officially opens in March 2011.

Mildred Elsie Eldridge was the wife of Welsh poet RS Thomas. The mural consists of six panels of differing lengths painted in oils on canvas and tells the story of civilised man’s alienation from nature, and his attempt to reclaim a lost natural wisdom. It depicts scenes of the countryside and seashore, and contains many images of birds, animals and plants.

Director of Operations at the hospital, David James, said, "We are very pleased that this work of art will be displayed at Glyndŵr University giving others the opportunity to appreciate this magnificent mural."

A new period comedy drama begins on Â鶹Éç One Wales today, in which a sleepy Welsh mining village is changed by the arrival of the new local GP, a high-flying Delhi graduate played by Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Sanjeev Bhaskar in The Indian Doctor. Photo: Â鶹Éç/Rondo Media/Laurence Cendrowicz

The Indian Doctor explores the reactions of the residents of mining village Trefelin after their replacement GP turns out not to be quite what they expected. Dr Prem Sharma (Bhaskar) is the Indian doctor who arrives in the valleys in this daytime drama set in 1963.

But it's not just the locals who are surprised: Prem's regal wife Kamini isn't too happy with the situation either.

Bhaskar has written an article on the Â鶹Éç TV blog in which he describes filming in Wales and working with his co-stars Ayesha Dharker (Kamini) and Mark Williams - who all starred together in the 2002 film Anita And Me.

He also describes how paying the Severn Bridge toll to enter Wales felt like entering a theme park, and how he enjoyed working on the project in Wales:

"There were so many highlights - it was probably the best telly experience I've had in the last five years. I tried to learn two Welsh words a day. Everyone from the make-up department to sound and cameras pitched in with suggestions - that was fun."

Read the rest of his blog article on the Â鶹Éç TV Blog, and watch The Indian Doctor today at 2.15pm on Â鶹Éç One Wales.

This weekend some of Wales' most prominent poetic voices can be heard at a literary festival a little further afield, as India hosts the first .

National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke plus Menna Elfyn and Paul Henry will take part in the festival, which is being held at the Kanakakunnu Palace. The Hay Festival in Kerala is a joint initiative between Hay Festivals and the British Council.

Gillian Clarke. Photo: Poetry Live

Other prominent speakers at the festival are set to include Bob Geldof, Sebastian Faulks, Simon Schama and Rosie Boycott.

On Saturday afternoon, Clarke will explore the issues of poetry and bilingualism, and discuss her ideas with the poet and novelist CP Surendran. Elfyn and Henry will join poet K Satchidanandan for poetry readings in English, Welsh and Malayalam.

All three Welsh poets will join in a gala poetry event on Saturday evening with other literary guests such as Vikram Seth and Tishani Doshi, and on Sunday they will discuss how poetry works across languages, and the challenges of writing poetry in their native tongues.

Menna Elfyn. Photo: Madeleine Waller

In addition, on Monday 15 November Clarke, Elfyn and Henry will participate in an evening dedicated to literary readings from and inspired by Wales in Bangalore as part of the India-Wales Writers Chain 2010-1012, which is being launched at the Hay Festival in Kerala itself.

This programme aims to develop cultural connections between Wales and India through literature, and has been developed by the in partnership with , and is supported by the .

Welsh actor Joanna Page has been lined-up to host a pilot episode of a new Â鶹Éç Three comedy panel show.

The pilot, 10 Things You Don't Know About Your Mum, will pitch a pair of young adult siblings against their parents, with comedians Jack Whitehall and Mick Flanagan as team captains.

Joanna Page in Gavin & Stacey. Photo: Baby Cow/Â鶹Éç

The pilot episode will be made by Twenty Twenty Television, and will be recorded at MTV Studios in Camden, north London on 1 December.

If the pilot is successful, Page could follow in the footsteps of fellow Welsh presenters and comedians Rob Brydon and Rhod Gilbert - who've recently hosted Â鶹Éç panel shows Would I Lie To You? and Ask Rhod Gilbert respectively.

Read more on the story on the .

A three-day arts and music festival will roll in to the Welsh book town of Hay-on-Wye later this month with a host of artists, musicians and philosophers coming together to ask: what's the point of art?

The Crunch 2010 line-up combines an eclectic mix of individuals from different spheres of the art world. Artists taking part in talks and discussions include the Turner Prize-winning Martin Creed, as well as Marc Quinn, Matthew Stone, Donald Urquhart and Anj Smith.

