In January 2002 I began keeping a diary. My father had done so for decades and despite many previous stalled attempts, I decided to give it another go. This time it proved more successful and my diary ran for over 7 years until the very day I became Mayor of Cardigan in May 2009 (to my regret, the sheer workload that came with the role obliterated any time I had to continue with the diary). I've therefore been looking back with some nostalgia at those first few entries a whole decade ago. I was a second year student in Aberystwyth ...

This morning's Independent shows that a decade of openness and transparency in government has not won over the hearts and minds of the mandarins whose job it is to keep the show on the road. They say that the former Cabinet Secretary Lord Gus O'Donnell has revealed that civil servants spend a great deal of time working out ways around the Freedom of Information Act including instituting a system of "oral government" in which important discussions are never written down: The peer, who left his role as head of the Civil Service in December, said the fear of minutes eventually ...

Thanks to Peter Black for bringing this brilliant article from the BBC about the 'sing-ability' of the Welsh national anthem 'Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' to my attention. I have a soft spot for national anthems. They can say a lot about the country that it represents. Each has a unique quality that makes it stand out from the rest. In fact, so keen am I for these musical oddities, I have been known to run an audio round in quizzes that I have written for various gatherings, with a 'Guess the nation that this anthem represents' theme. Sad, I know! ...

It's good news that Neath Port Talbot council has decided to initiate a feasibility study into the restoration of this key component of what was once a network of local canals. The Tennant Canal Company might quibble about the literal in the fourth paragraph of the council's press release, but one presumes that the Neath and Tennant Canals Trust was party to the decision and welcomes an officially-promoted study. The last estimate I heard for the restoration proper was £6 million, so we will no doubt be looking for grant money and commercial sponsorship to provide the bulk of the ...

Local Liberal Democrats have today hit out after new research showed that people who live in one area of Neath Port Talbot can expect to live 10.6 years longer than people living in another area.Figures from the local Liberal Democrats have shown that people in Godre'r Graig can expect to live until they are 84.5 but people who live in Port Talbot can only expect to live until they are 73.6. That means there is a shocking difference of nearly eleven years just for living on the other side of the county.Mathew McCarthy, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Neath commented: "These ...

Having gone through a particularly rough patch as leader of the Labour Party earlier this year, the last thing that Ed Miliband needs now is more criticism, especially when it comes from former allies. However, as today's Telegraph outlines, that is precisely what he has got. The paper says that Peter Mandelson, the former business secretary and one of the most powerful party figures of the last 15 years, has said Mr Miliband is "struggling" to stamp his identity on the Labour Party and failing to distinguish himself from the last Labour government. This comes on top of criticism that ...