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"A new band we love. Bloody lush!" -Lauren Laverne, BBC 6music

Amid wildly enthusiastic early reviews, Anglo-Welsh-American psych-pop-rockers Howl Griff mark the release of their new album with a free-entry launch party in London this Thursday (20th Sept) and an exclusive offer of a free download from the new set.

The title track to the 'Fragile Diamond' album was immediately made BBC Radio Wales' Single of the Week, and early online album reviews have been uniformly positive. Louder Than War's Adrian Bloxham says "They give us utterly catchy rock, they give us beautiful harmony-drenched pop Trust me on this, you should hear this band," while Echoes and Dust's Martyn Coppack lauds "a cornucopia of different styles that straddles boundaries - it's a crime that songs like this don't top the charts any more".

Album reviews: http://howlgriff.com/press.html

The album will be launched on Thu 20th Sept with a free-entry gig at The Albany, Gt Portland St W1W. Supported by 6music-approved Emily C Smith, the band will play two sets one at 6.30pm for the post-work crowd, and a fuller set at 9.15pm.

The band will also play in Cardiff on Sunday 23rd Sept, with gigs in Wrexham and Manchester to follow in October.

Gigs: http://www.howlgriff.com/gigs.html

Howl Griff give fans a free-download song every month, and as a special launch-fever bonus they're allowing the first 50 requests to download the Fragile Diamond album's epic closing track, Everything, free of charge. See the link for details.

Freebies: http://www.howlgriff.com/freemp3s.html

If you're not quick enough to download it free, not all is lost: you can listen on the link below, and industry types can tap up the band's PR Ffion Davies ( ffion@altpr.co.uk ) or TV/radio plugger Ron McCreight ( ronmccreight@btinternet.com

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Listen to the album: http://www.howlgriff.com/music/howl-griff-fragile.html

That's it - thanks for listening, and enjoy!

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HOWL GRIFF
Website: http://www.HowlGriff.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/HowlGriff
Twitter: http://twitter.com/HowlGriff
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HowlGriffBand
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/HowlGriff
Bandcamp (downloads): http://howlgriff.bandcamp.com/
Merchandise: http://howlgriffshop.spreadshirt.net

We are: Hywel Griffiths, Nick Moore,
Gary Parkinson, Steve Kennedy and you

I decided one of my hobbies was going to be to collect work by Rhys Henry Hughes, because I love to read him and he's been very hard to find, some of his books are totally out of print and others outrageously expensive on Amazon but I have time to search and to be patient....

I still want to own them hard copy but right now on smashwords.com , you can read lots of Rhys Hughes ebooks at unbelievably low prices.

Rhys Hughes writes brilliant, mischievously whimsical stories, mostly fantasy and science fiction (everything I've read so far, at least).

One I've always wanted to read but could never find was Fables of Rhysop . The short description onSmashwords: " Tired of being given good advice in fables and parables by wise men, sages and gurus? Why not try Rhysop's Fables instead, a set of 150 amoral and irresponsible fables? There are no messages here telling you how best to live your life. That kind of thing is entirely up to you! The philosophy of Rhysop's Fables is that there are no answers to life because life is not a question..."

And continued on Smashwords in Rhysop's Return , " More unhelpful and irresponsible fables from the mind that brought you Rhysop's Fables... Join an absurd host of aardvarks, ghosts, pirates, flying jellyfish, hospitals made of lemon jelly, yetis, rhino cops, slobbery kisses and many more entities in the continuing quest to learn absolutely nothing truthful about life or why we are here! Includes a bonus fable in verse at the end! "

An interesting looking title on this page is The Mermaid Variations , which I'd never heard of and which sounds very interesting and is probably great: "The adventures of an exceptional mermaid as she travels from a carnival in tropical Brazil to a country where it never stops raining, Wales; and from there to the moon, where the lunar mermaids are the wrong way around. A magical mystical miniature trilogy for adults who still believe in whimsy, romance and fables!"

Smashwords is very user friendly, you can read things from Smashwords on your computer on Mac, PC or Linux and on ereaders likeKindle (and Kindle Fire) iPhone/iPod Touch, B&N nook, Sony Reader and Kobo Reader.

If you prefer hard copy (and I do but I also have a kindle, nothing like holding an actual book in your own two hands), try The Truth Spinner: The Complete Adventures of Castor Jenkins , about an imaginative guy from Wales who tells the best lies, ever. Castor Jenkins is the narrator of the best story in Fast Ships, Black Sails , a collection of pirate stories by multiple authors.