Meanwhile, musicians providing the evening entertainment include Laura Marling, The Evening Chorus, Kate Tempest and the Sound of Rum, Man Like Me, Clean Bandit and Lulu and the Lampshades.

Laura Marling

Journalists, critics, gallery curators and other guests taking part in the festival include Godfrey Barker, Julian Spalding, Bianca Jagger, Brian Eno, Julia Peyton-Jones and Â鶹Éç Arts editor Will Gompertz

Â鶹Éç Arts editor Will Gompertz

There'll also be work by some of the UK's leading artistic talent on show at the Crunch Art Fair. For more information about the festival, visit the .

A fledgling Welsh theatre company will present their new production in an empty shop space in Swansea this weekend, marking another theatrical performance in the .

The recently-established will stage the imaginatively-titled The Play That Ate Your Face in a disused retail space in High Street.

The Swansea-based theatre group has been set up by Dan Jenkins and Lucy Beddall, both of whom have studied at Swansea Metropolitan University. Lucy is currently in her third year of a Performing Arts degree while Dan is a graduate in the same subject.

The Anatomical Theatre members Lucy Beddall and Dan Jenkins

The production will explore themes of fear, survival and heroism, drawing inspiration from cult B-movies and classic horror, including a film touted as the worst ever made, . Other inspirations include Basketcase, The Evil Dead, and Monsters Inc.

The Play That Ate Your Face is on 12 and 13 November at 229 High Street, Swansea. For more information visit .

Meanwhile, a previous production that occupied the empty shop space in the creative hub, Volcano Theatre's 1977, plays at the , also on 12 and 13 November.

A Welsh fashion designer who encapsulates the hard-working ethos that Lord Sugar demands of his candidates is set to make an appearance on tonight's episode of The Apprentice.

Emma Griffiths, originally from Llandaff in Cardiff, is now based in London and has recently launched her . Emma has worked with prestigious fashion desigenrs such as the late Alexander McQueen and Boudicca, and was invited to take part in this fashion-inspired episode.

It's week five of the hit show, and the candidates enter the world of fashion. Lord Sugar ups the ante when he challenges the teams to open pop-up shops at one of Europe's largest shopping centres, the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

Apprentice candidate Stella English models in a shop window. Photo: Â鶹Éç/Talkback

The teams must select ranges of clothing from some of London's most up-and-coming designers, and are tasked with charming the fashionistas to allow them to represent their brand at retail.

The Apprentice is on Â鶹Éç One Wales at 9pm tonight, Wednesday 3 November. Read an article on Emma on the .

are currently staging a production of a new play by one of Wales' foremost playwrights, Gary Owen.

Blackthorn, Owen's first play for the Mold-based theatre company, tells the story of Kate and Tom who together with their daughter Evie have retreated from the London rat race to Wales, having bought a farmhouse from local farmer Huw.

The play, directed by Terry Hands, focuses on the clash between the newcomers and their expectations, and also the way of life a Welsh farmer holds dear.

Philip Bretherton as Tom and Ifan Huw Dafydd as Huw in Blackthorn. Photo: Nobby Clark

Philip Bretherton plays Tom, who is perhaps most well known for his appearances in Â鶹Éç sitcom As Time Goes By as Alistair Deacon, and also in Footballers Wives' and Coronation Street. Viven Parry, who portrays Tom's wife Kate, has recently starred in Â鶹Éç Cymru Wales drama Crash, and was last in Mold playing Anne Hathaway in the stage production Shakespeare's Will.

Other cast members include Amy Morgan, who plays Evie, Bafta Cymru award-winner Ifan Huw Dafydd playing the farmer Huw, and Rhys Wadley playing his son Cian.

Amy Morgan (Evie) and Vivien Parry (Kate). Photo: Nobby Clark

Owen has recently been collarated with during their inaugural year of productions. His play Love Steals Us From Loneliness followed a group of Bridgend teenagers as they drank together, explored their sexual identity and contemplated their futures.

Blackthorn runs until Saturday 20 November. For more information on this and other productions, visit the website.

Doctor Who enthusiasts will be able to take a journey through time when the comes to London in the new year.

Set to open on Sunday 20th February 2011 at London's Olympia Two venue, the displays will include items never seen before including original costumes, the Tom Baker TARDIS police box and two authentic TARDIS sets from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison.

Matt Smith as the Doctor

Matt Smith, who plays the latest Time Lord, has recorded a series of special new scenes exclusive to the event. He says: "The whole concept of the Doctor Who Experience, which will give fans a chance to star in their very own Doctor Who adventure, is massively exciting!

