What’s that? Yes, for a whole year. For a whole year I’ve been busy. I work four days a week at menshealth.co.uk now. I’ve been there 12 months. We’ve recently done a redesign. I write the newsletter articles — amongst other things. You should look. Read. Learn. We all should, in fact.

What about Fridays? I’m busy then, too, blog. Don’t look like at me like that. I am. I write freelance articles. Mainly for the Sunday Times Travel Magazine.

Why aren’t they on the portfolio page? Because they’re PDFs. And if they’re online, they’re behind the paywall. I’m not linking behind the paywall. I’ve seen the wrath, blog. I’m not inciting the wrath.

Look. I’ll try to get them in PDF format soon but — and let’s be brutally honest here, blog — I’d chill out a bit, because very few people visit you. And I mean very few. Like no one. And even no one won’t visit for much longer. Haven’t you heard? The web is dead. I read it in Wired earlier.

If you really want to read more from me — and, really, there’s people around on this here internet like AA Gill, Christopher Hitchens and Charlie Brooker, so read all of their stuff first, for goodness sake — check out the portfolio page. It should have recent articles alongside some favourite older stuff. If it doesn’t, feel free to sling me an email at edwardvanstone@gmail.com and shame me right in my lying face.

Bye blog. I’ll try to write again sooner next time. Honest.

Ooh, I like his clothes. Probably couldn’t pull them off myself, though. Don’t look as if I’ve been churned out by the prettyindieboy-o-matic, y’see.

He works as a greetings cards writer. What a quirky job! (MEGALOLZ!)

Don’t think much of this smug omniscient narrator…

This structuring mechanism is quite clever. But I reckon it’s going to get annoying pretty quickly.

Yep.

So… he’s fallen in love with her why exactly? Because she likes the Smiths and is very attractive? Is that enough? Really?

Seems so.

He’s not just a greetings cards writer, mind. He’s CREATIVE. He’s into ARCHITECTURE. Look! He’s got a book called Architecture. Yeah. He’s stuck in an office job when he should be out doing creative things with buildings and eco stuff and probably painting and poems as well. Just like me! I’m like that, too! Or… I could be. Yeah? YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.

THIS EPONYMOUS FEMALE LEAD INSPIRING SUCH AVID DEVOTION HAS NO PERSONALITY. SHE IS A LADY-VOID.

Ah, the pretend-to-be-living-in-the-mock-up-rooms-in-Ikea joke. We’ve all done that one. Let’s face it, it’s a bit crap.

Oh, good. The worldy-wise younger sister again. That’ll help.

I think I want them to die in this order: Lady-void, sister, stock-ancillary-character flatmates, lead-chap-whose-name-I-can’t-even-remember-despite-him-being-in-virtually-every-scene.

If someone would commission me to make Battle Royale 3 with these characters, I think it could be huge.

Didn’t they do a fantasy, mass-cast, post-coitus dance scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin? Yes. They did. And it was better than this. Still, at least nobody’s talking at the moment. As far as I’m concerned, this can go on for the rest of the film.

Damn.

OK. So her favourite Beatle is Ringo. Because nobody else likes him. I suppose I’m meant to find that quirkily endearing, am I? Well, I don’t. Nobody likes Piers Morgan. This doesn’t inspire them to put a picture of him in their beautifully furnished roof-access apartment which they can inexplicably afford through their job as… a secretary.

It’s happened. I’ve got so annoyed by the film that I’ve inadvertently kicked the chair of the woman in front many times and she’s now, quite justifiably, turned around and said: “Would you stop kicking my chair, please?”

Wish I hadn’t answered in a tone of hurt indignation – “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to” – intended to suggest it was the film’s fault, and I had nothing to do with it.

Vindicated. She just audibly pleasure-sighed at the fact that matey-nice-clothes quirkily drew his vision for a quirky cityscape on quirky lady-void’s arm. She deserved to get kicked. Should’ve kicked harder.

I actually miss that smug omniscient narrator now. Can he come back please? I just don’t think I can take any more quirk.

Ah! Matey’s doing a rant about how horrible greetings cards are. Good.

