TONY Brown is to provide financial backing to the Newport Gwent Dragons for the next two-and-a-half years until the end of season 2005-06. As part of his renewed backing he will help fund the Academy system which is based at Cwmbran, ensuring the best
DOGS Die In Hot Cars went for a Clashy strut but ended up sounding like The Proclaimers. The very chanty, but not so enchanting, lead title track of EP Man Bites Man, is the most affected of four. Queen of the Pumpkin Plukes, is gentler but it sounds
GWENT magistrates are today accused of wrongly protecting youths on anti-social behaviour orders. The Argus has repeatedly applied unsuccessfully to the courts to be allowed to identify youngsters who ignore their ASBOs. Yet magistrates in Gwent often
SOME OBJECTS, like comics, can become more valuable because they were considered worthless in their heyday. Some, like coins, are hoarded for their rarity value. And some are prized for the exquisite workmanship that went into their creation. The collectibility
CAMPAIGNERS battling to save seven Valleys post offices from closure have taken their fight to Westminster. A delegation from Blaenau Gwent council met Trade Minister Stephen Timmins yesterday to protest about plans to close six branches in Ebbw Vale
TWO men took a frail pensioner to a cashpoint and demanded money - then went back to his Newport home, frisked him and stole £200. Police say the men called at the 87-year-old man's home, in Pardoe Thomas Close, Pill, on Tuesday to try to persuade him
LEICESTER captain Neil Back says they are adopting a backs-to-the-wall mentality going into tomorrow's crunch Heineken Cup-tie against Newport Gwent Dragons at Rodney Parade (5pm). After dominating the English and European scene in recent years, Leicester
GWENT hospitals may struggle to fulfil their role in training doctors of the future due to Assembly delays in backing a medical education centre in Newport. Health bosses are dismayed that despite having project details of the £5.5 million plan for eight
THERE is a distinctively wooden feel to Harvey's, the new Indian restaurant inHigh Street, Newport. Sanded wooden floors, solid wood tables and even the faint smell of sawdust mixed with Indian cuisine greeted us as we climbed up to the first floor restaurant
PERCY Montgomery gives a huge vote of confidence to former South Africa teammate Bobby Skinstad whose signing for Newport Gwent Dragons on a three-month contract was being announced officially today. Montgomery has won 50 caps for the Springboks, 17 more
THE Beaufort Theatre's spring season is varied and exciting, with acts ranging from a stage adaptation of Bill Bryson's best-seller "Down Under" (March 3) to Jongleurs' renowned comedy club tour (April 8), and from Blunstone and Argent of 60s pop legends
A BUS company launched an investigation after two Gwent schoolgirls fell from a bus into a main road on their way home from school. Pupils Chloe Morris and Jodie Jeremiah, both 11, suffered cuts and bruises after they fell through the open doors of a
EVER watched enviously from the sidelines as others jive the night away? Well, put on your dancing shoes and make your way to one of the classes in Gwent which will help you get into the swing. Lyn and Gerry Crossman teach jive - or, more correctly, the
A NEWPORT licensee says work on the Southern Distributor Road is crippling his business. Andy Parker, landlord of the Stonehouse, Lighthouse Road, Newport, said the pub had not attracted the same number of customers since Lighthouse Road closed. Trade
ALEX Parks could be the exception that proves the rule that talent-TV shows are a bad, bad thing - a rule to which even the young singer herself adheres to. "I don't think much of them, really," Alex told Mono this week. "Pop music is really, really dry
THE Blueskins have recorded their first album in the snowy peaks of Snowdonia - and it shows. The as yet unnamed album has a warming raucousness which can also be enjoyed on the band's live date in Wales next month. And new single, Change My Mind, is
Cardiff City boss Lennie Lawrence is out to put right last year's "disgrace" when his side were sent tumbling out of the FAW Premier Cup on penalties by Newport County. Lawrence said: "We are looking to put in a much better performance than last year
WORK got under way yesterday on Blackwood's controversial Sirhowy Enterprise Way, after the contract was signed this week. On Monday residents staged a last protest to say farewell to trees in The Dingle - part of St David's Wood - which will be demolished
HEROIN addicts are inundating a Gwent project helping them kick their drugs habit - and the ground-breaking scheme is now set to expand. The Newport-based Kal-eidoscope project, which treats heroin addicts with counselling and heroin-substitute methadone
ALFIE are back with more lounge-friendly pop and a tour of the UK. The Mancunians are in concert in Bristol and Cardiff on Thursday, January 29 and Friday 30. And new single, No Need, is out on Monday, February 16, taken from their third album, Do You
THE English-speaking Welsh will only catch two words on the opener of MC Saizmundo's debut album - ghetto and Wales. But by then even the most ardent anti-Welsh language Welshman should have got the message. You can't miss it - 'Wales is crap - the Welsh
UNIFORMED police and detectives are keeping a watch on a Newport sch-ool after a man exposed himself to pupils and followed a girl home. There have been two incidents of exposure to a girl, carried out by a man thought to be in his 30s. He is also being
Mark Williams became the latest big name to crash out of the Welsh Open when Dominic Dale sprung a huge surprise in Cardiff tonight. Dale came from 3-1 down to beat his fellow Welshman 5-3 and reach the quarter-finals. World number one Williams becomes
THE Von Bondies have joined the NME Awards tour which finishes at Cardiff Uni on Sunday, February 8. The dynamic garage rockers are set to preview their upcoming third album and Reprise/Sire Records debut, Pawn Shoppe Heart, out on Monday, February 9.
A UNION representing bank staff staged a demonstration in Newport yesterday amid fears the city could lose call centre jobs to India. The Lloyds TSB Group Union (LTU) members campaigned outside two of the bank's branches in Commercial Street as fears
