Iestyn Edwards is...what?

                                                       'And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true...' On the touring talk circuit with me just now are readings of MR James ghost stories, a biopic of Mata Hari and a surgeon giving a lecture on STDs. With slides. In the coffee break, nobody much fancies the Garibaldi biscuits.  Let alone the Jammie Dodgers. Also a talk positing that, from His behaviour in the Old Testament, God is gay, bi-polar and a chronic hoarder. There are one-man  Beowulf 's,  Tom Jones's  and  Under Milk Woods . Monologues on Lully's conducting accident, Beethoven's chamber pot spillage and  I was Benjamin Britten's First Mr Squirrel.  The imagined spoken record of a Stonehenge mason, of Michelangelo winch-hanging under the Sistine Chapel ceiling and of Tracey Emin unmaking her ...

I rang Traveline North Wales to ask if getting to Mechlyn Spa, North Wales, for a seven-thirty curtain-up next Saturday would involve kayak, farmer’s cart or donkey cavalcade. Nerys, helping me, sighed;  I heard  typing noises, and she gave me the time of a bus from Aberystwyth to Mechlyn Spa leaving at two-fourteen on that following Saturday afternoon.   And I didn’t ask for a second opinion as I have done with all call centre advice since a phone-psychic wished me luck with my third pregnancy. Moiling off the train and down the hill to the Aberystwyth bus station, I found the bus Nerys had highlighted only ran at two-fourteen on market day: every alternate Wednesday.   In three days, ten hours and fifty-six minutes time. Stranded in Aberystwyth.    Frazzled from touring as Madame Galina Prima Ballerina. Chronically sore where ligaments in the foot I favoured for pirouettes were trying to tunnel their way out via my Achilles. Two-hundred-and-forty-seven po...

I'm filling in forms online to do house-sitting.  Question.  How comfortable are you with using different types of home appliances and technology? In addition to keeping the property safe and secure, home owners would expect you to be able to use electrical appliances as and when required, also any security systems and smart home devices. Would this be an issue for you? Example answer (as given online): I was loading our family dishwasher from age seven. At age ten, I graduated to the washing machine. The oven came at age fourteen making scones with my grandmother. (Who pronounced the word of this loveliest of baked goods: sconn . But let’s not start that argument.) As I am in my late twenties — first Saturn Return getting underway, peeps — I pretty much grew up online, so am good to go with smart home devices and similar. When buying anything she calls ‘ether-technological’ my aunt Nelly will still wait at the checkout for them to give her an instruction manual. I know to ...

'You gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gone have a dream come true?'                                                                                                 Oscar Hammerstein ii 'And the dreams that your dare to dream really do come true.' (My italics.)                                                                                                   Yip Harburg Do you dream?  Do you dream big? Do you dream detailed ?  I would visualise and visualise my character-...

In my local cafe this morning Sarah, who bakes some of the cakes, was trying unsuccessfully to contact Lea, who bakes the others. 'Lea, can you please tell us if your plum cake has nuts in it? A man asking needs to know.' Ten minutes later and Lea was still off-radar. Sarah apologised to the customer and suggested other cakes that wouldn't trigger his nut allergy.  He said, 'Oh, I haven't got a nut allergy as such. Just that there seem to be almond flakes all over any cake you care to mention these days, and I can breathe them into my windpipe, which makes me cough.'  Oh.  Sarah herself has been known to confuse customers with the difference between 'a tea cake that might well arrive here ready-toasted, and the item we actually serve here, which is a tea cake that we toast while you wait.'  Ah...

I was doing a gig in a town in North Wales.   Mair, a native of the town, had something to say to me about the amenities up the hill. Mair was teeny-tiny and gaunt, sitting by the bus window in the midst of a sou’wester.  ‘Don’t be fooled,’ she said. ‘The Old Post Office never were.’ ‘What were it as built, then?’ Sarah asked. She was long and lean with an iridescent blue rinse, sitting high in pink trainers, which she would have called daps. She clutched the fake fur collar of her puce coat, then dabbed first her left, then right, earlobe.   ‘As built,’ said Mair, 'it were a plain new house. From the off in a dip and prone to damp.’ ‘But who could make such a decision to lie about its history, then?' Mair appeared to want out of her sou’wester, straining forward. ‘Council. On behalf of tourism. You find this sort of malarkey where there isn't something to tour past by coach. Loch Ness, Imperial War Museum, birthplace of Lord Lucan.’ Sarah said, ‘But they have t...

  Rather than my mother’s pilot fish. I have always challenged Eirwen, my narcissist  ne plus ultra  mother. And, as we often must when dealing with a narcissist, I have fought to be my own shark rather than that pilot fish mooching along at the shark’s gills. NB — we have Royal Marines Commando, Stacks, to thank for that analogy. Eirwen was an unreasonable, raging, physically violent mother. I read and re-read  Charlotte’s Web . One teatime Eirwen, leering, simpering, was telling family friend Connie  Practically Bedridden  Presland how Charlotte famously spun words into her web. ‘Words such as “splendid”, “magical” and “brilliant”.’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Charlotte spins “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant” and “Humble”…’ Connie’s features shrunk on my behalf. Eirwen shouted at me, ‘I’ll thank you — snivelling fatso — not to question your elders and betters.’ ‘“Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant”, “Humble”,’ I repeated. ‘I beg your pardon. This is Eirwen Silcox you’re ...