Why exactly am I watching a black-and-white montage of characters telling me What Love Is To Them? Did that sneak in from the deleted scenes of an amateur re-imagining of When Harry Met Sally?

So. You just decided to bookend the film with smug omniscient narrator guy, then. Fair enough. Or did he just pass out until now? I wish I had.

You did not just do a fourth-wall-break ending with season-related word pun! YOU DID! YOU FUCKING DID A FOURTH-WALL-BREAK ENDING WITH SEASON-RELATED WORD PUN!

I feel estranged from every grinning git in this cinema.

Must not discuss film with girlfriend. Will lead to rant which reveals my many layers of misanthropy and cynicism.

Damn.

If novels had to be written in 140-character chunks, each sentence clipped by this strict limit, a huge swathe of literary luminaries would have fallen by the wayside. Imposing such draconian parameters on creative prose might seem ridiculous, but novelists have always used rules to limit their verbosity, keeping steadfastly to prescribed tenets in order to avoid indulging in florid descriptions or sensuous strings of superfluous adjectives. (Or, ahem, excessive alliteration.)

“Restriction of form can often produce brilliant results because authors are forced to use their ingenuity,” says Dr Katie Gramich, senior lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University. “One thinks of the sonnet, for instance, whose severe restrictions have, arguably, produced works which are among the greatest in the whole literary tradition.”

Even for the most staccato and editorially cutthroat novelist, however, adhering to a strict 140-character system might seem a little harsh. But for those writing Twitter novels – spooled out 30-odd-word slice by 30-odd-word slice on the hugely popular social networking site – there’s no choice: as with the sonnet, the haiku and the sestina, the form dictates the writer’s freedom.

Literature on Twitter is becoming increasingly popular in the Western world – though admittedly writers have quite a way to go before they can compete with the “keitai shousetus” of Japan. These mobile phone novels made up five of the country’s 10 literary bestsellers in 2007 and catapulted to stardom Rin, a high-school senior who had tapped out her novel, If You, on her phone over six-months’ worth of lunch breaks. Repackaged as a hardback, it sold 400,000 copies.

Similar success could soon come to the Western world, says Nick Belardes, whose Twitter novel Small Places – ‘a novel about offices and bugs’ – claims to be the first original literary Twitter novel. “Because of the instantaneous nature of connectivity that today’s technology allows, people assume ideas catch on everywhere at once, or not at all. That’s just a fallacy in thinking,” he says. Small Places boasts just under 4000 followers. These days, that’s more potential readers than half the Booker longlist.

Belardes finds the restrictions of the Twitter form particularly conducive to snappy storytelling. “Twitter novel writing is like one of those instant weight-loss diets. Right away you have to adjust to the idea of less flabby prose. But careful editing makes the process work,” he says. “I think Twitter novels call for a certain simplicity in storytelling that can grab emotions, toy with imaginations, and keep readers interested.”

But can Twitter really get the tech-savvy masses reading fiction? It’s true that the medium does seem extremely unsuited to the novel form. For starters, readers must jump their eyes up the screen chunk by chunk, continually breaking their natural reading rhythm. And there’s also the problem of missed updates. Spoilers are easily unwittingly glimpsed: new characters suddenly flash into existence; old ones have mysteriously disappeared; and there is, of course, no bookmark for tweet number 2657.

Dr Gramich has further reservations. “The Twitter novel sounds like the latest in a trend which seems to reflect people’s increasing inability to concentrate for longer periods of time,” she says. “This is the age of the soundbite, five minutes of fame, and ready meals – not the age of War and Peace or The Divine Comedy.”

This is also the age in which you can carry both of these renowned tomes in your pocket for free, thanks to the rise of literary iPhone applications. Tolstoy and Dante and Milton, Woolf and Wilde and Wittgenstein – any out-of-copyright author’s works can be downloaded in an instant to your mobile. Though whether anyone is going to work their way through Paradise Lost on the daily commute is quite another matter.

For some UK writers, however, Twitter is already to thank for a huge boost in sales. Journalist Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats, an investigation into the bizarre world of psychological warfare, enjoyed a 7,000 per cent rise in purchases over the weekend of May 16 thanks to being selected by Jonathan Ross as the first read of his Twitter book club. Should Ross direct his hundreds of thousands of followers towards a Twitter novel in the future, it would surely herald the first Twitter-to-hardback literature transition in the West.