I don't know where this Rhys Hughes quote comes from, I stole it shamelessly from a review on The Truth Spinner Amazon page, but I love it: " The worst kind of fib is the true one, especially if it's true only because the teller is unaware of its truth; the second worst kind is the one where both fibber and believer are in collusion. That kind has a name. Fiction."

And Ceri's very fun interview with Rhys Hughes here .

Many thanks to Peter Thabit Jones for adjudicating the West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition for the fourth consecutive year. The results are in and will be announced publicly at the WCE in Portland on October 13th. The winner will receive a $150 cash prize and the winning entry will be published in the prestigious Seventh Quarry international poetry magazine

If you haven't already, please check out the excellent entries to this years competition here:- West Coast Eisteddfod 2012 Online Poetry Competition

Feel free to nominate and comment on your favourites if you wish. See if you can second guess the judges choice

The 2013 Online Poetry Competition Group will be posted in late October ( after the WCE ) . If you missed the deadline for 2012 please wait until then to post and do so in the 2013 group. We will be making several announcements about next years online comps shortly.

Diolch

Ceri

Reproduced with kind permission from David Western's Portland Lovespoon Blog
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We're just waiting for our lovespoon to clear Canada Customs. As soon as it does, I will resume work on it and finish off the beautiful Tree of Life design so graciously contributed by Jen Delyth. As with all things bureaucratic, we don't really know how long a wait we'll have, so in the meantime we'll carry on posting as if nothing's happening....which, alas, may well be the case. I don't even have any photos of it to post, so if you want to see how it currently stands, you'll have to scroll back a couple of posts to the lovely one Laura did showing all the work she has currently undertaken.

The picture I've included today is of a lovely walnut spoon carved in Celtic style and taken from an old panel of wood which was rescued from a dumpster by a friend of mine. The panels are probably around 200 years old (or more) and came from an old bar which had been used on a ship and in an Irish pub....if this piece of wood could talk, it would, no doubt, have a lovely accent and would be full of the blarney!

This particular design combines several examples of Celtic art extending over a time range of about 2-3 thousand years. Although we are most familiar with the insular style of monastic Britain (circa 500 ad -800 ad), there is a rich and varied history of lovely Celtic art which is hardly known. With the theme of this year's West Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon being, "Celebrate your Roots"...this spoon certainly sums up the Celtic pride that we Welsh and our fellow Celtic cousins can feel in our long and varied history.

The West Coast Eisteddfod gives us a chance to highlight our Welsh pride and to bring some aspects of our history and culture to the community. Lovespoon carving is certainly one of those Welshy 'things' that we can feel pretty good about and it gives Laura and I a LOT of pleasure and pride to see our combined efforts result in a beautiful spoon which a lucky draw winner can enjoy for many, many years.

If you haven't already donated to the West Coast Eisteddfod, please consider doing so. Every dollar you donate (in denominations large or small) equals a chance to win...so the more the merrier! We're confident this year's spoon will be far and away the best one yet and will represent exceptional value!!

Please support our cultural efforts and help the Welsh presence within North America!

The deadline for entries in the 2012 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Competitions has now passed. Entries were accepted until 12 midnight ( PST ) on September 15th.

Once again, we would like to thank all our entrants for their excellent contributions and wish everyone pob lwc/best of luck in the contest.

Winners will be announced at the West Coast Eisteddfod in Portland, Oregon on October 13th. Winning entries will be posted here and the winning contestants will be notified by email.

Watch this space for exciting announcements about our 2013 online competitions......coming soon!!!

As a Welsh-American I am ambivalent towards the Royals. My grandfather was a dedicated nonconformist and believed the Twdors were the last to hold a rightful claim to the British throne. He was a firm believer that Owain Glyndwr was the last, true Prince of Wales.

That said, I want to state in the strongest terms possible that in my opinion the French magazine which published the semi-nude pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge while she honeymooning in a remote, private villa in France should be condemned in the harshest terms. To do such a despicable thing while chanting the tired, boring mantra of "freedom of speech or press" rings so hollow. It is offensive. Why doesn't the magazine in the name of freedom publish a picture of Mohammed? Remember van Gogh or Rushti? We all know the answer: They are sniveling little cowards and their only true devotion is to the gods of the Franc (or Euro). They pick on Kate precisely because they know they can cite their self-righteous platitudes with impunity.