Streets of Tremorfa

The emergence of Dada at Cabaret Voltaire in 1916; Jean Paul Sartre's visit to New York in 1945 and the birth of the cool; Warhol opening The Factory on East 47th Street in 1963; Tremorfa in 2007...

Eh? You go a whole lifetime without coming across any cultural references to Tremorfa then two come along at once! This rather cut-off and slightly eerie council estate on the eastern fringes of Cardiff is suddenly, it seems, the inspirational epicentre of the Welsh capital.

Firstly there is Lewis Davies' Tai and the Tremorfa Troll (see pic), a new children's book which features a troll who lives at the bottom of Mrs Griffiths' garden in the aforementioned purlieu.

And secondly there is (Tremorfa-born) Anthony Reynolds' excellent Streets of Tremorfa - a reworking of Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia which can be found at his myspace site.

So forget Chapter Arts, the Wales Millennium Centre, and other creaking cultural institutions - if you really want to plug into the zeitgeist get your artistic self down to, ahem, Cardiff's new "left bank" today.