Despite the lack so far of celebrity endorsement, its obvious awkwardness as a novelistic medium, and the notoriously fragile life of social networking sites, Belardes is confident the Twitter novel is here to stay. “People complain about Twitter like they’ll complain about a bad restaurant,” he says. “But the reality is mobile phones aren’t going away any time soon, and neither is storytelling and the desire for society to want to read.”

We’ve seen the future. And the sentences there, dear reader. Are. Very. Short.

With the amount of people permitted to hike Peru’s world-famous Inca trail limited to 500 a day, and trek permits ever-more difficult to obtain for the small group of companies authorised to provide guides, even in low-season the Camino Inca is often booked up many months in advance. As such, alternative Inca trails are now more and more popular – especially among backpackers.

The days of being able to rock up in nearby Cusco and organise an Inca Trail jaunt for the next day are a thing of the past. The glut of security measures, necessity of pre-planning and hefty cost of a place on what is now often referred to as the ‘classic’ trail have rendered it more the preserve of the middle-aged and middle-class than the happy-go-lucky drifter.

But all is not lost for those without the patience, wallet, or foresight to bag one of the 500 daily spots. There are now myriad alternate treks across Peru’s majestic Sacred Valley, all of which deposit successful participants at the gateway to Machu Picchu – and all of which can be booked just a day or two in advance.

Much like the classic trail, these routes aren’t for the faint-hearted – give yourself a good few days in Cusco to get used to the 3,300m altitude, and ensure you have a sturdy pair of walking boots. Always remember, it might be difficult at times, but it’s worth it: trekking to Machu Picchu offers a sense of achievement and cultural understanding of the Incas’ journeys that taking the train or bus up to the site can never hope to match.

Nothing can beat the euphoric cocktail of triumph and awe felt as you stumble the last few yards of a long hike across the mountains and are rewarded with the sight of the Incas’ masterpiece, greenly gleaming in the early morning light.

Salkantay Trek

Time: 5 days
Difficulty: Hard

Overview

The Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu reaches icy heights of up to 5000m before plunging down into sweaty cloud forest. There is the chance to visit hot springs, ample opportunity to spot skittering chinchillas, and those worried by the tough task at hand can leave a stone at the mountain pass to Pachamama (Mother Earth) in order to ensure safe passage. The sheer number of different climates traipsed through is mind-blowing – from barren icy wastes and scrub-pocked desert to sweltering overgrown jungle.

Why choose this over the classic trail?

In short: less ruins, more natural beauty. The Salkantay trek boasts some of the most spectacular vistas you will see in your life – on the fourth day offering a view of Machu Picchu nestled in the Sacred Valley that must rank alongside the most inspiring sights on the planet.

One of the chief draws to doing an alternative trek to the classic trail is the lack of other trekkers – the Camino Inca is notorious for being cluttered with bodies all year round. Here, however, unless you’re trudging deep in high season you can expect to see almost nobody else all day. Bliss.

Best for… Rugged adventurers with strong legs and a taste for glorious scenery.

Lares Trek

Time: 4 Days
Difficulty: Easy

Overview

Several variations of this amble through the beautiful Lares Valley exist, but the most popular trek, known as The Weavers Way, begins with a dip in thermal springs before proceeding up through tiny Andean villages – where trekkers can watch the intricacies of local textile-making and have a go themselves. The Ipsayccasa Pass, the highest point on the trek at 4500m, is reached on day two, and from there it’s an easy drift downhill through yet more stunning scenery and indigenous villages.

Why choose this over the classic trail?

The steps of the Inca Trail are infamous for their ability to defeat even hardy trekkers, and the Lares route has become the option for those who fear their enjoyment of the journey may be compromised by sheer exhaustion.  The trek is quieter, too – and the locals you meet markedly less determined to foist your cash than the savvy peddlers encountered on the classic trail. Those looking for a more authentically Peruvian and laid-back trip should find the Lares option perfectly encapsulates their needs.

