|
Showing 1 - 25 of
150 matches in All Departments
James Morris challenges the tourist cliches and looks at the impact
of human presence and the layers history in the landscape. He
reflects upon issues of identity, exploitation and regeneration; it
is a land of beauty and of hardship where - in this post
industrial, post rural economy - Tesco and tourism are now the
great employers. These are the contrasting realities of the Welsh
landscape - that seen by the many visitors and that experienced by
most inhabitants. Morris moves between tourist hot spots and the
terraces and back streets where the majority of people live. The
latter are often hard bitten unpretty places, often built for
reasons that no longer exist, no longer the world's largest
producer of iron, coal, copper or slate, these are places that have
lost their historic and heroic status, sometimes even their raison
d'etre. Regeneration is taking place, but it is taking its time. By
contrast the tourist landscape is one of pleasure seeking and
escape - this is the Wales that visitors are sold and want to see.
But in a small land this selling of culture for the tourist pound
has complex consequences that build on the complexities of a
relationship that has shaped so much of the landscape.
Topics covered include: Psychoactive consumption in Cypriot Bronze
Age mortuary ritual; food consumption and ritual at the Early Iron
Age tholos cemetery of Moni Odigitria, south-east Greece; elite
ideology and feasting practices in Early Iron Age Greece;
intoxicating drinks and drunkards in ancient Indian art and
literature; sixteenth-century polemics about cold-drinking; food in
prehistoric coastal southern Brazil; the deceased as metaphorical
food in Iron Age Veneto; food diversity in Mesolithic Scotland;
ritualized feasting goods from Norwegian graves; feasting and the
state in Uruk Mesopotamia; prehistoric spoons.
Part of a family's heritage is the tales they leave behind, but
what happens if you don't have the voice to tell them? Known
locally as the Herring Man, Samuel Evans was a fisherman and
sailor. He travelled across the seas, sketching down his
experiences and leaving his adventure stories as a legacy. His
grandson Gwyn is the only living relative left to tell his tales,
but he spends his days in silent isolation, fixing damaged fishing
nets with the net-needle Samuel carved from a walrus tusk. When a
lonely young boy becomes intrigued with his boat and offers to help
fix it, they form a bond that gives him hope he'll be able to speak
again. As Gwyn starts talking about the past he begins to leave a
legacy of his own. A riddle for the young boy to solve. The Herring
Man is a modern-day fable, beautifully illustrated by the author,
about dealing with grief and searching for hope.
|
|