25th edition
of Film & Video Maker as editor/writer/graphic artist/page-layout etc. Just this morning “put-to-bed”. That train-driver is actually standing in a 1:19 scale garden railway. All clever smoke and mirrors stuff. And probably green screens.
Wês- wês
As beautiful to read as it is to hear this not-so-quiet dialect of a sunny corner of Benfro. Eisteddfod 2026 at Llantwd was full of it. Familiar yet somehow foreign to a gog as it might be to a non-Cymro. Yma o hyd as we might say.
The sign is written in a poetic form of the distinct local Pembrokeshire dialect (specifically from the north of the county, an area traditionally referred to as the home of the “Wes Wes” people due to how they say the word oes / “yes”).
The text is a welcoming rhyming couplet written by the famous Welsh poet Ceri Wyn Jones to celebrate the Eisteddfod being hosted in the hamlet of Llantwd. More or less translates*:
“Do you want to come to Llantwd,
To celebrate every festival?
Yes indeed, friend!”
Glei is a wonderfully hyper-local Pembrokeshire idiom that acts as strong affirmative confirmation (“indeed” or “certainly”).
Gwd is a local affectionate slang term for a friend, comparable to “lad,” or “mate,”
Interestingly, on the A487 somewhere near Cardigan was a handwritten sign which read “Wês Whant Peint?” with an arrow pointing to a pub up a lane. That and the sign above made my day.
*certainty of translation = 94%
Stay Tuned
The heat death of the universe
leads directly from this page.
Around 8 o’clock on a Tuesday
75 trillion years from now
entropy will be complete
Thermodynamic equilibrium.
Nothing interesting will ever happen again.
The last photon will give up its glow.
We must be ready.
Meanwhile keep an eye on this point
And await further instructions.
Against the Clock
I forgot to post this bit of nonsense film that I made last year in the IAC 48hr challenge. Featuring Shaaron Barafundle who happens to live next door. So here it is, 4 mins, 22 seconds of your life that I will have deprived you of. Sorry.
Beyond our ken
There’s something about a crow on a Welsh mountain that feels older than the landscape itself. You’re not imagining that sense of “crow lore” — they carry an atmosphere, a presence, as if they’re not just in the world but somehow aware of it in a way we aren’t. Humans observe; crows appraise.
Up on Mynydd Twr, aka Holyhead Mountain, with the wind coming in off the sea and the light shifting over the rocks, a crow’s call feels like a message sent across realms. They’re social, yes, but there’s a deliberateness to their communication that makes you wonder what’s being said. A friend in the distance, a reconnaissance of the walkers with their sandwiches — it’s all part of a pattern we only ever glimpse the edges of.
Otherwise they are oblivious to our human realm. They move through our presence without deference, without fear, without the slightest sense that we are the main characters. They’re busy with their own networks, their own hierarchies, their own mountain politics. We’re just passing through.
Film & Video Maker
My 21st edition as editor, graphic designer and general putter-togetherer of this fine print magazine is now about to land on doormats across the UK and the world.
Congratulations to Peter F. from Wem, Shropshire for correctly identifying the deliberate error as the magazine rolled over from 2025 to 2026 but the year on the cover didn’t. As a test for our reader’s observation skills, we like to drop in at least one error, be it typo or factual with every issue. This is the first time we’ve taken this competition to the front cover.
Peter’s prize of a round of applause from the entire FVM editorial team will be issued this Thursday evening just after the Archers. Sorry, but entries for this issue are now closed
Pregnant Tree
If I was in a seat already, I’d have given it up for this tree who was so obviously heavy with saplings. This also above Elan Valley visitor centre.
Somebody’s birthday
Not mine. But I got to have the same amount of fun without feeling special. Here we visited Elan Valley and quickly escaped the Twixmas crowds by climbing upwards, ever upwards above Caban Coch reservoir. We got to the only real sitting place for a picnic and there were two sodding people there already. We tried the standing over them and glaring but they weren’t for budging.
These are a few
…of my favourite things. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens you can keep, thank you. Give me a pint of HPA, a laptop showing a Wrexham win and a four poster bed in a lovely hotel in Presteigne, Mid Wales.
Mynydd Tŵr
AKA Holyhead Mountain. 722 feet (220 m) is the highest point on Ynys Môn. It’s also bloody cold up there on a Boxing day morning. Quick Nickipedia facts here: The summit is rocky, quartzite, and the slopes clad in heather. There is an Iron Age hillfort called Caer y Twr. The material for the breakwater at the port of Holyhead was quarried from the limestone areas of the northeastern side of the island, with seven million tons of limestone being removed from long-established quarries to form the longest breakwater in Britain, at nearly one and a half miles (2.4 km) long.