Best for… Cultured artisans who prefer a stroll to a slog.

Uchuy Qosqo

Time: 3 days
Difficulty: Moderate

Overview

Though one of the shorter treks available, the Uchuy Qosqo trek nonetheless manages to take in four archaeological complexes – including the famous Inca fortress at Ollantaytambo – as well as a number of mountain passes over 4000m, a cacti-strewn ravine, spectacular views over Quellococha lake, and a visit to the Pumamarca community. Fewer companies offer this trek than the Salkantay and Lares options, so you may need to shop around, but good deals can be found.

Why choose this over the classic trail?

Easier, shorter, quieter, cheaper. The Uchuy Qosqo trek packs in an incredible mix of tours, activities and sights in just 48 hours – with the third day devoted to exploring Machu Picchu. This trek has it all, but in truncated form, allowing those in a rush to get the most out of the Sacred Valley in the shortest period possible.

Best for… Polymaths pressed for time.

Choquequirao

Go discover the Incas’ best kept secret

Often referred to as Machu Picchu’s sister, Choquequirao is a spectacular ruined Inca city which receives a tiny fraction of the visitors its more famous sibling enjoys. This is partly down to the fact that the sole way in and out is by hiking – making a visit only possible through a difficult journey over a minimum of five days, which includes steep ascents – and partly down to sheer lack of publicity: restoration here only began in 1993 and it is thought that just 30% of the site has been uncovered thus far.

The Peruvian government has only recently started seriously planning turning the site into a major tourism hub, and so it remains – for the moment, at least – a little-known treasure.

The difficulty of the terrain and lack of visitors make Choquequirao – which means ‘Cradle of Gold’ in Quechuan, the language of the Incas – an excellent alternative for the truly adventurous, who want to recapture the thrill of the first-time explorer. The site is spread out over a far greater area than Machu Picchu, allowing its few visitors to easily avoid each other and feel like they have the city to themselves.

Other features of the site include magnificent condors, which can usually be counted on to wheel up on thermals at around 10:30am and 3:30pm, and an intriguingly top-sliced mountain, crudely flattened and stripped of vegetation to allow the Inca priests to perform rituals at the summit.

Tours are run by many companies, but you may need to wait a few days until enough people have signed up – or else seek out like-minded adventurers yourself.

Practicalities

Prices range from £30 per day for Uchuy Qosqo to £100 per day for a luxury trip to Choquequirao.  Here are some of our favourite tour operators.

www.waykitrek.net
www.chaskiventura.com
www.andinatravel.com
www.enigmaperu.com
www.unitedmice.com

In order to produce a brilliant work of literature, an author must be blessed with many things: time and space in which to create; tragedies and triumphs to catalyse the imagination; talent and drive to get the job done; and, finally, thick-skin and stubbornness to keep plugging away through countless rejections.

But arguably the most important facet of all in the creation of excellent literature is the surroundings from which a writer draws inspiration. It’s hard to imagine Dylan Thomas, for instance, fulfilling his natural gifts for poetic expression were he born in, say, Slough. It’s unlikely that Irvine Welsh would have realised his potential for gritty realism had he hailed from Kettering. And it’s very hard to imagine anything of literary merit emanating from Milton Keynes.

The South Wales Valleys, however, are exactly the kind of place you might expect masterpieces to be born.

“There’s a huge wealth of writing from the valleys,” says Dr Katie Gramich, senior lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University. “[It’s] been absolutely crucial, absolutely formative, in the context of the history of Welsh literature in English.”

Writers from the valleys in the 1930s, says Gramich, emerged from poor backgrounds to effectively re-invent the realist novel. Authors such as Gwyn Thomas, Glyn Jones and Rhys Davies twisted together the tongues of Welsh and English to create a uniquely lyrical portrait of working class Wales, squeezing coal-black comedy from the sweat and squalor of the daily grind.

And it’s possible to trace a line from these great architects of the Welsh industrial novel to modern classics the valleys have spawned. The work, for example, of Rhondda-born Rachel Trezise – who won the richest literary award in the world, The £60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize, for her short story collection Fresh Apples in 2006 – is suffused with the transgressive, gallows humour of her literary predecessors.