"I hope as many people as possible enjoy boarding the TARDIS next year to embark upon an exhilarating and sometimes terrifying adventure through time and space."

The public will be able to get up close and personal with sets from recent series, including the Pandorica Box and Chair, and confront numerous monsters including several generations of the Daleks and Cybermen as well as Silurians, an Ice Warrior and a Zygon.

Steven Moffat, the executive producer for the programme, commented: "The Doctor Who Experience is a fan's dream come true - a fully interactive adventure that will allow viewers of the show to get as close as possible to some of the scariest monsters from the series.

"It will also be the first time that Doctor Who artefacts from all the show's 47 year history - classic and new - will be on display together, many of them being seen for the first time. And never mind that, this is the day the Doctor teaches you how to fly the TARDIS through time and space, and takes you into battle with all his deadliest enemies in a brand new adventure. So steady your nerves and bring your own sofa - the Doctor needs you!"

The Doctor Who Experience will relocate to a long term home in Cardiff in 2012. Visit the website for more info.

I haven't raised an artist's brush with intent for years. As I look up at the bookshelf in my study, there are books that underline a promise to myself that I will get back to it. They have titles like Painting In Watercolour, Painting With Oils... or acrylics... or pastels... and even one entitled The Complete Artist.

My past flirtation with art goes back to school days when it was one of my subjects at A level. I was reminded again of my interest last week, as I officially opened an art exhibition in St David's Church Hall in Fleur de Lys near Ystrad Mynach.

I was definitely a B-grade artist with C-grade aspirations. I include a couple of my attempts at sketching for your consideration. The course consisted of three elements: architecture, still life and composition - or landscape scenes if you like.

In the sixth form with me was Judith Williams, who lived in the shop on the corner near Amman Valley Grammar School. She was stupendous in art. What a natural talent. Although our teacher was Bryn Samways, of whom I had a very high regard, I also learnt a lot from Judith, especially in the use of light and shade to create solid forms. We worked mostly in powder paints but she could have taken on any medium with a delicate sweep of her brush and a sensuous flick of her blonde hair.

On making my move to higher education, I ended up in Cardiff Training College, being hell-bent on a teaching career. The college was a cell of Spartan sporting warriors. Physical Education was the main religion and the place was awash with young men walking about in green tack-suits. The air was permanently filled with the niff of winter-green or industrial strength liniment.

We, of the non PE wing, felt a wee bit intimidated. The fact that art was one of my main subjects, geography being the other, left me a little vulnerable in the macho pecking order. To add to my discomfort, I was the only boy in a class of 16. To be fair, I dug in, and was doing quite well until the entire class moved on to embroidery. That was it, I dropped art and replaced it with history.

Years later, on a teaching course, I tried art again. There was a choice of still life or life drawing. Rumour was on the road that the model in the still life class had been sent from heaven... or Playboy magazine.

Either way, the class was heavily over-subscribed. Just two had enlisted for the flower pots and fruit of the still life class, and 37 were queuing for Miss Cosmos in the life drawing group. In fact, we were so packed in that it was positively dangerous. You could have had your eye out from the pencil of the person sitting next to you.

Life, however, is full of troughs and pot-holes. As we sat, in anticipation, for the model to make her breath-catching appearance, the door finally opened... and in walked a green track-suit, inhabited by one of the PE students from my past college.

The air was a mixture of mass disappointment, hissed expletives and the familiar aroma of wintergreen. This time, history was not an option. My 2B Steadtler pencil and I were trapped.

Roy

Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the Â鶹Éç First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free Â鶹Éç First Click advice line on 08000 150950.

A short while ago, resident Â鶹Éç Wales Music blogger Adam Walton was raving about the theAbsurd Festival, which is being held at . As a Mold native, Adam's normal exuberance for new Welsh music seems to have magnified as he's able to celebrate a festival full of it in his former hometown.

Adam is on the line-up at theAbsurd Festival, which will feature artists from the more left-field and less commercialised side of Welsh art and music. It happens this Saturday 6 November from 4pm, and there's a whole host of musical entertainment lined-up including Gallops, Yucatan, Spencer McGarry Season and Cyrion.

Rhys Trimble. Photo courtesy of Academi

The festival will also feature visual arts and the spoken word. Poets taking part at the festival include Rhys Trimble, Zoe Skoulding (with Parking Non-Stop) and Childe Roland. Artists exhibiting work at the event include Meirion Alan Ginsberg and Jonathon Humphreys.

Read Adam's blog article on theAbsurd Festival, which includes an interview with organisers Andy and Sophie, and for more information.