The deadline to win a Slightly Foxed subscription is Monday night, but we’ve decided to extend the bonus Stan Madeley competition til Friday. All you have to do to win a copy of the brilliant Second Class Male is improve on Betjeman by completing this line of poetry with something funny or ... Read More...
Month: October 2010
Some of the most memorable films live on in our affections not just because they're beautifully shot or well acted or superbly scripted or have a wonderful score. Sometimes what really makes them stick in our memory is a song (I'm referring here not to musicals but to films that happen to ... Read More...
It’s the time of year when people dress up in all sorts of strange costumes for Halloween parties. I was reminded of Nige’s closing comments in a post a while ago when I read about the Washington DC Drag Queen Race. Apparently this is one of the area’s more unique ... Read More...
With Hallowe'en imminent, and following the post on the Uncanny Valley, now is the ideal time for a visit to the gloriously bad sculptures in Louis Tussaud's House of Wax, Great Yarmouth. These infamous waxworks are, I suppose, a bit of an internet old chestnut, but I find it's always worth dropping in on the place when one is at ... Read More...
Imagine you are a Europeasant of the Middle Ages. To keep you in your place, and to ensure you do not get any funny ideas, the Church vaunts its power over you, both temporal and spiritual, in ways designed to stun your puny mediaeval mind. Cathedrals can still, sometimes, dominate ... Read More...
Philip Wilkinson is the author of over 40 books, including The English Buildings Book, and a new book called The High Street, written in conjunction with a major BBC TV series. Happily for us, he's also the curator of the English Buildings Blog, a firm favorite here at The Dabbler. ... Read More...
Taken from Martin Osborne's series Mute:The silence of dogs in cars, currently on show at theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DL until 9th November. ... Read More...
Masterchef: The Professionals is reaching its annual climax: it's the semi-finals this week and the finals next. I find it a hugely satisfying piece of television not just because I'm a gourmand. Unlike a number of other reality TV competitions - such as the totally revolting Apprentice - the contestants are ... Read More...
Here Nige posed the Dabbler’s first Round Blogworld Quiz question, namely: What word links a cult TV series that started with a bang to the following? A weary organist’s quest. A solitary Oxford bondmaid. And Hudson’s Purple Land. And the answer is …LOST. And the particular elements… The TV series LOST began with a ... Read More...
Like Antiques Roadshow, Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz is one of those comforting programmes that reassure us that England - 'Platonic England' as Geoffrey Hill calls it, though he probably wasn't thinking of Antiques Roadshow - still exists, and all's well with the world. It's been running for ever - ... Read More...