Teasing out the talent

Ensuring that the valleys continue to be so creatively febrile, and that all who so desire are able to try their hand at writing and draw pleasure from literature, is the goal of the South Wales Valleys Literature Development Initiative. The scheme, which is run by Academi, the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency, is headed up by Louise Richards.

“It’s a three-year project with a grant from the arts council and money from each of the seven authorities involved, which are Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Rhondda Cynon Taff, and Torfaen,” Louise explains.

The project uses innovative concepts and situations to inspire children and adults alike to put pen to paper. “One of the first ones was with Arriva trains, which was celebrating the opening of the Ebbw Vale link [with] Cardiff,” says Louise. “Thirteen children travelled down with a poet and then wrote about their journey and the things they saw. It was turned into posters which appear on some of the trains.”

Louise also tries to exploit noted valleys authors and personalities in order to stimulate passion for the written word. In March and September 2008, for example, Scott Quinnell, the Welsh rugby legend, visited comprehensive schools in Abertillery and Tredegar to praise the virtues of reading and give a speech about his personal struggle with dyslexia.

“[Scott] goes on about how important it is to ask for help if you’re struggling,” says Louise. “And as a result at the end of each of the sessions at least one or two kids went straight up to their teachers and said ‘we need some extra help’. So, you know, it’s worth it. We were really pleased with that one.”

Gavin Jones, a 17-year-old budding flanker, was particularly impressed. “It was brilliant,” he said. “It was wonderful to meet Scott. He was just a fantastic player to look up to, and it was great to listen to him”

In the 18 months since the project began Louise has organised, among much else, a writing trip to Cardiff FC’s Ninian Park, a highly successful sci-fi conference at the University of Glamorgan, and writing projects involving surfing, food festivals, farming and rap. The latest plan is to get Louise Walsh, author of 2008 novel Fighting Pretty, to run a series of creative journaling sessions with boxers from the valleys. “Anything to get people writing and reading and enjoying it,” says Louise. “That’s what it’s all about.”

So far, over 4000 adults and children have taken part in the initiative.

The next step

But getting people from the valleys writing is only half the battle. What’s equally important is that those who go on to produce work of merit are able to get published.

This is where Leaf, a publishing house based in Abercynon and founded by two University of Glamorgan graduates in 2003, comes in.

Leaf was created to be, “A publishers that promotes writers who haven’t really established themselves and will provide that stepping stone that is much needed for people’s confidence,” explains Sarah Edmonds, who has worked at Leaf for around a year.

One of the most important things currently, says Sarah, is running microfiction competitions. “It’s brilliant for getting unpublished writers into publication. We’ve put about 250 new authors into print over the last few years.”

Microfiction, Sarah feels, is the perfect way for wannabe writers to get the confidence boost of their name in print while simultaneously developing their craft. “It’s a good way of training the writer into editing and making sure that every single word has enough energy to carry the reader into the world of the writer’s imagination,” she says.

In a time when people claim to have less and less time to read (and write), microfiction is seen by many in the industry as the up-and-coming genre. And Leaf’s sales figures bear this out: their latest collection, Discovering a Comet and More Microfiction, has shifted record copies.

Sarah hopes that the project run by Academi will encourage more valleys writers to enter Leaf’s competitions and get a foot on the first rung of the literary ladder.

It remains to be seen whether scribes of the calibre of Gwyn Thomas, Rhys Davies or Rachel Trezise are being inspired to pick up a pen for the first time and experiment with the weird and wonderful things that words can do. But what is certain is that if there are, the opportunities available to them in the valleys ensure they will be given every chance to realise their talents.

We get a huge amount of people from the valleys entering our competitions, says Sarah. “And although we obviously get lots of bad stuff, we also have some real gems – really outstanding pieces of writing that deserve to be seen,” she says. “That’s our reward.”

Five great reads from the valleys

Idris Davies, The Angry Summer, 1943: An epic poem telling the story of those embroiled in the six-month miners’ strike of 1926, which forced Davies himself to seek new work.

