Over the holiday period The Dabbler will be running a series of posts in which Dabblers and guests ponder "What Christmas means to me". For Christmas Eve, we have carols, youthful innocence and Midnight Mass... Nige - 'On all fours before the unknown' Christmas is the time of year that most nearly reduces me ... Read More...
Month: December 2010
Here's a little more on a late-Victorian Christmas as experienced by the scholar-squire J. Arthur Gibbs, author of A Cotswold Village. J. Arthur has a strong sense of history, aware that he's encountering a way of country life that's rooted not just in place but also in time. Christmas and the ... Read More...
Following up her triumphant venison mincemeat recipe, Jassy attempts a Christmas Mission Impossible: making sprouts edible... Is there a more painful Christmas ritual than the annual passing round of the Brussels sprouts, accompanied by the traditional chant: “You have to take at least one, you have to take at least one”? ... Read More...
Psychotic murderer he may have been, but Phil Spector didn’t half make a cracking Christmas record. 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records (later re-released as …from Phil Spector) is the perfect accompaniment to digging the tree out of the attic, draping tinsel over the telly, adhering little bits of ... Read More...
Well done to Jonathan Law, who got the overall answer to our latest Round Blogworld Quiz, and to Nige, Maureen, Mark and Worm who got various of the individual elements. To reveal the full solution, click Continue... 6998 ... Read More...
In our occasional feature we invite guests to select the six cultural links that might sustain them if, by some mischance, they were forced to spend eternity in a succession of airport departure lounges with only an iPad or similar device for company. Today’s voyager is The Dabbler’s very own correspondent ... Read More...
Poacher is turning gamekeeper this week as brilliant puzzle-solver Adelephant poses her own fiendish Round Blogworld Quiz question (see the previous ones and their solutions here). But if she's disqualified from answering it, then who will? Time to step up to the plate, Dabblers, as they say these days. As usual, find ... Read More...
A Cotswold Village is one of my favourite books, mostly for sentimental reasons - I grew up in the Cotswolds - but also because it's a wonderful historical document that anyone interested in country life should enjoy. Written at the close of the 19th century, its author, J. Arthur Gibbs, ... Read More...
Ian Buxton is one of the UK's leading drinks writers, specialising in whisky and spirits, and is the author of the bestselling book 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die (itself a perfect Christmas treat!) Are you overdue a reward? Find any one of these desirable drams and you can congratulate yourself ... Read More...
Continuing our series looking at great paintings housed in London's National Gallery... When you enter room 56, tucked away in the farthest reaches of the Sainsbury Wing, chances are there’ll be a cluster of visitors obscuring your view of The Arnolfini Portrait. You might feel a bit sorry for the room’s ... Read More...
