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I have always been hugely impressed by the skills and vision of Lancelot Capability Brown, the famous English 18th Century landscape architect.  It occurred to me that it would be a great plot for a comedy series if he had a less well known alcoholic distant relative, Totally Incapable Brown, possibly Scottish, who leaves a series of landscaping disasters across this green and pleasant land.  Note if you will the natural water feature below by way of example. Of course,…

I must confess to having dipped into and out of the recent Olympic Games coverage but from what I saw and have since seen with the Paralympics, I confess to being blown away by the dedication and talent of this special group of people.  However, not all of us share this view.  In a recent evening out with the current Mrs Nolan (who is in training for the Triathlon, or Cage Fighting or something), we repaired to the local hostelry,…

Once upon a time, the current Mrs Nolan and I decided to do some missionary work in Clevedon in the West Country.  This being the first Holiday Weekend after the schools broke up. Well true to form, the clever people who decide such matters thought it would be a good wheeze to close the old Severn Bridge thus transforming the new one into a modern ten-mile, traffic jam.  Congratulations.  Having been blessed with cat-like reflexes I did a quick recalculate…

One of the little-known stories to emerge from the recent consumer frenzy that was Christmas, was the plight of the bell-ringers of York Minster.  It seems that in late October last year the 30-strong bell ringing team was summoned at short notice and were abruptly told they were being sacked. The reasons for the move were given as health and safety and risk management.  600 years of chiming ceased.  The Governing body then tried to recruit replacements from local churches…

  Regular readers will know that the heart of my column is the local community. With this in mind this month column is centred around a family that despite their own heart breaking loss have found a way to involve the community in some worthy fundraising. On the 28th of December 2014 Jodie and Rhys Foran welcomed their 6th child into the world. Cooper Thomas Jack Foran was born in UHW at 5.10am weighing 6lbs 9oz. Cooper was born with…

It has been roughly one month since my application was accepted to run the London Marathon.  I will be raising money for NewLink Wales, a local substance misuse and wellbeing charity. Well, what a month it has been.  I began fundraising two days before Christmas and have already raised over £800.  I cannot quite believe the amount of support that I have received from friends, family, work colleagues, and complete strangers. I have never been involved with fundraising before, but…

Abandoning your glasses is not the normal advice from opticians, but it has helped to land Cardiff lad, Louis Cottrell, a place in the national basketball squad. For Louis, 11, who has been wearing specs since he was seven, sport is a passion, but always hindered by the need for prescription sports goggles.  His optician suggested trying a novel overnight form of vision correction, called Ortho-k, with great results – “Now I can now see perfectly well without my glasses….

These are the first pictures of a brand new obstacle to feature at the return of the world’s biggest inflatable obstacle course – Gung-Ho! – to Cardiff in March. Dubbed ‘the toughest obstacle yet’ by brains behind the event Alex Winters, the 30m long, gauntlet-style ‘Danger Zone’ will be at Bute Park on Saturday 18 March, joining inflatables including Europe’s tallest inflatable slide – the 72ft high, 200ft long Thriller. Danger Zone, filled with as much air as 16 MILLION…

The UK’s most successful business founders launch the second Entrepreneurs Exchange – a day of events to inspire and support the next generation of British entrepreneurs Speaker events, backed by HSBC UK, to take place on 2nd March 2017 in the UK to inspire and provide practical advice to British companies Focus on helping more entrepreneurs grow their businesses domestically and in seizing export opportunities overseas   Entrepreneurs Exchange, the nationwide programme that connects the next generation of British entrepreneurs…

Comic Relief Live, a series of unique comedy gigs hosted by familiar Comic Relief faces, will visit four UK cities for Red Nose Day 2017, starting on Thursday 9 February. All ticket and venue information can be found at rednoseday.com/comedy. Comic Relief Live in Cardiff will see Elis James host a wonderful night of fresh and raw talent at The Glee Club that will profile and highlight the comedy stars of the future, including: Dane Baptiste, Ivo Graham, Lou Sanders, Mike…