Gwyn Thomas, The Dark Philosophers, 1946: Black humour pervades this anti-capitalist tale of bitter old men sniping their way through the Great Depression in the Rhondda valley.

Glyn Jones, The Valley, The City, The Village, 1956: Jones’ three-part novel follows peasant-farmer Trystan Morgan, beautifully melding poetic techniques and stream-of-consciousness narrative.

Chris Meredith, Shifts, 1988: A modern Welsh masterpiece which charts the consequences of the closure of a steel plant on four intricately entangled young workers.

Rachel Trezise, In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl, 2000: Raw and ranting, Trezise’s debut novel scooped the Orange Futures’ award – and convinced thousands to avoid visiting Rhondda at all costs.

The beginning of a successful musical relationship with an artist, Keith James tells me, is similar to the beginning of a successful relationship with a woman. Things move along quietly but, for the most part, smoothly. And even when times get hard, it always feels right. It’s important that it starts very slowly. “It has to start,” says Keith, “with: ‘Would you like to come out for a drink?’”

Keith first took the Songs of Nick Drake out for a drink in the late 1990s. Playing around in the studio while recording his album Outsides, he had a crack at a couple of Nick Drake covers. “Everything about them came out a tremendous amount better than I thought,” he says. “I thought that it would be difficult, challenging, painful, arduous – but in actual fact it was really pleasurable. Nobody in the recording process including myself wrestled in any way with the material. They came out beautifully.”

Fast-forward 10 years and the relationship is still going strong. Keith has played over 400 Songs of Nick Drake shows with his collaborator Rick Foot on double bass, and will finish off his latest tour at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay on January 31.

So why has this experiment been so successful? First and foremost, says Keith, it is due to the huge demand for Nick Drake’s music to be heard live. Many people know that Drake died very young. Few are aware of just how little opportunity his fans had to hear him perform.

“He only managed to play 17 times in his life,” says Keith. “And I don’t think it would be exaggerating in any way to say that he left behind him probably the most loved and cherished basket of songs across three albums that any English singer/songwriter has ever done.”

Performing the music of a deeply loved and dearly missed artist carries a heavy burden of responsibility. Don’t do it well, and you’re in big trouble: audiences are far less forgiving towards shoddy covers than a feeble performance of original material.

As over 20 years of relentless touring shows, when it comes to Jimi Hendrix, The Hamsters do it very well indeed.

“The weird thing about Jimi is that not long after he died he was almost forgotten,” says Slim Hamster, pseudonymous vocalist and lead guitarist of the Southend three-piece. “And then in the next 15 years there was an awful lot of activity on the Jimi front. We learnt four Hendrix tunes – and the response was remarkable. So we learnt a few more and before long we ended up with about two and a half hours of his stuff.”

But having a reputation for excellence in the field of cover versions is something of a double-edged sword, says Slim. “The Jimi thing has been really good to us. Because, fortunately, people think we do it well and convincingly, it’s been an important part of us developing a following around the UK. But it’s been a curse in that the media think that we are a tribute band. It’s been impossible to live it down.”

When The Hamsters come to Cardiff on March 6 the audience will be treated to a three-set extravaganza. One set of their own music. One of Hendrix numbers. And a third set of ZZ Top tunes. The band started doing ‘Top songs in 1997 – and they have been part of their formidable repertoire ever since.

What Keith James with the Songs of Nick Drake and The Hamsters with Jimi Hendrix and ZZ Top are keen to avoid is a forensic imitation of the artists they so admire. “We don’t slavishly copy every lick or every drum break; it’s an interpretation,” says Slim.

Keith’s philosophy is similar. “I never set out to play a tribute to Nick Drake,” he says. “I didn’t want somebody to close their eyes and think that they were listening to the record.”

That’s exactly what LiveWire want. The sextet are a no-holds-barred AC/DC tribute band, complete with school uniform, signature moves, cannons for the famous 21 gun salute, and singers for both the Bon Stott and Bryan Johnson eras of the band. Their aim is to produce, as closely as possible, the sound, look and atmosphere of an AC/DC show – and they’re so good at it that they’ve twice been accused of miming.

