BBC Gardeners’ World magazine have announced the shortlist for the People’s Choice Award 2018 – which includes a garden in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan. Launched earlier this year, BBC Gardeners’ World magazine’s Garden of the Year competition, sponsored by Flight Centre, asked readers to nominate their private gardens to win the coveted accolade. Nearly 500 entries were whittled down to a shortlist of 11, from which Wayne Amiel’s Jamaican inspired South London garden was named the Judge’s Choice. Now, all…

The Italian Film Festival returns to Cardiff with UK premieres focusing on Naples and some of the best Italian animation. Back for the fourth year, the Italian Film Festival Cardiff (IFFC) offers yet another impressive array of films hosted once again in Cardiff’s well-known Chapter Arts Centre between 16 and 18 November. “The variety brought this year by seven independent feature films, five shorts and a selection of some of the best work of Italian animation will delight our audience…

Those interested in underwater archaeology, historic shipwrecks and coastal tales of disaster and bravery are in for a bitter-sweet treat this October. In celebration of Visit Wales’s Year of the Sea, Cadw has today (26 October), launched a brand new digital experience, which will allow users to re-live the infamous Great Storm of 25 – 26 October 1859. Available through the existing Cadw app, the new digital package uses audio-storytelling and augmented-reality technology in a steampunk design, to bring a…

Our reporter Emma Louise Smart had the joy of seeing Robert Plant play at the Wales Millennium Centre. Growing up, my mother was obsessed with Led Zepplin. Robert Plant was her first love, and as first loves have a habit of lasting a lifetime (musically, anyway), she still plays their records round the house on hard rotation. This meant that growing up, I was pretty obsessed with Led Zeppelin too, and it was with an entirely childish smugness that I…

Our columnist, Timothy Wynne met with Matt Johnson to talk about why we should engage more with local businesses. I talked to TV’s Matt Johnson about the power of coffee and why working in retail sets you up for life. As an icon moves into the digital age, yell.com reinvents the classic heavy weight Yellow Pages into an app with the potential to simplify our lives. With Cardiff locals emerging as the nation’s most avid newspaper readers – and Yell’s…

A new coffee shop, Bitelicious, has opened in Duke Street Arcade, Cardiff. It offers a combination of a coffee shop, confectionary and bistro and prides itself on providing tasty treats but with healthy, no-sugar-added ingredients as well as gluten free options. With an appropriate opening time around Halloween, several product names have taken inspiration from Dracula himself such as Dracula’s omelette, Dracula’s bites, and Dracula’s cookies. With a varied menu that includes a traditional English breakfast as well as traditional…

On Thursday 18th, our reporter Beth Girdler- Maslen went along to The Dead Canary to try their tasting menu, honouring Xeco sherry for International Sherry Week. I was kindly invited to the Dead Canary to sample their sherry picks and their specialised cocktails. I’ve been to the Dead Canary before and it is one of my favourite cocktail places so I jumped at the chance to go again. The Dead Canary is known as Cardiff’s ‘speak-easy’ bar with a mysterious…

Our reporter Kate Morgan headed to Mike Barlow Theatre YMCA to watch and review their production of Trainspotting. There’s simply no denying the captivating power of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. So far, it’s come to life as a book, a play, and a movie. However, it’s not an easy project for a director or actor to take on. It’s heavy subject matter and its bold, but coarse exposure of the corners of society’s ‘seen but not heard,’ creates an interesting…

HRH The Princess Royal has today (Wednesday 24th October) unveiled Tenovus Cancer Care’s new £1m Mobile Support Unit, the largest mobile chemotherapy treatment unit in the world. At a ceremony at Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff Bay, HRH The Princess Royal, a Tenovus Cancer Care Patron for more than a decade, officially launched the charity’s third Mobile Support Unit. It is 60% bigger than Tenovus Cancer Care’s first Mobile Support Unit, launched in 2009, with seven chemotherapy chairs and is…

If you’re itching to celebrate Halloween before the 31st or to spook it up outside of the traditional trick-or-treaters and themed club nights, X-Scream’s twisted fairy tale Halloween extravaganza ‘Once Upon a Time’ might be the thing for you. Sweeping through the outhouses and grounds of Rhondda Heritage Park and into the old coalmines themselves, X-Scream have set up a rat-run of textured mazes, smoke machines, strobe lights, and ancient elevators furnished with characters from your favourite childhood tales, Disney…