“We’re all anal,” says bassist Eddie Clarke. “We’ll sit in the dressing room and talk about, say, a 1978 concert when someone’s picked up on something. And most of the other guys will know the concert and the song he’ll be talking about. We’re all very into it – it’s not something we’ve learned.”

This limitless passion for the material played is a common feature of all three artists. “It’s been an honour and a pleasure to take [Nick Drake's] work out to theatres and play it live,” says Keith, who doesn’t see his relationship breaking down any time soon. “Once one has become so entwined with this kind of material and also a man’s life and what he left behind – and the extent to which it is loved by the public of this country – I think it would be utterly stupid to say: no, I don’t want to do that anymore.”

In many ways, these artists are the ultimate evangelists for their music of choice, dishing out all the favourites, but also offering up rarer stuff that can send even die-hard fans scurrying off to the more obscure corners of the Hendrix or AC/DC back catalogue.

It’s not easy work but, as Slim says, there are worse ways to make a living than playing the music you love.

“People think if you are a band out on the circuit you must want to be famous. As far as we’re concerned making it is making a living doing something you enjoy. I’m 55. I’ve never had to wear a suit in my life. I think that’s a big deal.”

It is a big deal. And earning your keep by wearing a school uniform and knocking out AC/DC riffs can’t be bad either.

Keith James and Rick Foot play the Songs of Nick Drake at Norwegian Church Arts Centre on January 31. The Hamsters will be at The Point on March 6. And LiveWire play The Point on February 14.

The fifth National Climate March, organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, has been a rather staid affair up until this point. Speakers including Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, Labour MP John McDonnell and Green Party leader Caroline Lucas have railed about the need for a green new deal, for an upsurge in civil disobedience, and for an immediate end to plans for a third runway at Heathrow. But it all feels a little lacklustre. Scheduled star speaker and president of the campaign George Monbiot doesn’t even bother to show up. It’s quiet. Chants that in previous years would be drowned out by the tumult can be clearly heard above just 5,000 pairs of marching feet. Climate change, it seems, has dropped from the agenda. The public has other worries now.

“In the last year the economy has really taken over people’s minds,” says Adam Johannes, 29, who organised the Cardiff bus up to the London march. “Climate change has slipped down in people’s consciousness. People are still worried about it, but it seems less immediate.”

With so many focused on scraping enough money together to pay increasing fuel bills and facing a fight just to find work, there is a real danger that the recession will be used as an excuse for inaction on climate change. “A lot of people when it comes to global warming just see it as a way that the government taxes them more,” says Adam. “We need to connect people’s concerns about the economy with the issue of the environment and the idea of a green new deal – the creation of green collar jobs, where people’s skills can be transferred to making wind turbines, working on renewable energy, and being part of a transition to a green economy.”

Connecting the demands generated by the environmental and economic crises is the goal of a group of South Wales activists who held a meeting in mid-December. Jonny Jones, 29, a socialist active in the Campaign Against Climate Change, says that it is imperative that the public sees fighting for a conversion to a greener economy as something which will benefit rather than harm them financially. “If at the moment the environmental movement turns to people and says what we need to do is cut back on building things, and we need to cut back on this, that and the other, it’s a recipe for absolute irrelevance,” he says.

The job cuts in South Wales over the last few months have been particularly severe. Budelpack in Maesteg. Bosch in Llantrissant. Hoover in Merthyr. All closed. “Every day you are seeing another big factory in the valleys shutting,” says Adam. In all, over 4,000 jobs were lost in the run up to Christmas, and it’s certain many more in South Wales will face a bleak, jobless beginning to 2009. “The economic crisis is going to get much, much worse,” says Jonny. “The spread of the financial crisis to the real economy is still going on. And it’s going to rumble on for months, if not years. It’s going to cause massive anger amongst ordinary people.”

What is needed, he says, is for the workers and the environmental movement to unite in demanding the government spend money on creating these environmentally essential ‘green collar’ jobs. “If the climate change movement is putting forward the same demands as the labour movement as a whole: we need massive investment; we need that money to be spent here, creating new jobs, making a better life for people and the planet – then it will have a massive resonance.”

Governmental protestations about lack of funds are now null. And discontent is growing. Will the economic crisis galvanise a generation of workers neutered by years of Thatcherite policy and inspire them to force the government to create green jobs? In response, Jonny recalls a quote of Antiono Gramsci: “Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.”

“Can we stop climate change entirely? No,” he says. “Will it have a massive impact on millions of people? Absolutely. Will this sharpen people’s resolve to do something about it as it grows? Almost certainly. Can that fuse with people’s anger about every other aspect of how shit their life is becoming?” And here there is another one of those ominous pauses. “I really hope so,” he says.

Stroll through the drab streets of Cardiff’s Butetown today and you’ll find a different view of the district for every one of the many languages spoken there. But the Welsh capital’s most famous borough, one of the first multicultural communities to spring up in the UK, has always divided opinion. Residents of the area champion its community spirit and colourful history, while many Cardiff denizens still view it with suspicion, as a hotbed for violence and drugs.

The diverse range of ethnicities that make up Butetown’s population have their roots in the port. At its peak over 12 million tonnes of coal were exported annually, and plucky seamen from all over the world arrived in Cardiff, many finding work in the docks and supporting industries.

There is a photograph of a housewife in a grocery shop in Butetown which is part of Down The Bay – a collection of photographs of the community in the 1950s. Its caption tells us much about Butetown, both past and present:

‘They live marked off from the rest of the city by social barriers, by racial prejudice, and by the old Great Western Railway bridge. They live in a community bound together by under-privilege, where the grocer’s an Arab, the bootmender a Greek, where a sailor takes a drink in a Somali milk-bar or an Irish pub. It is an area with a bad name, but a decent heart.’

Butetown’s bad name has not faded. But nor has its decent heart. And prejudice, too, still plays a part in life here. Butetown has the largest British-born Somali community in the UK, and a recent report on social exclusion in Wales found that only 5% of them have a job. 19 of every 20 Somalis out of work. Is this a blatant sign of discrimination?

Mohammed Duane thinks so. The 20-year-old Somali moved to Cardiff five years ago and now makes his living as a youth worker. Local businesses, he laments, rarely reply to the CVs he helps Somali youths send out. “It’s alright if you get refused – there’s not a problem with that – but not sending a reply saying yes or no …” Mohammed tails off.

Mohammed writes to companies enquiring about their silence, but has little luck. “We’ve had a few companies say sorry about that – it was our fault. But [many] don’t admit that.” Lots of Somalis are disheartened by the lack of response and stop attempting to get work. “I know some people who were trying for 10 months,” says Mohammed. “There’s a lot of jobs in Cardiff. That’s a long time to wait.”

The unruly reputation of Butetown, he says, does not help. “Ever since I came here, wherever you go, if you mention the name Butetown, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a bad place.’”

There has been an influx of Somali migration to Cardiff since the civil war broke out in 1988, and many arrive traumatised by the horrors escaped in their homeland. Wishing to be with family, or fellow Somalis, they make for Cardiff, only to find that the demise of factories and plush redevelopment of Cardiff Bay, which once provided work for so many of their compatriots, has decimated their opportunities.

What’s more, many Somalis seem reluctant to seek help. “It is quite hard to reach out to Somalis. You always have to go that extra mile to get them to take part in anything,” says Hodane, 35, who hails from Djibouti and is employed as a support worker for the Somali Integration Society (SIS).

Hodane, who teaches basic skills to adult, mostly Somali women, believes many Somalis are not aware of the SIS. “It is to do with them relying on the Somali community,” she says. “It’s such a tight community they feel that whatever they need they can rely on their friends and family.”

But Hodane believes things are getting better. “There is massive progress going on and that is reflected by the number of women coming to my classes and the amount they are learning,” she says. “The feedback they give is amazing. They want more classes and they want a change in their lives.”

Mohammed, though, is more circumspect. “It has to work two ways: the community needs to improve and business people have to be open,” he says.

The fact that police are known to stop and search when more than two Somali boys are seen together does nothing to encourage trust in what is already, without doubt, a very insular community. But with the jobs worked by their ancestors long gone and the UK deep in recession, it’s more vital than ever that Butetown’s Somalis embrace the support offered by people like Hodane and Mohammed.